Chapter 123: The Human Pen

A pungent, reeking stench filled the air, and festering pus and blood stained the ground.

Within the cramped stone cage, barely wide enough for two adults to lie curled up on their sides, the thin, foul cloth mat at the bottom was tattered with holes of all sizes.

Perhaps nourished by years of dripping blood, even the originally greenish-grey boulders were now blanketed in a dense growth of fuzzy, dark red moss, as long as two fingers and remarkably thick.

As a gentle breeze swept past, it rustled and swayed,

resembling thousands of dark red, writhing worms exerting their limbs, enough to send a slight chill creeping into the heart of anyone who looked upon it.

A narrow aperture was left open in the very center of the stone cage, just large enough for a living captive kept inside to thrust out a hand and drag the food trough back in.

Chen Heng glanced inside. The trough contained only some wild grasses and a strange, unidentifiable paste, even mixed indiscriminately with a few severed human limbs left over from the ghouls' meals.

A heavy, rank odor surged upward in waves, combining with the wretched state of the stone cage itself, causing even Chen Heng to frown slightly and shake his head inwardly.

"Junior Brother Chen..."

Inside the cage, Yu Wanchou's face was twisted in agony as tears streamed down continuously.

Her arms were already gone; from the jagged stumps, one could clearly see stark white bone shards and blurred, greyed flesh, truly gruesome to behold.

"Wang Ying was eaten alive by them, along with Guan Jing and Zhou Erzhi, and my hands..."

She struggled desperately to stand up, but the movement tugged at the wounds on her arms, unleashing a heart-rending, excruciating pain. Yu Wanchou let out a muffled groan from deep in her throat, veins bulging on her temples as sweat poured down like rain.

When she tremblingly looked down at her tattered sleeves, she found only emptiness within. Shifting her gaze upward, she could even spot a few dead, fat, white maggots lying stiffly upon the wounds, completely motionless.

"My hands are gone, and my Dao foundation is destroyed as well..."

Overwhelmed by a sudden surge of grief, Yu Wanchou tightly closed her eyes and forced back her tears.

She wanted to wail aloud.

Yet, she suddenly remembered she was still trapped within the human pen, and forcefully swallowed her cries, leaving only low, wretched sobs rattling in her throat.

After a long while, she managed to regain a shred of composure.

Silently raising her head, she stared blankly at Chen Heng, who stood outside the stone cage, momentarily speechless.

On one side was someone trapped in an abyss, mutilated and living in constant peril; on the other was someone whose attire was impeccably neat and clean.

She had just startled awake from a lethargic stupor.

In her hazy fog,

Yu Wanchou had initially assumed Chen Heng had also been captured by the ghouls and thrown into this human cage to keep her company, sinking her into despair.

Now, as her mind cleared somewhat, she realized her assumption was wrong.

Aside from self-mockery, a sudden, desperate surge of joy akin to escaping death welled up within her heart, praying only that this man could help her break free from this earthly hell and flee to safety.

"Junior Brother, I..."

Yu Wanchou uttered, but before she could finish the rest of her words, she choked up and wept anew.

"Senior Sister Yu, please restrain your grief."

Chen Heng sighed softly.

He and Yu Wanchou could barely be considered old acquaintances.

Back when Chen Heng had just been released from the water prison and had yet to attain Embryonic Breath, Yu Wanchou had crossed paths with him once and casually carried him along for a part of his journey.

That occasion coincided with Ai Jian distributing the Lesser White Sun Pills at Huiyue Peak, handing out the blood-money for the disciples descending into the subterranean abyss.

At that time, Chen Heng was still a mortal of flesh and blood, with a qi and blood even feebler than ordinary mortals.

With his footpacing at that moment, walking from his dwelling at Luoxia Peak to Huiyue Peak where Ai Jian bestowed the pills—from noon until nightfall—might not even have sufficed to complete the journey.

It was Yu Wanchou who casually lent a hand and brought Chen Heng to Huiyue Peak.

Back then, the woman had just achieved Foundation Establishment not long ago, brimming with youthful vigor and an aggressive, enterprising drive.

Who could have foreseen their next meeting?

Not only was Yu Wanchou imprisoned by ghouls in a human pen, but her arms were gone, her primordial foundation shaken

to the core, cutting her off from the orthodox Immortal Dao forever.

The unpredictable shifts of worldly affairs

were truly unfathomable...

"I wonder what befell Senior Sister after stepping off that 'Luoxian Lead Boat' to end up in such a state."

Once Yu Wanchou gradually quieted her weeping, Chen Heng spoke in a gentle tone:

"The few ghouls guarding this place have been temporarily deceived by me, so Senior Sister need not worry."

"It was because of the Human-Faced Ganoderma; we overestimated our own abilities..."

A profound grief struck Yu Wanchou anew, her eyes reddening as she spoke.

"Human-Faced Ganoderma?"

Chen Heng frowned.

It turned out that the "Luoxian Lead Boat" Yu Wanchou had taken was not the same one Chen Heng had been on.

She was not isolated within the sect; she had several close bosom friends. After consulting with one another, they naturally decided to travel together to forage for outer medicines.

That way, if trouble truly arose, they would at least have some mutual support.

Yu Wanchou’s party had been rather fortunate. After a few days of arduous effort, they actually managed to locate a stalk of unripened Human-Faced Ganoderma hidden in a secluded valley.

Ai Jian’s bestowal was by no means meager.

Even a single stalk was enough to benefit everyone in Yu Wanchou’s group.

However, just as they were about to harvest it, the commotion stirred up a violent surge of Yin qi, disturbing the subterranean ghost-essence across a radius of several miles and creating a desolate, eerie spectacle of dense clouds and desolate mists.

Initially, this anomaly merely attracted the prying eyes of a few wandering lesser ghosts. Yu Wanchou and her companions, feeling no fear, easily slaughtered and repelled them.

They plucked the Human-Faced Ganoderma, hastily concealed their tracks, and departed in a hurry.

To their dismay, merely half a day later, they were swarmed and besieged by packs of cyan-faced fierce ghouls that pursued them relentlessly.

Yu Wanchou and the others fought a retreating battle; though they slew many, they were ultimately outnumbered. All seven members of the party were captured.

To this day, among those seven,

only Yu Wanchou and another Foundation Establishment cultivator named Shi E remained alive, locked in the human pen as dishes to be served to guests during Miss Yue's wedding banquet.

As for the remaining five Qi Refiners, they had long since been consumed alive by the ghouls as rewards.

"We severely underestimated the intelligence of these ghouls, failing to thoroughly wipe out those initial prying lesser ghosts, foolishly thinking they were no different from beasts, blindly chasing after flesh and blood."

Yu Wanchou lowered her head silently, her voice laden with bitter remorse, every word dripping with blood:

"One lesser ghost escaped, and we didn't pay it much mind... Thinking back now, it must have been the one that went to report and summoned that pack of fierce ghouls..."

The notions of spiritual ghosts and turbid ghosts—

although recorded in Daoist texts and scriptures,

Yu Wanchou and her peers had never set foot in the subterranean abyss nor witnessed ghouls firsthand, leaving them with a lingering arrogance that failed to treat these entities as beings possessing intelligence equal to their own.

It was precisely this arrogance that brought Yu Wanchou and her party to such a miserable end.

In fact, after being locked in the human pen, Yu Wanchou had attempted to use secret arts to send distress signals to fellow disciples within the sect.

Yet those who received her messages

either treasured their lives and refused to risk danger, turning a blind eye and ignoring her plight,

or were infatuated with Yu Wanchou's beauty, letting their hot blood rush to their heads and mustering the courage to charge in.

Regrettably, lacking the requisite strength, coming was merely courting death in vain.

Not only did they fail to turn the tide and win the beauty's favor, but they also dragged themselves down into meat for the ghouls' bellies, forced to watch in helpless horror as they were torn apart and devoured piece by piece, dying with everlasting hatred in their hearts...

"Senior Sister indeed underestimated them. To say nothing of spiritual ghosts, even ordinary turbid ghosts are not so easily dealt with."

After listening to Yu Wanchou's account, Chen Heng's gaze flickered as he slowly spoke:

"However, I came here today because there is something I do not understand and would like to ask Senior Sister for assistance."

Yu Wanchou started at his words.

"Just today, I heard a spiritual ghost named Ziying mention that many practitioners from our sect are imprisoned in this human pen. Among the names she listed were Senior Sister, Wang Ying, and Senior Brother Xu Zhi..."

Chen Heng's gaze darkened as he said:

"Yet, when I just walked around this human pen and checked hundreds of stone cages, I could not find Senior Brother Xu Zhi...

May I ask Senior Sister, is that Senior Brother still alive?"

"Surname Xu?"

After a moment of thought, Yu Wanchou slowly shook her head:

"That junior brother seemed to have also received my transmission. Remembering our fellow-apprentice ties, he rashly broke into the human pen the day before yesterday, trying to rescue us, but there were simply too many ghouls and the disparity in numbers was too great."

Yu Wanchou lowered her head apologetically, murmuring:

"An hour ago, the spiritual ghost called Miss Yue needed a midnight snack, so Senior Brother Xu was dragged away by several major ghouls with his limbs broken, and now I fear—" f𝐫𝚎𝐞w𝗲b𝒏o𝐯𝒆l.co𝓶

"What are you saying?!"

Chen Heng was greatly shocked.

For once, he uncharacteristically lost his composure, a raging hostility welling up in the depths of his pupils.

"Senior Brother Xu..."

Startled, Yu Wanchou hesitated in her voice:

"Senior Brother Xu, he..."

"No."

Chen Heng suddenly snapped to his senses, lowering his eyelids to suppress the killing intent in his heart, and spoke slowly:

"This can't be Senior Brother; he lacks the nerve for such a thing!"

Yu Wanchou was baffled.

"Senior Brother Xu might harbor a tender heart, but he certainly lacks the courage to venture alone into a horde of ghosts to save people. I don't mean to disparage Senior Brother, he..."

Chen Heng shook his head and continued:

"Besides, Senior Sister previously addressed him as Senior Brother, how did he become a Junior Brother? It seems we are not talking about the same person after all?"

"Xu Zhi? Wait... Are you speaking of that Xu Zhi who once studied under Elder Gu Jun?"

Yu Wanchou wore a peculiar expression for a moment before shaking her head:

"The one I spoke of is Junior Brother Xu from the Affairs Bureau. They share the exact same name, so it turns out we are indeed not speaking of the same person."

Hearing this, Chen Heng felt a slight weight lift from his heart.

At that moment,

Yu Wanchou, no longer able to restrain herself, raised her tear-stained face and finally spoke:

"Junior Brother Chen, since Xu Zhi is safe, can you save my life? I can no longer endure this desolate torment! Seeing people devoured alive by ghouls before my eyes every day fills me with terror!"

Her arms had been brutally chewed away, and all her talismanic treasures had been stripped clean.

Moreover, the turbid Yin of the subterranean abyss was inherently unsuitable for cultivators to linger in for long periods.

Even before her Dao foundation was shattered, Yu Wanchou had been required to take Lesser White Sun Pills at fixed intervals to protect her internal organs, ward off the encroachment of bitter cold, and ultimately prevent the destruction of her spirit.

Now, with her Dao foundation ruined and her qi and blood withered, she was only slightly better off than mortal beings.

Even if these ghouls did not feast upon her flesh,

with the continuous invasion of turbid Yin into her body,

she likely had only a few days left to live...

"Senior Sister, rest assured, I am not one to stand by and watch someone die."

Chen Heng waved his hand in assent.

Looking around, he saw stone cages like Yu Wanchou's numbering in the hundreds, densely packed, each housing living humans whose cramped quarters forced them to curl up, feeding on foul scraps like dogs and pigs.

Inside those cages, fragments of their own kind's flesh were occasionally mixed in, forced down by ghouls for their amusement...

And this was merely the enclosure for the so-called upper-grade meat.

As for the middle and lower grades, the sights were beyond description.

As for where the inferior dregs were kept,

it was an entirely blood-soaked scene straight out of a living hell.

Because the Yin qi in the subterranean abyss had reached an unfathomable, overwhelming extreme, it acted as a potent poison to mortal beings, making prolonged habitation impossible.

These ghouls frequently employed sinister drugs to feed the captives, shortening human pregnancies so that women would bear multiple children in a single litter.

Though infants born this way lacked complete spiritual awareness and survived for only a short time,

to the ghouls, whether their blood-food possessed intelligence was ultimately a matter of utter indifference...

Skeletons piled like mountain ridges, remains forming forests.

Corpses stacked into hills, rivers of blood flowing...

Even Chen Heng could not help but be moved by the sight, a surge of killing intent rising within him.

"As the saying goes, root out the evil completely; not a single ghoul up and down this estate deserves to live."

Chen Heng sighed and said:

"It's just that if I strike now, I might inevitably fall short of perfection and let a few escape, which would be less than ideal."

"What does Junior Brother mean?"

"When the wedding day of the so-called Miss Yue arrives, Ziying told me that all the ghouls big and small in the estate will gather for the banquet, and some guests may even come to offer gifts."

A sharp glint flashed in Chen Heng's eyes:

"That day will be the absolute best time to make our move!"

Hearing this, Yu Wanchou froze. Seeing Chen Heng speak so casually, panic gripped her heart, and she could not help advising:

"Junior Brother, do not be overly arrogant. Those ghouls are not to be trifled with, you..."

Chen Heng smiled faintly, drew the "Floating Water Mirage Pearl" from his sleeve, cradled it in his palm, and remained silent.

Upon seeing the pearl, Yu Wanchou's pupils constricted. Seemingly remembering something, she went blank, fell silent, and instantly broke into a joyful expression.

"Senior Sister, I must ask you to endure a few more days."

After feeding Yu Wanchou a few more Lesser White Sun Pills,

Chen Heng cupped his fists in farewell and walked toward the quiet dwelling Ziying had assigned him.

The several ghouls guarding the upper-grade human pens were all lethargic, as if turning a blind eye to him, their expressions dazed, lost in some dream.

It was only after Chen Heng returned to his quarters to rest that they snapped back to their senses. Scratching their heads in confusion, they gave it no further thought and quickly cast the matter to the back of their minds.

Chen Heng had already quietly subdued these ghouls using the "Floating Jade Mirage Pearl."

This time,

the talismanic treasure from Yan Jia's hands had indeed rendered a great service...

Time flew by swiftly.

Before long, the wedding day of Miss Yue arrived.

During this period, Ziying had frequently sought him out, and seeing Chen Heng consistently minding his own business within his quarters, she finally set her mind at ease, harboring no further suspicions.

"It's quite lively today; I wonder how many guests have arrived?"

Ziying led Chen Heng toward the central hall of the estate. Along the way, the sounds of drums and gongs echoed through the air, creating a remarkably festive atmosphere.

"Not many, really; only a few old neighbors from the vicinity were invited. Truth be told, Miss Yue is not particularly favored... I only wonder if Lord Shanhu and Granny Feihua will send servants to offer congratulatory words for the young lady's grand wedding today."

Ziying sighed and replied, looking rather worried.

Over the past few days, her affection for Chen Heng had grown day by day. Especially after her doubts were dispelled, she was practically ready to stick to him like glue, even divulging some of the estate's hidden secrets.

Chen Heng looked contemplative upon hearing this. Before he could speak, as they rounded a small garden, a sudden burst of shouts and chasing noises reached his ears.

The wind suddenly whipped up.

Chen Heng subtly shifted his body to the side.

The next instant, a black shadow flew past from afar, brushing heavily against him before crashing to the ground, tumbling like a rolling gourd for several yards before finally coming to a halt.

The black shadow moaned as it slowly struggled to its feet—it was a young man dressed in dark robes.

"Are you alright, brother?"

Seeing the man gaze up with a dazed expression, Chen Heng asked casually.

"A—alright?"

Song Pu felt aches and pains across every inch of his body.

Dazed and dizzy, he wiped his face and turned to look at Chen Heng. Just as he was about to bow and offer an apology, his expression froze stiffly, instantly transforming into wild ecstasy!

"What does it mean to be a paragon of peerless grace? This is peerless grace! What am I, Song Pu? I'm nothing, a mere fart! Lord of the Prefecture, you have opened your eyes! I've finally opened my eyes today!"

Tears streaming down his face, Song Pu scrambled toward Chen Heng and shouted:

"No need to get married! I finally don't have to get married! Someone is finally here to take my place! Hahaha!

I've practiced virtue and done good deeds all my life, and today you've finally allowed me to meet—"

"You flatter me, brother."

Chen Heng expressionlessly kicked the charging Song Pu away and said indifferently:

"Your honor is remarkably handsome, how could this humble one ever compare?"