Poplar Village

It wasn’t long before he quietly left the area and headed toward the distant mountain forests.

The short, stocky cultivator who had argued with him earlier opened his eyes and glanced in the direction the former king had gone. Then he whispered doubtfully to the tall, slender cultivator beside him, “Why did he leave?”

The tall, slender cultivator had also sensed the former king’s departure, but he did not open his eyes. He merely replied in a low voice, “Who cares? If he doesn’t enter the cave, encountering the Allied Army means certain death. With that little cultivation of his, without the State Preceptor and us around, he’s nothing more than livestock waiting to be slaughtered. Let him go.”

The moment Lin Xiao and Fang Tuantuan entered one of the cities within the borders of the Huanyou Kingdom, they could feel the scorching presence of war.

The city they had arrived at—Xinyang County, which was said to be suffering from a plague—had more than half of its walls collapsed. Along both sides of the streets stood especially large numbers of broken walls and ruined buildings.

The able-bodied men were hard at work carrying bricks and hauling timber, rebuilding walls and replacing roof tiles as they restored their homes.

Many of the elderly and infirm had been gathered beneath a large shelter in the city, while the women were cooking at a row of makeshift earthen stoves.

Only the children were left running and playing around the shelter.

Half a month had already passed since the fighting had ended completely. Children were quick to forget; they had long since forgotten how they had once hidden in their parents’ arms, crying hysterically in fright during the war.

As a boy and a cat walked through this city scorched by war, no one paid them any attention.

When Lin Xiao saw a woman carrying two large baskets of food pass by, he called out to her and politely cupped his hands.

“Auntie, sorry to bother you, but could you tell me which way Huyang Village is?”

The woman turned around, and her eyes immediately lit up.

What a handsome young man!

She instantly broke into a warm smile. After setting down the load from her shoulders, she raised a hand and pointed south.

“Young man, you’ve come to the right person. My parents’ home isn’t far from Huyang Village. Look, just keep heading south in this direction. Once you leave the city, follow the smallest and roughest road all the way to the end.”

Lin Xiao glanced in the direction she indicated, then smiled obediently.

“Thank you, Auntie!”

He then led Tuantuan southward.

The woman continued calling out enthusiastically from behind him, “Whenever the road splits, take the smaller, filthier path! Remember that!”

“Got it! Thank you, Auntie!”

The young man’s voice faded into the wind.

Once they were out of the city, Lin Xiao scooped Tuantuan up into his arms and hurried toward Huyang Village.

This was the village Qin Jianghe had mentioned—the place that might be suffering from a plague.

Following the woman’s directions, Lin Xiao took the worst road whenever he reached a fork. After roughly half an hour, he finally saw signs of human habitation in the distance amid the desolate wilderness.

The closer he drew, the more certain he became that something was wrong.

Every strand of fur on Fang Tuantuan’s body stood on end.

“Meow…”

“You can sense it too, can’t you?”

The farther Lin Xiao went, the stronger the feeling of déjà vu became.

It was just like when he had entered those Jishi mines!

But it was only similar.

This aura was nowhere near as overbearing as the aura in the Jishi mines.

Nor was it absorbing the spiritual energy around it indiscriminately and without restraint.

The surrounding environment had not withered on a large scale, nor had it displayed any other abnormal signs of losing its vitality.

There seemed to be something missing between this aura and the Jishi.

Furthermore, although the aura lingered throughout the area, there was no way to sense where it originated.

They were still some distance from the village entrance when they saw a middle-aged man carrying a medicine chest approaching them with a shake of his head and a sigh.

Several villagers he had just managed to shake off followed behind him, turning back toward the village with disappointed expressions.

As he approached, Lin Xiao heard the middle-aged man muttering under his breath, “What kind of monster-like symptoms are these? They actually tricked me into coming here to treat them! Hmph!”

Though the man was far away and his voice was very soft, Lin Xiao could hear him clearly.

After a moment’s thought, he carried Fang Tuantuan forward and asked, “May I ask, Uncle, is that Huyang Village up ahead?”

The middle-aged man was startled by Lin Xiao’s sudden appearance. He looked around and, seeing that Lin Xiao was dressed cleanly and expensively yet had no adult accompanying him, waved him away.

“What’s a young man like you doing in this wretched place? Huyang Village is no good place. In my opinion, it’s nothing less than an ominous land! Leave at once! Don’t let yourself become covered in bad luck.”

Hearing this, Lin Xiao put on a puzzled expression.

“To be honest, my family has a distant relative whose ancestors came from this village. Recently, our family business hasn’t been doing well, and a fortune-teller said we should pay more attention to our blood relations. So we planned to come visit this distant relative. May I ask why you say such things?”

After hearing this, the middle-aged man looked him up and down. Then he grabbed Lin Xiao by the sleeve and pulled him away, speaking as he did so.

“Young man, you’d better go home. Huyang Village is no place to visit now! As for your distant relative—not that I’m cursing them, but they may not have much longer to live either. This village probably won’t survive for much longer!”

“Why is that?”

“Ah, it’s terrible! Many of the old people in that village have turned into ghosts! Just look at this.” As he spoke, he gestured toward the medicine chest on his shoulder. “I’m the doctor for this entire area. To put it presumptuously, whenever anyone within ten li has a serious illness, they come looking for me.”

“At first, when I heard that many people in Huyang Village were ill, I assumed it was some kind of cold, especially since the autumn winds have been picking up lately. Two young men from the village had been coming to ask me for help every few days, and since I happened to have some free time these past two days, I came along with them.”

At this point, he shook his head in vexation.

“Who would have thought they’d been infected by some evil, ghostly aura?”

“You should have seen what those old people looked like. Good heavens, could you even call them human anymore? Their eyeballs were practically falling out!”

“Most likely, the village was affected by the fighting some time ago, and all sorts of ghosts and evil things fled here!”

The doctor dragged Lin Xiao along for some distance. When they reached a fork in the road, Lin Xiao took his leave.

“Thank you for the warning, Uncle. I’ll head home now.”

“Go on, go on.”

The doctor waved his large hand and hurried away.

Lin Xiao also pretended to leave and walked for a while. Then, after concealing his aura, he took Tuantuan back to the entrance of Huyang Village.

From the village entrance, the small settlement appeared perfectly peaceful.

The grass and trees around it were not especially lush, but they were growing reasonably well.

And yet, on closer inspection, the vegetation seemed to reveal a faint air of listlessness.

In ordinary villages, one could often hear chickens crowing and dogs barking. Outside Huyang Village, however, there was not the slightest sound of either.

Instead, Lin Xiao could hear occasional weary sighs.

He did not enter the village directly. He first circled around its outskirts.

The village was not large, consisting of only around twenty households.

After making a complete circuit, Lin Xiao found nothing unusual.

He also found no trace of the Jishi. The aura resembling that of the Jishi, however, continued to linger throughout the area without dispersing.

So he had no time to worry about anything else. Human lives were at stake. The most urgent task was to get the villagers out of this area shrouded in the strange aura.