Yu Village's bloody end

"..." Yu Lian remains silent, occasionally glancing at the crowd of mortals, who have worried and sad expressions on their faces.

She knows that the main reason for these expressions lies in the more than twenty young man with ropes around their necks, displaying varied and complex expressions of fear and hatred as they await Chen Wei to hang them in front of the entire village.

It is truly a cruel demonstration, which can be felt in the aura of indignation and helplessness of the mortals observing, suppressing their tears and cries for justice.

So it is only natural that they are looking at Chen Wei with worry and fear, but her attention is not on them. Instead, she looks at her delicate, pale white hands, which are clean and immaculate but now seem stained with the blood she has spilled.

However, unlike what she imagined, she does not feel overwhelmed with guilt for having taken Li Xin's life. Her heart is relatively light with her actions, as she believes the old bastard deserved to die.

Of course, this does not mean she is completely cold and feels no remorse for killing Li Xin, as that is far from the truth. In fact, she still sees his pleading and desperate face every time she closes her eyes, but she has been doing a good job of ignoring these emotions.

Thinking about this, she looks at the three hairy women next to her, their bodies covered in long garments, with glimmers of relief and hope in their eyes, which makes her understand that she did the right thing.

"So, is this everyone from the village?" Chen Wei, who was in front of the six girls, asks, looking at the crowd of just over a hundred people.

"Yes, Young Master. Except for the village leader and his family, these are all here..." An old hunter says, trying to hide his nervousness, as his words are lies.

As in recent days, more than a dozen young people have disappeared, probably heading to the Huo clan.

The reasons for this are twofold: the girls taken to Chen Wei's room last night have partners, and the young men currently on the gallows have brothers. It is expected that they would risk their lives to report Chen Wei to the Huo clan.

"...and also the women who went to your room last night, the poor girls haven't been seen since," a middle-aged fisherman murmurs in great dissatisfaction that everyone feels but few dare to voice, earning him shocked looks from others who wonder if he values his life.

"Don't worry about them. Like the village leader and his family, they are all dead!" Chen Wei has a simple smile on his face, his arms crossed behind his back as he murmurs softly, "...well and now that everyone is here, I can begin."

"What?! Young Master, I must have misheard. Did you say the village leader and his family are dead?!" The old man from before asks with a shocked expression shared by all, even more fearful. "Are you...sure about that?"

In truth, his question is the best demonstration of his fear, as even after hearing Chen Wei speak clearly, he still asks if he heard correctly, praying with all his heart that he just had the most realistic hallucination of his life.

And who wouldn't be doing the same in front of a demonic gu master as unscrupulous as this? From what he knows, expecting today's event to be the massacre of the Yu village at Chen Wei's hands would be nothing out of the ordinary for a demonic gu master.

But Chen Wei, at this moment, merely looks at the beautiful moon rising at ten o'clock at night, barely concerned with answering the fearful questions of the Yu village mortals.

He sighs deeply as he contemplates the fact that this is the only chance he will have to refine these two gu to rank 2 in a short time. If he fails, all his plans will be greatly delayed and interrupted.

"We should leave while he's distracted..."

"Hey, keep your voice down... Damn it, what do we do if the village leader is dead? We're next!!"

"...we are still hundreds, and he is just one. Can't we fight?"

"Trying to overwhelm a gu master with numbers... are you stupid?!"

Chen Wei, who had been slightly distracted in his thoughts, hearing the low murmurs of the mortals, turns his attention back to them with an impassive expression as a large amount of putrid black blood appears around him.

"You all stay close to Wang Mei..." Chen Wei doesn't bother to look back as he calmly walks towards the crowd, "...but don't worry, I won't take long!"

-----

"This should be right now..." Chen Wei murmurs as he looks at various corpses scattered on the muddy ground of Yu village.

It looks like a scene straight out of a horror movie, with many bodies chopped and torn apart in a wild and cruel manner, arranged to resemble the soil for planting orchids.

And yes, the part about orchids is extremely important, because right in the middle of these corpses, where all the blood is flowing, there is a plantation full of imposing orchids growing at an impressive speed, seemingly delighting in the taste of the blood.

"...is the orchid pattern correct, Yu Lian?" Chen Wei asks the girl with a complicated expression. "It would be good if you corrected me if I did something wrong in my arrangements."

Of course, he has a basic idea of how this should be organized due to having heard the desperate explanations of the village's herbalists, who told him everything they knew to avoid dying, as well as Yu Lian's explanations.

But even so, Gu refinement is a precise science where the slightest mistake can cause disaster and endless failures. So, even though he is almost certain he did nothing wrong, he wants to verify.

Moreover, it would be a great waste if he failed in his refinement, even using so many high-quality bloody orchids obtained from the village's herbalists, who must now be coughing up blood in the afterlife, seeing what he is using the orchids they enthusiastically gave him.

"..." Yu Lian has a vacant look on her face as she looks around, only to see the corpses of mortals who died horrible and cruel deaths.

This is an even more frightening sight in the dark and completely silent night that falls over Yu village, which now has not a single living soul except for them.

And the responsible one is Chen Wei, who killed everyone and is now using their corpses and blood for Gu refinement. Not only that, but he is now asking her opinion to see if his work is correct.

"According to what I read in the orchid cultivation scrolls, this should be it..." Yu Lian murmurs in response, because even though she despises Chen Wei's actions, she does not dare to oppose him.

In fact, he has been constantly asking for her help, which she has never refused. But even this does not compare to the help he received from the three hairy women, who enthusiastically assisted their "savior."

Especially when the people used in this refinement are none other than the mortals they believe knew about the clan leader's actions and planned to capture more hairy men as slaves. Of course, this is according to Chen Wei's deceitful words, which neither she nor Wang Mei nor Feng Hua dared to contradict.

"Then that's great!" Chen Wei says as he looks at the largest and most imposing bloody orchid in the middle of the others, as it holds his healing Gu inside. "You three will take care of the orchids to make them grow healthily."

The three hairy women, hearing Chen Wei's words, walk towards the orchids, stepping through the corpses with complicated expressions on their faces.

As even though these people wished them harm, only a mad psychopath would laugh happily in the face of such death and pain.

Chen Wei only watches from a distance, deep in thought about the capabilities of variant humans and pure humans to feel empathy for each other before walking towards a mountain of rotting corpses.

"How are things going over there?" he asks Wang Mei and Feng Hua, who are covering their noses due to the strong, disgusting smell.

"Hmm... I never want to see another corpse in my life," Wang Mei tries to suppress her urge to vomit as she looks irritatedly at Chen Wei. "...you're not a gentleman at all, making your wife do this work!"

He just looks silently at the girl, who is stamping her feet on the ground indignantly and trying to appear irritated with him in a spoiled way, but he merely sighs, ignoring her clearly intentional actions.

"And can you really tell me how things are going?" he asks Feng Hua, who has remained silent all this time.

Feng Hua keeps her gaze on the enormous mountain of corpses rotting at a speed visible to the naked eye due to the putrid black blood flowing through their bodies nonstop.

The source of this putrid black blood is, of course, the Rotting Blood Gu, hovering above the corpses, appearing to fly happily as if awaiting a luxurious banquet that would make anyone's mouth water.

"The blood is rotting along with the bodies... besides, you can already see it's infested with decomposing insects," Feng Hua speaks, trying not to show that she feels as disgusted as Wang Mei. "...every now and then, scavenger animals are appearing. It won't be long before they fill this place."

Chen Wei nods simply before sighing deeply and beginning to stretch his body, mentally and physically preparing for the arduous task he has set for himself.

"We are going to refine two rank 2 Gu simultaneously..." He speaks seriously so that all six girls clearly hear his words. "...it will be two to three days of exhausting work without rest."

"And after we finish the refinement, whether successful or not, we will probably face great danger soon after," Chen Wei says, his gaze passing over each of the six as he assesses their expressions. "But if everything goes according to my plan, I will defeat the Huo clan's Gu masters without much complication."

"After that, we will leave this mountain..." Chen Wei now turns his gaze to the three hairy women. "...of course, by my dear wife's wish, you three can come with us, and if you prove trustworthy, I will do my best to take you back to your families."

"Believe me, I am a demonic Gu master, but I do not break my word..." Chen Wei can see the expressions of hope and happiness that appear on the faces of the hairy women who hear his words.

But Yu Lian only has a complicated expression, her heart heavy, as she does not believe a single word of Chen Wei's last statement. He would never act like a good Samaritan, not even for his real wife, much less for her.

In fact, she is greatly concerned that Chen Wei will use the poor hairy women to find their families and then capture them all to sell as slaves. This makes her want to warn the three to be careful with Chen Wei, but she knows he is watching her closely, and he would stop her before she could say anything.

"Well, things for later are for later. Now, the main priority is the Gu refinement!!" Chen Wei speaks with a certain enthusiasm in his chest as he begins to control the putrid blood to start cutting the corpses into pulp.

"This can be said to be my second big step after obtaining my first Gu..." He murmurs with a determined gleam in his eyes.

"...if I am to take risks, so be it. I will not fear or falter just because of this in front of my plans!!"