Then this Thousand Insect Gu Jar of his must be fake!
"I remember there were three mutated gu insects left in the gu jar at the end, and those gu insects were very fierce. How did he kill those gu insects and survive till the end?"
"Um..." Xuan Yu hesitated when Xu Qing asked, then he replied evasively, "Didn't Xu Immortal initially say that the white worm would definitely be the last one alive?"
After thinking carefully, Xu Qing did recall such a thing.
However, back then he was about to face a thunder calamity, and when Xuan Yu asked whether the white worm could survive until the end, he naturally wouldn't say anything inauspicious.
Deep down, though, he never really believed that this lazy white worm, which didn't like to fight and survived by scavenging insect carcasses, could make it to the end.
Frowning tightly, staring at the white worm in front of him, which seemed to have some subtle connection with him, Xu Qing felt this was beyond reasoning!
For me, being so huge and equipped with armed colors, majestic and able to spit toxic mist, the king of poisonous gus that kills invisibly, and it turns out to be this lousy thing?
Xu Qing placed the fat white worm down and activated the Gu control technique, commanding it to use its strongest ability to defeat enemies.
But the next moment, he saw the big white worm raise the front half of its body, 'brandishing its claws' and issuing a fierce 'chirruping roar'.
With this peculiar little thing, Xu Qing felt he would be too embarrassed to even take it to Flower and Bird Street as a show-off bug.
After the roaring tired it out, seeing Xu Qing indifferent to it, the little white worm crawled onto Xuan Yu's neck, nestled in the cat fur, and started to doze off again.
Xu Qing always felt something was not right. Logically, the Gu King bred in the Thousand Insect Gu Jar should only be close to him, so why was it clinging to Xuan Yu?
Looking at the cat worm before him, Xu Qing was just about to say something when he saw Xuan Yu dash to the shop entrance, turning back to greet him, "I'm going to the back alley to catch some bugs to feed the worm, will be back soon."
Xuan Yu's "soon" might be a stick of incense, or several days, several months, even several years.
Xu Qing still remembered previously when Xuan Yu said it went on a short journey, the human it was raising had died.
In reality, Xuan Yu wandered for thirty years, and the human it mentioned 'raising' was an elderly lady over fifty.
In the following days, life at the funeral shop returned to normal.
Having managed the store for half a year on Xu Qing's behalf, never leaving, Xuan Yu this time went out for three whole days, and if it weren't for the red string on his wrist which could sense its location, Xu Qing would probably be searching for the cat all over the place.
That day, Xu Qing calculated the days and went early in the morning to Shuimen Bridge Villa to do some farming, planting some seeds.
Even having become the Hidden Corpse, Xu Qing had not forgotten his roots, continuing to do the hard manual labor of farming.
After finishing his farm chores, he learned some new opera at the pear garden and then donned a newly woven robe to stroll to Flower and Bird Street to jest with birds and sift through hidden treasures.
After activating his ear and tongue awareness, he could hear the sounds of birds, beasts, spirits, and gods more clearly, and even his tongue could curl to make various calls, imitating different bird whistles.
None of the bird sellers could help but praise him after hearing it—this mimicry skill was unmatched!
Even the vocal masters of the Capital City probably weren't any better.
However, when Xu Qing got to Master Feng's house not long after, the whole street's mynahs, parrots, and crows—anything capable of mimicking—started to chatter.
The parrot hanging at the entrance of Rongji Pawnshop on the west street blurted out in human speech: "The poem about honesty kept in Jin Sect Prefect Wang's mansion is fake, and the galloping horse sculpture at the Inspector's Office is fake too!"
The few mynahs sold in the narrow alley on the east street, which hadn't spoken before, also spoke up on their own: "In Eight Gates Alley, the treasure basin in Landlord Zhang's home is fake, a big fake! That treasure basin ceramic was fired in a rural kiln in Linzhou the year before last, and Lord Chu's palace maiden painting is a replica made this year, the real one is in Commandery Prince's Mansion..."
Even the crows flying in the sky joined in, cawing: "Fake! Fake! It's all fake!"
At this moment, Master Feng and a few guests were in the courtyard appreciating some antique paintings and calligraphy they had recently acquired.
Upon hearing the crows spinning and cawing "fake" in the sky, Master Feng's face turned green.
"Where did these dishonest birds come from, spouting all this nonsense!"