Chapter 104: The Bad Guys Leave the Village
Granny Si turned around, blinking her eyes, and said, "Who said anything about leaving the village?"
The Village Chief chuckled, "I may be a mundane man, but I can read between the lines. You haven't been eating well or sleeping well these past few days, so naturally you can't stay any longer. You must be planning to go out and find Mu'er."
Granny Si said in annoyance, "So you saw right through me. I'm leaving! I won't stay here any longer!"
The Medicine Master coughed once and said, "If you leave the village, who will help you suppress your inner demon? In the past, with us around, the primordial spirit of Sect Master Li didn't dare act recklessly. But if you leave, I fear you won't be able to suppress Grand Sect Master Li. Sect Master Li was profoundly accomplished in the demonic path. Before his death, he transformed himself into a demonic seed and planted it in your Dao heart, surviving by borrowing your Dao heart, waiting for the moment to devour you from within. You can't erode him, and you can't suppress him—he will turn against you, extinguish your primordial spirit, and seize your physical body."
Granny Si's gaze flickered. "He won't seize my body."
"Because he loves you too much?"
The Medicine Master sneered, "Then you're wrong. If he seizes your body and is reborn through you, then he becomes you. What he loves isn't you—it's your shell. Once he becomes you, he can love himself. He is your inner demon, and you are his inner demon. By being reborn through your body, he conquers his own inner demon. Sect Master Li intends to use you to temper himself, to attain godhood."
Granny Si shuddered, then suddenly smiled. "Medicine Master, after all that talk, can you resolve this inner demon of mine?"
The Medicine Master fell silent. Li Tianxing's primordial spirit was already planted deep within Granny Si's Dao heart—he couldn't remove it. Not only was he unable to resolve it, but even Master Ma's Buddhist teachings couldn't, and the Village Chief's sword couldn't excise this demon from her Dao heart either.
The only one who could resolve this inner demon was Granny Si herself. All they could do was help her suppress it.
"I've lived here for over forty years. If you can't resolve him, then what use is there in me staying any longer?"
Granny Si picked up her basket and walked away without looking back. "I'm going to find Mu'er. I keep worrying that he won't have enough to eat or wear, that he'll be bullied. Don't worry—if I can't suppress Old Ghost Li, I'll come back!"
The Village Chief and the Medicine Master both furrowed their brows.
Granny Si carried her basket to the riverbank, summoned a River-Bearing Beast, and climbed onto its back, heading downstream.
After the River-Bearing Beast had traveled over a hundred li, Granny Si suddenly froze. There, in the middle of the river, was a blind man walking with a cane. Granny Si's face immediately darkened. She reached out, grabbed the blind man, and set him on the beast's back, scolding, "Blind Man, are you trying to stop me too?"
The Blind Man looked bewildered and said with an apologetic smile, "So it's Granny. I'm just walking along minding my own business—why would I stop you?"
Granny Si was skeptical. "You came all this way at dawn—wasn't it to block me from leaving the village?"
The Blind Man protested, "You go your way, I go mine. Why would I stop you? By the way, old lady, where are you headed? Could you give me a ride?"
Granny Si blinked her cloudy old eyes and smiled. "I'm planning to go to Yankang. Do you want a ride?"
The Blind Man clapped his hands. "What a coincidence! I need to go to Yankang too!"
Granny Si stared at him with wide eyes, but the Blind Man looked completely innocent. Granny Si sneered, "What are you going to Yankang for?"
The Blind Man said calmly, "My eyes are blind. I'm going to find the person who gouged them out."
Granny Si's heart skipped a beat, but she smiled. "And here I thought you were worried about Mu'er's safety and planning to find him in Yankang. Turns out you're going on official business."
"He's grown up now. He can handle whatever changes come his way."
The Blind Man's words made Granny Si secretly ashamed. Then the Blind Man continued, "I won't go straight to him. I'll observe him from the shadows."
Just then, a streak of light flashed across the sky. Granny Si looked up, but the light was already gone. Suddenly, the streak of light turned around and came back, landing with a whoosh on the River-Bearing Beast's back. The Lame Man's figure appeared, looking at the two people on the beast's back with a disgruntled expression.
The Blind Man shouted angrily, "Lame Man, you dart around like a ghost—scaring people half to death! What are you doing?"
"Just taking a stroll out of the village."
The Lame Man looked around and said, "Have you two seen Master Ma? I haven't seen him since yesterday. He didn't come back last night."
Granny Si said in surprise, "Master Ma didn't come back? He always returns to the village on time."
The Lame Man sighed. "I reckon he's missing Mu'er and went to Yankang. I need to go find him. That old bastard left without a word—I'm going to demand to know why he did it, why he abandoned our years of friendship. And I need to go check on my leg..."
The Blind Man sneered, "You're not just going to see Mu'er, are you?"
The Lame Man said coldly, "Would I miss him? I wouldn't! That kid was found by us, and he's been a mischievous little brat since he was young. I've wanted to kick him out for ages... Hey, look at that bastard up ahead—that's the Butcher, isn't it? It really is the Butcher!"
A moment later, four people stood on the River-Bearing Beast's back. Well, the Butcher was standing on his hands. The three of them looked at each other. The Blind Man leaned on his bamboo cane, tilting his ear to listen, but no one made a sound.
Granny Si carried her basket. The Lame Man leaned on his crutch and whistled. The Butcher stood on his hands, hands on his hips, looking around.
After a long while, the Blind Man muttered, "Master Ma ran off too. With the four of us, that leaves only the Medicine Master, the Village Chief, Deaf Man, and Mute Man in the village..."
"The Mute Man ran off too."
The Butcher snorted. "Before the Village Chief and the Medicine Master even got up, the Mute Man was already gone. He ran off carrying a big box. I chased after him but couldn't catch up!"
The Blind Man was stunned, then said with a wry laugh, "So that leaves only Deaf Man, the Village Chief, and the Medicine Master."
The Lame Man chuckled. "It's not that we miss Mu'er—we each have our own business to attend to. I'm going to the imperial palace to check on my leg. What if the Yankang National Preceptor pickled, roasted, and smoked my leg and turned it into a ham? That would be terrible!"
The Blind Man nodded. "I have business too. I'm going to avenge my eyes."
Granny Si nodded repeatedly and smiled. "As the previous Holy Maiden of the Holy Sect, with a new Sect Master being enthroned, I naturally need to go meet the new Sect Master."
The Butcher thought for a long time and finally came up with a reason. "I think my lower half might have fallen off somewhere. I'm going to look for it—maybe I can reattach it."
All four of them breathed a sigh of relief and said in unison, "So we all have legitimate business!"
In the Crippled Elderly Village, the Village Chief and the Medicine Master sat at the village entrance, silently drinking tea. After a long while, the Medicine Master said, "There are only four of us left in the village now."
"Medicine Master, Master Ma left yesterday."
The Village Chief sipped his tea. "Their temperament is still lacking—they can't sit still. At least Deaf Man is well-read, learned, and has a composed heart. He's calm and col—"
He turned his head and stared blankly as Deaf Man walked past them, carrying a bamboo basket with a sun-shade cloth over it.
The Medicine Master couldn't help but ask, "Deaf Man, where are you going?"
Deaf Man seemed not to hear and simply walked on.
"That rascal! Pretending not to hear again!" the Medicine Master said angrily.
"Now there are only the two of us left in the village."
The Village Chief smiled wryly, then suddenly asked, "When are you leaving?"
The Medicine Master quickly shook his head. "I have so many enemies—how dare I leave? What I'm worried about now is that all these bad eggs have rushed out at once. I'm afraid they'll cause quite a commotion. The bad eggs of our village..."
The Village Chief chuckled. "Let the people outside have headaches. If you want to leave, you can leave too. I'll stay and watch over the village, waiting for you all to come back."
The Medicine Master hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "If I go out, I'll only cause trouble for them. Among all the bad eggs in our village, my reputation is the worst..."
The Village Chief said with a half-smile, "If it weren't for that, you'd have run off long ago."
The two looked at each other and burst into laughter.
At the border between Dijiang County and Huyang County, Qin Mu looked up at the rising sun. He raised his hand, and the Vermilion Bird primordial energy burst forth, burning away the clothes he had taken from the Corpse Immortal Sect disciple. As for that human skin, he had already discarded it halfway. Wearing someone else's skin still weighed on his conscience. Besides, he was carrying a large bundle filled with odds and ends Granny Si had prepared for him—he couldn't wear the skin anyway, or he'd look like a hunchback and be easily seen through.
"What's hidden inside Granny Si's hunchback?" Qin Mu suddenly had a curious thought.
He was carrying a travel pack. If he wore the human skin, he'd become a hunchback. But Granny Si wasn't actually a hunchback, which meant something must be hidden in her hump. Qin Mu was very curious about what strange things were hidden in there.
He had fled all night without rest, fighting battle after battle, and was truly exhausted. Fox Ling'er in the bundle had already fallen asleep from fatigue.
A gust of wind blew past, and Qin Mu immediately chased after the wind's edge, stepping on the wind to travel. But after only a few steps, he felt his body grow weary, so he had to land and walk on foot.
Suddenly, a buzzing sound came from the air. Qin Mu followed the sound and saw several fiery-red beetles flying toward him. Those beetles weren't afraid of people at all—they flew right up to him and circled around him a few times.
"Corpse Beetles!"
Qin Mu's eye twitched involuntarily. He yawned and muttered to himself, "So tired. Maybe I should find a place to sleep..."
His fingers flicked rapidly, and the beetles burst apart!
Qin Mu immediately sped up and dashed away.
He had seen these beetles at the Medicine Master's place before. Corpse beetles came in colors like green and black, with the red corpse beetle being the rarest. And these red beetles were exactly that—red corpse beetles!
At that moment, the buzzing sound grew louder. He looked up and felt his scalp go numb. A red cloud was rushing toward him in the sky, menacing and fierce!
The red cloud descended lower and lower, and suddenly, beetles flew into the mountain forest, burrowing into the graves scattered across the hillside. The ground of the graveyard trembled, and skeletons crawled out from beneath the earth, sprinting madly after Qin Mu on their bony legs!
More corpse beetles flew in, burrowing into the bodies of wolves, badgers, and even tigers they encountered along the way. Those beasts, with bloodshot eyes, also lunged at Qin Mu!