The Gusu Mistake - Chapter 31

The mountain roads at night were difficult to navigate, and visibility was poor. Although there was a hazy moonlight to borrow, it wasn’t enough to see everything clearly.

“Yilan!” Jiang Yilan stopped, and Yuan Ruo finally caught up to her.

“The demon is gone!” Jiang Yilan’s voice was full of frustration.

“This demon is unusual!” Yuan Ruo said. “Don’t be careless; be careful of its sneak attacks!”

“It can still launch sneak attacks?” Jiang Yilan was incredulous, but the next moment, the facts forced her to believe. A long scorpion tail suddenly swept over, aiming straight for her vital points.

“Watch out!” Yuan Ruo blocked the attack for Jiang Yilan with her sword, but when the two were ready to fight back, the scorpion tail had already retreated into the grass and disappeared again.

“This thing is so insidious!” Jiang Yilan cursed, sweeping away the tall grass in front of her with her sleeve sword. Unexpectedly, she saw a face that hadn’t fully formed yet, which lunged at her in an instant.

“Yilan!” Yuan Ruo was shocked and tried to help Jiang Yilan, but it was too late. Fortunately, Jiang Yilan reacted quickly, leaning back to dodge the attack.

However, the scorpion, just like before, didn’t linger after missing its target and burrowed into the grass, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

After these two close calls, Jiang Yilan and Yuan Ruo no longer dared to be careless. They stood back to back, ready to face the enemy at any moment.

“What should we do, Yuan Ruo?” Jiang Yilan was at a loss and asked Yuan Ruo, “This isn’t a sustainable way to fight!”

Yuan Ruo replied, “The aura on this scorpion is very similar to the corpse demon worms we saw before!”

Jiang Yilan asked, “Are you saying this one is also a corpse demon worm being raised?”

“It’s possible!” Yuan Ruo said. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have run away just because your powder stuck to it!”

Hearing this, Jiang Yilan took out the small bag of powder. “There’s only a little left!”

Yuan Ruo was silent for a moment. “I’ll lure it out!”

“What are you going to do?”

Yuan Ruo didn’t answer Jiang Yilan’s question. Instead, she pressed down on Jiang Yilan’s shoulder with her backhand, making her squat down. Then she swung her sword and thrust it into a patch of grass.

“Yuan Ruo!”

Yuan Ruo’s sword seemed to have hit something hard in the grass and she couldn’t pull it out after two tries. Sure enough, in the next moment, the scorpion’s tail swept over again.

“Yilan!”

Yuan Ruo pretending she couldn’t pull out her sword. As soon as the scorpion’s tail was about to hit her, Jiang Yilan’s powder was scattered, hitting its face squarely.

“Hiss hiss hiss…” The scorpion, hit by the powder, made a sound and tried to flee as it had before. But Yuan Ruo didn’t give it another chance and stabbed with her sword.

“Hiss hiss hiss…”

The scorpion, whose forehead was pierced, began to madly sweep its tail around, but even so, it couldn’t change the fact that its life was slowly ebbing away. After a while, it finally fell to the ground and stopped moving much.

“Is it… dead?” Jiang Yilan asked Yuan Ruo.

“I don’t know!” Yuan Ruo held her sword down by her side. “This thing is treacherous, and we can’t be careless. It’s better not to get close yet.”

Jiang Yilan frowned. “So what do we do now? Just wait here until dawn?”

Yuan Ruo thought for a moment. “We can wait a little while longer before deciding.”

Waiting all night was out of the question, but waiting a little while was acceptable. Jiang Yilan stopped talking and focused on watching the scorpion.

About the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the scorpion still didn’t move. Jiang Yilan’s tense heart relaxed slightly. “It’s been so long. It should be…”

“Watch out!” Yuan Ruo suddenly pulled Jiang Yilan to the side. A lit spiritual talisman was suddenly thrown at them.

The talisman missed, but Jiang Yilan and Yuan Ruo’s eyes were diverted from the scorpion as they dodged. When they looked back, they found the ground was empty; the scorpion was gone.

“This damn thing, it ran away again?” Jiang Yilan cursed. “Which bastard ambushed us just now?”

“I don’t know their identity!” In the moonlight, Yuan Ruo’s face grew more serious. “But if this scorpion is indeed a raised corpse demon worm, the person who attacked us was likely its master!”

“Bastard!” Jiang Yilan started cursing again. “Then he’s the culprit behind this whole thing?”

Yuan Ruo nodded. “If my guess is correct, he is!”

“And he got away, which means the people nearby will be in big trouble after we leave!” Jiang Yilan grew more worried. “Yuan Ruo…”

“I know what you’re worried about!” Yuan Ruo patted Jiang Yilan’s shoulder. “Let’s go back first and explain this to the villagers. If possible, it’s best to come back up the mountain together after dawn to search for him!”

“You have better ideas than me, so I’ll listen to you!” When it came to matters of demon-slaying and monster-catching, Jiang Yilan was not as knowledgeable as Yuan Ruo, so she let Yuan Ruo take the lead.

“Alright, let’s go now!”

At this time, the eastern sky was already turning a milky white. The two of them had a much smoother journey down the mountain, allowing the pair of eyes watching them from a distance to see them more clearly.

It was a middle-aged man in a gray robe with a gentle expression. If it weren’t for the motionless scorpion lying in front of him, anyone who saw him would think he was a good person.

After confirming that Jiang Yilan and Yuan Ruo had left, the middle-aged man took out a spiritual talisman from his, used his mind to burn it, and then touched the scorpion’s pierced forehead with the lit talisman.

“Hiss hiss hiss…”

The motionless scorpion suddenly came back to life, but after a painful struggle, it stopped moving again.

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