CHAPTER 512: 511

Ye Tian’s tone revealed great confidence, making Chu Tianying feel quite sour. Look at you, so capable, yet still sneaking around. Why not march directly into their village? That’d be much cooler.

Although he was somewhat skeptical, Chu Tianying still heeded Ye Tian’s advice. When they approached the village, he stayed on the big tree at the entrance, hidden among lush branches and leaves, with a grass blade in his mouth, watching intently what was happening down below.

This was a slum that could be called a village, roughly the size of a rural area in our country. According to Gui Xiao, there were no fewer than twenty such small slum villages in Kathmandu, and a few were even super-sized, with five or six that were almost the size of urban districts back home.

The so-called ’village mouth’ wasn’t an official entrance but merely a gap left in a pile of trash. Ye Tian had to cover his nose just to barely make it inside the village.

Upon entering, what met his eyes were streams of filthy water flowing everywhere. Years of accumulated wastewater had eroded grooves on the ground, which were covered in green moss. Rainwater mixed with domestic wastewater floated various colors of oil scum on the surface. As the sky darkened, there were no streetlights here. Ye Tian, holding Gui Xiao’s hand, led the way. Using the power from the Small Zen Realm, he could at least make out the path a bit clearer and avoid stepping into potholes.

This place truly was a slum. Throughout the journey, Ye Tian didn’t spot a single lamp. Houses that had any light at all were rare, and inside cardboard shacks, one could clearly see people without clothes. A slightly better house had just two candles that brought a bit of brightness in this darkness.

"Kid, this place is truly a poor area."

"I’ve already told you, this is a slum. What did you think a slum would be like? When I first came here, I lived in a slum too. Two newspapers laid on the floor was my bed, another one for a blanket, and that was actually considered decent. Those with worse conditions didn’t even have newspapers, they had to lie on the lawn."

Ye Tian sighed heavily, also feeling fortunate that his own life, having died once and come back, wasn’t too bad, at least better than sleeping with newspapers.

Tiled roofs did not cover bodies; no trees were used for beds. Life here was truly tough.

Not only were there many broken houses in the slum, but the streets were also extremely intricate. People would just set up wood planks wherever they wanted to make a home, which resulted in extremely narrow yet developed paths. Sometimes what appeared to be a space less than a meter wide would surprisingly lead to a wide avenue. The pathways were as complex as subterranean rivers, thorny everywhere yet brimming with life.

According to Gui Xiao, the area where the Thais lived was isolated in the northeast corner of this slum.

Humph, Ye Tian sneered internally, no matter how tough you are, you still live in difficult conditions.

The place in the northeast corner was separated from here by a large empty field, probably to prevent the Thais from causing harm to others, but that area was still pitch black with scarce light.

...

Actually, Ye Tian was right; the Thais here were indeed poor, otherwise they wouldn’t let their living area be engulfed in darkness, not to speak of electricity, they couldn’t even afford two candles. If it were summer, it might be alright as they could use Witchcraft Technique to gather fireflies. But in seasons without fireflies, they could only obediently lie in bed counting stars at night.

Shangjia Moti was a Thai with relatively high prestige, and his elevated status owed much to his profound mastery in Witchcraft Technique.

There were two types of Witchcraft in Thailand: control Gu and Tame Head. The ancestors of Shangjia Moti were State Preceptors in the Thai Royal Court. At the height of their glory, even the King of Thailand had to defer to him by three points. When the State Preceptor was angry, even the king dared not speak loudly before him. All this prestige was because of the family’s exceptional skill in Gu Technique — the Ice Worm.

However, as times changed, especially when the King of Thailand began to push for reforms and the country entered the global economic tide with more high-tech flowing into the country, the formerly secret Witchcraft skills were lost after the older generation passed away, leaving behind barely a shred of their knowledge. It wasn’t for a lack of effort by the older generation, but the younger generation began to resist Gu skills, struggling to see their relevance in an era dominated by electronics and the internet. Seduction under the moon is attractive, but no one wanted to spend their days bending over two insects, attending them like nurturing a newborn. Warming stoves in winter, cooling ice in summer, baking the soil and crumbling it in autumn to lay in cages to prevent moisture affecting the quality of the Gu worms, and in spring busily tending to the new generation of Gu worms — these were considered undesirable jobs.

The division between the endeavours of the old and the indifference of the young led to a significant decline in the art of Witchcraft.

Yet, there are always exceptions, and this old man named Shangjia Moti was one of them. His ancestors were the ones who trained the Ice Worm, and he himself was naturally gifted, recognized by a secluded Gu Master in the mountains as the most spiritually gifted Gu Master in a century.

Currently, he was in a foreign land discussing his Gu Technique, forced out of his homeland as they feared he would madly conduct experiments on living humans. Here, however, his daily worry was merely about food.

Some people live just to eat, but Shangjia Moti lives for his ideals.

The Ice Worm, revered as the Gu King for centuries, whether it truly existed was long debated. Some believed it was just a hoax found in ancient books since no one had seen it for hundreds of years. Even if the Ice Worm had existed in past dynasties, it was still hearsay; no one who had seen it could describe accurately its scale armor, its antenna, the potency of its toxin, or the degree of its Divine Wisdom. Most were vague or simply remained silent. But others, like Shangjia Moti, firmly believed in the existence of the Ice Worm.

Rearing an Ice Worm required not only immense patience and perseverance but also fresh human blood and one’s own essence blood.