Bloodstained Swallow's Nest

The reaction of Bai Xinghua confirmed my guess. She is not just an ordinary person.

From her words just now, it can be heard that she should be a member of a tribe called Da Wu Shan in Miaojiang, and this Da Wu Shan has hatred and opposition with the Blood Building Sect. If I am not mistaken, this Da Wu Shan and the Blood Building Sect should have been fighting for generations, and the process can be imagined to be very tragic. Bai Xinghua obviously was tired of this endless struggle, so she chose to escape. She only wants to live a peaceful life.

Obviously, her behavior is strictly prohibited within their tribe. This violates tribal rules and if caught, she will face punishment from her family clan. Therefore, when she saw that book on raising gu insects earlier and became nervous like that because she thought her family had found her and were coming to capture her.

This makes me feel a little guilty as my original intention was just to test things out but I did not want to make her anxious about it.

However, since things have already turned out like this there's nothing we can do about it now anyway; after all, she's only nervous for the time being. After waiting for some time until she realizes that no one from her tribe has come looking for her then naturally won't worry anymore.

What I want to know now is what kind of gu insect Bai Xinghua raises? From what she said before I could roughly judge that Da Wu Shan should be a tribe more skilled at raising gu insects because Blood Building Sect specializes in raising corpses which I know about; therefore skills in Da Wu Shan shouldn't completely overlap with those of Blood Building Sect.

At this point,I couldn't help but try hard recalling the contents of the book on raising gu insects.Then,I climbed up high overlooking into Bai Xinghua's courtyard.However even after watching for half day,I still couldn't figure out anything.

Finally, I had no choice but to prepare to go in and check it out myself. I climbed down from the pigsty, dusted off my clothes, adjusted my mood a bit then put on an appearance of someone who was just passing by humming a tune as I walked towards Bai Xinghua's house.

When I arrived at the door,I found that it was already closed which obviously meant that Bai Xinghua was guarding against something.I went forward and knocked on the door. A voice immediately came from inside asking: "Who is it?"

"Sister-in-law, it's me,"I replied.

"YiHeng? Why are you here again?"Bai Xinghua was surprised for a moment before quickly pulling me inside while remaining vigilant and looking around. After finding nothing unusual,she closed the door,latched it,and pulled me into her room while saying:"YiHeng,you've come at such an inappropriate time.You must follow me quickly; there's a secret passage in my inner room through which you can escape.Remember,don't come find me within seven days.Do you hear me?"

I didn't expect Bai Xinghua to be so nervous. Of course, what surprised me even more was that there was actually a secret passage in her room! It seems she has been prepared to escape at any time all these years.Has she really been living with fear all this time?

However, what concerns me now is not these things but observing the situation in her home because I want to see what kind of gu insect she raises.

From the entrance, all the way to the living room door, I looked left and right but didn't find anything unusual. I couldn't help but wonder if Bai Xinghua wasn't actually raising gu insects. Perhaps her house was only clean because it was a habit of those who raise gu insects? But how could that be possible? Her hairpin is so powerful. As I thought about this, I couldn't help turning my head to look at Bai Xinghua's hairpin. It was still in her hair and appeared to be nothing special on the surface - just an ordinary hairpin - but I knew how powerful it was because I had used it to kill an evil spirit before.

The small copper ball at the end of this hairpin should contain gu worms without exception. However, these gu worms are very strange as they can destroy souls and overcome yin energy; indicating that they are yang-type gu worms with extremely strong yang energy. Such gu worms are rare and there are only a few records of them in raising-gu techniques.

Could she be raising fire-breathing beetle gu? But this requires breathing fire to emit yang energy! When we killed Hu Qingshan, we didn't see any beetles spitting out flames either... So what kind of insect is hers?

Just as I pondered over this question in my mind, suddenly looking up under the eaves revealed an old swallow's nest.

This isn't quite right either: If Bai Xinghua really were a raiser of Gu insects then there would definitely not allow for swallow nests since swallows defecate everywhere which is unacceptable for people who raise Gu insects; moreover generally speaking swallows do not dare build their nests near or around houses where Gu-raising takes place due to fear being bitten by Gu-insects.

So since swallow nests cannot exist here yet one does indeed exist here then there's only one explanation left: the swallow nest itself is Gu, to be precise it's a kind of swallow Gu.

Without exception, inside that swallow's nest are two frozen and seemingly sleeping swallows. They did not migrate south with the season and seem to have died from freezing. In reality, as long as Bai Xinghua issues a secret command, those two birds can transform into deadly blood gu at any time.

"I took a closer look at the bird's nest and found some faint red threads on it. This indicates that it is a blood bird's nest, and Bai Xinghua should be using her own fresh blood to feed these two swallow gu insects.

Based on this analysis, I concluded that Bai Xinghua has at least two types of gu insects: one is an insect gu and the other is a swallow gu. If nothing unexpected happens, these two types of gu are complementary to each other in yin and yang.

It seems that Bai Xinghua has profound skills in raising gu insects. Her identity as a member of the Great Witch Mountain tribe may not be ordinary.

Soon after, we entered the house and I saw that Bai Xinghua had already packed up a package. It was obvious that she was going on a long journey.

"Sister-in-law, what's going on? What happened?"

"I can't explain it now. Hurry up! Follow me and move this rice jar aside. There is a passage underneath which leads directly to my sweet potato cellar at home. You go out from there and hurry back home within seven days without coming back to find me again." As she spoke, Bai Xinghua moved the rice jar over and lifted up the wooden board on the ground to reveal an entrance to an underground tunnel.

"Sister-in-law, did something happen? Are bad people trying to harm you? Tell me about it; I'll help you kill them! I'm really powerful now," I said to Bai Xinghua.

"Okay okay...you can't handle my situation anyway; just leave quickly for me please." As she spoke, she pushed me into the hole forcefully.

I had no choice but crawl through the tunnel into her cellar before sneaking around in hiding nearby observing her movements.

As expected about fifteen minutes later or so ,Bai xinhua came out.