Residents of No-Man's Land

Chapter 6: Residents of No-Man's Land

Qiu Shuijing looked at Su Yun, his gaze filled with pity.

"He doesn't know that he died once before. In his heart, Tianmen Town must still look as it did six years ago, shouldn't it?"

Qiu Shuijing even felt that curing Su Yun's eyes was somewhat cruel to the boy.

Once his eyes were healed, he would discover the truth about Tianmen Town, as well as the truth about Mister Wild Fox and his fellow students. It would surely be a tremendous blow to him.

But it would also help the boy grow.

"The details of the Eight-Sided Facing Heaven Palace are branded in his eyes. In this world, I fear only the person who took away the Chao Tian Que and Su Yun know the mysteries of the Chao Tian Que. Only they know how to open the Heaven Gate."

Qiu Shuijing thought silently, "Moreover, the scene of the Immortal Sword destroying Tianmen Town is also branded in his eyes. If he can refine those imprints in his eyes, his rate of growth will surely be astonishing."

"...Sir, be careful. Huqiu Village is not easy to reach. There are dangerous places along the way."

Su Yun led the way ahead. Though the boy was blind, his heart was not. He moved along familiar paths as if driving a light carriage down an old road, seeming to see even better than ordinary people as he accurately avoided every obstacle.

"The first dangerous place is Snake Ravine ahead. There's a huge snake there, fierce as anything. Hua Erge calls it the Village-Eating Snake..."

Qiu Shuijing could not help but pause. "Village-Eating Snake?"

"Yes. Last time, Hua Erge's cousin accidentally ran into Snake Ravine and got bitten by that huge snake. Mister Wild Fox barely managed to snatch him back so he wouldn't be eaten by the snake. But before he even made it home, his body went stiff. Later, Huqiu Village held a funeral. The horns and suonas played merrily, and the whole village went to eat. That's why Hua Erge and the others call that snake the Village-Eating Snake..."

As they spoke, they arrived at Snake Ravine.

Qiu Shuijing heard a rustling sound and looked toward it. A black serpent was coiled atop a reef in the stream. Its scales were black with a metallic sheen.

The huge snake was raising its head toward the sun, inhaling and exhaling. Each breath was extraordinarily long; Qiu Shuijing and Su Yun had walked dozens of yards before it completed a single breath.

When it breathed, every black scale on its body seemed to come alive, spinning around its body. They rotated forward when it inhaled and backward when it exhaled.

"The spirit nature of a powerful person attached itself to this black snake after that person died, turning it into a Snake Demon."

Qiu Shuijing stared at the snake, and the snake stared back at him. Yet it did not take the initiative to provoke them, allowing them to leave Snake Ravine.

"This Snake Demon's breath-cultivation is exceptionally powerful. It has already begun seizing the essence of sun and moon to cultivate its body. Its body has been tempered to extreme hardness. It must cultivate some profound art that combines qi refinement and body tempering."

Qiu Shuijing frowned. The Snake Demon was venomous and had cultivated a profound art of qi and body refinement. It was likely on the verge of becoming a Flood Dragon and ought to be eliminated as soon as possible.

Otherwise, once it became a Flood Dragon, ordinary people would be no match for it at all!

"Don't worry, sir. That snake has its own territory. As long as we don't enter its territory, we'll be fine."

Su Yun walked ahead and said, "Past Snake Ravine is Yellow Village on Huangtu Ridge. The brats in Yellow Village are awful. They often fight with the people of Huqiu Village. Let's walk faster. Last time, Hua Erge dragged me into a fight with those bad brats from Yellow Village, and we beat them badly. Those fellows hold grudges!"

Qiu Shuijing put aside his intent to kill. "Mister Wild Fox teaches without distinction. This Snake Demon may not necessarily be evil. To punish without teaching first only multiplies punishments, yet evil will not be overcome. It accomplishes nothing."

"Huangtu Ridge is up ahead!"

Su Yun remained unruffled as he said, "Sir, be careful."

Qiu Shuijing looked over and saw a cluster of yellow-earth tombs roughly half a mile away. The burial mound was enormous, forty or fifty yards long and wide, and more than ten yards tall.

There were also stone carvings of Tomb Beasts before the grave, standing in rows along both sides of the spirit path.

—The road traveled by the spirit natures of Ghosts and Gods was called the spirit path.

However, this great tomb was already riddled with holes, its surface densely packed with openings less than two feet wide. One or several weasels stood at every entrance.

Those weasels stood in the openings like people, craning their necks to watch them. Some female weasels held two or three cubs in their arms, the furry little things poking their heads about from their mothers' embrace.

"That little brat from the Su family!"

Suddenly, a weasel spotted Su Yun and shrieked, "He helped those bad brats from Huqiu Village beat Sprout Sis from Third Aunt's family until she cried! Two of her teeth were knocked out! Beat him—"

Whoosh—

Countless little stones and pellets of dung flew up from the yellow-earth tomb, blackening the sky. The weasels hurled stones and dung pellets at Su Yun with all their strength, but Su Yun seemed long accustomed to this. He casually took a thickened oilpaper umbrella from the basket on his back and opened it.

Dung and stones fell like rain, drumming against the oilpaper umbrella with loud bangs. After a moment, Su Yun shook the umbrella, folded it up, and put it back into the basket. Tilting his head, he asked, "Sir, are you all right?"

Qiu Shuijing said, "I'm fine."

Before the little stones and dung pellets could reach him, they all stopped in midair. Not a single one landed on him.

The old weasels of Yellow Village were inwardly alarmed when they saw this and hurriedly stopped the young weasels, lest they provoke a formidable enemy.

The young weasels had already run close to Su Yun and Qiu Shuijing. One by one, they turned around, raised their tails, and exposed their backsides, preparing to release poisonous smoke. Stopped by the old weasels, they were rather unwilling.

Qiu Shuijing glanced at them and thought, "There are so many of these weasels. If they were to harm people..."

He frowned slightly, then thought of Mister Wild Fox and suppressed his killing intent. "There are scarcely any human traces around Tianmen Town. Aside from Su Yun, there are probably no living humans left. Where would these Demons find the chance to commit evil?"

He felt somewhat helpless.

He had been stubborn all his life, yet in middle age he had unexpectedly been taught by an old fox, coming to understand the principles of teaching without distinction, punishing without teaching, and teaching without punishing.

"Right and wrong, crooked and straight in this world were never as distinct as black and white," he sighed inwardly.

At last, they arrived at Huqiu Village.

Su Yun smiled and called out, "Mister Wild Fox! Hua Erge, Li Sange! Mister Shuijing and I have come to see you!"

Qiu Shuijing frowned slightly and suddenly grabbed his hand, signaling him to stop as he warily stared at the small village ahead.

Huqiu Village was not large, with several dozen houses. Yet every house was tiny, no more than four or five feet tall and no more than two yards across, as though they were homes for little dwarves.

The village was built on a small earthen hill. Trees cast dense shade, with three to five houses beneath each tree.

But at that moment, Huqiu Village was a scene of utter devastation, and many of its houses had been overturned.

Qiu Shuijing frowned and saw several Fox Demon corpses as well.

Su Yun also caught the scent of blood in the air, and panic rose in his heart. Qiu Shuijing's voice came to him. "You cannot see. If your heart becomes unsettled, your sense of direction will become unsettled as well. Once you lose your sense of direction, you will not survive long in Tianshiyuan."

Su Yun tried his utmost to steady his mind, yet the Yellow Bell still fell into disorder for a moment.

Qiu Shuijing waited until his state of mind recovered before leading him forward for the first step. Once Su Yun took that step, he regained his former composure.

This was what Qiu Shuijing admired most about him.

For a Little Blind Person of merely thirteen to survive in Tianshiyuan, a place where Demons ran rampant, he had to possess an incomparably powerful heart!

Little Blind Person Su Yun had survived alone for six years. He possessed the bearing to remain unshaken even if the sky came crashing down.

Su Yun's expression was calm as he entered Huqiu Village. His feet touched a collapsed house, and he crouched down to feel through the rubble.

Qiu Shuijing watched him without offering help.

After a moment, Su Yun felt a corpse.

To his surprise, what he found was not a human corpse, but the corpse of a fox.

He sat there silently, without crying out as an ordinary boy would have.

After a long while, Su Yun rose shakily to his feet and continued feeling through the ruins of one collapsed house after another.

Much later, the boy carried dozens of fox corpses from the ruins and laid them on the ground. Raising his head, he asked, "Mister Shuijing, which one is Mister Wild Fox?"

Qiu Shuijing took his hand and placed it on an old fox.

Su Yun gently stroked the old fox's face. After a long silence, he said hoarsely, "I didn't know Mister Wild Fox was a fox, but he was very kind. He taught me to read and write. My eyes were blind, and I was stupid, but he was especially patient..."

He sat on the ground, staring blankly into space. "I also didn't know my classmates were all foxes. In my heart, I always thought they were people. Living, breathing people. Hua Erge was fourteen. Li Sange was two months younger than him. Qiu Xiaomei was the youngest, only six..."

Qiu Shuijing examined the traces of battle around them and said, "It should have been the people from Tianmen Ghost Market last night."

"Sir, I remember those people's voices."

Qiu Shuijing turned back and saw that Su Yun's face was incomparably calm—calm to a terrifying degree.