Chaotic Night

Bai Yujun was awakened by the noise.

Sleep-deprived and groggy, her snake head was spinning. The clamor outside traveled through the vibrations of the solid wood in the two-story building without wasting a trace, reaching Bai Yujun's ears. Sometimes, having senses too sensitive to vibrations was not a good thing.

Half-opening her eyes, she staggered to the second-floor window. The burning clouds overhead showed that it was only evening.

Her keen infrared senses detected flames in the distance. They seemed to be coming from the county town's gate tower; in the infrared image, the entire gate tower was wrapped in scorching fire. What was this? Had bonfire parties become so fashionable that they now burned gate towers?

She shook her head. Something was wrong!

Senior Sister Wei waved from the front hall, and Bai Yujun quickly dressed and went over.

"Senior Sister Wei, what happened in the county town?"

"Refugees outside the city broke through the gates and are flooding into the county town. Help me move everything to the back courtyard and put it away, so the refugees don't steal it. These, and these too—move them all."

"Alright."

Outside was utter chaos—running, screaming, crying, and shouting tangled together. Bai Yujun helped Senior Sister Wei carry medicine and other things into a room in the back courtyard. There was a great deal of miscellaneous stuff, and by the time they finished moving it all, night had fallen.

Torches were everywhere outside. The descent of darkness made those with darkness in their hearts even more unscrupulous. The sounds of doors being smashed and women screaming filled the night sky.

They shut the front gate and bolted it, then braced it with several thick logs.

It was not that Bai Yujun and Senior Sister Wei could not defeat those rioters or feared them. The truth was that they could not bring themselves to act. Anyone who broke in would surely rob them, and with two beautiful women here, it would be stranger than seeing a ghost if the intruders had no improper thoughts. If the other side turned violent, they could only kill them. Senior Sister Wei did not want to kill, which was why she barricaded the gate.

From the second floor, the entire county town beneath the night curtain was ablaze with firelight.

Several wealthy households had been breached. Countless refugees climbed over their walls, followed by wails and screams from within. Then the gates were thrown open, and crowds surged inside. Bai Yujun knew that household—it belonged to a major merchant dealing in grain and illicit salt in the county town. Tonight, he was dragged out by the refugees and beaten to death in the street with clubs and stones.

It was not only wealthy households. Even poor families could not escape misfortune.

Groups of men surged into homes, beat the men, stole their food and women, and even violated women openly in the streets in gangs.

In this era, being a woman was truly tragic.

Bai Yujun was grateful that though she was female, she was actually a snake demon. Otherwise, her fate would have been no different from those people's. Endless chaos began spreading through the county town.

"Senior Sister, should we... do something?"

Senior Sister Wei looked desolate and sighed.

"There is nothing we can do. Tens of thousands have poured into the county town. The two of us cannot stop the demons in people's hearts."

"If we kill someone tonight, will the sect punish us?"

"Probably not. We are not pedantic people; we can still distinguish right from wrong, innocence from guilt. But it would still be better not to kill. Junior Sister Bai, I'm tired. Sigh..."

Bai Yujun blankly watched the exhausted Senior Sister Wei return to her bedroom and close the door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone was violently smashing the front courtyard gate. More than twenty people had gathered outside, shouting noisily.

The gate of the courtyard borrowed from the yamen shook violently beneath the men's blows. Some had already begun forming a human ladder, trying to climb into the courtyard and open the gate from within. The Pure Yang emblem pasted on the gate failed to serve its intended purpose. That was hardly surprising—few commoners knew what cultivators were. Scholars had long used every kind of method to turn them into ignorant masses.

Senior Sister Wei remained silent in her room. Left with no choice, Bai Yujun drew her Hengdao.

At the gate.

"The first ones inside, open the gate! Don't let the people in this house escape!"

"Boss... we can't open it from inside..."

The men outside, waiting to break in and loot, grew furious at those words. What did they mean, they could not open it from inside? Were they supposed to open it from outside? They had not expected their underlings to be so stupid.

"Did you find something good inside and want to keep it for yourselves? You little bastard, are you tired of living?!"

The people inside immediately panicked.

"Boss, we've been wronged... There are several thick pillars bracing the gate from inside. We can't move them..."

Pillars bracing the gate?

It was the first time they had heard of someone using pillars to brace a gate. The two who had gotten inside were both scrawny men who normally did not get enough to eat; moving those pillars aside would be harder than smashing their own heads to death. Just as the crazed rioters debated whether to have everyone climb over the walls or choose another house to keep robbing, a figure appeared atop the wall.

"Is it really alright to smash someone's door in the middle of the night?"

The moment her words fell, Bai Yujun landed and charged into the crowd. Her Hengdao flashed, blood spraying everywhere. In less than four seconds, every last one of them was down.

She leaped back onto the wall and returned to the rear courtyard. The refugees clutched their legs and screamed miserably. Bai Yujun had severed all their legs—she had neither killed anyone nor allowed them to force their way into a private residence. The best of both worlds.

Returning to the doorway of the second-floor bedroom in the rear courtyard, Bai Yujun was about to open it when she suddenly froze...

When her palm pressed against the door, she heard Senior Sister Wei's soft sobs inside through the vibrations. Bai Yujun was dumbfounded. Senior Sister Wei was a Golden Core Stage cultivator, capable of riding a sword through the air, with profound cultivation—why would she still cry?

After thinking it over, Bai Yujun turned and left. Senior Sister Wei had secrets buried in her heart. It would be better to let her have some peace and quiet for a while.

Standing on the chaotic street, Bai Yujun did not know where to go or what to do.

The government soldiers had been defeated and fled. Aside from a few who escaped, most people in the county town were trapped inside their own courtyards, awaiting plunder. Refugees carrying all sorts of valuables constantly ran past her—silk, silver, food, and those pitiful women were all targets for looting.

Since she did not know what to do, she would simply follow her heart.

Bai Yujun gripped her blade and vaulted into a courtyard. Seven men stood around a stone mill, where a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl lay atop the millstone. Inside the house were the corpses of the owners. By torchlight, the seven men laughed wildly as they violated her in the courtyard, laughing with incomparable delight as they carried out the sort of deed commonly seen after a city fell.

A flash of blade light passed, and seven heads fell to the ground. She leaped onto the wall and entered another household.

Tonight, Bai Yujun completely unleashed the ferocity buried in the depths of her soul.

In this chaotic county town where everyone feared for themselves, a woman in white held a blade and slaughtered madly. Those who violated women were all beheaded by her sharp edge. The more people Bai Yujun killed, the angrier she became. Among the women who suffered such humiliation were many girls around ten years old. Those huge stinking mouths, enough to suffocate anyone, ravaged the little girls' bodies. Kill one, and ten more remained. They were all pitiful people, so why did they tear each other apart?

Looking at those victimized girls, Bai Yujun thought of Yun'er.

Innocent and carefree, yet she had met a violent death. Bai Yujun regretted it—regretted not stopping Yun'er then, regretted not protecting her by her side, regretted forgetting that girl who only wanted a full meal in the home of evildoers...

Bai Yujun gathered the girls she rescued from evildoers inside the City God Temple to protect them.

Soon, a bandit troop of more than a hundred men, wandering about with torches, spotted the scantily clad girls. Their Qi and Blood surged as they burst into laughter and surrounded the City God Temple.

Bai Yujun stood before the gate and swung her blade, forcing the bandit soldiers back!

"This little lady is spicy enough! Quick! Take her down—don't hurt her~!"

The bandit soldiers rushed forward in a chaotic mob.

Expressionless, Bai Yujun blinked. Her human pupils transformed into the vertical pupils of a beast. She suddenly opened her mouth, bared two sharp venomous fangs, and hissed at the bandit soldiers!

Hiss~!

The bandit soldiers recoiled in terror and scrambled backward.

"A ghost... There's a ghost... Run..."

The terrified bandit soldiers threw away their helmets and armor and fled for their lives. In the blink of an eye, not a single person remained before the City God Temple.

She withdrew her fangs and her eyes returned to normal. Turning back to look at the scantily clad girls inside the City God Temple, sobbing and weeping, Bai Yujun gripped her blade and stood motionless before the gate.