PD -Chapter 106 The Land of Heavenly Gu

Back then, Feng’er’s Miao village did have people who used gu insects, but there were no truly powerful gu masters. It was only after A Ye appeared that everything changed.

On that rainy night, an old woman in the village found a young man lying outside. His clothes were tattered, and he was unconscious in the rain. She took pity on him and brought him home… From then on, the boy stayed in the village—and that “stay” lasted thirty years.

Over those thirty years, he learned to control the gu insects and gu poisons within his body, and at the same time he taught the villagers gu techniques. He trained a group of extremely powerful gu masters, and Feng’er was one of them.

So, the boy could be considered her master. But by then, Feng’er had already grown into adulthood and started a family.

Yet the boy remained the same boy. In thirty years, his appearance had not changed in the slightest—he forever looked like someone in his early teens.

Feng’er once believed her master would always remain this way, immortal and forever young. But twenty years ago, a catastrophe in the village changed everyone’s fate.

In the 1990s, society and technology were already advancing at an unprecedented pace. Villages like theirs had long become symbols of backwardness.

To make way for urban development, many ancient villages were destined to disappear—and theirs was no exception.

Soon, they received a collective relocation notice, but not a single villager was willing to leave the homeland passed down through generations.

Not long after, the surrounding mountains were blasted flat and turned into roads. But the villagers’ collective resistance triggered a devastating disaster.

A wealthy outsider who had contracted the development project did not care about the locals’ attachment to their homeland. One night, a fire suddenly broke out in the village—it was arson, arranged by the wealthy developer who had bribed local thugs.

Half the village was burned to the ground, and more than ten people died in the flames. Even more infuriatingly, while the chaos unfolded, demolition crews drove bulldozers into the village, attempting to destroy it completely overnight.

The villagers fought desperately, but there were still many casualties. In the end, the situation escalated beyond control and drew the attention of higher authorities. Only after intervention was the incident brought under control—but the village was still not saved.

The family that had once taken in A Ye all perished in that fire.

The village was eventually razed to the ground. The remaining survivors were forced to leave their homes. No one knew that, late one night, the boy A Ye returned to the ruins of the village.

He released the gu power he had accumulated within his body over decades. It transformed into a dark crimson spiritual force that connected heaven and earth, linking with the resentful souls of those who had died there.

A Ye felt the anger and resentment within their spirits. In the end, he stopped suppressing the gu insects inside him. Using flesh and blood as a contract, he triggered the phenomena of heaven and earth and cast a “Heavenly Gu” over the entire area.

The so-called Heavenly Gu is a pact made with nature at the cost of one’s flesh and soul, turning oneself into part of nature itself. He became countless gu insects hidden within nature, guarding a stretch of land so that gu would forever exist within it.

“You’d better tell the people in the city to leave that place immediately—especially the original site of the village,” the old woman said, wiping the corner of her eye. She looked up at me. “That place has long become a world of gu. If humans live there, there is only death.”

“But… nothing unusual happened for decades. Why have so many strange incidents started occurring now?” I frowned and asked.

The old woman looked at me for a long moment before continuing, “You’re right. After that incident, there were indeed skilled gu practitioners who came to perform certain rites and slow down the spread of the gu insects.”

“But about a month ago, a girl came. She found what remained of A Ye’s skull and turned it into a gu ladle, breaking the seal left by the previous gu master.”

The old woman suddenly raised her finger and pointed at me. “That girl is the person you are looking for.”

My heart sank. “Tang Shanshan? So the Saint Child Gu Ladle was made by Tang Shanshan?”

The old woman shook her head. “Young man, whatever that girl was called in the past… she is no longer the person you remember.”

My mind went blank. I looked at the strange old woman and, after a long pause, asked word by word, “Do you… know where she is now?”

The old woman sighed and again extended her wrinkled finger, teasing the chicken-crown snake in the bowl. “She is no longer of this world.”

“Leave,” she said, shaking her head slightly as she slowly stood up, signaling that we were to go.

We understood that the old woman was unusual and that we could not provoke her by being persistent, so we could only sigh and leave.

“I checked. My second uncle’s construction site is… is not far from where that village once was,” Li Zi said stammeringly in the car.

Liu Xiaopeng frowned and thought for a moment. “The eerie abandoned building we followed Fan Bin into that night… should be a structure built on top of the demolished village.”

“What do we do next?” Li Zi asked.

But my mind was in complete chaos, constantly replaying the old woman’s words.

Seeing I didn’t respond, Li Zi asked again. I finally came back to my senses and said, “Let’s return to the county first. Try to persuade your second uncle not to continue work on that site.”

Li Zi nodded and started the car, driving all the way back to the county.

When we arrived at the construction site, we found that the pit where a worker had previously fallen had already been filled in.

A few workers were cleaning the temporary sheds. After asking around, we learned that Li Zi’s second uncle had already issued an order—the site would resume work the next day.

I immediately asked Li Zi to take me to find his uncle. It wasn’t until sunset that we finally saw him in the sales office. He was heavily drunk, seemingly just back from a business banquet.

We tried everything—reasoning, persuasion, pleading for hours—but still could not convince him to stop the construction scheduled for the next day.

While we were talking, someone suddenly knocked on the office door. When it opened, we saw Li Zi’s aunt, accompanied by a child about ten years old.

They had come because Li Zi’s uncle hadn’t returned home for a long time and they were worried.

We were already exhausted, thinking we would head back and sleep first before trying again tomorrow to persuade him… but at that moment, I suddenly felt a faint sense of unease.

I immediately pulled back the curtain and looked outside through the window.

All the streetlights outside had somehow gone out.

The weather tonight was not good either—there was no moonlight at all. The entire world outside was plunged into complete darkness.

Just as I was wondering what was happening, the lights inside the office flickered a few times and then went out as well.

With my face pressed close to the window, I suddenly heard a pounding sound from outside—like something was repeatedly crashing into the glass.