Chapter 52: The Mysterious Orange

What I saw was the shocked faces of everyone. Under the warm yellow light, what red shadow was there? Everything was normal, and I didn’t feel any abnormal energy in the room. Otherwise, I would have sensed something wrong according to my spiritual senses.

However, the orange was real. Cheng Yuan was holding a red orange in his hand, half-peeled, and said to me, “Chengyi, are you going to eat it?”

I reached out and touched my face, feeling a little embarrassed. But I didn’t think I was being paranoid. I just sighed and said, “Don’t blame me for being nervous. I’ll tell you later what I saw.”

Everyone nodded at the same time, and the look in their eyes was full of sympathy. I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. Could it be that these guys were thinking, “Poor thing, the descendant of the Mountain School of Martial Arts has been ‘scared’ like this?”

My forehead veins were throbbing, and I yelled, “What are you thinking?” As a result, Yueyue blinked at me, and I helplessly growled and turned my head away, but I just felt something was wrong. When I was just about to lie down, I suddenly thought of it, and turned my head again in a hurry.

I saw that Chengyuan had already peeled the orange in his hand and was about to give it to Chengzhen and Ruyue.

“Don’t eat! Don’t touch that orange!” I suddenly shouted again.

Chengyuan was startled, and the orange in her hand almost fell to the ground. She looked at me again and said innocently, “Chengyi, do you have a grudge against oranges today?”

“Chengyuan, put the tangerine down first, then tell me where you bought it?” I took a deep breath and said in a calm tone. It’s better to ask some things clearly, and I don’t want to be suspicious.

Seeing that I wasn’t joking, Chengyuan put the tangerine in her hand on the side table and said to me, “Just now, when you were still unconscious, I went out to the hotel to take a walk and met a farmer carrying a load. Then I bought it from her.”

After saying that, Chengyuan added, “It seemed like she was going home, and there weren’t many tangerines left in the basket. I saw that they were all bright red and looked very cute, so I bought them.”

Xiao Daxia was already impatient, walked over, picked up the mandarin oranges that Chengyuan had placed on the small table, tore off a piece, and said to me, “Chen Chengyi, why do you always have a problem with mandarin oranges? You don’t want to eat them, but I can eat them.”

As he spoke, Xiao Chengqian passed the tangerine in his hand to his mouth. I suddenly felt a great sense of crisis that I couldn’t describe, and yelled, “Xiao Chengqian, if you trust me, put it down.”

Xiao Chengqian was also stunned by my yelling. The tangerine stayed at the edge of his mouth. I didn’t want to delay any longer, so I shouted, “Are you stupid? It’s summer, and early summer. Where can you sell tangerines?”

Everyone was stunned, and Xiao Chengqian said, “Is it strange to cultivate off-season fruits now?”

“Fuck, aren’t all out-of-season fruits expensive? Besides, this is a small county town. Do you think an out-of-season fruit would be sold by a random peasant woman? It would have been sold in the supermarket long ago! Even if it is sold by a peasant woman, do you think that an out-of-season fruit that looks good and is cheap would not sell? It would still be left over at night, and Chengyuan would run into it when she left the hotel?” I said a series of things, and this is also the truth!

Because it was already late at night, and the hotel we were staying at was not in the bustling area of the county seat, but in a remote area. Even if Chengyuan went out earlier, it would still be late at night, and it didn’t make sense no matter how you thought about it! Everyone was stunned, and even Xiao Chengqian was so moved that he put down the tangerines in his hand and said, “That’s right!”

“Anyway, let’s put it down first. Even if I’ve wronged that peasant woman, and even if the tangerines are fine, don’t eat them.” At this time, I felt another sharp pain in my back and stomach, and I lost the strength to speak.

“Okay, then just leave it there and let the poison work its way out.” Cheng Xin pushed his glasses up his nose. His expression was calm, but his eyes were narrowed and deep, and I had no idea what he was thinking.

Everything seemed to be normal, and I was relieved. I lay down on the pillow again, and the red figure reflected in the bedside lamp. I tried not to think about it, but when I closed my eyes and waited for Chengxin to make a move, I heard a voice from outside the window: “Haha, you’re smart.”

“Who?” I immediately turned my head and shouted, but I saw a red corner of clothing pass by in the dark window, and there was no more movement.

“Chengyi, if you are afraid of pain, just say so. If you keep acting like this, we’re going to go crazy.” Chengxin was holding a bottle of powder in his hand and said to me in a dissatisfied tone.

I was about to defend myself, but then I heard Xiao Chengqian’s voice. He looked out the window and said, “Don’t blame Chengyi. I saw it too! And look at this…”

He was referring to the tangerines on the table, which had now turned into a pool of red water. In the red water were some pale, strangely shaped bugs. These bugs were rare, but they were recorded in many ancient texts, so we all knew them. They were the common knowledge of cultivators, so let’s call them Yin bugs.

Yin bugs are only found in places with extremely strong yin energy. Of course, this yin energy is not the pure yin energy of heaven and earth, but rather the mixed yin energy of places where ghosts gather!

It is a normal type of carrion beetle that likes to live in cemeteries, but it has been contaminated by the yin energy, and it has taken on a new form! There is a saying that wherever there are yin bugs, there must be evil spirits, because only places where powerful evil spirits appear can give birth to one or two yin bugs.

These bugs are the kind of carrion bugs that like to eat rotten meat and the like, but once they become yin bugs, they are “cold and not afraid” and fresh meat is also their favorite, especially live ones.

If Yue twisted up a Yin insect, she let out a light sigh: “The body is very cold. This kind of insect is also extremely vicious when used as a poison insect, but in modern times, except for a few rural areas that still practice burial, it is not easy to find them. Because they will die if they are exposed to sunlight, and forbidden places where Yin energy gathers are not so easy to find.

“The important thing is that it actually deceived my eyes and turned into a tangerine?” Chengyuan’s face became extremely ugly, only because the tangerine was bought by her, but she was a nun and she actually fell for this trick.

This kind of bug, as Yue said, is also extremely vicious as a kind of demon. Imagine the consequences of swallowing it, starting with the internal organs being gnawed at?

I suddenly felt a deep sense of exhaustion, and I fell on my pillow, saying, “The forbidden place where the yin energy gathers, isn’t that the Lake of a Thousand Ghosts? I’ve offended a formidable being this time, Chengyuan. It not only deceived your eyes, but also deceived the eyes of all of us. You know that the so-called eye-dazzling method is actually a kind of illusion that acts on the soul. Maybe the person who was not bewitched saw you carrying a bag of red water back. I don’t know what the red water is, and I don’t want to think about it.

“I’ll take care of this, Chengxin, you help Chengyi detoxify first.” Xiao Chengqian sighed, saying that he had just seen it, but he didn’t say what he had seen. Everyone was scared by this strange scene.

As a descendant of the Shan family, he was probably even more frustrated. He was actually made suspicious by a ghost, and was in the same state of panic as an ordinary person.

Expelling the evil spirits is a painful process. It was so painful that I don’t want to think about it anymore. To describe it specifically, it’s like being awake during surgery, and you have to cooperate with the doctor during the process.

Two hours later, the trash can under Brother Chengxin’s feet was already full of gauze soaked in black blood, emitting an indescribable stench that made the entire room smell unpleasant. It wasn’t until Xiao Chengqian opened the window and the cool breeze blew in that the air in the room became slightly fresher.

Throughout the entire process of detoxification, he was actually helping me apply various powders to force out the poison, or using acupuncture, or other methods. This should be the last time I apply medicine. Every time a powder is sprinkled on my back, I feel as if the flesh on my back has turned into a teppanyaki, ‘sizzling’ and ‘sizzling’. The taste is like the taste of sewing a wound after surgery while being awake.

“These powders are enough to remove a small amount of residual poison from your body. Your body is very weak now. I have to go back. I have basically processed some of the medicinal herbs we found in the old forest last time, including the roots of ginseng. I was originally going to make pills after this trip. It seems that this time I can’t delay it. I have to go back first.” Cheng Xin said to me seriously, while bandaging my wounds.

I was exhausted to the extreme. After all, the entire process of expelling the poison was a great test for both body and mind. As he spoke, I grabbed the mirror by the bedside and took a look at myself. In the mirror, my face was still pale, but it had become the pale of a normal person, not the pale of a person who had lost vitality. It seemed that Brother Chengxin was successful.

But I am very worried about what Chengxin said about going back. The one who is after us is the ghost Rakshasa. That is a real ghost that is like “chewing gum.” It will not stop until it gets what it wants. If Chengxin is alone, I can’t imagine the consequences.

“This time, it’s the ghost Rakshasa that’s after us.” My head was resting on the pillow, and a tired voice came muffled from the pillow.

The room was quiet. I added, “The tangerine must have been a test!”

The room continued to be silent!