Chapter 110: Heart-Piercing Insect Gu

Fang Cun had already memorized the pill sutras using merit points, so his talent for pill alchemy was naturally good. However, learning pill alchemy wasn’t something achieved overnight. Even great talent just let you learn faster. To succeed overnight, mere study alone wasn’t enough. Perhaps jumping off a cliff might work!

Therefore, if he wanted to refine a pill gu insect, he could only find helpers.

He looked around, but who was most suitable?

Elder Qu should have been the most fitting candidate. But the old scholar was too upright. Fang Cun didn’t dare ask him about refining pill gu insects, afraid the conversation would quickly turn sour. So, after some thought, the most suitable person became young Miss Qu Su’er.

Thankfully, Elder Qu was busy refining the treasure pills recently and had plenty of time. Young Miss Qu was also very obedient and sensible, doing whatever she was asked. Ever since Fang Cun decided to refine the pill gu insect, she had started to study and experiment. It was said she had witnessed how pill gu was refined as a child. But after leaving home, Elder Qu viewed pill gu as an evil thing – he didn’t teach her and wouldn’t let her touch it. She hadn’t refined it for many years.

At first, Fang Cun worried that too much time had passed and she might not remember. Later, he realized he was overthinking it.

When reciting pill sutras, Miss Qu seemed frail and soft. But when refining pills… well, what can one say?

The alchemy cauldron bought for Elder Qu to refine treasure pills hadn’t been used. Now it was just right for Miss Qu to use. So, Fang Cun brought the Little Fox Girl and Xiao Qingliu, both looking excited, to watch. They saw the nervous Miss Qu carefully toss handful after handful of spiritual medicine into the cauldron, as if terrified of making a misstep. After adding a few kinds, she would anxiously check her notes under their gazes.

Refining as if facing a great enemy for a full half-hour, she slowly stopped the fire under Fang Cun, Little Fox Girl, and Xiao Qingliu’s watching eyes. Then she nervously opened a vent hole. Black smoke slowly wafted out from inside the cauldron…

“How can this be? Why is it black?”

Miss Qu stared blankly, full of confusion, hurrying to flip through the pill sutra.

“It really failed…”

Fang Cun, the Little Fox Girl, and Xiao Qingliu simultaneously shook their heads helplessly. This wasn’t unexpected.

After all, it had been so long…

“It shouldn’t be like this…” Miss Qu flipped through the sutra for a long while, seeming a bit flustered. “The steps weren’t wrong…”

Fang Cun cleared his throat, ready to offer comfort.

He watched as Miss Qu couldn’t figure out where the problem lay. In frustration, she slapped the cauldron with her hand. “Where did I go wrong?”

Thump!

A clear palm print appeared on the exquisite cauldron forged from iron alloyed with copper.

Whoosh…

A strand of purple gas sprayed out from the cauldron.

The young Miss Qu looked pleasantly surprised. She turned to Fang Cun shyly and said, “It’s done!”

“This…” Fang Cun’s neck felt a little stiff. Collecting himself, he rose respectfully and bowed. “Th-thank you for your efforts, Fairy…”

In the following days, while Miss Qu refined pills, Fang Cun, the Little Fox Girl, and Xiao Qingliu cooperated fully. They fetched whatever she needed, served tea, and carried water. Seeing their son running around busily every day, saying he was refining pills, Elder Fang and his wife felt quite pleased. Once, even Elder Fang came over with his burly stomach to take a look, wanting to encourage the juniors diligently pursuing academic work.

After that single visit, he never came again. He even declared that courtyard forbidden territory.

But regardless, the first batch of pills was indeed squeezed out after Miss Qu’s mighty slap. Later batches were refined more conventionally and also succeeded. Only the copper cauldron, marked by several prominent palm prints, now looked rather pitiful…

…

After refining the mother pills, the next step was refining the gu insects.

Now, the cavern beneath the Fang Manor’s rockery was packed with all sorts of bottles, jars, glass vessels, and wooden boxes, presenting a dazzling and bizarre display. Among them were the “Infidelity Snaggers Gu” that had helped Fang Cun locate Master Lan Shuang, along with many other strange insects and plants like the “Heart-Piercing Insects,” “Soul-Eating Gu,” “Golden Thread Snake Eggs,” and “Grass Spirit Fireflies.”

Everything had been bought by Fang Cun at the Night Market. Having memorized the Classic of Spirits using merit points and studied Instructor Lingxiu’s twelve notes on witchcraft and gu, Fang Cun now possessed exceedingly high talent and insight into the arts of insect and gu magic.

While the Night Market was indeed full of fakes, genuine items could also be found. More importantly, after Instructor Lingxiu’s death, the strange insects and gu insects she left behind had been either sealed away or destroyed by the Academy, or secretly sold off. Fang Cun had managed to buy back some of these. Among them, the gu insect he valued most was one called the “Heart-Piercing Insect”!

Among the twelve types of gu insects Instructor Lingxiu had spent most of her life researching, this ranked seventh. It was an extremely vicious form of witchcraft. Once implanted in a person, the breeder could activate it using their own mind. Awakened, it would burrow into the victim’s meridians and spine, erode their spirit, drive them mad, and could even be controlled at will by the breeder. Indeed, it was a most formidable kind of gu!

“Young Master… Young Master, is this the gu you want to refine?”

Miss Qu Su’er asked with curiosity after Fang Cun brought out the gu insect.

Fang Cun smiled. “Exactly. What do you think of this gu, little sister?”

Qu Su’er replied somewhat embarrassedly, “It’s quite good… it’s just… not very practical…”

Fang Cun: “!?”

Seeing Fang Cun’s expression, Qu Su’er hurriedly explained in a small voice, “I heard my uncle talk about this gu insect when I was little. Judged by the world’s spirit, treasure, divine, and immortal tiers, it should be ranked Spirit Grade high. Though quite decent, its weaknesses are too obvious. The Heart-Piercing Insect is a potent gu insect, but its vitality is too weak.”It’s easily purged by those with profound cultivation using their cultivation power. Even if not purged, if sealed away for too long, or implanted in an unsuitable host for too long without being awakened, it will slowly die on its own…”

“Spirit, Treasure, Divine, Immortal…”

Fang Cun nodded slightly, pondering. “No wonder it only ranked seventh in Instructor Lingxiu’s notes…”

A thought struck him, and he chuckled. “Then is there such a thing as an unsolvable gu in this world?”

Qu Su’er quietly shook her head. “No, never. Uncle swore there were, but Grandfather argued with him. Grandfather said while pill gu is poisonous, there are just as many antidotes. Those legendary unsolvable, bizarre gu insects supposedly spread around the world… they couldn’t possibly exist.”

“Where there’s a way to craft it, there’s a way to break it!”

“They even dueled once. Uncle refined seventeen kinds of gu and implanted them in himself, challenging Grandfather. He said if Grandfather couldn’t neutralize them, he’d make sure Grandfather lost a son. Grandfather only took a single day to neutralize all seventeen gu insects in him”

Fang Cun gaped in astonishment. “Then what happened?”

Qu Su’er replied, “Then Grandfather gathered all of Uncle’s refined gu insects, deep-fried them as liquor snacks. I even ate two myself. After that, Uncle left home. He said he was going to the Southern Borderlands to seek out the legendary immortal gu; he swore Grandfather simply had to lose a son to settle things…”

Fang Cun: “…Wow.”

After calming his tumultuous emotions for a moment, he asked gently, “What are the methods to neutralize gu insects in this world?”

The young Miss Qu explained, “Refining methods are endlessly varied; neutralizing methods are also endlessly diverse. Although Grandfather never taught me pill gu refining techniques, he told me many neutralizing methods. He said at the heart of all variations are these principles: To neutralize a gu, you must understand the gu breeder’s core intent. First, they seek control: activation and deactivation at will. If not, the gu goes rogue and becomes mere poison.” “Secondly, it speaks of cost…”

“Take this kind of gu insect you mentioned. To exert control over it, the breeder must nurture it with their own Innate Qi during refinement. Only then can they link its activation to a thought, commanding it at will. Once tricked into a victim, it harms. But refining this path has two problems. First: Severely depletes one’s own Innate Qi. If not nourished with sufficient Innate Qi, if the bond between the gu insect and the breeder’s mind-heart is weak, anyone with stronger Innate Qi than you can easily prevent you from awakening the gu in their body.” “Furthermore, if you damage your own vitality using vast amounts of Innate Qi to nourish the gu, if your target’s cultivation power surpasses yours, they can still suppress the gu, forcibly sever your mental link, and casually refine it away…”

“……”

Fang Cun listened, unable to hide his astonishment. “So… the power of a gu insect is tied to Innate Qi?”

Miss Qu nodded lightly. “Indeed. Gu insects grow by borrowing Innate Qi. The stronger the breeder’s Innate Qi, the higher the quality of the gu insect, and the harder it is for others to sever the mental link. The more Innate Qi the breeder feeds it, the stronger the gu insect becomes, and the harder it is to refine away. So many gu crafters seek disciples with exceptionally potent Innate Qi as inheritors…”

Fang Cun didn’t wait for her to finish. He stood up, a smile spreading across his face.

Qu Su’er, who had been gently explaining the way of gu refinement to Fang Cun, froze the moment she saw that smile.

Her face grew increasingly red, and her voice dropped to a faint murmur. “Young Master… what are you thinking?”

Fang Cun grinned. “I was thinking: what if, when refining the gu, I could feed it the strongest possible Innate Qi? And what if I could keep feeding it Innate Qi… feed it until it’s full? What kind of gu insect would emerge from that kind of refinement?”

Qu Su’er stared at him for a long moment. “That’s impossible…”

“Haha…” Fang Cun laughed, spreading his sleeves. He took the gu insect container back, looking earnestly at Miss Qu. “With dreams, nothing is impossible!”

…

The Heart-Piercing Insect Gu, forget Miss Qu’s opinion, even in Instructor Lingxiu’s notes, it only ranked seventh. Strictly speaking, it truly wasn’t considered a terribly formidable gu. One might even assess it like this: the Heart-Piercing Insect Gu could only be used to control people whose cultivation was weaker than one’s own, and this control was only possible for a short duration. The Spirit High grade assessment was really quite generous…

But Instructor Lingxiu had been right about one thing before.

His… no, Fang Cun’s own talent regarding the Classic of Spirits simply surpassed hers by far too much!