Chapter 311: The Same Illness

On the sickbed lay an elderly man on his last breath. His pale complexion made his already wrinkled face appear even more worn out. His intermittent breathing suggested that he might die at any moment.
Seeing this scene, Ye Feng frowned slightly. In fact, as someone who couldn’t even recognize most herbal medicines, Ye Feng had no real skill in healing. Yet, for some reason, his intuition told him that he could help the Black Witch clan overcome this crisis.
Although the old man on the bed was weak, Ye Feng had no doubt about his former strength. He could sense that this grand elder’s peak power was no less than that of Wu Ze standing beside him.
“The grand elder was the previous clan leader, my teacher, and the strongest among our Black Witch clan—except for those who ascended to the upper realm…” Wu Ze looked at Ye Feng with anticipation.
“I’ll take a look first!” Ye Feng said, reaching out to feel the old man’s pulse. The weak and irregular heartbeat made his frown deepen.
Just as Ye Feng was about to channel his inner energy into the old man’s body to investigate further, Wu Ze spoke up, “It’s useless. Our energy can’t enter his body; it will be rejected by his system.”
Ye Feng hesitated for a moment but decided to give it a try anyway.
His inner energy slowly seeped from his fingertips into the old man’s wrist. After a few moments, Wu Ze looked at Ye Feng in surprise—his energy hadn’t been rejected, which he hadn’t expected.
Ye Feng, who had prepared himself for his energy to be rejected, was also slightly surprised but soon reassured himself. As a Void Walker now, his energy was different from that of the heavens, and it might be why it wasn’t rejected.
His energy flowed along the old man’s meridians. To his surprise, the meridians were much thicker than he had imagined, filled with the powerful energy of semi-divine warriors, which startled him. Fortunately, this energy flowed peacefully without reacting to his own.
Ye Feng’s energy continued to move slowly along the old man’s meridians as he carefully explored his internal condition. Half a cup of tea passed, yet he found nothing abnormal. His furrowed brows worried Wu Ze, who didn’t dare ask anything at that moment. He could only suppress his anxiety and wait patiently for Ye Feng to finish his inspection.

Ye Feng’s energy finally completed a full cycle along the opponent’s meridians and entered the dantian. What he saw inside the old man’s dantian really shocked Ye Feng—a plump flesh worm as long as a palm was coiled there. After searching, Ye Feng failed to find the old man’s Yuan Ying. The plump flesh worm seemed to be fast asleep, showing no signs of movement.

After failing to find anything in the dantian, Ye Feng finally turned his attention to the flesh worm. “Could this be the Gu King inside him? Its appearance seems rather abnormal; it might be related to his current unconscious state.”

After hesitating for a moment, Ye Feng endured the discomfort and sent his energy toward the flesh worm…

When Ye Feng touched the flesh worm, it seemed to sense something. It struggled to open its small eyes, looked around, then painfully turned over to expose its belly, only to be unable to move anymore.

Ye Feng sighed inwardly. “This thing is quite smart; it knows I mean no harm. It’s exposing its belly—could the problem be inside?”

As he spoke, Ye Feng sent more energy in, and sharp cries, as if driving away an intruder, reached his ears. Almost at the same time, he noticed something unusual.

There seemed to be many tiny worms inside the flesh worm’s belly. When his true energy entered, those tiny worms emitted shrill noises in the direction of his energy.

Ye Feng could clearly see that these tiny worms had sharp fangs and were less than one ten-thousandth the size of the flesh worm. In the outside world, they would be impossible to detect with the naked eye. “Could these be the cause of the Gu King’s abnormality?”

For the time being, Ye Feng couldn’t think of a solution, so he slowly withdrew from the old man’s body.

Seeing Ye Feng release the old man’s wrist, Wu Ze looked at him anxiously. “How did it go?”

“Can the Gu King give birth to other things inside its body?” Ye Feng decided to ask first.

Wu Ze quickly shook his head. “Except for special species, under normal circumstances, the Gu King cannot reproduce.”

“You can’t detect what’s inside the Gu King’s body, right?” Ye Feng continued.

“We can detect it inside our own bodies. Why do you ask?” Wu Ze asked curiously. “But we already suspected there was a problem with the Gu King inside when the illness first appeared. However, after scanning, we found nothing unusual.”

“No abnormalities?” Ye Feng frowned slightly, thinking to himself, “Could those little insects hide themselves under the Wu Clan’s true energy?”
“Let me check your internal condition again.” Ye Feng placed his hand on Wu Ze’s wrist. After some investigation, he confirmed that his guess was correct.
“The parasites in your bodies have been infected…” Ye Feng’s words left Wu Ze utterly confused.
“Infected? But we couldn’t detect any reaction in the Gu King’s body at all!” Wu Ze still found it hard to believe, as he had already checked his own Gu King’s body.
“I was just guessing at first, but I just discovered that your condition is the same as that of the Elder. The Gu King’s body is inhabited by many tiny parasites—each less than one ten-thousandth the size of the Gu King, but in huge numbers. These parasites are affecting the Gu King’s health, which in turn has severely impacted your bodies. As for why you can’t detect them, I guess it’s because these parasites can evade the detection of your Wu Clan’s true energy, so you can’t spot any abnormalities.”
“That’s possible!” Wu Ze frowned upon hearing this. “Is there a way to cure it?”
“Give me some time. I need to consult some materials to see if there’s any information about this.” Ye Feng didn’t give a definite answer.
“Go to my seclusion room. It’s reserved for the clan leader, and no one will disturb you.” After saying that, Wu Ze called in two clan members, gave them instructions, and then led Ye Feng away.
Inside the seclusion room, Ye Feng slowly sat cross-legged. He wanted to figure out what was going on as soon as possible and didn’t have time to pay attention to the room’s layout or decorations. He slowly directed his mental energy into the book, *Compendium of Wu Clan Parasites*.
Ye Feng believed that the parasites living inside the Gu King might also be a special type of parasite. He wanted to check if there were any such things that could inhabit other parasites.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he thought of this, the book automatically flipped pages and stopped on one page.