Yuan Gang understood at once. He knew what Niu Youdao meant. After the trouble they had encountered along the way, the rest of their journey had gone smoothly, and they had not seen that ghostly specter show itself again. That was rather strange.
Judging from the damage to the torch storage points, the destruction had stopped midway. They had already considered the possibilities: either the other side had seen that their methods had been broken, making further destruction pointless; or it was unfamiliar with the roads beyond and could not immediately locate the torch storage points to continue its sabotage. Perhaps both were true.
Now that he had asked about the village, it was clear enough. That ghostly specter had dared to attack cultivators, yet this village, which had no cultivators, had never suffered any disturbance. That meant the specter had never found its way here.
No matter what the circumstances were, one thing was certain: that specter had destroyed so many torch storage points along the route and covered no small distance. Its desperate intent to harm them was plain to see. The other side had gone to such lengths, and the two sides had never even fought, so it could not possibly know the depth of their respective strengths. Why would it give up so easily?
The only explanation was that it had not given up at all. The ghostly specter was simply extremely cautious and did not dare act rashly without certainty. This also proved Niu Youdao's claim from another angle—the specter's strength was limited.
Before long, two women came up from the foot of the mountain, bringing with them a very simple sedan chair, the kind made of two carrying poles and a chair.
Just as Shang Shuqing was being helped onto the chair, Niu Youdao