Chen Jieqi sat cross-legged next to the stone monument at the entrance of Village of Light all night.
When the sky got slightly brighter, he opened his eyes and found that the Soul Power in his body had recovered to 89%. The gray-black lines on his right arm were vaguely visible in the morning light, like a dormant thin snake.
He stood up and took one last look at the village.
The houses on both sides of the village road revealed their dilapidated outlines in the morning light. Those houses that once had lights on now only have empty doors and windows, like blind eyes.
The warm and moist smell purified by the Holy Light still remains in the air, but the smell of decay has dissipated.
He did not burn the village or erect a monument. Some places do not need to be remembered.
Chen Jieqi turned around and walked along the dirt road towards the outside of the mountain, but instead of taking the official road, he turned into the path on the other side of the mountain ridge.
He remembered that when he used Holy Light Perception yesterday, he vaguely felt that there was more than just one village of Village of Light in this area.
After walking for about half an hour, he climbed over a low slope and saw another village at the foot of the mountain in the distance.
This village is larger than Village of Light, and the smoke from cooking is denser than Village of Light, but it is also unusually dense. At this time, there should not be so many people lighting fires.
Chen Jieqi slowed down, Holy Light Perception leaned out, and then he frowned slightly.
This village also has pollution, but unlike Village of Light, the pollution here is not "diffuse" but "infiltrated".
It's like water flowing into sand. You can't see it on the surface, but it has changed deep down.
He walked down the slope. There was no stone monument at the entrance of the village, only an old locust tree with a few vague characters carved on the trunk, which had been eroded by wind and rain and could not be seen clearly.
Someone was walking on the village road, and a middle-aged woman came back from the well holding a wooden basin filled with washed clothes.
Two children were chasing each other in the alley, laughing loudly. An old man was sitting on the threshold, basking in the sun, squinting his eyes, as if he was taking a nap.
Everything looked normal, but Chen Jieqi knew it was not normal.
He did not restrain his breath and just walked into the village. Several villagers looked up at him and said,
He lowered his head and continued to do his own thing. It was not indifference, but a strange... slowness.
Their eyes are half a beat slower than normal people, and their movements are also half a beat slower, as if they are separated by an invisible layer of water.
Chen Jieqi walked up to the old man basking in the sun and squatted down.
"Old man."
The old man slowly raised his head and looked at him with cloudy eyes. His lips moved a few times before he squeezed out one word, "... who?"
"I'm passing by," Chen Jieqi said, "I want to ask for a bowl of water."
The old man stared at him for a long time, so long that Chen Jieqi thought he would not answer.
Then the old man slowly raised his hand and pointed at the half-open wooden door behind him, "The pot... is on the table."
Chen Jieqi stood up without entering the house. He turned around and walked towards the two chasing children and squatted down in front of them.
"What are your names?"
Two children stopped and looked at him. One said "Goudan" and the other said "Yaya".
After saying that, they ran away again. The laughter was as clear and crisp as before, but Chen Jieqi could hear it. There was no emotion in the laughter, just sound.
His fingers tightened slightly. The pollution level in this village was much lighter than Village of Light.
The dirt is not entrenched in the meridians, but floating on the surface of the sea of consciousness, like a layer of mist, covering their emotions and thinking.
They can still live, speak, and do simple things, but they are no longer complete "human beings."
They are alive, but they don't live like humans.
Chen Jieqi took a deep breath and walked towards the grain drying field in the center of the village. He stood in the middle of the field, closed his eyes, and the silver-white fifth Soul Ring slowly emerged.
He has no use [Holy Storm], it will also purify the villagers.
Instead, another method was used, the diffusion application of [Healing Heart].
Silver-white holy light surged out of his body, not bursting out, but filling the air.
Like morning mist, it slowly and gently spreads around, covering the entire grain drying field, and then spreads to the village road, to the houses, and to every corner.
Wherever the holy light passes, invisible gray-black particles in the air begin to emerge, struggle, and dissipate.
One by one, the villagers stopped what they were doing and stood there, their eyes changing from dull to blank, and from blank to clear.
This process lasted about as long as a cup of tea.
Chen Jieqi retracted the holy light, and fine beads of sweat oozed from his forehead. This method was more energy-consuming than fighting.
It's not a physical consumption of Soul Power, but a spiritual one. He needs to control the holy light accurately to only purify the filth and not harm the villagers.
The first person to react was the old man. He stood up from the threshold, his movements much more agile than before.
He looked at his hands, then looked up at Chen Jieqi, his lips trembled and his eyes gradually turned red.
"You... you are..."
"Passing by." Chen Jieqi said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
The old man didn't believe it. He staggered to Chen Jieqi and knelt down with a plop.
"Benefactor! You... are the benefactor!"
Chen Jieqi stretched out his hand to help him, but the old man refused to get up. His crying attracted other villagers, and one by one, they gathered around.
Some people knelt down, some shed tears, and some shouted incoherently "Thank you", "Benefactor", "Spirit Hall's Lord".
Chen Jieqi stood in the crowd, looking at the villagers kneeling in front of him, and was silent for a long time.
Because he knew that what these villagers needed was not politeness, but hope.
They have lived in this polluted land for an unknown length of time, losing themselves every day but not knowing what happened.
He was the first to tell them, "You are saved."
"Get up." He finally said these two words.
The old man was helped up and he held his hand. The old man wiped his tears and suddenly spoke,
"Benefactor, our village... has never had a formal name."
Chen Jieqi was stunned for a moment.
"There used to be a monument, but then it broke. No one remembers what it was called." The old man said, his cloudy eyes glowing.
"You... give me a name."
Chen Jieqi pondered for a moment and looked to the east, where the morning light was penetrating the clouds and shining on the roofs of the village.
"Guangxi." He said, "My name is Dawnlight Village."
"Guangxi..." the old man murmured and repeated, then nodded heavily,
"Okay! What a good name! From today on, we are Dawnlight Village's people!"
Other villagers also shouted, some were laughing, some were crying, some were laughing and crying at the same time.
Chen Jieqi did not stop them. He waited until his mood calmed down a little before he asked,
"Let me ask you a few things."
From the villagers' mouths, he got more information. The pollution started half a year ago.
At first, some people just felt "lack of energy", but later they gradually became "slow to respond", "not talkative", and "cannot remember things".
I called a doctor in the village and found nothing wrong. I called Soul Master and said "nothing abnormal".
Someone wants to move away, but the person who moves away suddenly goes crazy on the way, runs back, and then dies at home.
"We thought it was a plague," the old man said, "And then we didn't dare to leave."
Chen Jieqi asked, "Do you know the people from Village of Light?"
The old man's face changed, "Village of Light... How are they?"
Chen Jieqi did not answer, but he read the answer from the old man's expression: Village of Light's situation,
Dawnlight Village people know a little bit, but they don't dare to ask, they don't dare to go, they don't even dare to think about it.
"Do you want to leave here?" Chen Jieqi asked.
The old man was stunned for a moment, then nodded heavily, "I want to! Even in my dreams! But we dare not leave..."
"I'll find a way." Chen Jieqi interrupted him,
"Give me a month. During this month, you can live your life as usual, don't make any noise, and don't tell anyone what happened today."
He paused and took out a small cloth bag from Soul Tool, which contained several Gold Soul Coin.
"Take it to buy food. If anyone asks, just say... it was a gift from a distant relative."
The old man took the bag, his hands shaking.
"Benefactor, you... will you really come back?"
Chen Jieqi looked at him, at the eyes around him that were filled with expectation, fear, and a hint of hope.
"Yes!"
He only said one word.
After leaving Dawnlight Village, Chen Jieqi did not stop.
He spent a day visiting the five villages outside the Cangmang Mountain Range.
Two of them, like Village of Light, had been completely destroyed. He did not go in, but only used Holy Light Perception to confirm the situation from a distance.
The "people" in those villages can no longer be called people.
The other three were similar to Dawnlight Village, with different degrees of contamination, but they were all salvageable. It took him three days to complete the purification.
He didn't tell anyone his name, but someone started calling him "Lightbringer."
Chen Jieqi I don't know which village this name came from first, but it spread among several villages like the wind.
When he left, some people chased him to see him off, some wanted to follow him, and some knelt at the entrance of the village and kowtowed, even if their heads were broken.
He didn't even look back, it wasn't that he was indifferent.
But he knows that all he can do now is "purify".
The real problem is not these polluted villages, but the pollution itself, those Evil Soul Master,
That underground palace, that gray-black statue, that voice said "the core of Temple of Light".
If he doesn't get rid of the root cause, if he purifies a hundred villages, there will still be a hundred and one.
On the evening of the fourth day, Chen Jieqi was sitting on a hill, looking at the deep and continuous ridges of the Cangmang Mountain Range in the distance.
The setting sun dyed the sky dark red, like coagulated blood.
He looked down at his right arm, and the gray-black lines were still there. Under the silver-white holy light, they looked like an indelible mark.
Village of Light is dead, but Dawnlight Village is alive.
He couldn't save everyone, but at least he saved some.
"Sheng Hui." He muttered silently.
This time, the voice of Unicorn sounded in his mind. It was not a language, but a more direct transmission of thoughts.
"You're hesitating."
Chen Jieqi was silent for a while.
"I wonder how many people I can save."
"You can't save everyone."
"I know."
"Then why do you still want to save me?"
Chen Jieqi didn't answer. He looked at the ridge in the distance, which was the deeper area of the Cangmang Mountain Range. There were no people, no villages, only an endless sea of trees and unknown dangers.
He remembered the empty shell of Village of Light, the moment when old man Dawnlight Village knelt down, and the hollow laughter of those children turned into real cries after being awakened by the Holy Light.
Thinking of the villager who called him "Lightbringer".
"I don't need to save everyone." He finally said, "But if I can save one, it's one."
Unicorn said no more.
But deep in the fifth Soul Ring, there was a warm wave, not like recognition, but more like... waiting.
Wait for him to prove this sentence with actions.
Chen Jieqi stood up, dusted himself off, and decided to walk deeper.