It began with smoke.
At first, it was only a thin gray line rising quietly into the afternoon sky beyond the fields, so faint that it could have easily been mistaken for ordinary cooking fire drifting from the farmhouse chimney. The wind carried it slowly across the farmland, unraveling it into the golden light of late afternoon.
Then came the smell. Burning wood.
Burning oil.
And beneath it, something far worse. The sharp scent of destruction. The moment Xing Yue noticed it, her eyes narrowed sharply.
Jiang Yunxian turned at almost the same time. What they saw next froze the air around them.
Flames.
Violent, ravenous flames.
They rose from the direction of the farmhouse with terrifying speed, devouring the old wooden structures as though they had been waiting hungrily beneath the earth itself. Fire spread across the roof in waves of molten orange and red, swallowing beams, walls, and hanging lanterns alike. Thick black smoke climbed into the heavens, twisting violently against the bright sky.
Within moments, nearly half the farmhouse had already been consumed.
The peaceful farm they had walked through only hours earlier transformed into chaos.
The wind only worsened it.
Each gust carried burning embers across the fields like scattered stars, setting dry corners of the farmland ablaze one after another. Chickens screamed and scattered wildly. Wooden fences cracked loudly beneath the heat. Somewhere nearby, frightened horses cried out in panic.
And in the midst of that inferno stood two figures.
They were dressed entirely in black cloaks, the fabric heavy and untouched by the flames surrounding them. Their hoods concealed their faces completely, leaving only darkness where features should have been. The fire reflected against their silhouettes strangely, bending around them as though unwilling to touch them.
For one brief second, they simply stood there.
Watching.
Then, before Jiang Yunxian or anyone else could react, the figures vanished.
Not fled. Not ran.Vanished. Like smoke scattered by the wind. One moment they were there. The next, there was nothing.
Only fire remained.
"It was them!" Rong Qi shouted sharply.
But there was no direction to pursue. No lingering presence to follow. Whatever technique had been used left behind neither spiritual trace nor sound.
It was infuriating. And helplessly out of reach.
Jiang Yunxian's expression darkened instantly. Without wasting another second, he rushed toward the farmhouse.
The heat struck him almost immediately as he approached. Flames roared hungrily against collapsing beams while smoke thickened the air until every breath tasted bitter. Sparks flew wildly around him, glowing briefly before dying against the dirt.
The old house.
The one he clearly remembered the old couple living in. That was where he ran.
But by the time he reached it, the entire structure was already consumed. The sight stopped him cold.
For a single horrifying moment, the world around him blurred.
The roaring fire before him twisted into another fire entirely. Another place.
Another time.
Suddenly he could see blurry figures moving within smoke and blood. Screams echoed faintly inside his mind like distant thunder. The unmistakable scent of death wrapped itself around him so vividly that his stomach twisted painfully.
Burning wood. Burning flesh. Blood soaking stone floors.
The images flashed violently through his mind without warning, fragmented and unstable. None of the faces were clear. None of the voices distinct. Yet the agony attached to them felt painfully real.
Jiang Yunxian staggered slightly.
A sharp wave of nausea hit him so suddenly that his breathing became uneven.
These strange memories—or whatever they were—had begun appearing more frequently lately. Brief flashes of scenes he did not understand. Emotions that did not belong to him yet somehow lived within him all the same.
His head throbbed painfully.
For a terrifying second, he could no longer tell whether the flames before him belonged to the present or to those broken visions clawing at his mind.
Were the old couple alive?
Dead? Trapped inside? He did not know.
But one thing remained clear through the confusion.
If they were alive, he would save them.
He forced himself forward.
Then something caught his eye.
Near the corner of the burning farmhouse, partially shielded from the collapsing beams, sat the old woman.
Still. Silent.
The old man rested against her lap.
At first glance, the scene looked strangely peaceful amidst the chaos.
The old man's eyes were closed. His expression had softened completely, free from pain or struggle, as though he had merely fallen asleep after an exhausting day of work. One of the old woman's trembling hands rested gently against his shoulder while the other hung lifelessly beside her.
But the stillness surrounding them felt wrong.
Deeply wrong.
The old woman was not crying. Not anymore.
Her face looked hollow, emptied beyond grief itself. Her gaze remained fixed upon nothingness while flames crackled around them, illuminating her pale features in flickering orange light.
Jiang Yunxian approached slowly.
The heat around them was suffocating now. Burning debris collapsed nearby with violent crashes, sending showers of sparks into the air.
Yet neither of the old figures moved.
Xing Yue quickly arrived behind him.
Jiang Yunxian crouched slightly, observing carefully.
To anyone else, it would have appeared like an ordinary tragedy. An old husband dead in his wife's arms while their home burned around them.
But something about it unsettled him immediately. It was too arranged. Too deliberate. Like a carefully prepared stage.
There was a pattern beneath the grief.
A signature hidden inside the tragedy itself.
Something orchestrated.
"Ma'am," Jiang Yunxian called carefully. "Are you alright?"
No response came. The old woman did not blink. Did not move. Did not even seem to hear him. Only the fire answered, roaring louder as another section of the farmhouse roof collapsed inward.
Xing Yue frowned and stepped forward.
Perhaps she believed the woman trapped beneath some illusion or curse. Perhaps she suspected poison, spiritual manipulation, or shock severe enough to freeze the senses.
She reached out toward the old woman.
But before her hand could touch her shoulder, Jiang Yunxian suddenly caught her wrist.
"Do not."
His voice was low. Sharp.
Xing Yue immediately looked at him.
Jiang Yunxian slowly shook his head.
There was something hidden here.
Something terribly wrong with this body.
For a brief moment, none of them spoke.
The fire crackled violently around them while smoke darkened the sky overhead.
Then suddenly—
The old woman spoke.
Her voice emerged quietly at first, barely audible beneath the flames.
"A song of ballads… agony of a lost soul…"
Her lips moved slowly, mechanically.
"To the ocean we shall meet again…"
The words repeated. Again. And again.
Like a prayer. Or perhaps a warning.
"A song of ballads… agony of a lost soul… to the ocean we shall meet again…"
The rhythm never changed. The tone never shifted. It sounded like a rhyme carved into memory so deeply that even death could not erase it.
A terrible chill crept down Xing Yue's spine.
Her expression hardened.
Jiang Yunxian felt his heartbeat quicken.
Then the old woman suddenly screamed.
The sound tore violently through the burning farmhouse.
It was not human. Not entirely. It sounded like agony forced beyond the limits of flesh itself.
Her body jerked unnaturally.
And then—
Something inside her burst. Blood spilled violently from beneath her robes as her abdomen twisted grotesquely inward. The flesh along her sides began tearing apart with wet cracking sounds that echoed horribly beneath the roar of the fire.
Xing Yue instinctively stepped backward.
Rong Qi cursed sharply.
The old woman convulsed again, her scream choking into something raw and inhuman as pieces of her inner organs began forcing themselves outward through ruptured flesh.
The sight was horrifying.
Blood soaked the old man's robes instantly.
Yet even while her body collapsed grotesquely upon itself, the woman continued whispering weakly through broken breaths.
"To the ocean… we shall… meet again…"
Then another violent spasm overtook her.
And the burning farmhouse around them suddenly felt far more terrifying than before.
___
The scene before them was enough to disgust even the bravest cultivator.
The burning farmhouse crackled violently around them while smoke swallowed the sky overhead, yet none of the fire compared to the horror unfolding at the corner of the ruined building. The smell alone was unbearable now. Blood mixed with smoke, charred wood, and the sickening scent of exposed flesh until the air itself felt poisonous to breathe.
Even Peng Yang could no longer maintain her composure. She stumbled several steps backward before doubling over violently.
The sound of her vomiting echoed harshly against the roaring flames.
Someone vomiting out their own intestines was already horrifying beyond reason.
But this—
This was worse. Far worse.
"What… what the hell is this?" she gasped between breaths, clutching her stomach tightly as though trying to force away the nausea threatening to tear through her again.
Her face had turned pale beneath the sunlight and smoke. The calm, composed woman who had earlier carried herself with the dignity of Cloud Peak Sect was nowhere to be seen now. Her hands trembled visibly.
No matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to erase this sight from her memory.
And before any of them could properly process what they were witnessing, the bodies moved again.
The old woman's corpse convulsed violently. So did the old man's.
Their limbs jerked unnaturally against the ground while wet cracking sounds emerged from within their bodies. Their flesh appeared to shrink inward before swelling again grotesquely beneath the skin, as though something alive was moving beneath them.
Then the bodies twisted toward one another.
The sight was deeply unnatural.
Their arms tangled. Their torsos pressed together violently as though pulled by invisible threads. It looked less like two corpses and more like rotting puppets being dragged together by some unseen force.
Then came the sound. A horrible tearing cry.
And suddenly, worms burst out.
Not one. Not two. An entire mass.
They spilled from ruptured flesh in sickening waves, writhing and twisting over one another like living bile. They poured from torn stomachs, broken ribs, mouths, and empty eye sockets. The movement alone was enough to make one's skin crawl violently.
The worms glistened wetly beneath the firelight.
They squirmed endlessly over the blood-soaked ground, knotting together into horrifying clusters before separating again.
Peng Yang vomited once more.
This time she nearly collapsed afterward.
"What the hell?!" she cried hoarsely, wiping at her mouth with trembling fingers. "What kind of monstrous thing is this?!"
Rong Qi, who still remained tucked against Jiang Yunxian's lapel, instinctively shrank farther inward. His usual sharpness vanished entirely beneath visible revulsion.
Even Xing Yue's face had gone pale. Pure horror filled her expression.
For once, the woman who rarely reacted emotionally looked genuinely shaken.
Jiang Yunxian himself appeared calmer than the others on the surface, his usual careless expression remaining stubbornly intact despite the nightmare unfolding before them. Yet closer observation betrayed him.
His brows had tightened rigidly.
And the fingers hanging loosely by his side trembled faintly.
Even he was affected.
The worms continued spilling outward from the bodies endlessly. But as Jiang Yunxian stared carefully, something caught his attention.
These worms were not ordinary parasites.
They were different. Larger than common flesh worms, yet still thin enough to resemble pale toothpicks soaked in blood. Their bodies curved strangely as they moved, bending into shapes that made his stomach tighten instinctively.
Then suddenly—
The bracelet.
Without warning, the bracelet hidden within Jiang Yunxian's sleeve pulled free violently.
The blue stone shimmered brightly before flying directly toward the old woman's wrist.
The bracelet she wore reacted instantly.
The two pieces connected together with a faint pulse of blue light.
The movement startled everyone briefly.
But Jiang Yunxian barely noticed.
Because at that exact moment, recognition struck him.
His eyes widened slightly. He knew these worms.
Or rather—
He had read about them before. His thoughts raced quickly through scattered memories until suddenly something surfaced clearly within his mind.
At Cloud Peak Sect. Serving his punishment for his misconduct, like it was on a normal midday.
A body brought before the elders years ago.
Back then, Jiang Yunxian had been serving punishment for yet another offense nobody even remembered properly anymore.
Naturally, rather than reflect upon his actions like a proper disciple, he had snuck away midway through the punishment.
That was simply who he was.
There had been no possibility of him becoming the obedient disciple the sect always wished for.
So he wandered.
And by pure accident, he overheard the elders speaking.
At the time, a corpse infected with some horrifying parasite had been brought into the sect. Even the elders themselves had hesitated to touch it directly.
He remembered the fear in their voices.
The disgust. The uncertainty. Nobody knew how to cure it.
The only thing repeatedly mentioned was that long ago, according to the ancient chronicles, only one person had ever successfully dealt with such a case.
Lu Shen, aka the Jade Monarch, aka the Sinful Saint.
The moment that name surfaced in Jiang Yunxian's thoughts, something almost nostalgic flickered through him despite the horror before his eyes.
Lu Shen. Was his idol.
Truthfully speaking, Jiang Yunxian had
admired him for years.
Not merely because of his strength, but because Lu Shen had lived exactly as he pleased despite the world condemning him endlessly for it. Revered as a saint by some and cursed as a sinner for being a drunkard despite the laws of heaven, Lu Shen walked through history unconcerned by either judgment.
Jiang Yunxian had always wanted that freedom. Though his carefree and nonchalant nature came naturally to him, there remained a small, stubborn part of him that deeply admired the Sinful Saint.
But this was not the time for admiration.
Because now he finally understood what stood before them.
The moment he first saw the old couple, something inside him had already screamed that something was wrong.
Perhaps instinct. Perhaps intuition. Perhaps something far stranger. But his suspicions had been correct from the very beginning.
These creatures were none other than Heart Worms.
A forbidden parasite feared even among cultivators.
Once introduced into a host, the worm slowly fed within the intestines while keeping the body alive. The victim would continue walking, speaking, eating, even farming as though perfectly normal.
But little by little, the body would grow colder. Deader.
The person would become something trapped between life and death.
A walking corpse.
And once the worms fully matured, the host's body would eventually rupture from within, willingly or unwillingly surrendering its intestines as nourishment for the creatures.
Only then would the parasite's life cycle end.
That was why it was called the Heart Worm.
Not because it lived inside the heart.
But because of its shape.
The creatures curved unnaturally while moving, forming shapes eerily similar to tiny crawling hearts.
Jiang Yunxian suddenly remembered Xing Yue's earlier words.
The old woman's body had felt cold.Now everything made sense. The coldness.
The exhaustion. The strange calmness.
They had already been dead long before the fire began.
Or close enough to death that the difference no longer mattered. His gaze darkened.
And then another realization struck him violently.
If Xing Yue had touched the old woman earlier—
If he had not stopped her—
The worms would have immediately transferred hosts.
A chill ran sharply through him despite the burning heat surrounding them.
Whoever orchestrated this…Whoever planted these Heart Worms…
That person was terrifyingly intelligent.
Not only had they hidden the infection perfectly, but they had also used fire afterward to erase evidence entirely.
Had they arrived even slightly later, the old couple would have simply appeared as victims of a tragic farmhouse fire.
Nothing more. Nothing suspicious.
No traces left behind.
The worms writhed endlessly over the ground while flames roared around the collapsing farmhouse, casting monstrous shadows across the fields.
And standing there amidst the smoke, blood, and fire, Jiang Yunxian understood one thing with absolute certainty. The death they had been investigating was far larger than any of them had imagined.