Chapter 230: Ambushed on a Country Road
Yu Guang didn’t lead them into the village but glanced at its peaceful surroundings before turning to the group. “Ming Yu, you’ll stay here with Mu Yi to guard Du Village. Wu Jin, Youngest, and I will continue ahead.”
Ming Yu had no idea that, according to the original timeline, Du Village would be destroyed in August. He only knew that this mission was about tracking a highly dangerous demon.
Yu Guang had mentioned that the demon was expected to arrive at Du Village within a certain timeframe. To prepare for that, he left Ming Yu and Mu Yi to guard the village, likely as a precaution. If the demon truly appeared, they could notify him in time.
Steady by nature, Ming Yu accepted the arrangement without question. He watched Yu Guang, Wu Jin, and Yu Yin disappear into the distance before turning to lead the hesitant Mu Yi toward the village.
“Why aren’t Big Brother and the others staying here to guard Du Village with us?” Mu Yi asked.
Ming Yu, using a familiar response, said, “Big Brother must have his reasons for arranging things this way.”
As villagers approached to greet them, Ming Yu stepped forward to speak with them. Mu Yi trailed behind silently, thoughts churning.
Could it be that Big Brother plans to hunt down the Locust God before it even reaches Du Village?
Yet, Mu Yi couldn’t shake his doubts. The origin of the Locust God remains a mystery, even in my previous life.
The only certainty was the date of the Locust God’s attack on Du Village. Could Yu Guang really track it down before then?
Is searching aimlessly better than staying here to guard and wait?
While lost in thoughts, someone suddenly emerged from a vegetable field by the roadside.
A chubby young boy was carrying a vegetable basket filled with fresh produce. His hands and feet were smeared with mud.
When Mu Yi saw him, he froze for a moment, then smiled nostalgically.
It was Du Renchuan. It had been a long time since he’d seen the boy looking this chubby.
The villager talking to Ming Yu and the others noticed Du Renchuan in the field and called out:
“Achuan, these two guests are from Zhuzhou. They’re from the Exorcism Bureau. Perfect timing—take them home to see your grandfather.”
Du Renchuan’s grandfather was the village chief of Du Village, responsible for handling all matters in the village, including hosting guests.
The people in this village seemed to lack any sense of caution. Du Renchuan was no exception; he foolishly agreed without hesitation and cheerfully began leading the two strangers.
“Follow me. My house is this way.”
The houses in Du Village were all solidly built and spacious, made of blue bricks with tiled roofs. Each had a square courtyard with a small gate at the front.
Carrying his basket of vegetables, Du Renchuan knocked the mud off his shoes at the entrance. As he walked inside, he called out, “Mom! Grandpa! We’ve got guests!”
Upon entering, there was a large central hall, with a statue of the deity Chihuo Celestial Lord hanging prominently.
Ming Yu’s sect honored Chihuo Celestial Lord as their ancestral master. Upon seeing the statue, he immediately stepped forward to offer an incense stick.
The seventy-something Patriarch Du emerged from the back hall and, upon seeing this scene, greeted them warmly, inviting the two to sit and talk.
Ming Yu didn’t mention anything about demons or spirits. He only explained that he was traveling with his student from Zhuzhou to visit his sister, who was married in Chazhou City.
Passing through the area, he said they came to visit Du Village because of its historical connection to Chihuo Celestial Lord.
When they heard that the guests were cultivators from the Exorcism Bureau in Zhuzhou, both the elderly patriarch and a woman who rushed over from the kitchen were astonished.
“Zhuzhou? That’s so far away. It must have been a hard journey. Why not stay with us for a few more days and share some stories about the outside world?”
The old man warmly invited them.
In this world, most ordinary people spent their entire lives without ever leaving their villages or towns.
Traveling was fraught with dangers and difficulties. Encounters with bandits or evil spirits could easily cost someone their life, and most people had no reason to leave home.
The distances between cities were vast, often with checkpoints along the way. Without the right credentials or money, passing through these checkpoints was nearly impossible.
As a result, seeing someone from another city was a rarity.
Though Du Village was somewhat more open compared to other secluded villages, it was still uncommon for them to receive guests from another city. In fact, an entire year might go by without meeting even two such travelers.
When word spread that visitors from another city had arrived, many villagers came to Du Renchuan’s home after dinner just to see for themselves.
Almost everyone in Du Village shared the surname Du and were related in some way. They called each other uncles, brothers, or cousins, and soon dozens of people gathered in the central hall, filling it to the brim.
A few years earlier, something major had happened with the Exorcism Bureau in Zhuzhou, but no one in Chazhou had heard about it. When Ming Yu talked about the changes in the bureau, everyone was stunned.
“The Divine Academy in your city is truly impressive, producing such outstanding cultivators, unlike ours,” someone remarked with a sigh.
The conditions differed greatly between cities. Chazhou also had a Divine Academy, but it was almost nonexistent in terms of influence and authority.
The instructors at the top were unreliable, so it was impossible to train competent students.
The few skilled cultivators in Chazhou came from powerful families entrenched in the city, who nurtured them exclusively for their own benefit.
As for the Exorcism Bureau in Chazhou, it was little more than a name, existing in form but not in function.
Ming Yu was surrounded by the crowd, answering their endless questions.
Mu Yi, being younger, managed to slip out from the throng and found Du Renchuan by the door. Quietly, he sat down next to him.
“Your name is Du Renchuan, right? I’m Mu Yi.”
In Mu Yi’s memory, Du Renchuan had indeed been chubby at first. However, after experiencing the devastation of his family, he had quickly lost weight and never gained it back.
Seeing him like this now brought back a sense of nostalgia.
Mu Yi pulled a small pouch out of his pocket. “I brought some crispy sugar candies from Zhuzhou. Try them.”
Du Renchuan loved sweets, a fact well-known among their group of friends. He especially liked this type of crispy sugar candy and often stashed some in his cupboard.
The group used to enjoy raiding his stash whenever they had the chance.
“This is really delicious! Thank you!” Du Renchuan mumbled through a mouthful, thinking this unfamiliar boy was quite nice.
Mu Yi looked at his old friend’s carefree round face and naturally smiling eyes. He couldn’t help but smile too, though he felt a faint ache in his chest.
The later, thinner Du Renchuan had always carried a look of sorrow.
When he died, it had been painful and filled with regret, yet he had still pretended to be lighthearted, joking with Mu Yi that if he had known he was going to die, he would have eaten all the sugar candies hidden in his cupboard.
“Eat more,” Mu Yi said, shoving the entire pouch of candies into his hands.
“Ah, better not. If I eat too much, I’ll get even fatter,” Du Renchuan said, pinching his own rounded belly with a sigh of mock distress.
At this age, a boy’s greatest worry was simply gaining a little more weight.
“Your teacher said that there are very few evil spirits in Zhuzhou now. Is that true?”
Having grown more familiar with Mu Yi, Du Renchuan asked curiously.
“Yes. During the few months I was in Zhuzhou, I only heard of two evil spirits appearing,” Mu Yi replied.
“Wow! That’s amazing! How did you manage to do that?” Du Renchuan asked. “Every year, the young people in our village form small teams to go out and eliminate evil spirits. They go every year, but the evil spirits never seem to decrease.”
“The evil spirits are like wild grass in the fields. You pull one group out, and another immediately grows in its place.”
Mu Yi hadn’t understood this before, but after staying in Zhuzhou for the past six months, he slowly began to understand.
“It’s because you’re only killing the evil spirits but not addressing the people who create them. That’s why the evil spirits never go away.”
Mu Yi had never seen it firsthand, but he had heard stories about their big brother single-handedly taking down the Exorcism Bureau and several prominent families in Zhuzhou years ago.
No one could understand the shock that Mu Yi felt in his heart.
In his past life, when he dealt with the Exorcism Bureau and the Zhen family’s powerhouses, he often felt as though he and his companions were stuck in a quagmire.
Then, this “quagmire” was directly wiped away by their big brother.
Big Brother’s actions had seemed reckless and unconventional, but in reality, he had a clear plan and a balance of boldness and subtlety.
He used ruthless methods to eliminate the few powerful families that controlled most of Zhuzhou’s resources, exploiting and oppressing the common people to the extreme.
At the same time, he had struck fear into the other families that behaved more moderately.
The old Exorcism Bureau, which had become a festering “evil sore,” was decisively abandoned by him and restructured with sweeping reforms.
But when it came to dealing with evil spirits, his approach was more subtle, like a slow stream—day by day, month by month, gradually changing things, tirelessly teaching and guiding.
He didn’t just eliminate evil spirits; he also reformed the wicked, found livelihoods for the poor and struggling, and did his best to ensure everyone had a way to survive.
As despair and suffering lessened, the number of evil spirits also began to decline.
Was it a lack of cultivators in other places that caused the unending spread of evil spirits? No, it was the absence of leaders like their big brother.
Beyond his exceptional abilities, he possessed the charisma to lead everyone, with a heart of integrity and kindness.
It was precisely because of this that so many people naturally gathered around their big brother, following his commands.
Even the vicious, greedy demon Silk Nest had transformed under his strict discipline, becoming something entirely different.
Mu Yi thought to himself, a strong and fearless big brother like that could surely overcome any challenge, right?
*
Meanwhile, the terrifyingly powerful big brother was now facing a small difficulty.
He, along with Yu Yin and Wu Jin, were ambushed on a country road.
The robbers were emaciated, with sallow faces, sparse hair, and bellies so thin they were sunken in, their ribs clearly visible.
Their hands, so thin they were like skin stretched over bone, tightly gripped sickles and hoes, and their eyes gleamed with a sickly green as they approached.
Wearing tattered clothes and holding pitiful weapons, their fingers and toes cracked and weathered, these dozens of people were from a nearby village.
“Leave the food! Leave everything you have on you!”
These people were starving, barely holding on to life, and were acting solely on the last of their strength, driven by hunger to rob.
Yu Guang studied their appearances and realized that if he made a move, these people would likely die immediately.
Facing such fragile robbers, who could collapse with a simple fall or twist, Yu Guang found himself momentarily unsure of how to handle the situation.
Wu Jin, seeing these daring people approaching, scratched his head and hissed. When had they ever encountered such weak opponents?
Then, in a flash, he looked over at Yu Yin beside Yu Guang, and an idea suddenly came to him.
“Big Brother, I’ve got an idea. Watch this!”
Without hesitation, Wu Jin yanked the mask off Yu Yin’s face and raised him up, shouting, “Look here!”
Yu Yin, caught off guard, could only respond with a confused, “Huh?”
The fierce robbers looked at Yu Yin, who Wu Jin had lifted high, and their gazes gradually grew vacant.
The weapons they held fell to the ground with a clatter, and they started wobbling as they slowly moved toward Wu Jin.
“Come on, come on, all of you, come chase me!”
Wu Jin ran like the wind to a nearby large tree, holding Yu Yin, and placed him on one of the tree’s branches before swiftly running off again.
The dozen or so people who had been drawn over surrounded the tree, seemingly out of their minds, desperately raising their hands in an attempt to touch the person in the tree, even trying to climb it.
But they were far too weak, and within moments, they collapsed to the ground, delirious. Even so, they continued to stretch their hands toward the tree in a futile attempt.
Yu Guang and Wu Jin stood nearby, watching this scene. Yu Guang placed a hand on Wu Jin’s shoulder and praised, “I didn’t expect such a method. You’ve gotten smarter, thinking fast this time.”
Wu Jin laughed, “Hahaha, it’s nothing, just the usual experience.”
Big Brother never reacted at all to Yu Yin, and he never thought of using him in this way.
But each of them had been tormented by Yu Yin’s strange allure, so they all knew exactly how powerful it was.
Yu Yin sat on the branch, his face darkening so much it seemed as if ink could drip from it.
His piercing gaze shifted from the people beneath the tree to the two men chatting in the distance.
His fingers twitched, and he nearly wished to first string up the people under the tree, then tie up the two standing aside.
With a sharp crack, the branch Yu Yin sat on was forcibly snapped off.
Wu Jin, looking at the branch’s thick stump, was smiling in self-satisfaction, but his grin suddenly faltered as he belatedly shrank his head back.
“Hehe, looks like little brother’s angry. Ugh, is his strength… a bit off?”
In his memory, Yu Yin had always been delicate and weak, with those few white fingers. When had he gained so much strength? The branch even had deep finger marks on it!
Big Brother laughed cheerfully and with satisfaction, “What’s wrong with that? Youngest’s been training lately, and his strength has increased. You just can’t tell, hahaha.”
Wu Jin stared in silence, thinking, ‘Big Brother, do you feel that? The little brother seems like he wants to kill me.’
