Suspicion

Chen Wei hesitates for a moment before speaking, his eyes shifting between the lizard and the pile of vomited pork.

"...you can eat your vomit—"

But he doesn't finish his words as his attention is fully diverted to one of the Gu Masters in the mud, who is slowly waking up.

Without thinking much more, Chen Wei pushes what he was about to say to the lizard—which couldn't understand him anyway—to the back of his mind, while he slowly walks toward the young Gu Master, who opens his eyes with difficulty and desperately tries to lift his face off the ground but fails.

Seeing this, Chen Wei quickly props Huo Ni Ma up, sitting him against the wooden wall of the pigsty, clearing his mouth of the blood clogging it so the young man can speak. But instead of words, all that comes out are desperate coughs.

*Cough!* *Cough!* *Cough!* *Cough!*

"You're already awake? Truly, the vitality of strength path Gu Masters is the greatest among all types of cultivators," Chen Wei says calmly, watching Huo Ni Ma cough painfully and continuously.

Still with a calm expression, he pulls out a water bottle from one of his Desert Lotus Gu and gently pours it into Huo Ni Ma's mouth to soothe his visible thirst. "It's truly fitting for the path most practiced by Gu Masters since its creation up to this era."

*Cough* *Cough*

Huo Ni Ma, now coughing more weakly, gives Chen Wei a grateful but still wary look, remaining silent, too scared to start a conversation with the demonic Gu Master who holds his life in his hands.

Chen Wei doesn't care about the gratitude or nervousness in Huo Ni Ma's eyes and simply extends his hand, a small red flame burning in his palm.

"You know this Gu, right? So don't even think about lying, for your own good..." Chen Wei speaks lightly, his gaze indifferent.

"How did you acquire the Man's Might Gu?" Chen Wei asks directly, wasting no time on unnecessary conversation.

"It's a Gu—" *Cough* Huo Ni Ma continues with difficulty, terrified that Chen Wei might think his coughing is a performance. "—from my family… it was passed down to me by my late father—" *Cough*

"And how did your family obtain it? This is a very rare Gu to find, and when found, it's extremely expensive to acquire..." Chen Wei's gaze remains cold as he looks between Huo Ni Ma's face and the small flame in his hand.

This flame is created by a Gu that Chen Wei had earlier misidentified as the Spark Gu, as it looked almost identical in appearance, even to him, who was already accustomed to spotting the smallest differences in Gu worms.

But while conversing with the girls on the way to retrieve the horses, Feng Hua had mentioned that instead of being the nearly useless Spark Gu, it was in fact the extremely rare Burning Truth Gu, which she recognized immediately.

As when she was adopted by the Feng Zhi clan leader, she had to go through an interrogation and was evaluated using this Gu, one of the clan leader's personal Gu.

"My late great-grandfather—" *Cough* "—according to my late father, he loved rock gambling and ended up winning the Man's Might Gu by luck—" *Cough* "after a lifetime of gambling!"

"....from a merchant caravan that passed through the clan"

"Does you or your family or the Huo clan possess the rank 3 refining formula for this Gu?" Chen Wei asks, still watching the flame, which hasn't wavered at all.

"To all three questions, the answer is no! Well—" *Cough* "—as far as I know, it's no..." Huo Ni Ma says, avoiding direct eye contact.

Chen Wei nods, unsurprised that the flame confirms it is the truth. He had already figured that if Huo Ni Ma's family had the ability to refine the Gu to rank 3, they would have produced an elder by now or been more than just an ordinary Gu Master family.

Of course, it could be that they had the refining formula but the great-grandfather's gambling addiction prevented him from accumulating the resources to actually refine the Gu. However, if that were the case, he would have lost the Man's Might Gu to gambling while still alive, and since that didn't happen, Chen Wei finds it unlikely.

And as for the possibility that he didn't take the risk due to the chance of refining failure? Chen Wei laughs at the idea that someone who spent a lifetime gambling wouldn't take that chance with a smile on their face.

Lastly, if the Huo clan had the rank 3 formula for such a rare Gu, it's impossible that they wouldn't have found a "justifiable" reason to confiscate the Gu by force, supposedly to protect it. In fact, Chen Wei is quite surprised they haven't already done so, as even a rank 2 Gu is valuable enough to attract the greed of an elder who might want the Gu for one of his descendants.

"Do you know of anyone else in the Huo clan who possesses a rare strength path Gu?" Chen Wei asks, with little hope, and after seeing the young man's refusal and the flame in his hand still flickering strongly, he sighs in mild disappointment.

"You mentioned caravans… how often do they pass through the Huo clan? And how large are they? Which clan do they belon—" But he is interrupted by the quick steps of a petite girl with light purple hair, who runs delicately toward him.

"Why are you still out here?" Yu Lian asks, tilting her head cutely.

Huo Ni Ma, along with Chen Wei, shifts his gaze to the pretty, cute-looking girl but quickly lowers his eyes to the ground, not daring to look up again after remembering that she is one of the wives of the demoniac gu master who could end his life with a mere wave of his hand.

"We are coo- Oh! Little boy! You're here too, you cute thing!" As soon as she sees the, confused-looking lizard turning to look at her, Yu Lian change her words and rushes toward the lizard in a high-pitched voice as if talking to a pet.

"Ahh... what's the name of that bastard?" Chen Wei asks Huo Ni Ma, who now seems to be looking at the lizard with newfound fear.

"Huo Xue… called that bastard—" In the middle of his sad and angry words, he is interrupted by Yu Lian.

"He's not a bastard! Look how cute he is!" She points at the lizard, who seems confused by the commotion. "And I've already decided, his name will be Little Green!"

"…"

Chen Wei stares, confused, at the lizard as red as blood. A glance at Huo Ni Ma confirms that the confusion isn't his alone—hell, even the lizard, who doesn't understand human language, looks confused by the name.

"...he called him Red Crimson Demon..." Huo Ni Ma finishes his words with some hesitation.

Yu Lian, hearing this, freezes in her movements, awkwardly looking at the two of them before lowering her head to the ground.

"So that's why Mei'er and Hua'er gave me strange looks when I suggested that name..." Yu Lian blushes slightly as her pale hand strokes her own arm. '...I need to think of an excuse!'

Chen Wei, seeing this, just shakes his head as a strange, suspicious thought enters his mind.

'She must be colorblind... but how hasn't she noticed? Was she colorblind in her past life too?' He frowns, considering the possibility while grabbing the Gu Masters and tossing them without care into the pigsty, dirty with mud and pig dung. 'Something's off here!!'

"You… Little Green… guard them. And if you run off again, I'll have you neutered, understand?" He speaks to the lizard, who looks at him, tilting its head with a stupid expression, not understanding anything.

But after some hand gestures from Chen Wei and a few promises of pork meat, the lizard begins to stare determinedly at the Gu Masters.

"Lian'er, come with me. I have something to discuss with you three." He starts walking toward the wooden house, with Yu Lian closely following behind.

In just a moment he arrives in front of the rustic wooden house, quickly entering to see the space, which was just finishing being cleaned of all the blood that had stained it not too long ago.

Honestly, it was a satisfactory job, making him wonder if the hairywomen had any experience as maids or if it was simply some natural ability stemming from the Dao Marks of the refinement path they possessed.

"That was quite a quick job..." Chen Wei murmured under his breath as he calmly walked toward a table in the center.

As soon as he sat down, he closed his eyes and clasped his hands over his stomach, thinking deeply about the idea that had come to his mind because of Yu Lian.

And while he was lost in thought, he heard her voice, clearly embarrassed, speaking to whom he assumed was Wang Mei.

"I didn't name him Little Green because of his scales... actually, it was because of his small, squinty green eyes!"

He also heard Wang Mei awkwardly agreeing, probably not wanting to embarrass Yu Lian further by telling her that Little Green's eyes were actually red.

"Mei'er, were you left-handed in your original world?" Chen Wei asked, still in his contemplative posture with his eyes closed, unbothered by the chance of the hairywomen hearing him, as he clearly noticed they weren't present.

"Hmm? Well, yes, why do you ask?" Wang Mei responded, placing her left hand on her chin in curiosity.

"Just wondering..." Chen Wei opened his eyes and stood up from the chair with a slightly furrowed expression.

'It could just be a coincidence... maybe I'm just seeing something where there's nothing?' Chen Wei thought, shifting his gaze toward Wang Mei, who was wearing a light blue dress that he imagined must be much more comfortable for her pregnant body.

"Have you made yourself comfortable? Are you feeling better?" Chen Wei quickly asked Wang Mei as she approached him with a simple expression that carried a hint of indignation. After hearing his questions, she nodded in agreement.

"Where's Feng Hua?" Chen Wei asked, more curious than concerned about her trying to escape, as she wasn't foolish enough to attempt such a thing without any Gu to help her survive in the wilderness.

Hearing this, Wang Mei tilted her head in confusion, casting an inquisitive look at Yu Lian. "She's in the kitchen, as I was... didn't Yu Lian tell you we were starting to cook something?"

"Oh! That's what I came to tell you! I forgot, hehe..." Yu Lian said, slapping her blushing face before quickly trying to sneak away into the kitchen.

"Hmm, it's nice not to have to eat the Gu Masters' rations..." Wang Mei says calmly

Chen Wei that already dismissing the idea of eating the terrible food he had found in the storage Gu of the Huo Clan's Gu Masters agrees. "Well, if you were planning to use pork, Little Green ate all of it."

Wang Mei nodded lightly upon hearing this.

"There are enough vegetables and dried meats in the kitchen for us to make a good lunch and dinner," she said, turning her back to him and slowly walking toward the kitchen. "Do you want to come help?"

Chen Wei didn't change his expression as he shook his head in disagreement and offered a few words of justification, just before Wang Mei left the room, teasing him about being a lazy husband.

He, in turn, simply shook his head at her words and shifted his attention to a hand-carved Go board on the table in front of him. In no time, he began arranging the pieces absentmindedly while reviewing and restructuring the plans he had committed to memory.