Sludge suction system

Sang Yu, who was in a cave in Kunlun Mountain, accidentally discovered murals in a jade mine cave. The murals contained the secrets of the Wusheng Temple. Suddenly, a strange fragrance entered Sang Yu's nose, and he unknowingly fell into a deep sleep.

In her dream, the Jade Pavilion in late spring was filled with the fragrance of agarwood. In her previous life, Sang Yu clutched the marriage certificate on her sleeve, her fingertips grinding wrinkles into the characters "Tan Ge". The mutton-fat jade bracelet on her wrist was put on by Sang Xuan himself this morning. The bracelet was engraved with tiny insect-shaped patterns, and every time she raised her hand, she felt something stirring under her skin.

“If Father refuses to teach me, I will kill myself by crashing into this jade pillar.” She stared at the blood jade ornament on Sang Xuan’s desk; its dark red color resembled the cinnabar mole at the corner of Tan Ge’s eye. Three days ago, he knelt outside the Jade Marrow Pavilion, saying that only by learning the art of nourishing blood jade could he be worthy of the daughter of the Sang family’s head.

Sang Xuan's hand, holding the pen, paused on the title page of "The Chronicle of Insect Gu," the tip of the pen blurring the three characters "virgin blood" into an ink blot. The insect-shaped curse pattern peeking out from his sleeve suddenly curled up, like a startled leech: "Does Yu'er know that nourishing blood jade requires the warming of living flesh and blood?"

"Just some folk remedies for staining ancient jade!" Sang Yu ripped off her jade bracelet and slammed it onto the table. Half a piece of jade fell out from the crack in the bracelet, its pattern similar to the jade pendant Sang Xuan always wore. She didn't see the pain in her father's eyes, only heard him sigh as he opened a hidden compartment and took out a sheepskin scroll bound with a girl's black hair—the first page of "The Blood Jade Secret Record," which depicted a naked woman with a bone knife stuck in her heart, surrounded by a swarm of golden insects with fluttering wings.

On their wedding night, the candles flickered in the wind. When Tan Ge lifted the veil, his fingertips traced the cinnabar birthmark on Sang Yu's neck, a gesture remarkably similar to how he usually caressed jade. A newly acquired mutton-fat jade bottle hung at his waist, the newly engraved character "Yu" still stained with drops of blood.

"Does Ayu know that top-grade blood jade needs to be nourished with the purest blood for 360 days?" His lips brushed against her earlobe, and the runes on his sleeve overlapped with the totem in the hidden compartment of Sang Xuan's study. Before Sang Yu could react, a sharp pain shot through the back of her neck—Tan Ge had used a bone knife inlaid with broken jade to cut her skin, and before the blood could fall, it was swallowed by the swarm of insects at the mouth of the bottle.

The stone walls of the secret chamber were inlaid with blood jade, each piece containing congealed blood flowers. Sang Yu was chained to the blood jade coffin in the center, watching as Tan Ge dripped her blood into the jade's seams. Golden swarms of insects crawled into the jade marrow along the blood trails, weaving patterns inside that matched her blood vessels.

“That old bastard Sang Xuan has been deceiving me for so long,” Tan Ge raised his bone knife again, and Sang Yu finally saw that the hilt was not engraved with auspicious patterns, but with densely packed “death” characters. “What virgin blood? It’s clearly the heart’s blood of the Sang family’s bloodline! Look at the insect shadow in this jade, doesn’t it look like the leech in your father’s study?”

Three hundred days later, Sang Yu's fingernails had faded to a bluish-gray. She watched as Tan Ge held the glowing blood jade with wild joy. Her reflection in the jade was emaciated, but the scar on her chest remained fresh—it was the spot where blood was drawn every day, just avoiding the heart, much like a meticulously designed sacrificial ritual.

"So...you knew all along that I was of the Sang family bloodline..." Her voice was mixed with the chirping of insects, and the black blood that gushed from her throat dripped onto the blood jade, causing the swarm of insects to shriek. Tan Ge suddenly covered his ears, and Sang Xuan's face appeared in the jade. He was using a bone knife to cut open his chest, revealing the insect core that was connected to the blood jade.

The moment the blood jade suddenly shattered, Sang Yu heard a loud crash coming from the direction of the Jade Marrow Pavilion. With her last bit of strength, she gripped Tan Ge's sleeve and saw the silver bell on his wrist—it was made from the wrist bells of the sixteen aunts of the Sang family, each bell core filled with their bone fragments.

"The curse of the Sang family... is not just about the Blood-Nourishing Jade..." Her blood seeped into Tan Ge's curse runes, triggering the restriction that Sang Xuan had hidden in his bloodline. The swarm of insects suddenly changed direction and burrowed into his ear canal. In his terrified pupils, he saw the hidden compartment of Sang Xuan's study—there lay the true "Treatise on Insect Gu," the first page of which read: "Those who nourish the Blood-Nourishing Jade must feed insects with their blood and use their souls as a guide, and will never be able to reincarnate."

"Host, wake up, wake up..." Xiao Zha shook Sang Yu desperately.

"How did I fall asleep? What just happened?" Sang Yu asked Xiao Zha, rubbing her throbbing head.

"Host, you were just looking at the murals about the Wusheng Temple in the cave when you were suddenly overcome by a strange fragrance and fell into a deep sleep. I just used the system to examine your dream and extracted Sang Yu's true memories, which allows me to deduce the truth of this world!" Xiao Zha said excitedly.

"Then how can we break the curse on this world?" Sang Yu asked curiously.

“Host, I have detected that the shattered jade at your fingertips is resonating.” The blue light from Xiao Zha danced into spots of light in Sang Yu’s palm, much like the greedy look in Tan Ge’s eyes when he played with the blood jade in his previous life. “This is the Wusheng Temple Master trying to locate us—they are afraid.”

Sang Yu leaned against the insect-shaped pillar of the Jade Marrow Pavilion, listening to the distant sound of flapping wings. Those sounds resonated strangely with the runes on the back of her neck, causing tiny tortoise-shell patterns to appear beneath her skin. "Get to the point." She gripped the bone knife tightly; the blade reflected a holographic projection of Xiao Zha in the moonlight—a suspended blue gear with golden insect silk wrapped around its edges.

"To break the curse, we need the coordinates of the soul apertures of three living dead, as well as your blood." The gear suddenly split into three light screens, reflecting the phantoms of Sang Xuan, the Abbot, and Qian Wanguan respectively. "Sang Xuan's worm core is in the third rib on his left chest, the Abbot's soul bone is hidden in the interlayer of the blood jade coffin, and as for Qian Wanguan..." The light screen froze on the abacus made of finger bones, "His soul aperture is sealed in the seventh bead, and the bead is engraved with a fragment of the character 'greed'."

Sang Yu's fingernails dug into her palm: "In my previous life, when Tan Ge used my blood to nourish the jade, Qian Wanguan would always come to visit. He touched my wound, and there was insect molting powder on his fingertips." The broken jade suddenly became hot, and fragments of Qian Wanguan's memory were reflected in her palm—that rainy night, he stuffed the blood-stained abacus beads into Tan Ge's hand, and swarms of insects seeping from the beads crawled into her wound.

“They used your blood as a ‘bait’,” Xiao Zha’s gears began to turn counterclockwise. “Now you need to turn the tables and use your blood as bait. Host, you must go to Wusheng Temple and make the abbot think you’ve fallen for their trick.”

"And then?" Sang Yu heard her own voice crack, sounding exactly like the tone Sang Xuan used when he decided to sacrifice Sang Li. The chirping of insects in the distance suddenly changed, and the words "Xuan Li" appeared on the back of her neck, the dark pattern her mother had carved on the broken jade before her death.

“Then I will use system energy to simulate the swarm frequency,” Xiao Zha’s projection suddenly became blurry, “to trick the Master into initiating the bone-changing ritual. Host, do you remember the blood jade coffin in the secret chamber of Tan Ge? When you lie in the coffin, the broken jade will trigger the uncurse-breaking patterns that Sang Xuan hid at the bottom of the coffin—those patterns require the blood of the Sang family bloodline to manifest.”

Sang Yu touched the broken jade beneath her collar, feeling the insect-shaped curse patterns carved on the edge. The conversation she had overheard in Sang Xuan's study three days ago suddenly became clear: "Tan'er, the patterns on the blood jade coffin will only appear when Yu'er comes of age..." It turned out that her father had already paved the way for her, carving the key to break the curse with his own blood and bones.

"And the third step?" She pulled off the silver bell from her waist, the soul-suppressing bell that Tan Ge had used to lock her in her previous life. At this moment, the bell's core was emitting a pale blue fluorescence. Suddenly, Xiao Zha's gear cut into the bell, and the faces of sixteen Sang family aunts appeared in the fluorescence. Their lips opened and closed in unison: Twins are not destined, shattered jade can sever the soul.

“When the swarm of insects from the Abbot burrows into your veins,” Xiao Zha’s voice suddenly crackled with static, “I will use totem fragments from the first five worlds to open your meridians. Host, your blood is not a vessel for the Sang family’s curse, but rather…” Gears suddenly exploded, and countless fireflies flew out from the blue light, each wing engraved with the words “Not of the Sang Clan,” “but the key to unlock the Dragon Turtle Totem.”

Sang Yu suddenly remembered the museum display case she had touched during her transmigration—the crack in the dragon-turtle totem jade pendant overlapped with her shattered jade. Earth fire roared beneath the distant rock layers, and the runes on the back of her neck began to peel away, revealing newly formed skin underneath. There, a pale blue birthmark stood, its shape strikingly similar to the free bird in Xiao Zha's projection.

“The final step,” Xiao Zha’s gears reassembled, and a complete dragon turtle totem appeared in the center, “When your blood soaks into the Blood Jade core, I will detonate the system energy. Host, this may put me into permanent hibernation, but…” Blue light suddenly condensed into a small hand, gently touching her fingertips, “This is the only thing I can do for you.”