Heading to Liuli Temple Village

The death of the Liu family father and daughter was like a splash of cold water, jolting Shen Yi awake.

Do not harbor any delusions of luck!

They were not mindless monsters wandering the wilderness, waiting to stay put in one place and be harvested for experience points by passing knights.

Doing what he had done before—relying on the connections left by his predecessor to strike suddenly while the demons were off guard—was indeed easy to pull off.

But it could not go on like this forever.

Those violent creatures had emotions too, and they could pass messages to one another, at a speed far faster than he had imagined!

They knew the Black-skinned Dog Demon had gone to the Liu family; did they not know who it had followed?

With every demon that died, the remaining beasts would grow increasingly cruel, and their vigilance would rise accordingly. If news of the Ape Demon's demise also spread, the next ones to ambush him would likely be true Great Demons.

Shen Yi did not want to live his life in constant fear.

He needed more demon longevity.

Thinking of this, Shen Yi stood up and walked slowly out of the courtyard gate.

By now, many commoners were already standing on Willow Leaf Street, all looking toward this spot from a distance.

Bailiffs beating bailiffs—such a spectacle of dogs biting dogs was rarely seen.

"Let them all go."

Shen Yi nodded his chin.

"Understood." Chen Ji cupped his fists, signaling the remaining men to untie the captives.

He withdrew his gaze, suddenly looking conflicted. Gritting his teeth, he took out an opened letter, the envelope stained with blood. "Do you want to see this... it just fell off one of them."

Shen Yi frowned, took the letter, and slowly unfolded it.

The content consisted of only one sentence.

"Come to Liuli Temple Village, I have something to ask you."

It was abrupt, with no beginning or end, and not a single name written on it.

But based on Shen Yi's understanding of those dog demons, they were far more skilled at wielding blades than holding a pen.

The only one with the leisure for such things was that old dog who never worried about food or drink, and among the ordinary bailiffs, the only one who could claim a connection to the Yellow Weasel was himself.

Chen Ji clearly saw the implications as well, which was why he had hesitated to bring it out. "What should we do? You definitely cannot go, but if you ignore it, they will come to the city to find you... should we go to Liu the Clerk?"

It was common knowledge that Liu the Clerk treated Shen Yi like a nephew.

With that connection, if he were only willing to speak up, there was even a chance to invite that formidable martial artist from the County Magistrate's office to intercede with the demons.

"You must be quick, otherwise Liuli Temple Village..." Chen Ji was anxious.

"Heh." Zhang Pengtian stumbled against the wall, spitting out blood-flecked foam while sneering. "Liu the Clerk has already given the word. You can't mobilize a single bailiff now, so just stay in the county honestly. You're lucky someone is protecting your life, as for other cheap lives... pfft... you don't have the ability to care about them anyway."

Hearing this, Chen Ji's heart skipped a beat.

He instinctively looked at the young man in front of him, but was immediately overcome by a deep sense of powerlessness.

Even if Shen Yi's martial prowess had far exceeded his imagination, it was still limited to the scope of ordinary bailiffs. If he were to face the entire dog demon faction... he had seen those invited martial artists, all of them experts at slaying demons, yet even they could only stay obediently in the county.

Just then, Chen Ji noticed that the furrow in Shen Yi's brow had suddenly smoothed out.

"Master Shen..."

Shen Yi patted his shoulder. "Go back first."

He had originally been troubled by the fact that the demons were deep in the mountains, where the terrain was rugged and finding them would be a massive headache.

If he waited for them to come to him, he would be too passive.

Now that they wanted to have a talk, how could he miss such a good opportunity?

"..."

Shen Yi's expression was calm, but the more Chen Ji looked at him, the more uneasy he felt. Watching the other man walk away, he spoke instinctively: "You aren't going to leave the city, are you?"

"Leave the city? I watched him crawl up from a street thug; even if his own mother were snatched away by demons, he wouldn't even blink. Now he's acting like a coward!"

Zhang Pengtian, supported by two subordinates, felt his throat bob as he spat a glob of thick phlegm onto the ground.

"Pah!"

Outside Baiyun County.

A figure flashed by like an arrow piercing the air, causing treetops to sway and birds to take flight in alarm.

The Spirit Snake Eight Steps, originally just a common martial art, was now driven by his Initial Realm Five Apertures cultivation, making his speed nearly impossible for the naked eye to track.

Before long, Shen Yi saw the dilapidated little temple again.

He slowed his pace, his breathing steady; one could not tell at all that he had just been running at full speed.

On the ridges of Liuli Temple Village, the villagers stopped their work once more, looking toward the figure with the saber at the village entrance.

Generally, the arrival of bailiffs was synonymous with disaster.

It either came from the bailiffs themselves, or it meant demons were wreaking havoc.

Upon seeing the face of the newcomer, the numb expressions of the villagers softened slightly.

They still remembered this bailiff.

Last time, it was he who had personally slain the dog demon, and he hadn't even taken any silver when he left.

A little girl who had just learned to walk, wearing oversized, tattered, hole-ridden coarse cloth, stumbled over. She held up a broken bowl with both hands and said in a milky voice, "Officer, drink some water."

Shen Yi patted her head, took the broken bowl, and drank it in one gulp.

As he set the bowl down, his gaze slowly drifted toward the mountain path on the other side.

As the saying goes, better to arrive at the right time than to arrive early... this was truly a coincidence.

On the rugged mountain path, more than a dozen figures, two heads taller than an ordinary man, loomed in the dense forest.

Beneath their knotted, matted fur were well-proportioned, bulging muscles. They had ferocious faces, wore only loincloths, and carried a massive, two-zhang-tall sedan chair on their shoulders, treading the mountain path as if it were flat ground.

On that sedan chair, a body weighing at least eight hundred pounds lay leisurely.

The fat on its body was about two fingers wide per layer, piled up densely like a mountain of flesh, making it impossible to count how many layers there were.

Most striking was the oily, deep-yellow fur, which formed a sharp contrast with the other dog demons.

A moment later, they carried the sedan chair and stood still at the village entrance.

The ragged little girl had just reached out to take back her broken bowl when she turned and fell onto her bottom with a "thud."

All expression froze on her dirty little face. She held her breath, her baby teeth biting hard into her lip, and her small body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Compared to the young girl, the other villagers appeared calmer... or rather, it was more that they were used to it.

They instinctively looked toward the road.

There was only one bailiff there, with only one saber at his waist.

Behind the bailiff, the winding little path appeared deathly silent. They waited for a long time, but saw no other figures appear.

The villagers seemed to understand something, and a sense of despair crept into their vacant eyes.

They crouched down one after another, hugging themselves tightly, neither crying out nor running away.

The little girl suddenly felt herself covered by a tall shadow.

She looked up.

She saw the officer walk slowly past her, drawing the saber from his waist as he walked.

Until the long blade was fully unsheathed.

Shen Yi carried his waist-saber at a slant, standing in front of the massive sedan chair.

(End of chapter)