The moonlight in the small village seemed unable to chase away the summer heat’s oppressive dryness. Sticky, stifling humidity pressed in from all directions, settling heavily upon people’s hearts.

The bamboo basket for catching loaches lay overturned to one side. The basket was deep, and the crawling creatures inside writhed desperately, their bodies twisting again and again. Mud splattered everywhere, like drowning people unable to escape a whirlpool.

The young girl who had just escaped from someone’s vicious clutches was now safe, but the youth who had saved her had fallen into trouble.

The perpetrator was a middle-aged man, an honest farmer from the village. No one believed he could do such a thing. The man stubbornly refused to admit fault, repeatedly arguing with cunning excuses: “I didn’t force her! She seduced me first! I didn’t do anything!”

The young girl, still childlike in her innocence, had never encountered such a shameless scoundrel before. After a few attempts at explanation, she could no longer speak, only silently shedding tears.

The villagers’ suspicious gazes fell upon the victim. Their initial righteous indignation instantly transformed into pointing fingers and whispered gossip. She could not prove the man’s evil deeds, nor could she even prove her innocence.

The youth with a white cloth bound over his face quietly watched the person suffering on the ground. The instigator wore a smug expression on his face—this was how the world worked. Rumors and gossip were killing blades, each cut drawing blood.

He suddenly thought of his mother.

Jiang Yiru had been the same. Having lived in the village for so many years, she had been wrapped in rumors and gossip for just as long. All these years, she had been melancholy and unhappy, her heart’s illness difficult to cure. In the end, the grievances accumulated in her heart until she withered away like jade and fragrant flowers. This might not have been unrelated to that very reason.

Gui Yansheng said, “It was he who forced this young lady.”

The surroundings fell instantly silent.

The lazy man looked toward Gui Yansheng’s face bound with white cloth, his eyes showing unconcealed mockery, though his mouth said: “What does he know? He heard wrong. He’s a blind man—how can we believe a blind man’s nonsense?”

The moonlight grew increasingly blurred as wave after wave of heat pressed in, as if trapping him in an airtight prison.

He said, “I can see.”

The girl’s low sobbing stopped. The lazy man’s smile froze on his face. Countless villagers’ gazes focused on him.

He slowly untied the cloth strips, revealing a pair of golden, beautifully shaped eyes. He said, “I am not blind.”

In the pond beside the rice fields, the moon’s reflection rippled. The originally clear and bright moon, obscured by thick layers of clouds, fell into the dark pond, splashed with mud, stretched, distorted, and blurred into a strange, eerie shadow.

Fear pressed in from all directions.

Someone’s trembling voice rang out, carrying deep disgust and hatred: “Monster… he’s a monster!”

“Whoosh—” Like floodgates being opened, torrential floods came crashing down upon him from all sides. The smug farmer, the respected village elder, the neighbors who had always shown care and friendship—in an instant, they all looked at him with hateful eyes, as if he were some unforgivably wicked person. He heard countless vicious curses and abuse flying toward him from far and near, piercing into his heart.

“He’s a monster! Look at his eyes—”

“I said something was wrong all along. That mother of his was wrong, too! Born with that bewitching, demonic appearance—you could tell she was evil at first glance!”

“Why did he hide in our village? Why did he pretend to be blind?”

“What else could it be for? Of course, it was to harm people! The drought in recent years, the poor harvests—maybe he caused all of it!”

“Kill him!”

“Kill him!”

“Kill him!”

The neighbors’ eyes no longer held any trace of past affection and care. They raised blazing torches and wielded butcher knives and steel forks, pressing toward him with fierce momentum, as if they wanted to chop him into mincemeat, trample him in every way possible until he was reduced to ash and dust, shattered into nothing.

The youth stood bewildered in place, the blazing torches reflected in his beautiful golden pupils, both desolate and beautiful.

Until a pair of hands grabbed him, someone pulled him forward to run, a voice still carrying terror and tears: “Run quickly—”

The young girl he had saved pulled him out of the hands of the crazed villagers.

The torches traced a pursuing path through the long fields, like wind on fire.

Zanxing fell silent.

“These people have all gone mad.” Gu Baiying’s cold voice came from beside his ear. He stood at Zanxing’s side, watching the two people being chased by the villagers, his gaze like ice: “A bunch of madmen.”

Zanxing said calmly, “Because he is a demon.”

In the eyes of mortals, a demon’s body was itself a sin. Even if he had done nothing wrong, even if in all those past years Gui Yansheng had always tried hard to be a good person in the worldly sense, once his identity was exposed, all past kindness would be written off with a single stroke. Former neighbors who had shared laughter and care would immediately transform into evil spirits coming to claim his life. What you are matters far more than what you have done.

Gu Baiying was stunned.

He looked toward the person beside him. Though the night was dim, Zanxing’s dark eyes were very bright, as if she had remembered something. The corners of her lips carried a trace of extremely light mockery. Her long hair covered her shoulders like large patches of flowing mist, and in her downcast eyelashes, emotions he could not see were surging.

He felt an inexplicable irritation and paused before speaking in a low voice: “When you were in the Wan Sha Formation, was it also like this?”

He could not remember matters related to Zanxing, but what she had encountered in the Wan Sha Formation could be easily discovered through casual inquiry. Originally, he had only thought that for a demon to escape from the Wan Sha Formation, their cultivation must be considerable. But now, from this golden-eyed youth’s past, he glimpsed traces of what had once been.

Yang Zanxing did not seem like a cruel and ruthless demon lord. She was gentle and rational. If she too had been like Gui Yansheng, having done nothing wrong before, and had been forced into the Wan Sha Formation back then on Gufeng Mountain by disciples of various major sects… Gu Baiying’s heart jumped violently, as if some shadow had risen from his chest cavity, covering his heart.

“No.” Zanxing’s words interrupted his thoughts. The woman smiled, her voice becoming light and cheerful again: “I was much more fortunate than him. My friends all believed in me, and there was also Mimi—”

Gui Yansheng was not so fortunate. Speaking of it, he was unlucky as if Heaven had deliberately placed all the world’s difficulties and suffering upon him alone.

The young girl he had saved pulled him out of the village and into the mountain forest. The forest was dense, the night pitch black with wild beasts roaming about—the neighbors dared not continue pursuing. The two of them dared not relax, walking continuously without stopping. The next day, when the sun first rose, they emerged from the forest.

The village was left far behind, like an absurd, silent past. The girl tore off a piece of her skirt hem, cleaned it, and bound it over his eyes, saying softly: “These eyes of yours, if seen by others, would inevitably arouse suspicion. It would be much better to cover them.”

He numbly allowed her to put it on him.

“Thank you for saving me last night.” After finishing binding the cloth strip, the girl let go of her hands and looked at him, speaking carefully: “You don’t know my name yet, do you?”

“My name is Xiao Chun,” she said.