The southern end of Jinling Commandery.
Li Family Village.
It lay on the border between the two kingdoms of Dali and Qiluo. Merchant caravans from both countries often came and went, exchanging goods.
That day, after a hard day's labor, the farmer Li Daqiang was famished. Carrying a bundle of firewood on his back, he hurried down the mountain toward home.
When he reached halfway down the mountain, Li Daqiang suddenly heard the intermittent sobs of a woman.
Could some family's daughter have gotten lost? he wondered.
Following the sound, he soon saw a woman wrapped from head to toe in old clothes, crouching beneath a tree and weeping.
The woman's sobs were heartrending, stirring pity in anyone who heard them.
Li Daqiang was a sturdy man in his thirties. He was usually bold and was also warmhearted.
So he stepped forward and asked, "Which family are you from, miss? Did you get lost?"
However, the woman seemed not to hear him and merely continued to cry.
Li Daqiang called out several more times, but the woman still gave no answer.
Frowning, Li Daqiang stepped closer. Unexpectedly, the woman suddenly raised her head.
Beneath the old clothes was a bizarre fox face covered in fur.
A pair of emerald-green eyes stared straight at Li Daqiang.
Li Daqiang jumped in fright. I've run into a monster!
He immediately drew the woodcutter's knife at his waist and hacked at the fox-faced woman.
The fox-faced woman opened her mouth and spat out a mist as red as human blood.
The bloody mist was dazzling in color and fragrant, yet it also carried an enchanting, bewitching aura.
The moment Li Daqiang inhaled it, his head spun and his vision blurred. Hallucinations arose in his mind, and the woodcutter's knife fell from his hand.
Looking again at the woman beneath the tree, there was no fox-faced monster to be seen. She was clearly a beautiful young maiden as lovely as a celestial fairy.
When Li Daqiang saw the beautiful maiden coquettishly teasing him, desire flared in his heart. He grew unbearably feverish, and his body reacted.
The maiden immediately moved closer and drew out the vital essence within Li Daqiang's body.
Li Daqiang let out a long breath, feeling as though he had ascended to immortality.
Over the next few days, Li Daqiang became addicted to the sensation.
Every day, he came here to meet the maiden in secret, willingly becoming the fox charmer's slave.
That day, unable to restrain himself any longer, Li Daqiang brought the beautiful maiden home.
When Li Daqiang's wife saw him bring home a fox-faced woman whose face was covered in coarse fur, she went deathly pale, as though she had seen a ghost.
No matter what, Li Daqiang's wife refused to let the fox-faced woman enter the house.
Thus, Li Daqiang quarreled with his wife.
In a fit of rage, Li Daqiang hacked his wife to death with the woodcutter's knife.
He dug out her flesh and heart and presented them to the fox charmer.
Xia Qi'an led Bata to the vicinity of Li Family Village.
From a distance, he saw that the village's land had lain desolate for a long time, weeds growing thick as tangled hemp. The livestock pens were empty and scrubbed clean, while the houses were dilapidated beyond repair. The place resembled a dead city.
The situation in the village was indeed as the Snake Guards had described. Only some young men remained.
Yet these men had no interest in working the land. Their bodies were emaciated and their limbs weak, but their spirits remained high, their faces glowing with springtime lust.
Xia Qi'an activated his Crimson Pupils and observed them from afar. He immediately knew that their minds had been bewitched by a monster.
Thus, he did not rashly enter the village. Instead, he chose to slip in from the rear mountain.
After entering the woods behind the mountain, the sight before him left Xia Qi'an stunned.
Corpses hung densely throughout the woods. They were all elderly villagers, strung up like rows of wind-dried cured meat.
Their flesh had been cut away, and they had been hung from the trees to dry, serving as provisions for the monster.
Xia Qi'an instantly flew into a rage. "This monster is far too audacious."
He then brought Bata and carefully infiltrated the village.
"Thud..."
"Thud..."
"Thud..."
Just as the two passed a villager's house, the intermittent sound of a cleaver chopping against a cutting board came from inside.
Curious, Xia Qi'an used a finger to push open a crack in the window and peered inside.
His scalp immediately prickled. A man in his forties was hacking the hands and feet off his own eleven- or twelve-year-old daughter, mincing them finely and placing the pieces on a plate.
The girl's eyes remained open in death, bulging as though they might spray blood.
They happened to face the direction from which Xia Qi'an was looking, clearly showing that she had been dead for some time.
The man seemed entirely unaware, his face glowing with lust as he chopped the meat, eager to present the food to the monster.
Although fury raged in Xia Qi'an's heart, the girl was already dead. Even killing the villager would accomplish nothing.
So he forcibly held himself back from acting and quickened his pace toward the place in the village where the monster's aura was strongest.
The reason Xia Qi'an had chosen to infiltrate the village was that all the young men had been bewitched by the monster.
If he forced his way in, the villagers would inevitably surround and attack him.
When that happened, killing them would be wrong, but sparing them would be impossible as well.
Therefore, Xia Qi'an chose to avoid the villagers and head straight for the monster.
The land occupied by the monster had originally belonged to the village landlord's family.
It covered more than ten mu and contained a two-story residence.
As he drew near the main house, Xia Qi'an heard a commotion from within. Listening carefully, he heard the heavy panting of more than a dozen men, rising and falling in waves.
There was also a woman's melodious, plaintive moan.
From the sounds alone, Xia Qi'an could already imagine the debauched scene inside: a dozen men with a single woman.
Xia Qi'an immediately kicked open the door and dove inside.
Inside, incense smoke curled thickly through the air. Jade vessels, melons, fruit, and dead flesh were scattered about, while jade cotton and silk lay strewn everywhere.
A pool had even been dug inside the room, filled with fine wine and mountain spring water. It was a scene unlike anything in the mortal world.
When the dozen strong young men saw Xia Qi'an and Bata burst in, they seemed not to notice. Still wearing vacant, infatuated expressions, they continued pawing at the snow-white woman beneath them.
Those who could not secure a place could only stand to the side and stare eagerly.
When the woman saw Xia Qi'an and Bata intrude, her emerald-green pupils turned toward them. Her eyes immediately flashed brightly. "What rich qi and blood! It's truly rare to encounter two martial artists in a godforsaken place like this!"
However, in Xia Qi'an's eyes, how could this be a woman as beautiful as a celestial fairy?
It was clearly a fox charmer who had occupied a dead woman's body and grown a fox's fur and face.
The fox charmer ordered the men around her, "Go and seize them for me!"
At her words, more than a dozen burly men climbed down from the bed.
All of them were completely naked, their limp manhoods dangling as they wore half-smiling, half-silly expressions and lunged at Xia Qi'an and Bata.
Seeing this, Xia Qi'an felt a wave of revulsion and instinctively took half a step back.
Bata immediately moved in front of Xia Qi'an like a solid wall.
The dozen men pounced on Bata like hungry tigers.
"Abah..." Bata roared.
Like a war god descending, he flung all of them away in one motion.
Then, his Great Strength Vajra Fist struck like cannonballs. One punch per man, he blew apart the heads of six men in the blink of an eye.
Seeing that Bata was actually so powerful, the fox charmer opened her mouth and spat out a cloud of blood mist.
Bata waved his hand in disgust, and the blood mist scattered like smoke, as though it were utterly insignificant.
Then Bata continued slaughtering the charm slaves in the room as if nothing had happened.
The fox charmer's expression became extremely ugly.
This seductive aura was her greatest reliance. Ever since descending the mountain, she had never encountered anyone capable of resisting it.
However, she did not know that Bata's mind was incomplete and contained none of those jumbled, filthy thoughts.
"Hmph... How could Bata's mind possibly contain such things...?"
Seeing this, Xia Qi'an sneered repeatedly.
He knew that this fox charmer was merely a fledgling little monster that had just come down from the mountain and had never seen much of the world. That was why it dared to be so audacious.
It had no idea that, in human territory, there were plenty of people capable of dealing with it.
Generally speaking, martial artists had to reach the Spirit Condensation realm and condense a martial Primordial Spirit before they could resist a monster's supernatural arts.
But Xia Qi'an was protected by a mysterious azure crystal, so he naturally had no fear of the fox charmer's seductive aura either.
He immediately used Dragon Claw Hand, reaching straight for the fox charmer.
He seized the woman's throat and dragged her off the bed.
"You like eating people, do you? Watch me skin you alive today!" Xia Qi'an snarled viciously.
The fox charmer had unexpectedly encountered two martial artists who were both unafraid of her supernatural art. Seeing that the situation was bad, she immediately abandoned the woman's body, transformed into a cloud of red mist, and rushed out the window.
"Bata, chase!"
Xia Qi'an had not expected the fox charmer to be so decisive. He immediately called to Bata, used Ghost Shadow Evasion, and transformed into a ghostly shadow that pursued her.
Xia Qi'an had been careless for a moment, allowing the fox charmer to escape outside.
At that moment, under the fox charmer's control, all the villagers in the village came rushing over and surrounded Xia Qi'an and Bata.
Under the fox charmer's bewitchment, these people had all offered their wives and daughters to be eaten by it. Their hands were stained with blood, and they were no longer innocent.
After witnessing the bloody scene of the man killing his own daughter, Xia Qi'an naturally had no intention of showing these people mercy. He shouted at Bata, "Kill them all..."
Whenever Xia Qi'an gave an order, Bata never overthought it. He simply carried it out to the letter.
At once, like a charging wild bull, he faced hundreds of villagers wielding pitchforks and hoes without the slightest fear and plunged headlong into the crowd.