"WAIT!!!"
Li Wei cried out from behind her, and this made Xiao Mei pause. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder with a sneer.
"What? Want to beg now, dear young master?"
Li Wei… No… Gu Fan didn't answer. He didn't have enough breaths to waste on words.
He looked up at Xiao Mei who was just a couple of feet away from him, and then at her exposed ankle just out in front of him, inviting him.
Gu Fan gritted his teeth. He summoned every ounce of adrenaline left in his dying body, and lunged.
It wasn't some fancy martial arts move that he learned in the Gu Clan.
It wasn't something the System taught him.
It wasn't even graceful.
It was desperate.
It was ugly.
It was likely the last attempt at survival of a dying man.
Gu Fan threw his broken torso across the filth, summoning all his strength.
His hands were too weak to grab her. So he opened his mouth like a viper attacking its prey, and sank his teeth in the flesh just over her ankle.
Xiao Mei was taken by surprise and before she could even understand what the cripple Seventh Young Master was trying to do, Gu Fan was already onto her, his teeth tearing through her flesh.
"Aahh!! Mad dog!" Xiao Mei shrieked.
She felt his teeth pierce her thin skin. He bit harder, grinding his teeth until he felt them hit bone.
[Contact Confirmed.]
[Planting the parasite.]
"Get off you fucking bastard!" Xiao Mei screamed in pain.
[Taste of Mortal Blood detected. Quality: Low. Refining...]
[Cultivation Potential: Trash]
[Vitality Injection: Critical Systems Repairing.]
Xiao Mei wasn't a cultivator, but she was a healthy servant who chopped wood and carried water every day. She was infinitely stronger than the current Gu Fan.
She panicked. She lifted her other leg and stomped down hard on Gu Fan's head.
Thud!
Thud!
"Let go! You crazy trash! Let go!"
Gu Fan's vision flashed white. His ear rang. But he didn't let go. He bit harder, his jaw locking up like a bear trap.
And Xiao Mei continued her assault as she kicked him again. And again. And again.
Her dirty shoe slammed into his shoulder, reopening a wound. She stomped on his fingers, crushing them into the dirt. She kicked him squarely in the face, splitting his lip and sending blood spraying across the floor.
Finally through the haze of agony, the blue text shone like a beacon of salvation.
[Parasite Planted Successfully.]
[Initiating Siphon...]
[Target is losing vitality due to blood loss and panic.]
[Siphoning 1 HP...]
[10x Multiplier Active.]
[Host gains 10 HP.]
A jolt of electricity shot through Gu Fan's jaw. It wasn't one of pain, but pure ecstasy.
It felt like drinking warm wine on a winter evening, while being wrapped in a soft blanket. It rushed down his throat, and to his stomach, finally flooding directly into his veins.
"Leave me, you bastard!"
"You dare bite me! I will chop your head off!" Xiao Mei kicked him one last time, a brutal stomp to his temple that finally dislodged his jaw.
Gu Fan rolled over the floor, coughing, his mouth smeared with her blood and his own.
Xiao Mei stumbled back, clutching her bleeding ankle.
Her face was pale, and she looked at her dying young master with terror.
Gu Fan lay on the floor without moving, with his eyes closed.
'Is he dead?' Xiao Mei took a step forward slowly, hoping the bastard young master would be dead.
But as she was barely a foot away from him, she heard something that made her blood freeze.
"Heh..."
Gu Fan who was lying on his back in the mud suddenly moved. His face was a mess. His nose was broken, his lip was split, and his left eye was swollen shut.
And he suddenly started laughing.
"Hehehe... Hahahaha!"
Cough! Cough!!
"Hahaha!"
Gu Fan lay there with his limbs sprawled, staring up at the rotting ceiling while blood bubbled past his lips. But his maniacal laughter echoed through the shed, scaring the shit out of Xiao Mei.
"You..." Xiao Mei took a step back, her hand trembling as she pointed at him, "You are possessed!"
Gu Fan ignored her. He was too busy feeling the magic.
[HP Siphon Continuing...]
[Target Vitality detected.]
[Converting to Healing Energy.]
And with every breath he took, the warmth through his throat spreading through his body only intensified.
Inside his chest, where the shattered ribs were pressing dangerously close to his lungs, a golden energy swirled around, enveloping his body.
Crack. Snap.
The sounds of bones breaking and joining inside his body echoed in the small shed.
Gu Fan arched his back, gasping for every bit of air.
It hurt… God, it hurt so bad.
But it was the pain that would keep him alive.
His body was reconstructing. He could feel the bone fragments knitting together. He could feel his torn muscle fibres stitching themselves back into place. The internal bleeding in his stomach had started to stop.
The bruise on his face started to fade slowly from purple to yellow and then to normal skin tone in a matter of a few breaths. The swelling in his eye vanished.
"Impossible..." Xiao Mei whispered, as she staggered backward, starting to feel weak in her knees. She felt the energy drain from her body, "You… You… Evil Cultivator! You are an Evil Cultivator!"
She watched, horrified, as the cripple she had just beaten to a pulp sat up.
He didn't seem to struggle as he sat up with ease. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at it.
"Only a trash mortal," he murmured, his voice was no longer wheezing, "And yet, I am already back from the dead."
He looked at her.
His eyes turned the colour of his pupil as his sclera turned ink black. Xiao Mei saw no fear in them. There was no hesitation.
In fact, there was some kind of hunger that made Xiao Mei's hair stand up.
"You... what are you?" she stammered, clutching her ankle.
The bite mark was throbbing with unbearable pain, and she felt strangely weak, as if she had just run ten miles.
Gu Fan tilted his head, a cruel smile stretching his blood-stained lips.
"Sorry girl! But I am the author of your misfortune," Gu Fan whispered.
Xiao Mei didn't understand what her Bastard young master meant, but she felt the danger.
Without wasting a breath more on understanding what was happening with this cripple Gu Fan, she turned on her heel, and scrambled out the door, tripping over her own feet in her haste to escape the monster in the shed.
Gu Fan didn't chase her. His body might be healing, but his legs were still wobbly. He couldn't run behind her even if he wanted to.
But there was no need as well. The parasite was planted inside her. Even as she ran, he could feel a faint, golden thread connecting him to her. Every time her heart beat in fear, every time she gasped for breath, he felt a trickle of energy flowing into him.
He remained sitting in the dirt, the adrenaline fading, leaving him with the cold clarity of the System.
He looked at his fingers as he flexed them. The fingers that had been stomped on and broken were straight again.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs completely without a hint of pain.
"I healed a shattered ribcage just by biting a mortal servant." Gu Fan could not help but feel amused.
"10x Healing..."
He laughed again, softly this time. He looked toward sthe open door, towards the direction of the main compound of the Gu Clan where the 'geniuses' and 'jade beauties' lived.
Where Gu Chen, the Divine Poison Sovereign, was currently cultivating.
Gu Fan's smile widened until it hurt.
"If a trash servant can give me this..."
"Imagine what I will get when I sink my teeth into the Jade Saintess!"
He licked the remaining blood from his lip, savouring the metallic tang on his tongue.
"Now I want to taste her…"