Chapter 160: Wanted

Zhang Zhengming spent almost every day studying the two medicinal pills with Yuan Xinzhu, consulting ancient texts. In his words, the more they studied these two pills, the more extraordinary they realized they were, and perhaps they might actually be useful. Hearing this, my mood improved considerably, and at least I was no longer filled with disappointment.

During my usual free time, I practiced martial arts with Zhang Zifeng and other young people, and occasionally accompanied them on mountain patrols and hunting trips, leading a rather carefree life.

One day, my phone suddenly rang. It was a call from Guo Fan. I had previously bought phones for both of them and knew their numbers, so I answered. On the other end of the line, Guo Fan sounded extremely nervous and told me some very bad news.

"Boss, you've been wanted by the police!"

I was shocked upon hearing this and hurriedly asked him what was going on. It turned out that Guo Fan and Liu Dong had been wandering around aimlessly these past few days and accidentally discovered that my name had actually appeared on a wanted notice. The notice was posted on a bulletin board in the county market, complete with an identification photo of me. Only after looking at it very carefully did Guo Fan confirm it was me.

How could this be? Why would I be wanted? Next, Guo Fan told me that the whole matter seemed too bizarre, so he began making inquiries. Fortunately, the county branch and the local police stations were usually quite peaceful and their vigilance wasn't very high, so Guo Fan actually managed to find out some details.

As it turned out, the charges against me were intentional homicide and assaulting a police officer, with the crime scene located in Wuming County. According to an informant's tip, my whereabouts were reported in the province where we currently were, and consequently, I had been placed on the wanted list by Guizhou Province.

Intentional homicide? Assaulting a police officer? A wanted notice? I had become a criminal suspect?

This series of news caught me off guard. Although I didn't care much about such things, I was still extremely curious as to how this could possibly be happening. Everything had come far too suddenly.

Guo Fan's tone on the phone was very hurried, but he also mentioned that the wanted notice only contained my name and no one else's, telling me not to worry about them and just to protect myself well. Fortunately, I was currently up on Dalong Mountain; otherwise, this really would have been quite a hassle.

By evening, Li Ling called me. She was still unaware of my current situation and simply told me that her research had made significant progress. Over the phone, she said to me:

"I've found a method for the kind of Gu poison you have. It should be able to effectively neutralize that toxin, or at the very least, suppress it."

This news came as a pleasant surprise. Following that, Li Ling explained the details to me. It turned out that during this period, Li Ling had been conducting research at a base belonging to the Southern Gate. According to her, this base was Shen Mingyu's private property. Over recent times, she and a few professional personnel, including Shen Cong, had been studying that ancient corpse as well as the valuable items recovered from the Southern Kingdom tomb. Even the ancient scroll had been unrolled under professional conditions, and its contents had been roughly translated.

In this field, Li Ling was an absolute authority. She told me that from superficial observation, the ancient corpse indeed appeared to have a bone age of only around ten years old. However, under professional precision instruments, it was discovered that the corpse's true age before death was actually close to two hundred years. This was an absolute miracle.

Combined with the contents of the ancient scroll, which essentially served as a lifelong record of the tomb owner and seemed to have been written personally by the tomb owner, Li Ling arrived at a conclusion through multi-faceted research.

During life, the tomb owner had continuously practiced a dark art, using their own body as a medium and internal organs as vessels to cultivate Gu within themselves. Naturally, the prime source of this Gu was the tomb owner's own body. Upon reaching a certain age, the entire body and bones underwent a miraculous rejuvenation. Although this phenomenon was far too magical and difficult to explain even with science, it seemed to have genuinely occurred.

From the precision instruments, Li Ling collected gene samples and extracted a special substance from the DNA. At first, Li Ling thought this was a residue of the Gu poison, but she eventually discovered that it was actually a plant cell molecule.

Following that, the research by Li Ling and her team accelerated even further. They arrived at another deduction: if Gu poisons are toxins, how did the tomb owner detoxify them? They suspected that during life, the tomb owner must have externally applied a certain medicine, the main components of which remained resident within the tomb owner's body. The cell molecules found in the bones were very likely this substance, and this substance should be a type of plant.

The Southern Gate had a long-standing history and vast resources. Once this machinery was set in motion, its efficiency was undeniably high. Very soon, from its structural components to its ecological system, the plant was rapidly traced and finally identified as a plant called Dragon-Snake Grass.

This plant was extremely rare, but not entirely undocumented, and there were even some specimens available. Although very rare, the Southern Gate utilized its massive resource network to track it down.

Dragon-Snake Grass features a slender whole plant with numerous branches, smooth and hairless, and grayish-green in color. Its leaves are opposite, sessile, linear, entire, with small teeth on the upper part; it has two small stipules with minute teeth at the apex. The flowers are tiny, 1-2 clustered in the leaf axils, sessile or shortly stalked, with compressed globose capsules bearing a longitudinal groove on each side and four calyx teeth at the apex.

This was the information Li Ling gave me. She also told me that in traditional Chinese medicine, this Dragon-Snake Grass belonged to poisonous herbal plants, and current modern medicine had not yet studied it in detail. Moreover, it currently held little medical value, so the recorded useful information was very scarce. Since it had no utility, naturally no one paid it much attention; it was only because the shape of this Dragon-Snake Grass was extremely peculiar—even remarkably attractive—that these few rare records existed.

There was only one place of origin for this Dragon-Snake Grass: the region in Guizhou close to Yunnan, where miasma hung in the air year-round, swamps were everywhere, and snakes were extremely abundant. Locals referred to it as the Snake Swamp. This Dragon-Snake Grass grew exclusively near the swamps, usually inhabited by poisonous snakes.

It had been accidentally brought out once in the past, which was how this record came to be. Li Ling told me that she was also entirely unfamiliar with this plant and knew very little about it, but the tomb owner must have used this plant during life, and it was highly likely to be the substance that suppressed the Gu poison.

The ancient Guli Kingdom practiced dark arts. Although termed sorcery, whether it was Gu cultivation or so-called longevity, many aspects of those techniques truly defied scientific explanation. Whether this Dragon-Snake Grass could suppress or even neutralize the Gu poison in my body, Li Ling could not guarantee, but she was indeed preparing to gather this substance for further research.