The Reticent Blade-Chapter 74 - The Methods of the Five Gods Summit

Flowerless Butterfly didn't even bother tasting the pill. She simply swallowed the pill whole. After it went down she asked Forsaken Phoenix, "What exactly is it?"

"How does it taste?" Tang Jinnian asked with a smile as he looked at Rao Shuang.

"Nevermind," Rao Shuang said, rolling her eyes at him and turning away, not wanting to deal with him.

"It’s just an antidote pill," Tang Jinnian said calmly, looking at the poisonous miasma ahead. "As long as that miasma is not one of those rare, unique poisons... it should work."

"You study poisons too?" Rao Shuang asked. She considered herself quite knowledgeable about poisons, so she was curious when she heard Tang Jinnian speak so confidently.

"What do you think?" Tang Jinnian smiled at her.

Rao Shuang fell silent, remembering that her Dream Butterfly Dust had no effect on Forsaken Phoenix when they clashed in Meizhou

I should have realized this earlier, she fumed internally.

However, her curiosity about Tang Jinnian only grew. A person who was skilled with mechanisms and proficient in poisons... What was his story?

Rao Shuang's musings were cut short. Tang Jinnian stepped into the poisonous miasma first and said, "Let's go. There is no time for idle talk."

Rao Shuang cautiously extended her hand into the miasma. Tang Jinnian looked back when he noticed she wasn't following him. "What's wrong? You still think I’m trying to deceive you?"

Rao Shuang shot him a defiant glare and stepped into the miasma.

Their visibility was even lower in the miasma and they could barely see more than five paces ahead. The two slowly followed the narrow trail underfoot.

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Tang Jinnian patted Rao Shuang's shoulder and pointed to a spot in the miasma. "Look."

Rao Shuang looked in the direction he pointed and saw a decayed corpse with some unknown plants growing on it.

Rao Shuang was stunned. "What is this..."

"My assumption was correct," Tang Jinnian said while studying the corpse. "When animals and people die here, their bodies gradually decay and produce corpse poison. That is how this miasma forms...

"The poisonous plants use these corpses as their nutrients, their own toxins mixing with the corpse poison, eventually creating this miasma. The more deaths here, the larger and more toxic the miasma becomes."

Rao Shuang nodded silently.

"Hmm?" Tang Jinnian suddenly stopped. In the poor visibility, Rao Shuang nearly bumped into him.

"What's wrong?" Rao Shuang peered over the man's shoulder and saw eerie lights blinking in the red miasma.

"What is that?" Rao Shuang furrowed her brows. Her intuition telling her it probably wasn't anything good.

"Who knows? Let’s go see," Tang Jinnian said. He pulled out his pipe, lit it, and took a satisfying drag. The white smoke stood out in the red miasma.

Tang Jinnian started walking toward the blinking specks, and Rao Shuang closely followed him.

The greenish lights flickered unevenly, looking particularly eerie in the dim red atmosphere.

Before the two could get closer, the floating lights seemed to focus and turn toward the two travelers.

Low growls echoed through the fog, and the green lights closed in on the two.

Soon, a few large felines slowly emerged from the fog, their cold eyes fixed on the two. These creatures had robust and agile limbs that were full of explosive power. Black tufts of fur jutted up from their pointed ears. Their upper bodies were light brown, covered in mottled spots. Long whiskers hung from their cheeks.

The eerie green lights earlier turned out to be reflections from their eyes.

Rao Shuang studied the predators stalking them. "Aren't these—"

"These are lynxes," Tang Jinnian said. Despite recognizing them, he seemed puzzled as he looked closely at the beasts.

"But they aren't a normal variety. Normally, lynxes are no more than four feet long, but even the smallest of these big cats are nearly five feet long."

The pack of lynxes surrounded the two in a circle, occasionally licking their teeth clean with their barbed tongues. Even a lick could peel off a layer of skin.

"It seems these lynxes live off rotting flesh in this miasma," Rao Shuang said. Glancing at the big cats, she warned Tang Jinnian, "These beasts have eaten dead bodies for years and are very vicious. Don’t get carried away by them, I won’t come to save you."

"Heh... they're just a few kittens," Tang Jinnian said dismissively. He smiled and gently waved his hand gloved in gold and silver threads.

Several figures appeared behind the pack of lynxes.

They were puppets.

***

"Why do you think these lynxes look so different?" Tang Jinnian asked Rao Shuang as he squatted down and flipped open the eyelids of a dead lynx.

"Perhaps it’s related to eating so much rotting human flesh," Rao Shuang said with a frown.

The ground around them was covered with bloodstains and entrails from the abnormal lynxes.

She looked at Tang Jinnian with some disdain. How could a person who only knew how to kill indiscriminately call himself an assassin.

Rao Shuang changed the subject. "Anyway, the Five Gods Summit has a lot of dangerous methods to keep people out. Do you still think you can go and steal from them?"

"Why not?" Tang Jinnian stood up. "These are just some unorthodox methods, nothing to worry about."

By the time they walked out of the miasma, it was already dark. The wind occasionally blew through the mountain, howling through the trees and deepening the eerie atmosphere.

"It seems we haven’t gone the wrong way," Tang Jinnian said as he read at a stone tablet by the road. "The tablet says: The Living Beware the Five Gods Summit."

The characters were scrawled as if smeared with blood. Tang Jinnian sneered, "Heh... The Five Gods Summit certainly has a lot of different scare tactics."

Rao Shuang frowned. "We haven’t seen a single person on this road, not even a patrolling disciple. Could there be a problem?"

"It’s fine. Since the Five Gods Summit has established itself here, we’ll surely see living people as we go further up," Tang Jinnian said as he continued onward.

"Living people? There aren't even any dead people around."

"Dead people?" Tang Jinnian suddenly turned and gave Flowerless Butterfly a strange smile. "Well... there’s one right behind you."

Before he could finish, Flowerless Butterfly swiftly crouched down, pressed her fingers together to form a knife and chopped backward!

Bang!

A muffled sound was heard. Rao Shuang felt as if she had struck hardwood, her palm tingling with pain.

A gust of wind came from behind and Rao Shuang rolled forward without thinking to land at Tang Jinnian’s feet.

Standing up, she saw Tang Jinnian was still giving her that knowing smile. Furious that he hadn’t helped earlier, Rao Shuang shot him a harsh glare and then looked back in the direction she had run from.

She saw a figure standing where she had originally been. A pair of vacant eyes peered through the dim light. The figure stood with its arms at its sides, its body rigid like a unmoving spear that emitted a strong stench of decay.

Rao Shuang squinted her eyes and quietly asked, "Is that person dead?"

Tang Jinnian nodded. "Yes, didn’t you say you hadn’t seen any dead people? Well, here’s one."

Rao Shuang pursed her lips. "Did the people from Five Gods Summit do this? Where are they?"

"They must be hiding," Tang Jinnian said, scanning the surroundings. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "How interesting."