Sludge suction system

Snowflakes from the Kunlun Mountains pattered against the icy windows of the main hall, making a soft, rustling sound. Nine-year-old Sang Xuan was pressed down by his father, Sang Hong, by the Blood Jade Pool. Beneath his sheepskin coat, a piece of jade engraved with the character "Xuan" was pressed against his skin—it was a piece his mother had tucked into his collar before her death. The edges of the jade still bore dried bloodstains, its shape subtly echoing the lotus birthmark on the palm of Abbot Chen Mo.

"Look closely, this is the destiny of the Sang family men."

Sang Hong's bone knife sliced ​​open Sang Xuan's wrist, and nine drops of black blood fell onto the surface of the pool, miraculously coalescing into miniature dragon turtles at the hearts of the sixteen female corpses of the Sang family. The face of the Abbot was reflected in the pupils of each dragon turtle, who was now lying in a blood-jade coffin, golden worms wriggling beneath his newly replaced skin. Sang Xuan heard a muffled thud of chains breaking from the bottom of the pool. Suddenly, the sixteen female corpses opened their eyes, and the silver bells on their wrists rang in unison, their sound resonating with the flapping of the wings of the Rebirth Leeches, etching the first insect-shaped incantation into his mind.

“The abbot and the Sang family have made a twin curse,” the father said, placing the leech larvae into his wound. “Your blood is the catalyst for the worm curse, and the abbot’s soul is the nest of the worms. You will live and die together.”

The moment the larvae burrowed into his blood vessels, Sang Xuan saw a scene three hundred years in the future: he was standing behind the abbot, and the swarm of insects in his sleeves were burrowing into the gaps in the abbot's scales. The lotus birthmark on the abbot's palm and the insect-shaped incantation on his chest were resonating, forming a complete dragon-turtle totem.

When Sang Xuan was thirteen, her older sister Sang Li's coming-of-age ceremony for her sixteenth birthday was held on the night of the winter solstice.

In the bronze incense burner in the side hall, spirit deer blood was burning. Sang Hong used a golden hairpin to lift his sister's long hair, revealing a lotus birthmark about to bloom on the back of her neck. "A pure yin body needs pure yang blood." His father's bone knife sliced ​​across Sang Xuan's forearm, and his blood dripped onto his sister's birthmark, causing the lotus to instantly turn black, with tiny insect-shaped patterns appearing on the edges of the petals.

“This is to shield her from disaster.” Sang Hong’s tone was devoid of warmth. “The abbot needs the purest blood jade to undergo the bone-changing process, and your blood can wash away her fear.”

Sang Xuan stared at his sister's gradually jade-like skin and noticed that the "Yi Xuan" inscription on the silver bell on her wrist was bleeding. Swarms of insects flew out of the furnace and burrowed into her ear canal. Her expression changed from fear to ecstasy, and her pupils reflected her own image in the pool of blood jade—the reflection raised a bone knife and was cutting open her chest, while the new body of the Abbot stood behind the reflection, the lotus birthmark on his palm glowing with a greedy red light.

When the soul-cleansing ritual ended, the elder sister had completely turned into jade, and the birthmark on the back of her neck had transformed into a worm-shaped curse mark. Sang Hong pushed her into the blood jade coffin, the inside of which was engraved with worm-shaped curse marks that matched Sang Xuan's blood vessels. Each line dripped with spiritual liquid—a product secreted by the abbot's scales, which could permanently bind the jade corpse's soul to the swarm of worms.

On Sang Xuan's twentieth birthday, he was carried into the main hall by a swarm of insects.

A red carpet of leeches covered the ground, each insect raising its forelegs to reveal the three characters "Grand Elder" carved on its abdomen. Abbot Chen Mo sat on the blood jade coffin, golden swarms wriggling in the hideous bone-changing wound on his newly replaced body's chest. The skin around the wound had begun to turn jade-like, and the patterns on the scales were completely consistent with the direction of the swarms of leeches in Sang Xuan's blood vessels.

“The sons of the Sang family should take over the responsibilities from their fathers.”

The abbot pressed a jade tablet engraved with a dragon-turtle totem against his brow. The spiritual liquid seeping from the jade tablet mingled with his blood, weaving sixteen worm-shaped veins beneath his skin. Sang Xuan heard his father's skull emanate from within: "Use your blood to nourish the worms, and use the worms' blood to nourish the jade. The abbot's bone-changing ritual requires you."

Amidst the excruciating pain of the jade pendant embedded in his skin, Sang Xuan saw sixteen jade corpses being carried into the hall by a swarm of insects. Within the blood-stained jade fragments on their hearts were sealed remnants of the evil thoughts left behind by the abbot during his previous six bone transformations. When his blood dripped onto the fragments, they emitted a shrill cry like that of an infant, and the abbot's wounds began to heal, the newly grown scales covered with patterns identical to his blood vessels.

“Remember, your blood can mend the cracks in the Abbot’s soul.” Sang Hong’s voice was mixed with the chirping of insects. “Each time you undergo a bone replacement, you must offer one of your ribs and use the swarm of insects to refine it into a ‘soul bone nail’ to nail down the Abbot’s soul that is about to dissipate.”

Sang Xuan watched as the swarm of insects gnawed his ribs into nail-like shapes, the insect-shaped runes on his bones resonating with the abbot's scales. When the first soul bone nail pierced the abbot's heart, he heard himself and the abbot scream simultaneously, the two sounds echoing in the hall, weaving an unbreakable symbiotic web.

When Sang Xuan was three hundred years old, he could no longer remember how many times he had changed the abbot's bones.

Before each ritual, he would warm sixteen jade corpses with his own blood in a secret chamber. Swarms of insects would burrow into the blood jade fragments in the hearts of the jade corpses, mixing the blood of the Sang family woman with his spiritual liquid to create an amber-colored "bone-changing soup." When the soup was poured onto the abbot's old body, the scales would automatically peel off, revealing the birthmark on Sang Xuan's chest underneath.

"This bone transformation requires your left eye," the abbot's voice came from the jade corpse. "Use the swarm of insects to refine it into a 'soul eye,' so that I can see the mine from three hundred years ago."

Sang Xuan did not resist, letting the swarm of insects devour his left eye. In the midst of the excruciating pain, he saw the abbot's memories through his "soul eye": the moment Chen Mo touched the blood jade in the mine, Sang Hong was watching from the shadows, clutching half a fragment of the dragon totem in his hand, the incantation on the fragment being the same as the insect core in his heart.

When the bone-changing ceremony ended, the abbot's new body resembled Sang Xuan's youthful appearance, and the birthmark beneath the scales overlapped with the shape of the worm core on his chest. When the abbot raised his hand to touch his shoulder, tortoise shell patterns appeared on both of their skins at the same time, and the complete text of the rock carvings from the mine three hundred years ago emerged where the patterns intersected: "Twin births and twin deaths, one soul and two bodies, the immortal will surely be devoured by immortality."

Sang Xuan hid a piece of jade in the seventh soul bone nail, which was the only keepsake his mother left him.

During each bone-changing ritual, he would touch the shattered jade with his divine sense, and faint unspelling patterns would emerge within it. Over three hundred years, he used his own blood to cultivate cocoons around these patterns, deceiving both the abbot and the insect swarm. In one ritual, he even saw the patterns on the shattered jade resonate with Tian Xue'er's birthmark—that orphaned girl from the Yuan family, who had never been marked by the insect swarm, had become the last glimmer of hope for him.

"Elder, it's time for the bone replacement." The abbot's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Sang Xuan rolled up his sleeves, revealing countless wormholes on his forearm. The swarm of insects emerged from these holes, carrying a jade bowl filled with spiritual liquid towards the abbot. He watched as the abbot's old body gradually disintegrated, the scales of the new body absorbing his spiritual liquid, the insect-shaped patterns on the scales flapping in sync with the swarm of insects in his veins.

It turns out that the Grand Elder's three-hundred-year life was nothing more than a process of moving from one living vessel to another. When his blood was no longer blood, when his bones were no longer bones, all that remained was the instinct to replace the Abbot's bones, and a trace of human, unwilling dark light hidden deep within the Soul Bone Nail, not yet completely devoured.