In the dim cave, the candlelight flickered weakly. Duan Rong crouched beside Pan Yong’s decapitated body, searching through his belongings.
He fished out a small purple porcelain bottle from the inner pocket of Pan Yong’s clothes.
He stared at the porcelain bottle in his hand, his eyes flickering slightly...
Inside this porcelain bottle was Aconite Frost.
In Duan Rong’s mind, the information about this poison resurfaced one by one.
This Aconite Frost was made by refining the two poisonous vines, Aconite and Stinging Kiss, as the main ingredients.
However, both Aconite and Stinging Kiss were mutated plants from the twisted underground space, no longer ordinary herbs of this world.
The Aconite Frost, refined from these two poisons, was so potent that even the most subtle and dense True Qi could not expel it from the body.
This poison was far more formidable than Shen Ping’s First Grade Red.
Shen Ping claimed his First Grade Red was unparalleled in the world, but now it seems he was only seeing the world from the bottom of a well.
Duan Rong’s hand trembled as he pocketed the delicate porcelain bottle.
Then, he pulled out Pan Yong’s Star Disc and Sect Cloud Scroll from his body.
Duan Rong glanced at Pan Yong’s Star Disc, seeing more than two hundred points on its face.
He kept Pan Yong’s Star Disc and Sect Cloud Scroll securely, and after another round of searching, he found a dark key in his inner pocket.
By the candlelight, Duan Rong examined the key.
This should be the key to the lower cabinet.
Duan Rong pocketed the key and then took some scattered miscellaneous items from Pan Yong, carefully placing them on an empty burlap sack.
After thoroughly searching Pan Yong’s body, Duan Rong turned his attention to the Soft Sword that had fallen to the ground when Pan Yong died, and the palm-sized cold iron box.
The iron box was entirely silver-gray, heavy and cold to the touch, with a matte finish on its surface, a mechanism protruding from the side, and a face full of tightly packed pinholes on the other side.
Looking at the densely packed pinholes, Duan Rong felt a tingling sensation on his scalp.
A glint of alertness crossed his eyes.
How many Flying Needles might this emit, and he was sure all of them were poisoned.
Duan Rong carefully collected the Hidden Weapons iron box, and then placed the Soft Sword on the burlap sack with the other miscellaneous items.
Only then did Duan Rong turn around and walk to the nearby hammock, where he grabbed Pan Yong’s severed head.
Blood speckled the forehead of the head, Pan Yong’s eyes were still open wide, yet they now appeared hollow and blank...
Duan Rong placed the head on the stone table with the copper mirror, then moved the candle lamp closer to him.
Then Duan Rong drew the Minghong Saber, holding Pan Yong’s head steady with one hand while gripping the tip of the saber with the other. Carefully, he used the saber’s edge to carve at Pan Yong’s skin along the hairline, from the forehead, to the ears, then to the back of the neck...
With a cold gaze, Duan Rong slowly and patiently peeled off Pan Yong’s entire face.
Throughout the process, he was extremely cautious, fearing any damage to the facial skin...
Once the face was completely removed, Duan Rong exhaled a long breath, wiping the fine sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
Under the dim candlelight, Pan Yong’s head was now a bloody, mangled visage.
Duan Rong looked at the bloody face, barely suppressing the urge to vomit.
He placed the peeled blood skin on the stone table.
At that moment, he glanced at the copper mirror beside him, seeing a similarly blurred bloody face reflected in it, resembling the opera character Guan Gong at first glance.
Duan Rong walked to the corner of the cave entrance and fetched a wooden basin that Pan Yong used for washing, then poured the clear water from the earthen pot on the stone table into the basin.
Duan Rong placed the basin of clear water on the stone table, taking the blood skin and soaking it in the water.
The blood dispersed in the water, and the face skin floated with the water’s ripples, appearing almost the same as a real face except for its vacant eyes.
As Duan Rong watched, he inexplicably felt a growing sense of horror.
Feeling a bit panicked, he stripped the clothes from Pan Yong’s headless corpse, broke the limbs, stuffed them into a large burlap sack, and then placed the bloody head inside the sack as well.
Duan Rong hoisted the sack, rolled up the burlap sack containing the miscellaneous items and Soft Sword, and clutched them in his hand, then left the cave.
Duan Rong first went to the pond in the dense forest, tossing the miscellaneous items and Soft Sword into the bottomless water.
Then he took the sack stained with blood and walked deeper into the dense forest.
He arrived at a stone wall entwined with vines, and carrying the blood-soaked sack, he delved inside.
Holding a torch and carrying the sack, Duan Rong reached the depths of the Black Blood Vine’s cave.
Duan Rong glanced at the nearby dark rock layer, its black boundary marking the Black Blood Vine’s feeding area.
Suddenly, Duan Rong forcefully shook the sack, hurling the corpse and the bloody head near the two Black Blood Vines.
After Chen Hu’s death, Duan Rong had been engrossed in his cultivation, neglecting to feed the Black Blood Vines for a few days.
The hungry Black Blood Vines, thick as fingers, writhed furiously...
The mucus-covered vines instantly wrapped around the corpse and the bloody head.
The Black Blood Vines’ secreted mucus was highly corrosive; the corpse’s skin quickly began to fester and suppurate, followed by the flesh beneath...
Waves of stench surged through the sealed cave...
Duan Rong turned pale, furrowing his brow tightly, feeling that if his mind wandered for even a moment, he would vomit immediately.