Chapter 33: Old Meng's Failure

"I told you..."
"I've told you everything, I swear... it's all the truth!"
"Humph!"
Liao Zhong stared at the remnant of the Medicine Immortal Association before him, his resolve unshaken, and he couldn't help but slowly increase the voltage.
"Ah—!!!"
Urgent footsteps approached, and someone suddenly flung the door open: "Brother Liao, Brother Liao, stop! The official directive from above regarding how to handle the Medicine Immortal Association hasn't come down yet. Using this kind of torture is a serious violation of protocol!"
"If you actually kill him, we're going to have a huge problem on our hands!"
But Liao Zhong remained unmoved, his hand slowly turning the dial to the maximum setting.
"Ah—!!!"
Waves of wailing echoed from the dungeon.
***
While watching the surgery on the Gu Child, Liao Zhong listened to his subordinate's report: "All the detailed files concerning the Medicine Immortal Association from back then were taken away."
"If not for the lack of information, this operation wouldn't have suffered such heavy losses. We've now determined that she has rudimentary language skills, but..."
Liao Zhong furrowed his brows, his expression grim. "From those remnants, I've gathered some information. The founding leader of the Medicine Immortal Association was a lunatic. He believed that what governs this world is neither man, nor god, nor immortal, but Gu poison!"
"He worshipped Gu, so they collected all sorts of Gu arts and raised them in various mediums, attempting to create the perfect Gu creature. Eventually, they concluded that the best medium for raising Gu was a human being."
"And it had to be a pure infant—innocent, with a full essence and vitality, and devoid of fear."
"At two or three years old, they would begin teaching them the most basic language and cognitive skills, just enough so they could understand how to execute the Gu-Body Technique."
"Their nature, their humanity—all of it had to be erased. Only then would they formally implant the Gu."
"Each person had a different type of Gu seed. The Gu-Body Technique forces them to absorb the Gu poison emitted by one another."
"And thus, the 'Saintly Gu Child' was born."
As Liao Zhong described it, even a man as hardened as his subordinate couldn't help but frown in secret.
Just then, a voice came from the operating room: "Anesthesia is ineffective. If we increase the dosage any further, the consequences will be unpredictable!"
Liao Zhong hesitated for a moment, then spoke into the intercom: "Then skip the anesthesia..."
As the scalpel cut into the red, festering skin, the Gu Child showed no signs of pain, appearing eerily calm as if she were completely incapable of feeling it.
"This... this is unbelievable. I have never seen internal organs like these!"
Finally, after reviewing the report, Liao Zhong dialed Old Meng's number.
***
After Old Meng rushed to the scene, he looked at Liao Zhong and asked, "What can I do?"
Liao Zhong took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke. "Old Meng, in a sense, is Gu a form of life?"
Old Meng nodded slightly. "If we are talking about pure Gu insects, then yes. But the broad category of 'Gu' includes Gu arts, Gu insects, Gu toxins, and so on."
"It is true that a Beastmaster can communicate with living creatures, but the prerequisite is that the target must indeed be a living creature."
Liao Zhong listened in silence, finished his cigarette, and crushed the butt under his heel. "The Gu Child's internal organs have essentially become a Gu nest. I brought you here to see if you could use your ability to communicate with these Gu insects and drive them out of her body."
Old Meng frowned. Even though he had prepared himself, the moment he saw the organs in the child's abdominal cavity, he felt his stomach churn and rushed out, unable to control a fit of vomiting.
Looking at those ignorant, emerald-green eyes—numb as if they couldn't perceive pain—Old Meng felt a sharp, stabbing ache in his heart.
Two hours later.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"Brother Liao, I can't save her!"
Old Meng knelt on the ground, tears and snot streaming down his face. "Even if I drive away a wave of the Gu creatures inside her, the remnants quickly devour the child’s innate 'Qi'—and even her internal organs—to reproduce rapidly."
"Everything I do is futile!"
"If this child's life is dry wood, then those Gu creatures are a raging fire, constantly consuming her vitality!"
"The child has reached a state of symbiosis with the Gu inside her. No, to be precise, the child is the Gu, and the Gu is the child. They are bound together; if one suffers, both suffer."
"They have formed a bizarre symbiotic state. The Gu insects use the child's body as a nest, and the child's innate Qi is dispersed throughout the insects. The two have merged into one."
"If this continues, her organs will eventually be hollowed out by the insects. It is nothing more than a slow death."
"You and I both know that innate Qi is the manifestation of a person's life force. To save this child, one would have to exterminate the Gu. But to exterminate the Gu, one would have to dissipate the child's innate Qi. Once the innate Qi is gone, life is extinguished like a blown-out lamp. Can the child still survive?"
"At least from where I stand, the two are impossible to separate!"
Liao Zhong patted Old Meng on the shoulder and sighed. "This isn't your fault. The situation with the Saintly Gu Child is far more棘手 (tricky) than we imagined."
After Old Meng left, a shadow of gloom inevitably clouded Liao Zhong's heart.
***
At home.
Meng Fan looked at the dejected, downcast Old Meng and asked with concern, "Dad, are you alright?"
Old Meng questioned himself, "Xiao Fan, do you think I'm useless?"
"How could you be? Dad, you're a genius rarely seen in the history of the Beastmaster lineage. What you've learned and understood has long surpassed our ancestors," Meng Fan said, smiling to comfort him.
Old Meng shook his head. "A genius? Heh, what kind of genius am I? Even those forbidden techniques were only created thanks to your inspiration, Xiao Fan."
Suddenly, Old Meng stared fixedly at Meng Fan and asked, "Xiao Fan, to what extent can you use your Beastmaster arts now?"
Meng Fan scratched his head. With a flip of his palm, a fluffy, sleek, and shiny little yellow-furred mouse appeared, which he showed to his father.
"You can already control mice?"
Old Meng took the little mouse into his hands and teased it, and the yellow-furred creature rubbed against his hand quite affectionately.
Meng Fan shook his head. "Dad, look at Huang Feng—is there anything different about it compared to other mice?"
"Huang Feng? Is that the name of this little mouse?"
As he spoke, Old Meng began to channel his Beastmaster arts, using his own innate Qi to make contact. The moment that "communication platform" of innate Qi was established, Old Meng sensed the difference in the mouse.
It was too easy!
And the vitality of this mouse was vastly different from an ordinary one—it was like the difference between a single drop of water and a whole bowl!
Old Meng even began to wonder if this was actually an elephant in disguise!