Under One Person: The Taoist Priest Descends the Mountain

Chapter 84 is full of hope.

Cheng Mo put the child down and said to Wang Zhenqiu, "Qiu'er, go and negotiate with the people from Na Du Tong. Tell them to prepare protective suits and an isolation area; these children must be taken good care of."

Wang Zhenqiu nodded, then turned and ran towards the village.

Cheng Mo turned to Xia He: "Try to find out where their original stronghold was from the survivors of the Medicine Immortal Society. I suspect there are facilities there to suppress Gu poison."

Xia He was puzzled: "Why don't we just ask them how to suppress the Gu poison?"

Cheng Mo shook his head: "They may not know the specific principles, and even if they did, they wouldn't tell you. The stronghold has already been abandoned by them, making it easier to break through."

Xia He thought for a moment and nodded: "Okay, I'll go find survivors."

She turned and walked back.

Cheng Mo took two large palm-leaf fans he had taken from the village and stood upwind, fanning the air in one direction.

The poison in the children's bodies was dispersed by the wind and stopped intertwining with each other. The breathing of the children with the worst complexion gradually became steady.

Wang Zhenqiu had just reached the village entrance when his phone rang.

He pulled out his phone and saw it was Hao Yi. He immediately answered, "Hey, Lao Hao, have you arrived yet?"

"We've arrived," Hao Yi said, sounding a little tired. "The person in charge on site is Liao Zhong. I've given him your number, and he'll call you back soon. You two can coordinate."

"Okay, tell him to hurry up, the situation here isn't easy."

Wang Zhenqiu hung up the phone.

A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again, this time from an unknown number.

Wang Zhenqiu answered the phone: "Hello, is this Liao Zhong?"

The voice on the other end was rough and hoarse: "You're Wang Zhenqiu? Where are you? What about the child the Medicine Immortal Society told you about?"

"The children are infected with a Gu poison, so we've taken them all out of the village." Wang Zhenqiu turned and looked around. "You should head west; I'll stay this way."

On the other end of the phone, Liao Zhong turned to the person next to him and said, "Old Meng, come this way."

Old Meng nodded and followed.

Wang Zhenqiu hung up the phone, took a few steps toward the corner at the western edge of the village, stood on a slightly higher rock, and saw two figures walking towards him in the distance. He raised his hand and waved: "Hey, over here."

His blond hair was so dazzling that Liao Zhong spotted him immediately.

As the two approached, Liao Zhong removed his protective helmet and looked Wang Zhenqiu up and down: "Wang Zhenqiu?"

Wang Zhenqiu: "Liao Zhong?"

The two nodded and shook hands.

Old Meng stood behind Liao Zhong, pushed up his glasses, and remained silent.

Liao Zhong looked around: "Where is everyone?"

Wang Zhenqiu pointed his thumb behind him: "The children are all over there. I guess there aren't many survivors from the Medicine Immortal Society."

"The members of the Medicine Immortal Society are dead, but those children need to be taken care of." Liao Zhong waved his hand. "What kind of Gu poison are you talking about?"

He turned to Lao Meng and said, "This is the expert. Take him to see the children first."

Wang Zhenqiu glanced at Lao Meng and nodded: "Let's go, we can talk as we walk."

Liao Zhong and Lao Meng followed.

Wang Zhenqiu kept walking: "The Medicine Immortal planted primordial Gu in these children, letting them stay together, absorb each other's Gu poison, and cultivate the strongest one."

"These children can't control themselves; the poison in their bodies keeps seeping out, and ordinary people can't withstand getting too close."

Liao Zhong's face instantly darkened, and he cursed, "What the hell! That damn Medicine Immortal Society! Is this something a human being would do?!"

A string of phrases centered around the word "操" came out of his mouth, with a rich variety of modal particles and diverse sentence structures, demonstrating his solid vocabulary.

Old Meng listened silently from the side, then suddenly spoke, his voice very soft: "Those children—are they so obedient?"

Wang Zhenqiu paused in his steps.

He turned around, and the carefree expression on his face was gone.

"It's not that I'm obedient," he said. "It's that I'm afraid of being beaten. I get beaten for every little movement, every cry, every disobedience. After being beaten hundreds or thousands of times, I'm too scared to move."

Old Meng didn't say anything.

His hand, which was pushing up his glasses, paused in mid-air before he lowered it after a moment: "They're a complete scumbag."

Liao Zhong glanced at him sideways.

The three of them rounded a small hill, and the open slope came into view.

Thirty-odd children stood scattered among them, the wind passing through them. No one cried, no one made a fuss, and no one even turned to look at them.

Cheng Mo stood at the side rear of the line, holding two large palm-leaf fans, and rhythmically fanning himself.

Liao Zhong squinted: "What's that guy doing?"

Wang Zhenqiu's eye twitched: "Increase air circulation."

Liao Zhong and Lao Meng went up.

Cheng Mochong and the others nodded, without stopping fanning themselves.

Liao Zhong walked over to a child.

It was a little girl, with some mud on her face and pale lips.

Liao Zhong pulled a lollipop from his pocket—an orange-flavored one—torn open the wrapper, squatted down, and tried to force what he thought was a friendly smile: "Little friend, uncle will treat you to some candy, okay?"

The child looked at him but didn't react.

Liao Zhong pushed the candy forward: "Look, it's orange flavored, and it's very sweet."

The child still didn't respond.

Liao Zhong tried several times, but the child still did not react at all.

Just as he was about to speak again, he suddenly felt a little dizzy, his vision blurred, and his face began to turn blue.

The child in front of me multiplied into two, then swayed and became one again.

Old Meng pressed down on his shoulder, placed his palm on his back, and channeled his breath into him, which quickly traveled through his meridians.

"Old Liao, get out of here right now," Old Meng said.

Liao Zhong was pushed out of that area, and the dizziness slowly subsided.

He stood next to Wang Zhenqiu, looking at the children on the slope, and squeezed out another sentence through gritted teeth: "These beasts."

Old Meng returned to the little girl, squatted down, placed his hand on her back, and closed his eyes, sensing something.

Wang Zhenqiu leaned closer, his eyes darting over Old Meng: "What kind of person is this uncle? How come he's not afraid of Gu poison at all?"

He himself felt dizzy and lightheaded after just a few minutes of being near the group of children, but this guy, on the other hand, put his hand directly on the children without batting an eye.

Liao Zhong lit a cigarette and took a deep drag: "Old Meng works with microorganisms, and Gu is also a living organism. Living organisms have to listen to him. Don't ask me the specifics, I can't explain it clearly either."

Wang Zhenqiu nodded thoughtfully, his gaze continuing to linger on Lao Meng.

Cheng Mo slowed his fanning motion by a beat, looked at Lao Meng, and his eyes were almost overflowing with anticipation.

In the original story, Chen Duo's Gu poison had completely merged with her body, and Lao Meng couldn't cure it.

But the children here haven't been infected with the Gu poison for as long, nor to such a deep degree.

Perhaps he can do it.

Old Meng was not at peace at this moment; his brows slowly furrowed.

He could clearly sense that the Gu worms in the little girl's body were not simply parasites—some of them had already embedded themselves in her organs and tissues, intertwined with blood vessels and nerves.

If these worms are forcibly removed, the organs that have been eroded will also be damaged.

Given the little girl's current physical condition, she simply cannot withstand it.

Old Meng withdrew his hand, remained silent for a few seconds, and then walked towards the next child.

The third.

the fourth.

the fifth.

He checked them one by one until he finished, and only then did his furrowed brow relax slightly.

Fortunately, not all children are in such serious condition.

In some children, the parasites remain on the surface of their bodies and in superficial tissues, without having deeply integrated into their bodies.