bookbashuk Chapter 1074 Venom Pit
Chapter 1074 Venom Pit
"Leave the monk here, the rest of you can go," he said, his tone as casual as if he were commenting on the nice weather. "We only need him. You've had a long journey, it's not worth risking your lives here."
Sun Wukong chuckled. It wasn't the kind of chuckle that comes from being amused, but the kind of chuckle that comes from hearing a joke so funny you can't help but laugh. As he laughed, the golden cudgel twirled in his hand, its tip pointing at the black-robed demon's nose.
"Do you know whose land this is, the one you're standing on right now?"
The black-robed demon paused for a moment, then asked, "Whose is it?"
"It's my old Sun's."
The black-robed demon looked at him, his expression shifting from confusion to surprise, then to amusement, and finally to a malicious excitement, as if anticipating something interesting. He took a half-step back, making way for the flat-faced man in the khaki short jacket next to him.
The flat-faced man had been waiting impatiently. His narrow, slit-like eyes scanned Sun Wukong several times before his mouth slowly parted, revealing a dense array of serrated teeth. As his mouth opened, Su Wanwan heard a faint sound—not the sound of teeth clashing, but the sound of his jaw dislocating. His mouth could open wider than his head, like a snake, disassembling and reassembling his entire skull.
"I'll do it," said the flat-faced man. His voice was the complete opposite of the black-robed demon's, sharp and shrill, like fingernails scraping a blackboard. "I like to play hard."
He moved.
His speed exceeded Su Wanwan's expectations. She thought he would test the waters first, then accelerate, and then go all out, just like Qingya. But Flat Face went all out right from the start, like a spring compressed to its limit suddenly releasing, accelerating from a standstill to a speed that was almost imperceptible to the naked eye, in less than the blink of an eye.
He charged not at Sun Wukong, but at Chu Yang.
This choice surprised everyone. The black-robed demon said he would keep Tang Sanzang, but the flat-faced man attacked Chu Yang first. He wasn't acting according to plan; he was acting on instinct—in his perception, Chu Yang made him more uneasy than Sun Wukong, so he wanted to eliminate the one who made him uneasy first.
He spread three fingers, and the suction cups at their tips pressed against Chu Yang's chest. The tiny spike in the center of the suction cup sprang out the instant it touched the fabric, like a steel needle, aimed at Chu Yang's heart.
Chu Yang did not dodge.
He raised his hand, four fingers together, and struck the flat-faced man's wrist with the heel of his palm. It wasn't a direct block, but rather a use of the opponent's force—his palm, pressed against the flat-faced man's wrist, pulled him backward in the direction he was charging, redirecting his momentum to his left. The flat-faced man lost his balance from this clever force, flying past Chu Yang like a sack of potatoes. Three of his fingers grazed Chu Yang's clothes, leaving three small cuts in the fabric.
Flatface flipped in the air, landing with one hand on the ground to steady himself. He looked down at his wrist; there were no marks, but a tingling numbness ran through his joint—Chu Yang's slap had hit the weakest point of his wrist, not breaking the bone, but temporarily wiping his entire arm.
A hint of surprise flashed in his narrow eyes.
"That's interesting," he said.
The black-robed demon, standing behind, saw this scene, and his expression changed. It wasn't surprise, but confirmation. He had been wondering what Chu Yang really was, and now he knew—this person wasn't just anything; he was a variable he had never seen, heard of, or read about in any ancient texts. Variables were the most detestable thing for demons who had lived for thousands of years. Because they were used to controlling everything, used to everything happening according to their expectations, and Chu Yang was not.
The black-robed demon raised his right hand, joined his index and middle fingers together, and drew a circle in the air.
The moment the circle was drawn, the sand scorpion moved.
It didn't rush towards Chu Yang, nor towards Sun Wukong, but towards Su Wanwan.
Su Wanwan was holding the reins of the white dragon horse and the white donkey, her attention completely focused on the fight between Chu Yang and the flat-faced man. By the time her tail sensed the sand scorpion's presence, it was already less than ten feet away from her. Its two front pincers opened, the serrated teeth on the inside of its pincers gleaming coldly in the sunlight. Its target wasn't her, but her hand holding the reins—it wanted to force her back and then snatch the white dragon horse away.
The White Dragon Horse is a dragon, not an ordinary horse. Great demons have an instinctive greed for the aura of dragons, and a dragon sealed as a horse is a feast they can enjoy without any effort.
Su Wanwan did not back down.
She loosened the reins, and all five tails opened simultaneously. Moonlight surged from her body, forming a thin, silvery-white wall in front of her. The sand scorpion's pincers struck the wall with a hissing sound, like red-hot iron thrown into cold water. The serrated teeth on the inside of its pincers were scorched black by the moonlight. The sand scorpion let out a sharp screech, its entire body springing back half a zhang, its two pincers flailing wildly in front of it, as if trying to drive away something unseen.
The white wolf rushed out from Su Wanwan's right side.
It charged forward much faster than Su Wanwan had anticipated. This young wolf, raised in the underground space, had never truly fought before, but it had inherited the fighting instinct from the wolf king's memories. Its body sank lower and lower during the charge, its limbs almost touching the ground, its back arched, its mane standing on end, making the whole wolf look like a fully drawn arrow.
Its target is the sand scorpion's tail.
The most dangerous part of a sand scorpion is its tail; the venom on its stinger can kill a cow in just a few breaths. But the tail is also the most vulnerable part, because it is the only part of its body not covered by a carapace; only a thin membrane covers the venom glands and muscles.
The white wolf accurately bit the middle of the sand scorpion's tail. Its teeth pierced through the thin membrane, embedding themselves in the gap between the venom glands and the muscles. It wasn't a random bite, but a precise lock that jammed the joint of the stinger. The sand scorpion's tail twitched violently a few times, its stinger frantically stabbing towards the white wolf's head and neck, but because the joint was jammed, the tip of the stinger always missed the white wolf's skin by an inch.
Su Wanwan seized the opportunity. She stepped forward, her right hand fingers together, the tip touching the junction of the sand scorpion's cephalothorax—the only gap on the sand scorpion's body not covered by its carapace, only as thin as a hair, but enough for her lunar energy to penetrate.
The moonlight flowed from her fingertips into the sand scorpion's body, traveling along its nerve cords all the way to its brain ganglia. The sand scorpion's body suddenly froze, its two front pincers suspended in mid-air, their pincers remaining open, motionless like a wax figure.
Then its body began to emit a silvery-white light from within. Moonlight shone through the cracks in its carapace, streaks like cracks on porcelain. The sand scorpion's eyes—those dozen or so small, shiny black eyes—simultaneously turned to Su Wanwan, reflecting her face and her five tails. There was no hatred in those eyes, only a pure, animalistic confusion: What are you? How did you do that?
Su Wanwan did not answer it.
She pushed the moonlight in a little further. The sand scorpion's body went completely limp, like a pool of asphalt melted by the sun, lying sprawled on the ground. Its pincers drooped limply, and the drop of venom on its stinger finally dripped down, landing on the saline ground and corroding a small pit.
From the moment the white wolf charged out to the moment the sand scorpion fell, it was only a matter of two breaths.
The black-robed demon witnessed this scene. A different glint finally appeared in his dark yellow eyes—not fear, but attention. He scrutinized Su Wanwan again, from top to bottom, then from bottom to top, his gaze lingering on the five tails behind her, before moving to the panting white wolf beside her, and finally settling on the wisp of silvery-white moonlight still swirling around her fingertips.
"A fox demon," he said, his tone as if savoring a dish. "Five tails. The moon energy isn't pure, but it's thick. Interesting."
He turned his gaze away from Su Wanwan and looked back at Chu Yang and Sun Wukong, the cut at the corner of his mouth splitting open again.
"I'm not playing today," he said.
The flat-faced man, who was flexing his aching wrists, turned sharply to look at the black-robed demon upon hearing this: "What?"
"I said, no fighting today." The black-robed demon repeated, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. "I've tested you enough. I've seen everything I needed to see."
He turned around, the hem of his black robe billowing in the wind, revealing a dark red lining underneath. The lining was embroidered with dense runes, and Su Wanwan felt dizzy after just one glance, quickly averting her gaze.
"Go west, and we'll meet again." The black-robed demon didn't turn around; his voice drifted from ahead, neither loud nor soft. "Next time, it won't just be the two of us."
The flat-faced man glared fiercely at Chu Yang, a grayish-yellow light flashing in his narrow eyes. He opened his mouth, his jaw cracking a few times as he reset his dislocated joint, then turned and followed the black-robed demon. The sand scorpion that Su Wanwan had knocked down with her moon energy suddenly twitched as the black-robed demon passed by, as if lifted up by something, its entire body rising into the air and floating into the heatwave with the black-robed demon.
The little monsters—lizards, centipedes, and creatures with many legs and many eyes—followed the receding tide like a wave, their rustling, whispering, and whispering sounds mixing together for a while before fading into the distance, growing fainter and fainter, and finally disappearing completely into the roar of the heatwave.
Calmness returned to the saline-alkali land.
Only a pool of venom dripping from the sand scorpion's stinger remained, still emitting wisps of white smoke in the small pit. A trace of blood lingered at the corner of the white wolf's mouth—not its own, but from the sand scorpion's tail. It stuck out its tongue and licked the blood clean, then wrinkled its nose. The sand scorpion's blood was both fishy and bitter, like drinking a mouthful of bitter melon juice.
Sun Wukong hoisted the golden cudgel back onto his shoulder, looking in the direction where the black-robed demon had disappeared. His expression wasn't relaxed; it was even more serious. He hid this expression well, but Su Wanwan saw it—the corners of his mouth were no longer upturned, his eyes were no longer narrowed, and his entire face was like a smooth, hard stone, devoid of any superfluous expression.
"That man is right," Sun Wukong said. "Next time, it won't just be the two of them."
Chu Yang picked up a fragment of a sand scorpion's pincer from the ground. The fragment was small, about the size of a fingernail, with edges as sharp as blades. He examined the fragment from both sides twice before putting it into his sleeve.
"There are others behind them," he said. "That man in black robes said 'we' when he left. Not 'I,' but 'we.' He didn't come alone, nor did he bring that group of lesser demons. He knew he wouldn't fight with all his might when he came; he just came to test us."
"Did you find out?" Su Wanwan asked.
Chu Yang glanced at her: "I've figured it out."
"What did you find out?"
"I've tested you and I know you're not someone to mess with." Chu Yang said this with a very serious expression, but Su Wanwan felt that there was something flashing in his eyes, like he was holding back a laugh. She wasn't sure if he was joking, so she just snorted, called the white wolf back to her side, and bent down to check if it was injured.
The white wolf was unharmed. The sand scorpion's venom and pincers hadn't touched it. Its only injury was a small cut on its lip from its own teeth, which had bled a little but stopped. It still seemed to enjoy Su Wanwan's examination, its eyes half-closed, its tail held high, making it look like a cat that had been petted comfortably.
The white donkey watched this scene from the side, snorted, and turned its head to the side.
Tang Sanzang dismounted from his white dragon horse and walked to the spot where the battle had just taken place. He squatted down and looked at the still-smoking pit of poison on the saline ground. After watching for a while, he reached into his robes and took out a small bottle of medicinal powder, sprinkling it onto the pit. The powder was yellow and had a strong garlic smell. After it was sprinkled on, the white smoke quickly dissipated, and the remaining poison in the pit was neutralized.
"Amitabha." He stood up, patted the powder off his hands, and said, "This poison is very potent. Ordinary people who get it can't be saved."
Su Wanwan looked at him and suddenly felt that Tang Seng had changed a lot since she first met him. The old Tang Seng, upon seeing such a scene, would first chant sutras to deliver the spirits, then chant sutras to calm the nerves, and after finishing, he would chant them again to make sure he hadn't made a mistake. The current Tang Seng would deal with the venom pit first, and then chant sutras.
The order has changed, but the scriptures still need to be recited.
He closed his eyes and whispered a mantra for rebirth. The sound wasn't loud, but it carried far across the vast salt flats, like a thin thread drifting to the horizon, to the yellow line on the horizon, and then bouncing back, carrying the dry echo of the desert.
Su Wanwan didn't know who he was performing a ritual to help the dead find peace. The sand scorpion wasn't dead; it had only been stunned by her lunar energy. Perhaps he was performing a ritual to help the beings killed by the sand scorpion find peace. Or perhaps he was just used to it, and seeing a place like this made him think of something, and he felt uncomfortable if he didn't.
She didn't ask.
Chu Yang walked over and took the reins back from her. Her palms were sweaty, and the reins were soaked with sweat. When Chu Yang took the reins, his fingers touched her palms, and he felt the sweat. He didn't say anything, but simply wrapped the reins around his hand twice and pulled tighter. (End of Chapter)