Liu Family Hidden Households! Sixth-Rank Statue! Bai Lin's Faith?

Mu Yang glanced at the aura guidance at his fingertips. After confirming the direction was correct, he immediately circulated the Blood Qi within him and activated Three-Breath Lightness, guarding against any unforeseen mishaps.

The result was unexpected. This cave seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary cave.

Though it stretched rather deep inside and had quite a few branching paths, aside from being a little dark, it was generally safe and carried no strange odors.

It did not look like a place where demons would hide.

Curious, Mu Yang continued deeper inside.

Suddenly, a glimmer of light appeared within the pitch-black cave.

Mu Yang hurried forward, and his view suddenly opened up.

Before him lay a lake sparkling beneath the moonlight.

Towering peaks surrounded the lake.

"A valley within a cave?"

Mu Yang swept his gaze around. Though the branches were lush and the scenery beautiful, the surrounding mountains enclosed it so tightly that not even wind could pass through. It was clearly a hidden valley.

Mu Yang stepped out of the cave entrance and looked into the distance.

To his surprise, neat rows of tiled houses and broad stretches of farmland stood not far from the lake.

Judging by the size of the houses and the amount of cultivated land, quite a few people lived here.

There were even more people here than in Huang Village or Li Village.

Yet he, a constable who took part in patrols outside the city, had never known of such a large village.

"Hidden households Liu Family failed to report?"

The Great Jing Dynasty stipulated that all commoners had to be registered and pay taxes per head.

Yet some great lineages would always secretly conceal people as their private property, sparing them from paying taxes to the court or performing corvée labor.

Such people were known as Hidden Households.

Though Liu Family concealing Hidden Households was against the law, it was not truly a major matter. At the very least, compared to colluding with demons, it was not worth mentioning.

Mu Yang silently made his way toward the village.

He activated Keen Sense of Smell while circulating the Tracking Technique to distinguish the surrounding auras.

The result disappointed him greatly.

There was absolutely no demon aura.

However, following the auras led him to Liu Qingke, who had entered the valley.

Liu Qingke was currently in a place within the village that looked like a granary, though he was all the way in its deepest section.

There were more than a hundred sets of armor and weapons there, along with a middle-aged man brimming with Qi-Blood Abundance, who looked like a steward.

The two conversed by candlelight late into the night, their expressions solemn.

For some reason, Mu Yang had the distinct feeling that they were plotting in secret at midnight, preparing to rise in rebellion.

In an ordinary ancient world, a local stronghold possessing over a hundred sets of armor would indeed be quite formidable. Unfortunately, martial arts existed here.

Without sufficient martial strength to support it, so-called rebellion was nothing but a joke.

Since it was not rebellion, then what were they discussing?

Curious, Mu Yang pressed his ear closer and listened for a while.

Before long, he understood.

This place was called Liu Family Valley. As the name implied, it was where Liu Family cultivated its own people.

It was both their foundation and their escape route.

Liu Qingke had come tonight merely to tell the Liu Family man in charge to avoid going out as much as possible these days, lest they accidentally provoke Mu Yang and be slaughtered by him.

Mu Yang: Am I really that bloodthirsty?

Mu Yang was speechless.

And amid that speechlessness, he felt somewhat regretful.

After all, apart from maintaining Hidden Households, Liu Family truly had not colluded with demons.

"Forget it. I'll search around once more. If there's really nothing, I'll head back."

Mu Yang tapped off the ground and left the granary.

Before long, an exceptionally tall building entered his sight.

It had a blue-gray tiled roof and upturned eaves, looking like an ancestral hall.

Mu Yang quietly entered and looked inside.

The ancestral hall was very spacious. A long offering table stood in the center, holding an incense burner, candlesticks, and fresh fruit and pastries as offerings.

Yet what stood above the offering table was not an ancestor of Liu Family, but a statue nearly two meters tall.

It was a woman dressed in white, with a diamond-shaped mark carved between her brows. Her hands formed a seal, and her gentle face carried a trace of compassion.

The sculptor was clearly a master. The statue was lifelike, as though it might come alive at any moment.

Yet even after staring at it for a long time, Mu Yang could not recognize its origins.

He had heard old constables mention the existence of ox-nosed old Taoist priests and bald monks, but he knew nothing about any other beliefs.

It was probably a small-scale faith, something like the Land God.

"I never expected these aristocratic lineages to dabble in such illusory things as faith."

Mu Yang sighed inwardly.

Just as he was preparing to turn and leave, an ink-wash-colored panel suddenly emerged from the statue.

[Equippable Item: Incense Statue (Bai Lin)]

[Rank: Sixth Rank]

[Equipment Effect: ① Incense Accumulation (Purple): This statue has been tempered by Incense Power and can store Incense Power.

② Anchor Point (Purple): This statue has been tempered by Incense Power. After consuming a certain amount of Incense Power, it can transmit the Incense Power stored within the statue to the object of faith regardless of distance.

③ Blessing (Purple): This statue has been tempered by Incense Power. Once the accumulated Incense Power reaches a certain level, if a believer prays sincerely, it can bless the surrounding region with favorable winds and timely rains.]

[Permanent Solidification Condition: Equip this item for two full years, or while equipped with this item, kill any demon beast of Sixth Rank or above.]

"!!!"

"Sixth Rank?"

Mu Yang steadied himself and read it over several times before finally confirming that his eyes were not deceiving him.

Incense Accumulation, Anchor Point, Blessing...

All three attributes were Purple!

This setup was more extravagant than every piece of equipment Mu Yang had seen before.

But the information contained in this equipment was rather overwhelming!

Statue, incense, faith...

"In other words, gods truly exist in this world?"

Mu Yang was astonished.

But thinking about it carefully, it did not seem so difficult to accept.

A First Rank martial artist could exert a thousand jin of force with one arm.

A Third Rank martial artist could exert more than ten thousand jin of force with one arm.

No matter how he looked at it, this was not an ordinary low-martial world. The existence of gods and the like seemed perfectly normal.

He simply did not know whether gods could be killed, or whether they could be equipped after death.

Mu Yang's heart grew hot.

As someone from the twenty-first century, with a blazing heart, he neither believed in nor feared so-called gods.

With the Equipment Slot at his side, even gods would be nothing more than nourishment for him.

Of course, those were matters for the future.

For now, he intended to return the way he came and quietly leave without taking a single item from the ancestral hall.

It was not that he was cowardly.

It was merely a tactical retreat, a measured and planned temporary withdrawal.

Anyone could tell with their toes that a god capable of creating a Sixth Rank statue with three Purple attributes, then spreading it to a tiny place like Qingxi County, could not possibly be ordinary.

Provoking it rashly would be nothing but courting death.

"Martial arts, demons, gods—this world really is wonderfully exciting. I need to work harder!"

"I hope that after joining the Demon Slayer Bureau, I'll encounter more demons to aid my cultivation."

In the lonely depths of night, moonlight spilled across the earth like silver.

Everything was as ordinary as ever.