"Ah, well, we can explain—"
Daoist Qingyue was drenched in sweat. He brought Shen Le to the storeroom where the Daoist temple's scriptures were kept, stood on tiptoe with difficulty, and took down a thick stack of dusty handwritten records from a shelf, flipping through them one by one.
"This is a record from Li Gully Village villagers reporting the discovery of a chicken demon. This is a record from Great River Village villagers reporting that a chicken demon blocked the road and requesting that a nearby Daoist temple subdue it—"
"This is a record from Three-Bend Village villagers reporting that a chicken demon entered the village in broad daylight and pecked and injured villagers—"
"Upon investigation, the injured party, Li Ergou, was once a bandit who wreaked havoc across the region—the chicken demon had come for revenge and did not harm anyone else.
"Li Ergou's wife and daughter were both unharmed—"
Lines of ink, some dark and some faded, revealed traces of events from centuries ago upon fragile yellowed paper that had even begun to mold.
Shen Le leaned over to read while complaining, "Such a huge sword sect, and not only do you not have a storage system like jade slips, your library doesn't even have permanent waterproofing, pest-repelling, or fireproofing spells."
Daoist Qingyue sighed.
"Although many things weren't this chicken demon's fault, we are human after all. We couldn't permit a demon to run rampant. At the very least, we had to remove it from the villagers' living area.
"We took it to the back mountain. It tried to escape several times, but we caught it every time. Later, its soul became unstable, so we could only lock it in the pagoda."
Shen Le did not know how to judge it either. From the chicken demon's perspective,