PD -Chapter 105 The Gu Master Family

Professor Luo told us that the Luo family was hidden in the same county we had originally come from. After all our twists and turns, we had ended up right back where we started.

Following Professor Luo’s directions, we arrived at a nameless mountain about five kilometers outside the county town.

He signaled for us to get out of the car and follow him up on foot. We hiked for about half an hour before we saw several red-brick houses halfway up the mountain. Outside the houses were a few fenced-in ponds that looked like a small breeding farm.

It was hard to believe that someone would build a farm in the middle of such deep forested mountains. The environment was good, yes—but it was remote, isolated, and extremely inconvenient.

“This… is the Luo family today,” Professor Luo said, pointing at the small compound.

I was slightly shocked. The once-renowned Xiangxi Gu master family had actually declined to this state?

But thinking about it, it made sense. With modern technology and economic development, even small counties had been turned into places where every inch of land was valuable. Gu masters, in essence, relied on the power of nature…

Yet humanity’s large-scale development had caused nature itself to deteriorate. Those who raised and sought Gu insects could only retreat deep into the mountains.

Thinking of this, I slowed my pace and glanced toward the two ponds beside the houses, wondering if they were breeding Gu insects.

But when we got closer, we realized there was nothing in the ponds except damp soil—nothing at all.

Professor Luo led us to the front of the house. Through the window, I saw an elderly woman with a face full of wrinkles and silver hair sitting inside. In the dim light of the room, she lifted her eyes and looked directly at me. When our gazes met, I felt as if my entire body had fallen into an ice cellar.

I had never seen such a sharp gaze from a woman in her eighties or nineties.

Professor Luo was about to knock on the door when the old woman had already reached it and opened it.

She was small in stature, and due to her hunched back, she had to tilt her head up to look at us.

“Elder,” Professor Luo greeted respectfully, bowing deeply.

The old woman said nothing. She simply turned and motioned for us to come inside.

We followed Professor Luo into the house and sat on a long wooden bench. The old woman sat herself on a small stool. In front of her was a large bowl, and inside it coiled a green snake… with a single fiery-red crown-like protrusion on its head, resembling a rooster’s comb.

The snake immediately sensed our presence and reared up, turning toward us and flicking its long tongue.

I felt a chill run through me. It was a highly venomous cockscomb snake. And judging from its red-and-green coloration and the intensity of its “crown,” it was clearly not ordinary. It must have been carefully raised and cultivated through Gu techniques into a special variant by the old woman.

One bite from it, and not even the greatest divine physician could save you.

While I was still in shock, the old woman muttered something in a dialect I couldn’t understand. She lifted her rough, calloused hand and pressed lightly on the snake’s fiery crown.

The snake seemed to understand her command. It stopped its threat display, turned away, and instead behaved like a cat, rubbing against her fingers before coiling back into the bowl.

“Elder, we… we are Professor Luo’s students, and we are studying Xiangxi folk culture. May we ask you a few questions?” Liu Xiaopeng asked cautiously.

The old woman did not respond. She looked at Liu Xiaopeng, and the snake—just settled moments ago—suddenly raised its head again, its eyes locking onto him.

Startled, Liu Xiaopeng stepped back and swallowed the rest of his words.

Finally, the old woman spoke.

“I dislike liars.”

We all froze. Liu Xiaopeng had indeed not been telling the full truth—but how had she known?

I sighed and broke the silence again.

“Sorry, elder. We mean no harm. It’s just that strange things have been happening in the county lately—many people have died. We came here hoping to seek your guidance.”

As I spoke, I took out the black skull wrapped in a towel and placed it in front of her.

“Is this object connected to any member of the Luo family Gu masters?” I asked.

The old woman looked at the inverted black skull and slowly raised her hand, but then withdrew it.

At that moment, the cockscomb snake in her bowl suddenly slithered out on its own and coiled itself around the black skull.

Instantly, a dark red, bloody aura began to seep out from the skull. The snake greedily absorbed that energy.

“So you already know the origin of this thing,” the old woman said faintly. “However… this Gu vessel skull does not belong to the Luo family.”

She suddenly looked at me, frowning. After a long silence, she asked: “You are looking for someone, aren’t you?”

I froze, momentarily unable to react. I wondered—did she mean Tang Shanshan?

After thinking for a moment, I nodded slightly.

“Elder, do you know who I’m looking for?”

The old woman did not confirm or deny it. Instead, she watched the snake as if it were her pet, then stopped it from continuing to absorb the dark red aura and placed it back into the bowl.

“Perhaps… this is your fate,” she said.

I couldn’t understand whether she was speaking to me or simply thinking aloud.

The situation was becoming more and more confusing. According to Professor Luo, this woman was the head of the Luo family, a renowned Gu master.

Yet her words made her sound more like a fortune teller—talking about fate, about finding people, saying things without ever explaining them clearly.

“In our Luo family,” she said again, “there has never been a Saint Child.”

“Elder, there is no other Gu master family left in this county!” Professor Luo said urgently.

The old woman nodded. “You are right. In this county now, there is not even a proper Gu practitioner left.”

“This Gu vessel skull was left behind by that person. If he hadn’t lost his mind, he would have become the first ever Gu Saint Child to reach adulthood in history.”

Her eyes grew distant, as if her thoughts had drifted back sixty years.

Back then, the county was still a Miao village. And the old woman—whose childhood name was Feng’er—was only a young girl of sixteen or seventeen.

On a stormy summer night, a mysterious young man passed through the village and changed the fate of the entire settlement…

And even now, this place was still affected by the power he left behind.

That young man was a Gu Saint Child. No one knew his real name. The villagers only called him Aye, because he arrived on a summer night.