"Big sister, are you... here to capture the Dragon King too?"
"The Dragon King?" Jiang Yuechu repeated, glancing at the smashed shrine. "Is the Dragon King you mentioned the one worshipped here?"
A-Shui nodded, then quickly shook his head. Her eyes reddened at once.
"He used to be... but the Dragon King isn't here anymore."
"Then where is he?"
"I don't know..."
"What exactly happened? Tell us carefully."
Zhao Hu couldn't wait any longer and stepped forward.
His anxious expression, combined with the Horizontal Blade at his waist, made A-Shui instinctively shrink behind Jiang Yuechu.
Old Wang clicked his tongue in disapproval. "Don't scare the child."
Zhao Hu: "..."
Jiang Yuechu could only ask again, helplessly, "A-Shui, take your time. Don't be afraid."
With her soothing words, A-Shui finally settled down a little. Sobbing, she told them the whole story, from beginning to end.
"The nearby villages have worshipped the Dragon King for generations, praying for favorable weather and good harvests."
"The Dragon King from before wasn't the one here now."
Everyone was taken aback, but quickly understood.
For demons, the incense offerings of humankind were a powerful tonic.
Any place that enjoyed a rich supply of incense offerings naturally became a coveted prize in the eyes of demons. Fighting over it was only to be expected.
After all, to the common folk, it made no difference who was Dragon King. As long as he could bring favorable weather and good harvests, it didn't matter who they worshipped.
"Several decades ago, the current Dragon King came and drove off the old one. Then he became our Dragon King."
Zhao Hu couldn't help cutting in. "So he's no better than the other one. What difference does it make?"
"There is a difference!" A-Shui immediately retorted, her voice rising. "The current Dragon King is much better than the old one! The old one demanded a boy and a girl from the village as sacrifices every year. Ever since the current Dragon King came, he's never asked for that!"
The others exchanged glances.
By the sound of it, this newcomer even had a measure of demonic virtue.
"What happened after that?" Jiang Yuechu asked.
At the mention of what came next, A-Shui's spirits sank again. "The Dragon King... The Dragon King was good in every way, except... except he was too lonely. He wanted... wanted a child."
He wanted a child?
The roomful of rough men instantly wore strange expressions.
Demons having offspring was commonplace, but from the girl's tone, this matter was clearly not so simple.
"Then... then one time, Sister Xing'er, the village chief's daughter, went to bathe in the river. When she came back, her belly had... had grown."
"..."
Even the Demon Suppression Bureau's people, who had seen all manner of strange things, were stunned by this.
They'd heard of fetching something from a distance, but planting a seed across water...
What the hell kind of supernatural ability was that?!
"The villagers didn't know what had happened. They thought Sister Xing'er had been with some man outside..."
She was too young to say it outright, but the meaning was clear enough.
"The village chief was furious and wanted to break Sister Xing'er's legs. In the end, it was his wife, who couldn't bear to see her daughter suffer, who secretly went to town and hired a wandering Daoist to take a look."
"The Daoist took one look and said that what Sister Xing'er was carrying wasn't human... it was a Demon Fetus!"
The village chief was so enraged that he fainted on the spot. When he woke, he gathered a group of people and headed for the Dragon King Temple. He said that they worshipped the Dragon King out of respect, but he couldn't treat the people of their village this way!
The others listened, sighing in dismay.
Anyone would have blown their top over something like that.
"And what happened after that? The girl..."
Liu Chen couldn't help asking.
A-Shui shook her head. "Sister Xing'er went... I don't know what happened to her, but she went mad. She was determined to keep the child in her belly, and wouldn't listen to anyone."
"The villagers all cursed her. They said a demon had bewitched her, that she was a shameless, filthy thing. Even the village chief said... she was no longer his daughter."
"In the end... in the end, several village elders decided that Sister Xing'er was carrying a demon, bringing shame on the village, and that if they kept her, she'd bring disaster upon them."
"So they put Sister Xing'er... put Sister Xing'er in a pig cage and sank her into the Black River..."
By the time she finished, the others didn't know what to say.
The demon was certainly at fault.
But the villagers...
A long while passed.
Only then did Liu Chen speak, his voice hoarse. "So the Black River became the way it is now after that?"
A-Shui nodded. "The day after Sister Xing'er died, the Dragon King flew into a rage. The river started flowing backward. Three days later, it became the way it is now—foul-smelling and reeking, with all the fish dead..."
Jiang Yuechu looked at the smashed shrine, her heart a jumble of emotions.
She suddenly asked, "What about you? Who are you? Why are you here?"
A-Shui wiped her tears and said, "I... I don't have a father or mother. I've begged for food in the village since I was little. The Dragon King was kindhearted. When the villagers brought him offerings, he wouldn't eat them all, and he'd let me take the rest."
"The Dragon King isn't a bad demon. He just... just wanted so badly to be a father."
"Sister Xing'er died, and his child was gone too. He was heartbroken, and that's why he lost his temper."
She raised her head and looked at them with a pair of reddened eyes, her gaze full of pleading.
"Officials, big sister... could you... could you let the Dragon King go?"
"He's already so pitiful..."
"..."
Let him go?
The others exchanged glances.
The Demon Suppression Bureau's duty was to slay demons and exterminate evil.
Now a demon was causing havoc, the water supply had been cut off, and the people living along the river were struggling to survive. They had been sent here on orders—how could they possibly let it go?
Zhao Hu was the first to break the silence. "Pitiful? What about the people who can't get clean water and can only drink this stinking river water while they wait to die? Aren't they pitiful?"
"And what about our brothers from the Yellow Battalion? No one knows whether they're alive or dead. Aren't they pitiful?"
"Right and wrong are separate matters! A demon is a demon. If it harms people, it deserves to die!"
His words were rough, but they were the truth.
Liu Chen sighed without speaking, tacitly agreeing with Zhao Hu.
He turned to look at Jiang Yuechu.
Only then did he notice that she had stood up at some point and was silently gazing outside the temple.
"What do you think?" Liu Chen asked.
For some reason, he found himself wanting to hear the new recruit's opinion.
"It's our duty. Of course it should die."
At her words, the last trace of color drained from A-Shui's face.
She stared at Jiang Yuechu in disbelief.
"...You're a bad person."
"You're all bad people!"
The little girl shrieked, scrambled to her feet, and staggered out of the temple.
Zhao Hu instinctively started after her, but Liu Chen raised a hand to stop him.
"Let her go."
Liu Chen sighed and gave Jiang Yuechu a complicated look.
He had thought that, as a woman, Jiang Yuechu might feel more deeply about this matter. He hadn't expected her to be so decisive.
But...
Perhaps that was for the best.
Everyone had a different position, and so naturally, they acted differently.
Now that she was part of the Demon Suppression Bureau, she naturally had to think as one of its members.
It was true that the villagers had been wrong to take the law into their own hands, but that was something for the imperial court to handle.
The Demon Suppression Bureau had always followed just one rule:
Slay demons. Exterminate evil.
Before you continue