The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#725 - Chiropodidae

The rain continued to fall, as if the sky had a hole that couldn't be patched. Reading М

At this rate, the six of them would probably have to spend the night in this dilapidated temple.

Li Fu's group had already given up on continuing their journey and instead began laying out straw mats, also placing some insect and snake repellent.

As herbalists, spending the night outdoors was commonplace for them.

They had slept in mountain caves by cliffs, let alone dilapidated temples. Compared to sleeping in the wilderness, tonight at least offered a roof over their heads.

Perhaps because of the unknown strangers in their midst, they didn't talk much after eating, and went to bed early.

Among them, the man missing two fingers and the oldest elder quickly drifted off to sleep.

After a while, Li Fu's snores gradually began, leaving only his nephew tossing and turning.

Li Zongjie's mind was occupied with the other two, especially the woman. He had never seen such a beautiful woman in his life.

Even Widow Meng, the prettiest in the village, paled in comparison.

No, there was simply no comparison between the two.

When Li Zongjie was in the village, he would deliberately pass by Widow Meng's door, just to steal a few glances. However, facing Xia Huai, he didn't even dare to raise his head, feeling ashamed of his own inferiority.

Li Zongjie had noticed Xia Huai using her fingers to demonstrate sword moves earlier, and combined with what his second uncle had said, these two were likely martial artists from the stories told by storytellers.

However, perhaps because he had something on his mind, he didn't sleep too deeply. In the latter half of the night, he heard some rustling sounds.

At first, Li Zongjie didn't pay much attention to it, as encountering snakes and insects was normal in the wilderness, which was why they sprinkled powder around before going to sleep.

The smell of those powders was very irritating to snakes and poisonous insects, and they would generally not approach after smelling it.

But this time, Li Zongjie discovered that the movement seemed to be coming from the man missing two fingers, and it was moving towards him.

Li Zongjie was a little puzzled and opened his eyes. He saw a section of pale white hand bone crawling past him.

Li Zongjie shuddered, instantly waking up in fright. He wanted to scream, but a hand pressed down on his mouth, blocking the sound before it could escape.

Li Zongjie recognized that it was his second uncle's hand.

Although he didn't scream, he still attracted the attention of the hand bone.

The latter turned towards him, and Li Zongjie then saw clearly what it was. It wasn't a hand bone at all, but a bizarre-looking insect.

It had almost no flesh on its body, only a skeleton. Five long legs grew from the edges of the skeleton, like five finger bones propping it up on the ground. Its lower limbs were as sharp as sickles, looking like fingernails at first glance.

The palm area was its mouthparts. There were no eyes or nose, and almost the entire remaining area was occupied by a large, sucker-like mouth.

Li Zongjie swore he had never seen such an ugly, spine-chilling creature!

While staring at the insect, he slowly moved his hand towards the sickle at his waist.

But before he could grasp the hilt, he heard another rustling sound.

This time, the sound came from his west side, where the white-haired old man was sleeping.

Li Zongjie turned his stiff neck and glanced quickly in that direction.

This one glance almost made his soul fly away!

Because Li Zongjie saw that the white-haired old man's stomach had been torn open, and another hand bone insect was crawling out of his abdomen.

Dragging its bloody body, it crawled towards where Lu Jing and Xia Huai were.

Li Zongjie wanted to shout a warning, but his second uncle's hand was covering his mouth tightly. He couldn't even breathe easily, let alone speak.

The hand bone insect he had seen first stared at him for a while, and after confirming that he wouldn't shout, it actually turned its head away, ignoring him and crawling towards the other two under the cover of night.

Li Zongjie realized at this moment that their speed was surprisingly fast, almost as fast as a civet cat.

If the hand bone insect had pounced on him just now, he probably wouldn't have had time to draw his knife.

Li Zongjie looked back at his second uncle and saw that Li Fu's face was also pale, and his body was trembling. Both uncle and nephew were clearly terrified by what they had just seen.

Just then, the two hand bone insects had crawled to Lu Jing and Xia Huai's side.

The man and woman both seemed to be in dreamland, seemingly unaware of everything happening around them.

Seeing this, Li Zongjie couldn't help but feel anxious. He didn't know where the strength came from, but he shook off his second uncle's hand and shouted, "Be careful!"

He didn't know what effect his shout would have, because the two insects had already arched their bodies, ready to attack!

It seemed that even if Lu Jing and Xia Huai were awakened by his shout, they were destined to escape this calamity.

However, in the blink of an eye, a small sword flashing with shimmering light suddenly shot out from Lu Jing's sleeve!

The sword pierced one of the hand bone insects, directly piercing it through, and the momentum of the sword didn't diminish, embedding itself deeply into the ground.

At the same time, Xia Huai also pulled out the treasured sword hidden under her, and slashed at the other hand bone insect!

However, her sword only left a shallow scratch on the hand bone insect. Seeing that the situation was not good, it immediately turned around and fled.

But Xia Huai circled her long sword, directly trapping it.

The hand bone insect tried several times, but no matter forward, backward, left, or right, it couldn't escape the range covered by the sword net. Its bones collided with the blade, making a series of chilling clanging sounds.

Xia Huai's other hand wasn't idle either, and she made a hand seal.

The next moment, a flame ignited on her long sword, roasting the hand bone insect and causing it to scream in agony.

Xia Huai noticed that these two hand bone insects seemed to be deliberately avoiding the rising fire during their movements, so she suspected that they were afraid of fire. After trying it, it果然 had an effect.

Before long, she had eliminated the hand bone insect.

Lu Jing also pulled out the flying sword from the ground, wiped the blood off it, and put it back into his sleeve, nodding to Li Zongjie, "Thank you."

Although Li Zongjie's shout just now didn't actually have any effect on Lu Jing and Xia Huai.

The two had noticed the first hand bone insect when it appeared, but regardless, the person had risked his life to shout this, so Lu Jing decided to thank the other party.