Again, the Old Beggar

It was in a dilapidated ancestral shrine.

After Lu Jun finished explaining that the demon who had tried to kill him earlier had been Huang Ni'er in disguise, Grandpa fell silent.

"Um... Grandpa, do you know what's going on?" Lu Jun cautiously asked Grandpa.

Grandpa shook his head.

After a long while, Grandpa suddenly raised his head and spoke:

"Let's go! Come home with me first."

Everyone in the village was busy preparing the midday feast, so they were basically all gathered in the center of the village.

Grandpa and Lu Jun barely encountered anyone on the way home.

Along the way, Grandpa even took Lu Jun over the walls and casually slipped into several villagers' homes. Through the iron-reinforced windows of those households, they saw people sleeping inside.

Sure enough, around the places where every household slept at night, there were iron chains and shackles binding the body—either attached to the walls or fixed into the ground.

Seeing this, Lu Jun couldn't help but believe it a little more.

Back home.

Grandpa immediately pulled Lu Jun into his room.

The floor of the room likewise held chains and shackles meant to restrain him.

Lu Jun had been too frightened the previous night, and with Grandpa covered by a quilt, he hadn't noticed the chains.

After returning to his room, Grandpa went to the bottom of the bed and rummaged around for a while. At last, he finally pulled a wooden box out from underneath it.

Then he wiped the dust from the wooden box and hugged it to his chest.

Lu Jun raised an eyebrow. "Old man, what's this?"

The old man chuckled, then opened the box directly in front of Lu Jun without hesitation.

Inside the box were several ingots of silver.

Lu Jun exclaimed in surprise, "Damn, Grandpa, you actually have secret savings!"

"So much! How long did it take you to save all this?"

The old man smacked his lips and gently stroked the several silver ingots inside the wooden box, grinning. "How is it? Your old man's pretty impressive, right?"

"This is what I saved over all these years by scrimping and saving."

Lu Jun's expression turned complicated.

Grandpa was the village carpenter.

On ordinary days, he would make a few things for the villagers and collect a few copper coins. He often couldn't save even several hundred copper coins in a whole year. To accumulate this much silver must have taken an extremely long time.

"Impressive... With this much money, we could do so many things... We could add a dozen or more chickens to the household, fix up the house a little, and still have plenty left over to buy two pigs..." Lu Jun murmured, wondering how such a large sum should be spent.

"Here." The old man extended both hands and offered the wooden box to Lu Jun.

"Huh?" Lu Jun froze for a moment, then accepted it instinctively.

The old man's body suddenly relaxed. He slumped onto the bed and said with a chuckle, "This is the money I saved for you to marry a wife..."

"Originally, I thought that little girl Huang Ni'er was quite suitable for you. I'd planned to take you to propose in a few days, but with things as they are now... that won't be possible."

"So... I want you to take this money and go to Yunzhou, the nearest prefecture..." Grandpa said.

"Go to Yun Province?" Lu Jun was somewhat surprised. "What for?"

He had lived in this little village his entire life. The farthest place he had ever been was the town, and he had never gone anywhere as distant as Yun Province.

Grandpa said, "Naturally, to find the Demon Slaying Division."

Lu Jun asked in confusion, "But Grandpa, didn't you hide this from us before because you were afraid we'd let something slip and alert the Demon Slaying Division?"

"Before this, you even told me that prejudice in people's hearts was a mountain, and that if outsiders learned you could turn into demons, the entire village would be ostracized. You even said the Demon Slaying Division might slaughter you all without leaving a single survivor or something."

The old man helplessly said, "Sigh, this is a choice made only because there's no other choice."

"Now, nearly ninety percent of the people in the village have already taken on the appearance of demons, and even young people like you are beginning to show signs... If everyone in the village turns into demons, then this will become a demon village through and through. If we wait until then to seek help from the Demon Slaying Division, we really won't be able to explain ourselves."

Then, the old man rarely revealed a benevolent expression. "Child, while there are still normal people in our village, I think we should end this thousand-year curse as soon as possible."

Lu Jun asked, "Do the village chief and the others know about this?"

"They don't."

The old man curled his lips. "That bunch are nothing but cowards clinging to life, trying to save only themselves—living one more day if they can, hiding things for one more day if they can. They've never considered how our village, as the Human Race's spark, could pass on its legacy if everyone turned into those monsters, or how we'd explain ourselves when outsiders saw us."

"Those cowards have never once thought about any of that."

"Your old man is counting on holding a great-grandson!"

"I can't just watch my family's bloodline end with your generation!"

"Today is the Huang Pi Dao Master's sacrificial day. Outsiders are forbidden from entering the village, and villagers are forbidden from leaving."

Lu Jun gritted his teeth. "Then how am I supposed to get out...?"

Determination flashed through the old man's eyes. "I thought of that long ago! You'll take the waterways."

The autumn air was cool, and the reeds had grown lush, standing at their tallest height of the entire year.

The sturdy men sent by the village to conduct patrols were inspecting the area near the stream.

"Hey, A Qi, your eyesight is good. Take a look—what's that floating on the river?"

A young man had spotted a brown object drifting across the surface of the lake and grew curious. He hurriedly called out to his companion in the distance.

The young man called A Qi looked over as well. After seeing it clearly, he said, "Looks like a failed homemade raft..."

Then A Qi confirmed, "It's definitely a failed raft. It's obvious no one could even stand on it... There's no need to bother with it."

"Oh..."

The raft drifted right past the two men in plain sight, floating along the stream from upstream to downstream.

The lonely raft bobbed along in the water.

Suddenly.

Splash!

The raft was abruptly flipped over.

A drenched head emerged from the water, a reed stalk for breathing clenched between his teeth.

"Grandpa, I didn't expect you to have quite a few tricks."

This person was Lu Jun, who had successfully escaped the village.

A minuscule hole had been opened in the center of the raft before him, just large enough for Lu Jun to extend a reed stalk through and breathe.

There were also two small handles made from bamboo strips beneath the raft, allowing Lu Jun to grip it tightly and keep from losing his hold.

Finally, with the raft's buoyancy, he had successfully escaped the village.

Lu Jun hurriedly reached the bank. His entire body shivered, and he quickly stripped off his clothes and wrung out the soaked garments.

"Little boy, we meet again."

Just then, a wavering voice came from behind Lu Jun once more.

"Damn it!!"

Lu Jun jumped in fright and hurriedly turned around. Behind him stood the blind old beggar he had seen the day before.