ebookland Chapter 087: Falling into a Trap
Chapter 087: Falling into a Trap
The boy, who was initially tense because of those painful memories, lost his composure when he met those beautiful eyes.
It's not like he hasn't seen pretty girls before.
He had been begging since childhood and had seen all sorts of eyes, including many more beautiful than Lu Zhiyuan's. Yet, when those eyes looked at him, they were all filled with disdain, disgust, and a desire to kick him away. Only these eyes were filled with curiosity.
It wasn't curiosity about his status as a little beggar, nor about the painful memories he had experienced, but rather curiosity about the fact that an insect had crawled into his nose.
There was nothing wrong with her eyes.
A breeze blew by, carrying a sweet fragrance emanating from Lu Zhiyuan, somewhat like the osmanthus blossoms on the street.
The boy felt a little uncomfortable and stepped back.
"I'm sorry, did I scare you? I was just curious." Lu Zhiyuan squatted down in front of him: "I studied medicine with my master, and when I took your pulse just now, I found that your pulse was a bit strange. If I want to save you, I need to find out the cause of your illness. I guess it's related to the worm that crawled into your nose."
The boy looked at his hands. Both wrists were black and covered with ugly scars. This little girl clearly came from a wealthy family. Yet, this was the young lady from such a wealthy family who took his pulse, gave him dried meat, and even offered to save his life.
The boy felt a bulge in his chest, as if something was about to overflow.
Lu Zhiyuan tilted her head to look at him, and seeing that he remained silent, she raised her hand and swore, "I really wanted to save you, not to laugh at you. You said there were other beggars arrested with you, what happened to them? Are they in that village?"
The boy took a deep breath, looked into Lu Zhiyuan's sincere eyes, and said, "I don't feel anything."
"What?" Lu Zhiyuan didn't react for a moment.
The boy said, "I didn't feel anything when the bug crawled in."
Lu Zhiyuan gave a soft "oh" and quickly said, "Because of the headache, you can't feel the pain of insects crawling into your nose or ears."
The boy thought for a while, then slowly shook his head: "It's not just a headache; we can't move after inhaling that kind of smoke."
Got it, damn it.
Lu Zhiyuan's eyes were bright, which made the boy's lips curl into a smile, and the tension and anxiety of escaping death vanished.
Just like that, suddenly, he was no longer afraid of death.
“Those bugs are strange. They turn living people into monsters. I might be the only one who survived.” Feeling something wriggling in his head, the boy gently patted his head: “Bugs, it’s bugs, they’re in my head.”
Lu Zhiyuan pried open the boy's eyelids and looked inside. Due to bloodshot eyes, the boy's eyes gradually turned red.
Lu Zhiyuan had studied medicine, but only traditional Chinese medicine and common external injuries and bandaging. She couldn't perform surgeries like craniotomy, nor did she have the means to do so. Besides surgery, she didn't know how to remove the worm from the boy's head.
Watching someone die in such a painful way, especially a child, Lu Zhiyuan felt a pang of guilt. For the first time, she experienced the helplessness of knowing she could do something but being unable to do anything.
Almost instantly, Xie Chaoyun understood the emotion on her face. She walked over, hugged her tightly, and prepared to cover her ears with her hands to prevent her from looking at the boy.
The boy had a splitting headache, but he still retained some clarity. He struggled and tried to grab Lu Zhiyuan's clothes. Lu Yun, afraid that he would lose control and hurt Lu Zhiyuan, quickly grabbed his hand.
The boy understood that he did not blame Lu Yun, but struggled to say the last two sentences.
"The dried meat is delicious."
"There's a bug in my head. Cut off my head. I don't want to become a man-eating monster."
Shortly after uttering those two sentences, the boy's limbs began to twist grotesquely, a sight reminiscent of the zombies Lu Zhiyuan had seen on television in the real world. Lu Yun, fearing he might harm Lu Zhiyuan, was trying to subdue him. Lu Zhiyuan drew her sword from her horse, seized the opportunity, and with a swift stroke, decapitated the boy.
Because she didn't know where those strange insects were hiding, she paid attention to the angle when she swung her sword, making sure that the boy's blood didn't splatter on any of them.
She didn't look at the scene of the boy's head hitting the ground; she handed the sword to Qingzhi and turned away.
Xie Chaoyun was somewhat surprised; she hadn't expected her Yuan'er to be so decisive.
"Mother, I feel a little unwell. Can I lean on you and rest for a little while?"
Xie Chaoyun didn't speak, but silently hugged Lu Zhiyuan into her arms.
She thought this was Lu Zhiyuan's first time killing someone.
Lu Yun was already very skilled at disposing of corpses. Considering the strange insects on the boy's body, he didn't dig a pit, but instead took out the bone-dissolving water he bought from the ghost market.
This bone-dissolving water was originally bought as a backup, but it was used on this boy before it was even properly prepared.
The hissing sound and strong stench made Lu Zhiyuan turn around. In the moonlight, the boy's body looked as if it had been severely corroded by sulfuric acid. Perhaps unable to withstand such intense burning, several insects crawled out of the dead man's ears. Lu Zhiyuan wanted to catch one for research, but Lu Yun reacted quickly and poured the bone-dissolving liquid directly onto the insects.
A perfectly healthy boy, who had just been chewing on a piece of jerky and talking to them, instantly turned into a pool of blood. By dawn the next day, this pool of blood would disappear, leaving a strange mark on the ground. After a few autumn winds, even that mark would vanish.
Life is both incredibly long and incredibly short.
Lu Zhiyuan clasped her hands together, bowed to the ground, and continued forward.
The news that the Southern Chu people had hidden grain in Chaiyu Village came from the ghost market. According to them, the Southern Chu people distributed the grain to villagers in nearby villages under the name of the Xie family. If there was something fishy about that grain, the villagers who received it would surely fall ill.
Before coming to Chaiyu Village, they thought it was a stronghold of the Southern Chu people. Now that they know it is a ghost village and have seen the boy who fell ill from insects, they are even more curious about what the Southern Chu people did in Chaiyu Village.
The village, abandoned for nearly ten years, was eerily quiet and somewhat terrifying.
Following the lingering smell of burnt grass in the air, they found the house the boy had mentioned. Around the house were many burnt-out ash plants, containing some things that looked like insect shells.
Lu Zhiyuan used a twig to pick one up and examine it closely. After looking at it for a long time, she couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.
She was an assassin, not a biology expert. Although she had been to some unusual places, she had never seen such a strange insect. If she had the chance, she could capture someone from Southern Chu and ask them; perhaps it was a specialty of Southern Chu, specifically designed to harm people.
For safety reasons, they did not enter the house but continued their search in the village. Half an hour later, they found the yard that had been specially cleared. Judging from the tire tracks left in the yard, they had indeed transported grain there.
"We're too late! All the grain stored here has been taken away." Qingzhi looked at the empty house and couldn't help but feel a little disheartened.
Lu Zhiyuan comforted her, "It's not that we're late, it's that we've fallen into the trap set by the Southern Chu people."