Azure Sky Blocks the Field, Deceiving the Common People; Sharp Youth Scolds the False, Angering the Masses

"I didn't hear any screams."

Carpenter Zhang cocked his ear and listened. Aside from the roar of machinery and the clatter of hooves, the city was deathly quiet. "Didn't hear anyone crying or wailing either..."

Those words were like a pebble dropped into a still pond. The cracks in the doors of several nearby homes quietly widened.

"That direction... it looks like they're heading for the fields outside the city?"

Someone lowered his voice and poked his head over the neighboring wall, glancing toward the departing procession.

"What are they going to the fields for?"

Someone immediately chimed in, doubt in their voice. "They can't be going to eat the crops, can they?"

"That won't do! If they eat the crops, what are we supposed to eat?"

"How about... we go take a look?"

A peddler carrying an empty shoulder pole squatted by the wall and swallowed, a flicker of curiosity flashing through his eyes.

He had gone to the docks to stock up that morning and happened to run into the procession leaving the city. At first, he had been so frightened that he burrowed into a haystack. After hiding for quite a while without seeing any movement, his curiosity had instead begun to gnaw at him.

"Are you crazy?"

The vegetable-selling old woman beside him shot him a glare, still holding her basket. "That's Blood Butcher! And those steel demon beasts! It's already incense-worthy luck that they haven't killed us, and you still dare go near them?"

"But..."

The peddler scratched his head. "We need to know what that thing does before we can rest easy.

"What if it's only going to the fields to dig up bugs and field mice to eat... Maybe it doesn't hurt people?"

"Night market,"

Carpenter Zhang nodded as well, pushing open a