warning: some of the following scenes might create a disturbing visual.
Jinshui found himself lying on the ground, far in the depths of Poison Valley, covered in rain, mist, and mud, unable to open his eyes, also unable to sense everything around him for a long time.
When he just felt the warm sunlight greet him, he found his legs and arms were all completely numb, he was unable to move them in the slightest. Then he heard the discordant laughter of an old man circling around him for a few moments, a pair of bare feet approached, and kicked him lightly a few times. After that, he heard the laughter again and a few mumbling sentences.
A kind of net was then spread by that old man, trapping Jinshui like a hunted animal. There were tiny thorns in that net that pierced through his clothes and scraped his skin mercilessly. Jinshui struggled and wanted to stand up, but the command from his central nervous system did not affect a single muscle in his body. He could only move one or two fingertips weakly, and his mouth could not even make a sound. After only a few minutes, he again lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes again, he was still wrapped in the net, the pain from being scratched by the thorns was all over his body. He never felt so weak his entire life, completely unable to move. The man who caught him dragged him inside the net, and he didn't know where he was now. Jinshui faintly heard the sound of the old man chattering, talking, and laughing to herself incoherently. It was only a few seconds, and then he didn't know what was going on anymore.
He was taken to a cave, possibly still in the Wansui Gu area, and thrown to a large mossy rock, still inside that thorny net. The smell of rotten meat was overpowering, making Jinshui feel very nauseous as he slowly tried to open his eyes. He still couldn't move a finger, and Jinshui just realized that several important acupuncture points in his body were blocked. He then tried to exert his own inner energy to release the blockings and free himself. But it was in vain as his current self was no different from a person who was totally paralyzed.
No, he thought. He just wanted to calm himself, but instead, he met an enemy and was caught. He peered out from inside the net and behind the rocks of the cave he saw the old man who had caught him running and jumping around in another part of the cave, the sound of his discordant laughter was only heard softly, stifled.
The old man appeared as a crazy person, his clothes were in tatters, his hair was messy, and his body and face were dirty, obviously not having been cleaned in years.
Then Jinshui saw several corpses in a corner of the cave, some of them had rotted away, and their conditions were horrible. Some of their flesh was torn, and some also lost limbs. Jinshui immediately looked away.
He almost lost consciousness again. The old man who caught him then took one of the newest corpses, sucking the blood from its neck like a wild animal. Jinshui was surprised to see the scene, his stomach felt even more sick.
Jinshui did not recognize the old man, nor could he guess his identity. Drinking the blood of a dead person was really disgusting. Jinshui never heard of such a corpse-sucking human. Even when he was the monstrous Yumen Mowang, or when he used a living man as a vessel for his poisoned blood, he couldn't compare to this old man.
The old man threw away his corpse victim, wiping the remaining blood at the corners of his lips while laughing merrily. Then he jumped up and down again like a child, did a few flips in the middle of the cavern, then started playing a series of strange moves.
Jinshui was no stranger to the moves that this madman played, some of them were similar to you ling shen shou, the ghostly palm of the demon head Ma Yongtao. While others were rough moves that looked tough and ruthless as well. The stones in the cave were scattered. The madman's energy level was not low, and his ability may not be under Ma Yongtao's.
Jinshui didn't watch any further. He tried to arrange his respiration system, looking for gaps to be able to recover his energy, to free himself from the net. He didn't want to die here and become one of the corpses piled up in a corner of the cave. For a while, he forgot everything Qingyi said to him and wanted to find the other descendants and Xu Qiao out there. He just wanted to live.
The time went by very slowly. Jinshui couldn't just concentrate. The stench in the cave, the voice of the madman, and the sharp thorns of the nets were all very disturbing. Until hours later, there was no change at all, the blood paths on his body could not be opened.
As the sunlight dimmed and the sky outside turned dark again, Jinshui instead felt his head getting heavier, and his vision blurry. He felt the cold attack, the scars of the thorns on the nets were very painful. He tried to maintain consciousness but it was a great suffering.
The sound of the madman training could still be heard, his strength not diminishing at all after he had jumped up and down and pounded all around for hours. When the sky outside had completely darkened, that madman only stopped making sounds. Jinshui could only see dimly with the help of the moonlight pouring in, the madman was sitting cross-legged on one of the cave stones, motionless, and it was unclear whether he was sleeping or practicing his inner energy. No fireplace was lit in that cave.
Jinshui felt that everything was calmer. He tried to focus again, regulate his breath, and then the flow of pure energy in his body. But until then he could only feel a bit of Moying's energy sparkling in his system, then fatigue took over before he could use that energy. He fell asleep in his place.
He woke up again when his nose smelled a very pungent fishy smell of blood, a smell that made him flinch in surprise when he saw the madman was right in front of him, forcing him to swallow the concentrated liquid in the bowl.
Jinshui was unbelievably fed up. Of course, he didn't want to drink human blood, especially from a half-decayed corpse. The madman spoke incoherent words while laughing, Jinshui realized that the madman only had half of his tongue left, his teeth were flat as if someone had crushed them. On his face there were many traces of deep scratches from sharp weapons, there were also black marks like burns. Underneath the madman's shabby clothes, there were even more scars. No wonder he always spoke incoherently and crazy like this, in the past must have received severe torture, Jinshui wondered who was so cruel to him.
Jinshui desperately refused the disgusting liquid. The madman became irritated, then threw the bowl in his hand onto the cave floor, slamming it down hard. Jinshui glanced at it, the bowl seemed to be made of skull bones, smaller than human skulls, maybe from some wild animal, he didn't want to think about it.
The madman went berserk, pulled Jinshui out from within his thorny net, then showered him with heavy kicks many times. Jinshui couldn't move his body, nor could he make a sound to scream, could only feel, completely helpless.
This situation continued for the next three days. The madman only once left the cave in search of new victims, besides that he did not stop practicing his strange movements, drinking the blood of corpses and torturing his prisoner.
Jinshui was unable to eat or drink anything for three days, he was weak and in a very poor state. The acupuncture points on his body can't be opened at all. He could only feel the pure energy inside his body occasionally, but every time he tried to use it he was always disturbed by the madman, making him unable to free himself. He didn't know what kind of energy the madman used to block his blood paths, and he wasn't sure he could neutralize it.
Once the madman forced him to eat half-rotten raw meat. Not knowing animal flesh or human flesh, Jinshui fiercely rejected it, making the madman rage again, throwing him against the hard rock of the cave. Jinshui only felt pain in his leg before he fell unconscious once again.
On the third day, the madman trained like he was possessed by the devil, worse than the previous days. Jinshui watched him weakly, watching him tear down the rocks on the ceiling of the cave, burying the corpses piled up in the corner. His scream resounded, making Jinshui's ears feel as if they were going to burst.
The madman dashed out of the cave screaming after. Jinshui closed his eyes slowly. At least things would be a little quieter for a while. He slowly tried to exert his inner energy. No rush, he told himself, then tried once more to get away, hoping the madman wouldn't come back too soon.
Jinshui had already memorized the entire contents of the wuqing xue manual before it was divided into eight parts and given to each descendant. Slowly he remembered that from Li Qian's fragment of the manual, there was a clue, a basic breathing technique to improve blood flow.
Gradually he then regulated his breathing based on the instructions, uniting all the pure energy in his body at one point, then spreading it slowly into the obstructed blood path. This process was very slow, Jinshui could only hope that nothing would go wrong or that everything would have to be started over again. It was quiet outside, and hours had passed.
Jinshui's fingers moved slowly but his spirit instantly grew. His efforts were not in vain after all. He kept concentrating, trying to penetrate more clogged blood paths in order to quickly escape from this place.
But some noises outside suddenly distracted him. Jinshui knew the madman was back, but he had no intention of stopping his efforts. If he had to wait until the madman leave again, chances were he won't be able to survive in this suffocating cave anymore, without eating and drinking, without clean air, injured and sick.
Both of his arms could move, but his legs were still completely paralyzed when the madman threw a human figure to his side. Jinshui was shocked, thinking that it was another corpse and the madman was going to eat it forcefully.
"Ah... ah..." the madman screamed angrily with incoherent words, his hand pointing at the figure who had just been thrown beside Jinshui.
The figure turned out to be a living person, not another corpse but already beaten hard. That person used to wear all white, his face was slender and his body was originally tall and muscular. But his all-white clothes were already drenched in blood mixed with dirt, his virtuous face was covered in slap marks and traces of blood, his body was already seriously injured, and his right arm was broken by a hard blow. Obviously, the madman was the one who beat up that figure.
Jinshui was shocked when he recognized the figure as the second member of Liangshan Liu Mo, Mojun Ma Yongtao.
"Die, if you want to kill me, just kill me, why bother bringing me here?" Ma Yongtao shouted loudly, causing Jinshui to flinch in surprise and immediately looked at him more intensely.
Ma Yongtao called the madman father. Jinshui was wondering if they were really father and son.
"If you don't kill me, then I will definitely go, will not stay here with you!"
"Huh...." the madman replied with an incoherent curse.
"I have arms and legs, of course, you can go wherever I want, there is no reason to join you for the rest of your life to become a madman who lives with rotten corpses!" Ma Yongtao stood up, clutching his broken right arm, trying to get out of the cave.
The madman, of course, blocked his step. Another slap landed on Ma Yongtao's cheek, so hard that Ma Yongtao fell to the ground again. One of his hands was broken, and he could not maintain balance.
"Liangshan Mojun, you are the last person I expect to see here," Jinshui whispered slowly to him, making him realize that there was still one more living human in that cave.
"Hua.. Hua Jinshui...."
The madman saw that his captive was able to move and talk, he showed his anger again and quickly charged towards Jinshui, about to give him another punch. Jinshui saw this attack and naturally did not expect another injury. He couldn't move his leg, he could only move his hands to give resistance.
Ma Yongtao saw that his father was busy dealing with Jinshui, he should be able to use this opportunity to escape, but he knew that the possibility was only two out of ten, so according to his calculations, it would be more profitable to cooperate with Jinshui first to cripple the madman.
Before Ma Yongtao had even done anything, the madman had already stretched one hand at him, grabbing his neck with perverted internal strength, causing him to freeze for a moment. His expression changed, his resistance was of little use. At a time like this, his only hope was Jinshui.
However, it seems that Jinshui's resistance will not last long either. He could only use two hands, unable to stand up, and his inner energy hadn't fully recovered yet. While that madman was very strong, a little carelessness could lead to a fatal injury and he might die right away. Killed by an old madman in the middle of a lonely mountain like this was never a choice for him. His hope was only Ma Yongtao.
"Hit the blood path on the center of his head, only then can you stop him," Ma Yongtao said with eye signals. "I'll keep him busy in a bit."
"Do you really want to kill your own father?" Jinshui didn't trust him just yet.
"He wouldn't die, just be in a bit of pain and lose consciousness. I am Ma Yongtao, even though I am called the devil head, I'm not mad enough to kill my own father."
Jinshui was still a little doubtful. After all, he was unable to act so cruelly to finish off the enemy with one single hit, he also felt very annoyed. During those few days in this suffocating cave, should his emotions be out of control, his hatred for this madman should also be great enough to give him the ability to kill.
"I can't stand up, can't reach his head," he said to Ma Yongtao again.
"I'll give you a hand."
Ma Yongtao waved his left arm desperately, pushing away one of his father's hands that were almost choking him to death. His right arm was paralyzed, and his left arm was also electrocuted and numb instantly. He didn't care about the pain, then lifted Jinshui on his back, a handful of sand was scattered towards the madman's head, making him no longer able to block Jinshui stabbed the deadliest blood path on his head.
"Aaa... a....." the madman looked like he was in pain, clutching his head as he rolled on the ground. Ma Yongtao paid no attention to him anymore, then took Jinshui running out of the cave.
"Mojun, he...." Jinshui turned his head.
"He won't die," replied Ma Yongtao.
--
Ma Yongtao and Jinshui were both seriously injured, externally and internally. They couldn't go very far. That night, they had to stay in one of the gaps in another part of the vast valley of Wansui Gu.
Jinshui's leg bones were fractured, and he obviously wouldn't be able to walk without proper treatment. His internal injuries were also incomparably light. He had just been able to release his acupuncture points when he had to fight with the madman, a fight that was only for self-defense. At that time, his energy had not yet recovered, and he could not fight his opponent properly and injured himself as a result.
Ma Yongtao's condition was equally poor. One of his arms was broken, and the other arm was numb from the direct energy clash earlier. Besides that he was also seriously injured, his strength was not enough to carry Jinshui very far. They had no better option but to hide in the crevices of this valley, recovering a bit of strength before heading for another safer place.
There was a small pond of clean water in the crack of the cave, Jinshui scooped it up with a large leaf, gave it to Ma Yongtao, and helped him drink it since the demon head was currently unable to use his hands properly.
"Thank you," Ma Yongtao said bitterly. "You know you don't have to help me. We are not friends."
"You know you can run, you don't have to stay with me here, but a Liangshan Mojun is not heartless after all," Jinshui forced to talk to him only to realize, his throat was very dry. He had been locked up in a cave full of corpses for days, no food or a single drop of water entered his mouth, and now he just felt incredibly thirsty. It didn't matter that Ma Yongtao looked at him without blinking, he then drank up the remaining water in the small pond.
"Yumen primary descendant Hua Jinshui fell into the hands of an old madman, and now he has his legs broken so he can't stand up," Ma Yongtao said to him, his tone even and sarcastic. "The distance from this place to Zeng Baifeng's residence is only an hour at most, there are all kinds of medicine there. They can also treat your broken leg easily. Maybe I can help you get there."
"No need," Jinshui wiped the corners of his lips, he felt much better after drinking the water.
"I know you don't want to meet your girl when your condition is like this," Ma Yongtao said again. "Xu Guniang is in Zeng Baifeng's place. You don't want her and the other Yumen descendants to see you now, then would you prefer to remain an invalid, hiding here forever?"
Jinshui didn't give him any answer. He checked his own legs. The left leg only had a slight fracture, but the right leg seemed to be worse. The crazy old man's punch was indeed fatal, and Jinshui almost couldn't feel both legs.
It was hard for Jinshui to admit the possibility of being disabled nor to admit that Ma Yongtao was right. He should go to see Zeng Baifeng immediately and ask him to reattach the broken bones. But the other Yumen descendants were still there, Xu Qiao was also there. Jinshui didn't want to tell his friend, and moreover, Xu Qiao, that his legs were broken by a madman when he was wandering into the deepest part of the valley.
"Looks like I have to help you," said Ma Yongtao again. "In the valley of longevity, there is no need to worry about a shortage of medicine. I will find materials that can be used to fix your cracked bones."
"You don't have to," said Jinshui, "I'll do it myself."
"Your leg is broken, what can you do without my help?" protested Ma Yongtao. "There is no need to say anything, nor is there a need to thank me. I Ma Yongtao already intend to help, I will definitely help to the end. But before I go to look for medicinal ingredients, it looks like you should help me first."
"Help you what?" asked Jinshui.
"My right arm was cracked by my father, just like your leg, I can only use my left hand," said Ma Yongtao anyway. "I cannot gather herbs using only my legs."
Jinshui tried to think for a while and decided to trust Ma Yongtao once. Without further ado, he then placed a palm on Ma Yongtao's shoulder, channeling a little inner energy to recover his numb left arm, as well as helping him treat some of the internal injuries.
A strong flow of pure energy entered Ma Yongtao's system. He had been partially paralyzed by his crazy father, but now with the help of Jinshui, he could move his arms again. He could channel the energy of Wu Furen, the fake Mengpo.
Ma Yongtao was a member of Liangshan Liu Mo and was an unbelievably ruthless person, but it seemed that he really kept his every word. After receiving Jinshui's help and recovering half of his condition, he could just leave, find an ordinary healer to restore his broken right arm, and came back to kill Jinshui, eliminating one of his enemies easily. But he really looked for some herbs and came back to help Jinshui reattach his fractured bones.
"If you don't want to go see Zeng Baifeng, you will have to endure the pain longer and may not recover quickly," Ma Yongtao reminded Jinshui again. "At worst, you'll become disabled and won't be able to walk normally forever."
"I won't," Jinshui replied shortly.
"If you really can't walk anymore, are you also not going to see that girl of yours forever?" asked Ma Yongtao.
"If I cannot walk anymore, I will not spare that madman." Jinshui tried to hold back his anger. The possibility of becoming a disabled person was indeed real, and he also had to face it. The feeling of not being willing to overwhelm him. Up to this moment, the matter of his parents was only a tiny sand. As for Xu Qiao, he didn't know anymore.
"That madman is my father, Ma Yaolun," said Ma Yongtao. His voice trembled slightly. "After all, he's not actually crazy. He still recognizes me as his son, and can still tell the difference between friend and foe. Today I helped you find herbs and treat your legs, maybe you won't think of it as a debt of gratitude. But I still ask you, don't take revenge on my father."
Jinshui looked at him. Earlier in the cave he also heard Ma Yongtao calling that madman his father, it turned out to be his real father.
"Your father was so cruel, your broken hand was also his work," he said, pointing at Ma Yongtao's hand. "You yourself asked me to hit the blood path on his head, I'm sure he won't die but could be completely paralyzed. Now you're asking me not to take revenge on him, you are really weird."
"He won't die or be completely paralyzed, his brain has been disturbed long enough and the blood path on the top of his head is the only way to stop him," said Ma Yongtao. "If I didn't have the heart to perform this method in the first place, there is no chance for me to take his title as Liangshan Mojun."