237: Chapter 237 Meat Chunks

The Great Priest gave Lin Ye a deep look and nodded.

"That is correct. Manager Lin has hit the nail on the head."

"The Immortal Flesh allowed everyone to survive. However, very soon, a poisonous weed called "Dissatisfaction" took root and sprouted in the heart of everyone in Baishui Village."

"At first, it was just a normally frail farmer."

"After eating a fingernail-sized piece of flesh, although he recovered his health, he discovered that a naturally robust hunter, after eating a piece of flesh of the exact same size, was actually able to tear apart a ferocious tiger with his bare hands."

"The farmer began to think: If I could take just one more bite, would I be stronger than that hunter?"

"This thought spread rapidly through the village like a plague."

"Being able to cure illnesses and save lives could no longer satisfy them. They wanted eternal youth, infinite strength, and to become omnipotent gods in these Ten Thousand Mountains!"

"Thus, on a moonless night, that farmer sneaked into the old chieftain's home."

"He had already done his research and knew that the millstone-sized piece of Immortal Flesh, specifically the last and largest piece remaining, was hidden by the old chieftain in the ice cellar beneath the cellar, serving as the foundation for the village's future."

"The farmer found that piece of flesh. But he did not expect that the old chieftain's son was also hiding in the cellar, secretly holding and gnawing on that piece of flesh."

"Thus, in order to eat one more bite of that miraculous flesh and blood, the farmer's eyes turned red."

"He used a hoe to smash the chieftain's son's head, and fresh blood splashed onto the jade-white Immortal Flesh. Even weirder things happened: that piece of flesh, which was originally lifeless, began to rapidly expand and grow after absorbing the fresh blood of a living person, and the bitten-off gap healed at a speed visible to the naked eye!"

"It could grow infinitely by sucking the vital energy and blood of living people!"

The Great Priest's voice became sharp.

"This secret was soon known to everyone in the entire village, and Baishui Village completely turned into an unawakenable hell."

"To get more Immortal Flesh, and to make that piece of flesh continuously regrow, the villagers tore off all their disguises."

"A son poisoned his aged father to death in order to monopolize it, and a mother personally held down the neighbor's baby in a water vat to drown it just to make her own child stronger, then used their blood to water that piece of flesh."

"Once the closest of couples each held firewood knives in the middle of the night, guarding against the other cutting off their head while they slept."

"Slaughter... endless slaughter! The fresh blood flowing on the bluestone slabs of Baishui Village was deep enough to submerge ankles."

"And that piece of Immortal Flesh, after absorbing the fresh blood and malice of everyone in the village, became extremely huge. Its color changed from pure mutton-fat white to a seductive scarlet, and the strange fragrance it emitted also turned into a rich corpse stench!"

Inside the entire stilt house hall, you could hear a pin drop.

Helena's face turned pale, and her hands were tightly twisted together.

In Western doctrines, this kind of depravity and mutual slaughter caused by desire was Satan the devil's favorite trick.

But in the Great Priest's story, there was no temptation from the devil; from beginning to end, it was a choice made by humans themselves.

Ayugu was even more frightened, her small face turning pale. She grew up in the Ten Thousand Mountains, but she had never heard of her ancestors having such a dark and bloody history.

Leng Yue held a teacup, her dark golden eyes without the slightest ripple.

She understood that the abyss of human hearts would always be more chilling than the coldest ancient tombs.

"And in the end?"

Lin Ye broke the silence.

"In the end..."

The Great Priest closed her eyes, her withered chest heaving violently.

"Baishui Village was reduced to only one survivor. It was that beggar, Agou, who had originally dug the Immortal Flesh out from the bottom of the river."

"Relying on the formidable physique brought by being the first to eat the Immortal Flesh, he killed everyone. Covered in blood, like a beast that had lost its reason, he crawled over that huge scarlet flesh and gnawed on it frantically."

"He wanted to eat everything; he wanted to become the only god."

"But Agou ate too much. That piece of flesh, which was gorged with resentment and fresh blood, expanded violently in his stomach."

"With a loud bang—"

"Agou's stomach exploded directly, and his internal organs shattered all over the ground."

"But crawling out from his exploded belly was not some ascending soul, but a dark golden flesh-worm with hundreds and thousands of slender tentacles."

The Great Priest opened her eyes, her gaze staring fixedly at the fire pit.

"That worm had no intelligence, only the purest malice that devoured everything."

"It was a monster nurtured, fermented, and finally hatched from the fresh blood, resentment, and endless desires of more than a hundred villagers within that eerie dead flesh."

"That was the first Gu that appeared in the history of our Miaojiang."

"We call it "Origin of All Desires"."

Hearing this absurd ending,

Frost Star wrinkled her cute nose in disdain and curled her lips:

"Ew... So the Gu worms in your Miaojiang are all turned from that stinky, rotten flesh and dead people's blood? That is so disgusting."

"Even if you gave me this thing for free, I couldn't bring myself to eat it!"

The little loli's thought process was always so unique.

Lin Ye suddenly burst out laughing.

"Auntie, this story is well made up. Although it sounds like a horrific myth, the reasoning is indeed spot-on."

Lin Ye turned to look at Helena and Ayugu, making a final summary.

"This is the most classic principle of 'leveraging and liquidation' in capital operations."

"Under conditions of limited resources, it gave a group of people with no bottom line and self-control infinite desire leverage. The final result was bound to be the bulls and bears slaughtering each other, resulting in a stampede liquidation."

"And that golden flesh-worm crawling out from the stomach was the ultimate dealer who swept away all the chips in this zero-sum game."

Lin Ye paused, his tone becoming somewhat profound.

"Gu has never been a disaster sent down by heaven, nor is it some venomous insect born of nature."

"Gu is the embodiment of the human heart. It is the product materialized under extreme environments by human's never-ending greed, jealousy, and malice."

Leng Yue gave her husband an admiring look and slightly nodded:

"What Husband says is extremely true. The most poisonous thing in the world has never been Red Crane Crest or Fatal Gu; the most poisonous thing is always the human heart."

"As long as the ravines of desire in human hearts remain unpacified, the Gu in this world will never end."

"Manager Lin's eyes are like torches." The Great Priest nodded in admiration.

"This first story is about 'greed'."

The Great Priest relit her pipe and took a puff.

"Next, this old woman will tell the second story. It happened several hundred years after the destruction of Baishui Village."

"This story concerns another equally fatal thing in the bones of us humans."

The Great Priest's gaze became dim in the leaping flames.