Navel oranges, four ounces each — He Bang ate six of them! While she was occupied with the oranges, Rong Chen Zi gathered a general understanding of the recent situation in Li Family Village. Ever since the incident of the rabid dog devouring a person, people had been disappearing from the village with alarming frequency. And lately, for reasons no one could explain, the village had been blanketed all day long in an oppressive sandy-yellow haze, with the sun nowhere to be seen. Then at night, a three-year-old child had claimed to see Li Pan — the one mauled beyond recognition by the rabid dog — up and walking around.

His movements were stiff, and his eyeballs had been wrenched from their sockets and dangled outside the orbital rim. The adults had assumed the child was making things up and thought nothing of it. Then one night, Li Shi was dozing in a half-awake state when someone knocked at the door. He opened it — and there stood his own son, a bloody, mangled mess. Maggots were already crawling across the boy’s face. Li Shi had been frightened out of his wits from that moment on, and to this day still had difficulty stringing words together.

After that, strange occurrences in the village grew more and more frequent. For instance, one family was slaughtering a chicken, and the blood that poured out flooded the ground — more blood than could have come from a single person. The family found it strange but went ahead and made broth from the chicken. When they lifted the lid of the pot, they found the broth inside had congealed to the consistency of cold jelly. When a ladle was dipped in and lifted, an eyeball rolled out from beneath the jelly. The family’s youngest son had, for no discernible reason, lost the eyeball of his left eye.

Rong Chen Zi’s expression was grave: “With such strange occurrences happening, why did no one come to Qingxu Temple to seek help?”

Old Master Xu let out a long sigh: “Zhiguan, something has surrounded this village from the outside — those trying to come in don’t notice a thing, but once inside, no one can get out. More than three groups of people have tried to go find you, and no fewer than three have fallen from the cliff. It’s as if there’s an invisible wall out there — no way through at all.”

Rong Chen Zi’s gaze grew heavy: “It was my negligence.” He sighed, his voice thick with self-reproach. That day he had already known that the incident of the rabid dog in Li Family Village was strange. When he had come here before and perceived the disturbed earth energy, he had been determined to find the root cause. But after He Bang’s ambush left him gravely injured, he had said nothing outwardly while struggling inwardly to come to terms with it, and in that time he had somehow let the matter of Li Family Village slip from his mind entirely.

While the others were conversing, the great river clam was over to the side eating away with great enthusiasm. She showed not the slightest awareness that she had brought any calamity to this place, the very picture of carefree innocence. Rong Chen Zi could not bring himself to rebuke her, and reached out to pat her on the head. She rubbed her own belly contentedly. The oranges hadn’t all been picked, but there were still quite a few left. She looked at them and wanted to take them along. Ye Tian took one look at her eyes and gave a cold snort, turning her face away. He Bang had no choice but to look at the three-eyed serpent. The three-eyed serpent was genuinely regretful: “Your Majesty, these I truly cannot carry…” Its eyes darted about, then it started calculating, egging He Bang on with mounting enthusiasm: “But if I could transform into human form, something like this would be nothing! Never mind carrying oranges — I could carry a whole elephant!”

He Bang narrowed her eyes. She went to coax Qingxuan: “Qingxuan, hehe, I like you best of everyone!”

Rong Chen Zi was caught between laughter and helplessness. He grabbed her up like a puppy and gave Qingxuan quiet instructions: “Pick a few.”

Qingyun ended up picking six and had Qingming carry them on his back, reckoning that would be just enough for her next meal. Rong Chen Zi touched his index finger to the orange juice and drew a talisman on the wooden cottage, then recited an incantation. When he was finished, he formed a hand seal and drove the power of the incantation into the talisman: “This place will be safe. Try not to leave the cottage. Once I have rescued the other villagers, I will come here to meet you.”

Old Master Xu agreed at once. When Rong Chen Zi and the others had left, he shut the cottage door tightly.

He Bang was hopping along behind Ye Tian when suddenly her feet shifted, her body flashing like a stream of light, and she lunged at Qingshu, who was walking at the very rear of the group. From beneath the ground, a surge of black wind rose up, wrapping tightly around the spot where Qingshu stood. Rong Chen Zi gripped a talisman, about to step forward, when the dark shape abruptly let out a groan and twisted in agony. He Bang slipped free of its grasp without a sound or trace, and Qingshu stood completely unharmed behind her, still a little shaken.

The dark shape emitted a cloud of white vapor, and in moments it had solidified into a block of ice. He Bang tilted her head to peer at it: “Even fog has become a demon spirit!”

Rong Chen Zi pressed his thick brows together: “By rights, this shouldn’t be possible. The feng shui of Li Family Village is poor — where would all this spiritual energy come from to sustain so many evil entities?” He sealed the mist-demon in the ice within a talisman, then placed the talisman into a demon-catching pouch. His expression grew increasingly grave. “Everyone stay alert.”

He Bang remained unconcerned: “It’s all right. I’ll set up a protective technique. These small things are easy enough to handle.”

As she finished speaking, everyone felt a series of rings and ripples surrounding them. Their bodies felt as though bathed in spring sunlight — warm and extraordinarily comfortable. Whatever kind of formation this was, the moment she activated it, it separated them entirely from the evil energy around them. Where the water ripples met the air, faint threads of black were clearly visible.

They moved forward a few steps. More evil entities drew near, but met the water and were blocked as though frozen solid, allowing Qingyun to collect them into the demon-catching bottle with calm and ease. Even Ye Tian had discovered the subtleties of this inner cultivation technique and slowed her pace, drawing a little closer to He Bang.

He Bang walked behind Rong Chen Zi, feeling very secure. She exhaled through her nose in satisfaction: “Why are all these insignificant little odds-and-ends turning into demons?!”

The second household was at the foot of Changgang Mountain — a blue-brick building with a bright vermilion gate, clearly considerably more prosperous than Old Master Xu’s home. Rong Chen Zi knew at once that this was the home of Li Family Village’s rice merchant, Li Juqi. He stepped forward and raised his hand to knock. After knocking for some time, he saw Li Juqi poke his head out. The moment Li Juqi saw Rong Chen Zi, he was on the verge of tears: “Zhiguan…”

A great hulking man immediately dissolved into weeping.

Rong Chen Zi helped him up: “All right. I already know the situation. This is entirely my fault. Who else is in your household?”

Li Juqi wept, a mess of tears and running nose: “Zhiguan, after everything went wrong I handed out all my grain to everyone — I was doing a good deed! Please save me, you must find a way to keep me alive!” He was incoherent with distress. Rong Chen Zi had no choice but to help him inside. Though not much time had passed, the courtyard of the Li household was already overgrown with grass half a person’s height. Li Juqi’s two wives came trembling out. The first wife was stout. She walked into the yard and called out in a quavering voice: “Zhiguan.” Rong Chen Zi’s eyes filled with a look of sorrow. He stepped forward and half steadied her: “You have already died. You should enter the earth and return to the cycle of reincarnation. Do not linger in this world any longer.”

The woman standing before him, living and breathing, instantly changed her expression: “Zhiguan!” She gripped his arm tightly. Rong Chen Zi’s voice was heavy: “You have already died. Go.”

Before his eyes, the woman who had appeared entirely lifelike moments ago began to turn ashen within an instant. Then corpse spots spread across her skin, and in the blink of an eye she had become as one who had been dead for several days, already beginning to decompose. Behind her, Li Juqi’s second wife — a woman Li Juqi had purchased — was rather more attractive, yet at this moment she had gone entirely white with terror.

Rong Chen Zi gently set the woman down, his voice calm and composed: “Bring a plank — from a bed, or any wooden board will do.”

Seeing his first wife dead, Li Juqi seemed to regain some clarity. He both wept and went inside to pull off a door panel. Rong Chen Zi laid the body flat on the panel and found some white cloth to wrap around her. Li Juqi seemed to understand what was coming, and went into the house weeping to bring out some lamp oil. Rong Chen Zi placed the body in the rear courtyard to be cremated, performed a rite of passage for her, then focused himself and quietly said to the rising smoke: “Go.”

The smoke drifted and curled, circling once around Li Juqi, who stood weeping with tears streaming down his face, and then gently dispersed.

He Bang was still nibbling on an orange: “Did she not know that she was dead? How could she still be alive after dying so many days ago?”

Ye Tian’s voice was subdued: “Because she could not bear to leave her home. She loved her husband and wanted to live.”

The fire in the courtyard had already swallowed everything. He Bang found herself moved as well: “Her husband must have loved her very much too. Then let’s take this family to safety.”

Rong Chen Zi walked the perimeter of the house, and confirmed there were no other living people inside: “Your fate’s thread had already been severed, but you distributed grain and showed mercy to others — good nature is not entirely extinguished in you, and Heaven’s protection should see you through this ordeal.” Li Juqi’s mind had already cleared, because He Bang was splashing cold water on his face: “What are you crying for?”

He Bang’s eyes were wide and round — at once pure and dazzling, like a flower in bloom. Li Juqi, face washed clean and mind considerably clearer: “My wife was with me all those years and went through so much hardship. When life finally started getting better, I went and bought a second wife. I failed her…”

He Bang patted his shoulder with the air of someone much older and wiser: “Forget it. You’re a grown man — you need to be brave now.”

Li Juqi had already dried his eyes. When faced with life and death, men tend to harden themselves. Rong Chen Zi pondered: “We should send them to Old Master Xu’s house, but the road there may be perilous.”

He Bang sidled up to him, utterly breezy: “That’s easy enough!”

She pointed in the direction of the mountainside: “Run that way now and don’t look back! See if any wretched thing dares to give you trouble!”

Li Juqi was uncertain, but after all these days of not daring to set foot outside, it had been his first wife, like a door god, who had stood guard over them. She had been nothing but a woman, yet from some unknown source she had found the strength to keep those monsters from ever setting foot through the doorway. Li Juqi had always been the most prosperous man in Li Family Village, yet he had been utterly terrified of his first wife. Now she was gone, and his chest felt as hollow as if something had been scooped out of it — he had lost his anchor.

He Bang saw that he still wasn’t moving and grew a little impatient: “You may not amount to much, but you’re still a man — can’t you be a little braver?”

That sparked the fire of masculine pride in Li Juqi. He nodded with resolve, then turned back to look one more time at the flame still burning in the courtyard, took his second wife by the hand, and started running up the mountain.

Strangely, a transparent path gradually appeared ahead of him, like a ribbon of bright silk leading straight to the mountainside. He Bang stood completely still. The transparent ribbon swept the evil and darkness aside all along the way. Only when the two of them had run into Old Master Xu’s wooden cottage did it slowly dissolve.

The group continued forward. Below were three households sharing a single courtyard. Rong Chen Zi knocked for quite some time without any response, and had no choice but to use his energy to push the bolt aside from within. The group stepped into the courtyard. Inside, a white domestic pig of well over a hundred jin stood there — its eyes had gone green as a wolf’s, and at the corners of its mouth, fangs could faintly be seen. By the door of the house, a huge black tabby cat was locked in a standoff with it. The cat’s entire fur had bristled to full extension. Whenever the pig advanced, the cat arched its body, its tail fanning out behind it as though it had nine of them, and its cry was like the rending of brocade — piercingly sharp.

At the sight of Rong Chen Zi and the others, the tabby cat’s cries suddenly grew fierce and urgent, as though calling to the owner of the house. He Bang hopped over to look at the pig. She had no particular fear of creatures born from corrupted energy. That pig, however, suddenly lost all its menace entirely and stood there trembling. The large tabby cat let out a meow and leapt over the white pig, then went to rub itself against Rong Chen Zi. Rong Chen Zi stroked its head and said softly: “I know what has happened here. I will not leave your master unattended — that I promise.”

The great tabby cat’s ferocity faded entirely. It then pawed lightly at He Bang. He Bang was afraid it might scratch her. Yet it extended its little tongue and licked her foot. Warmth spread through Rong Chen Zi’s eyes: “She is thanking you for saving her master.”

The people inside the house naturally all recognized Rong Chen Zi, and seeing him was like seeing a savior. Rong Chen Zi comforted everyone in turn. A child of six or seven walked up to He Bang and presented her with the silver lock he wore next to his skin. The child was dressed plainly but very neatly, and when he smiled he was exceptionally sweet: “Sister, you’re the most beautiful sister I’ve ever seen — like an immortal.”

Qingxuan, Qingyun, and the others were all struck speechless. What a perceptive little creature — he had seen at a glance where the real power lay. The child was practically defying Heaven with that insight…

Sure enough, He Bang broke into a beaming grin: “Save them, save them — rescue everyone!”

She repeated her old trick, sending them running along the shimmering water-silk ribbon toward the wooden cottage on the mountainside. Rong Chen Zi stepped inside the house — no bodies. Most likely they had all been devoured by this pig. Man eats pig — but one wonders whether in turn the pig had not come to resent man enough to wish to eat him. He brought his sword down and severed the pig’s head with a single strike, saying quietly: “The fate of a beast is the karmic debt of a previous life. You did not do good in your former existence, and so naturally you fell into the realm of animals. There is no injustice in what happens today. Go.”

After the courtyard was dealt with, Rong Chen Zi turned and looked back at He Bang: “You’re actually more than two thousand years old, aren’t you?”

He Bang immediately snapped back: “What do you mean more than — I’m still young!”

Rong Chen Zi’s smile was gentle: “That tabby cat already had several hundred years of cultivation — only that gave it the power to protect its master from harm amid such overwhelming evil energy. Yet it could only lick your feet…”

He Bang jumped up indignantly: “I’m only a little over a thousand years old — still young!”

Even the three-eyed serpent no longer believed her: “Your Majesty, when you were with Jiang Haoran you said you were a thousand-year great demon!”

He Bang was frantic: “Son of a — I’ve lived over four thousand one hundred years, would I really tell such a petty little lie?!”