Chapter 137: To Kill or Be Killed

The reason Old Man Huo was unwilling to tell Cui Yue the cruel truth was simply because the horror within it was beyond human imagination.

Since matters had reached this point today, it was better to make a clean break and spill it all at once for the sake of relief!

"A living person contaminated with this Corpse-Demon Ghost Extinction poison will gradually exhibit signs of a corpse transformation, followed by the slow spread of corpse spots across their entire body. Their internal organs will stiffen and atrophy, the balance between Yin and Yang will shatter, and Yin energy will gradually surge while Yang energy withers.

The ultimate outcome can only be turning into a walking corpse that knows nothing but slaughter. That is what is called killing!"

"Then what about being killed?"

A cold sweat suddenly broke out across Cui Yue's back as he asked in a deep voice.

Old Man Huo stared at the young man before him with a complex expression and sighed.

"Walking corpses descend to bring peril to the mortal world. As practitioners of the Dao, it is everyone's bounden duty to eradicate them. That is what is called being killed!"

As the words fell, Cui Yue collapsed backward onto a chair, paralyzed, his gaze lifeless.

"To kill, and to be killed. What a pair—to kill and to be killed..."

In Cui Yue's view, his entire worldview had collapsed. Whatever ideals and beliefs he held, whatever happy life he anticipated—everything, absolutely everything, dissolved into nothingness in this very moment.

He dared not imagine that one day he would become the monster Old Man Huo described, tearing people apart to drink their blood, gouging out hearts and lungs with hands stained red with gore.

Even less could he bear to think that Old Man Huo before him, or Glasses, or even Li Jianguo, Dachang, and Zhang Hao might enforce righteousness by executing one of their own and ending his life with their own hands.

He himself was the very demon they spoke of...

His vision suddenly blurred. That pigtail-braided Yang girl—he feared there was no longer any hope for her in this lifetime.

Cui Yue slowly closed his eyes, and a single tear slipped gently down the corner of his eye. The bright, sunny day outside the house was no match for the pitch-black night of despair beneath his eyelids.

Why must heaven destroy me? I die with eternal grievance!

Cui Yue abruptly stood up, snatched the wine bottle from Old Man Huo's hand, tilted his head back, and chugged—glug, glug, glug...

He drained the entire bottle to the last drop, then casually hurled the bottle to the ground, shattering it into pieces with a sharp crash.

"Hahaha, ha, heaven wants to destroy me, to destroy me! Come then, come and take my life! I refuse to bow to heaven, I will win against it by half a move! If you have the guts, come on!"

Cui Yue's expression suddenly underwent a drastic transformation. His eyes were filled with malice, and his pupils turned pitch black.

With a strange, piercing howl, he pulled out the small peach-wood sword from his embrace, pointed it at the ceiling, and began cursing wildly, madness already etched across his face.

Old Man Huo thought to himself that this was bad. If things continued this way, before even turning into a walking corpse, the boy would suffer a deviation in his cultivation and go completely mad. He hurriedly formed a incantation seal with his hands, pressed it against the crown of Cui Yue's head, and silently chanted the Heart-Cleansing Incantation.

A gentle wave of golden light slowly poured into the primary acupoint atop Cui Yue's head. The irritable and frantic Cui Yue gradually calmed down, the blackness fading completely from his eyes as his pupils returned to their original state.

"How on earth did I become contaminated with this poison?"

Cui Yue asked powerlessly. Though it was far too late to be asking such a question, he at least wanted to die knowing the truth.

Old Man Huo furrowed his brows deeply and slowly shook his head.

"This poison has not been heard of anywhere in modern times. What caused it remains unknown to me. Furthermore, the incubation period for this poison can be very long; it might erupt instantly, or it might lie dormant for decades before striking. But one thing is certain: long before the first time I ever laid eyes on you, you were already afflicted with this poison."

Upon hearing this, Cui Yue searched his memory, recalling every deeply impressive event he could conjure. It began the night Huijuan was murdered, then the little water ghost, and finally the Painted-Skin Old Ghost...

No, no. Cui Yue racked his brain until it felt ready to split, yet he could not dredge up even a sliver of a clue.

"Aside from gradually showing signs of corpse transformation, what other symptoms will I have?"

"This poison accumulates Yin energy within your body. To put it bluntly, given the opportunity, you will devour the surrounding Yin energy for your own use. The lingering female ghost in Shangwan Village earlier had her Yin energy sucked dry by you and was then devoured."

Old Man Huo let out a sigh.

"In other words, I have to feed on Yin energy every day and store it inside my body? Put that way, how am I any different from that Painted-Skin Old Ghost and the Cyan-Robed Female Ghost?!"

Cui Yue's expression turned gloomy as he pounded his own chest and interrogated Old Man Huo.

"Cui Yue, maintaining your original heart is what matters most! If you were truly a demon of this mortal realm, why on earth would Old Man Huo go through all this painstaking trouble to save you!"

"Save me? Hahaha!"

Cui Yue slammed his palm on the table, his emotions running high as he cried out.

"What did you save me from? Since I am already beyond cure, why did you save me? What do you take me for? Just because I swallowed Weiluoyang's lingering soul, I am nothing more than a piece of bait for you—merely a piece of bait to lure her out!"

Old Man Huo's face flushed from red to white, and from white to purple. Hearing those final words, he abruptly stood up and swung a heavy slap across the air.

"Crack!"

A crisp, sharp sound echoed!

A sudden wave of burning heat washed over Cui Yue's face, leaving five distinct, bright red finger marks printed across his cheek.

"Cui Yue, what do you take yourself for? Are you still that chivalrous youth who repaid grievances with virtue? If you keep going down this path, long before you ever turn into a walking corpse, you will have already fallen into the demonic path. How would you be any different from those fiends and ghosts?"

Old Man Huo was furious, angered by the overwhelming resentment churning within Cui Yue.

To this day, he still vividly remembered the young man burning paper money and offering incense by the roadside for a little boy, radiating such pure sincerity from the bottom of his heart.

Repaying grievances with virtue, never forsaking one's original aspiration, returning in the end with a spine forged of pure chivalry.

Looking upon the mortal world with a smile, human life is bitterly short; a cup of bitter wine tells the tale of parting sorrow.

Stunned by the slap, Cui Yue stood frozen in place. His previous resentment instantly dissipated, and his fierce momentum deflated completely.

"On the day the Cyan-Robed Female Ghost's physical form was shattered, I already sensed that your condition was far from optimistic. To think that you actually managed to swallow nearly a hundred years' worth of that female ghost's cultivation entirely—continuing like this will only accelerate the signs of your corpse transformation."

Old Man Huo's expression softened considerably. He patted Cui Yue's shoulder and continued.

"I calculated that there should still be some time before the corpse transformation set in, so I planned to come back first and sift through ancient texts to see if I could find a cure or a way to purge the poison."

Cui Yue suddenly noticed a thick stack of books piled underneath Old Man Huo's desk, and a warmth welled up in his heart. It seemed this slovenly old eccentric still possessed a shred of human warmth.

"According to my initial calculations, these symptoms should not have appeared until at least three years later. But because you devoured all of the Cyan-Robed Female Ghost's cultivation in Yunshan Village, that process was likely accelerated, bringing on the symptoms early. However, simply developing corpse spots shouldn't have caused it to degenerate into your current state in just a few short days..."

It was that damned Yin-Wood Dharma Fish!

Cui Yue had no choice but to recount the entire truth to Old Man Huo—how he and Li Jianguo had used the Yin-Wood Dharma Fish to purge the corpse poison.

When Old Man Huo first heard that Li Jianguo had used conventional methods to purge corpse poison, he didn't voice any objections. But upon hearing that an anomaly occurred when the Yin-Wood Dharma Fish was used, he flew into a towering rage, his head shaking back and forth like a rattle-drum.

"Absurd! Utterly absurd! No matter how much of a treasure that Yin-Wood Dharma Fish is, could it possibly withstand a hundred years' cultivation from the Cyan-Robed Female Ghost? Instead of helping, it backfired completely, sucking the refined vital essence of the Yin-Wood Dharma Fish clean away."