What's the Point of Living, Brother? Just Jump

The moonlight was bleak and cold.

Jiang Yuechu dragged Pei Changqing's corpse to a relatively level dirt slope and dug with her saber.

After digging for quite a while, she had only managed a shallow pit.

Forget it.

Out here in this desolate wilderness, being laid to rest in the earth was already more than he could ask for.

After finishing all that, she turned and walked toward the corpses of the Demon-Suppression Guards.

When people died, they died. If they did not, they could live for ten thousand years.

But even dead people still had useful things on them.

Suppressing her nausea, she began searching the bodies.

A few pieces of broken silver, some dry, tough jerky, and a leather waterskin.

At last, her gaze fell upon a corpse roughly her own size.

The person had been very young, with traces of childishness still lingering on his face.

Jiang Yuechu fell silent for a moment.

"...Forgive me, brother."

She murmured softly, then stripped the black uniform with crimson patterns from his body.

She definitely could not keep wearing prison clothes. Those things made her a walking target wherever she went.

Changing into Demon Suppression Office clothing was dangerous too.

But between two evils, she would rather choose the identity that looked harder to provoke.

At the very least, it could intimidate people.

The clothes were covered in bloodstains and tears, cold and stiff against her skin.

She tied up her long hair, carelessly making a ponytail from memory, then hung her saber at her waist.

There was no mirror, but she could imagine how she looked right now.

A complete mess.

Yet when her hand gripped the hilt of her saber, an inexplicable sense of calm surged through her.

She did not linger any longer. After determining her direction, she stepped onto the official road.

Demon Suppression Office uniform—black clothes with crimson patterns

The official road was deserted, with only the lonely moon for company.

Jiang Yuechu walked silently, her mind racing.

Fortunately, the territory and geography of Great Tang in this world were largely similar to the history she remembered.

According to her memories, Longyou Circuit, where she currently was, roughly corresponded to the Gansu region of later generations.

Longyou had always been known for its fierce people. Bordering the kingdoms of the Western Regions and the grassland tribes, it had forever been a strategic battleground.

Great Tang stationed heavy troops here and established protectorates to deter all sides.

Yet even so, bandits and marauders still ran rampant. Along with the havoc caused by demons and monsters, ordinary people did not live easy lives.

Her most urgent task now was solving the problem of household registration and travel permits.

According to this body's fragmented memories, Great Tang's household registration system was called the Household Register.

It was uniformly issued by the Ministry of Revenue under the Secretariat Province, then distributed layer by layer through prefectures, counties, and villages.

One register per household, recording the household head, family members, ages, land holdings, and even brief descriptions of physical features.

This was household registration.

Only after obtaining household registration could one apply to the authorities for a travel permit.

With a travel permit, one could travel freely within Great Tang, enter cities, pass checkpoints, and stay at inns.

Those without registration were considered unregistered residents.

Those without permits were considered vagrants.

If either was caught by the authorities, their fate would not be pleasant.

The original owner of this body had been the only daughter of a high-ranking official in the capital, so she naturally had household registration.

But that was precisely the problem.

After the Jiang household was convicted, her registration had also been branded as low-status.

Before he died, Pei Changqing had promised to restore her freedom.

What he meant was removing that low-status designation for her.

Jiang Yuechu rubbed her brow, feeling a headache coming on.

Tsk...

What kind of mess was this?

She had just resolved her survival crisis, only to plunge headfirst into a dead end concerning her identity.

How could she solve it?

With this golden finger by her side, hunting wild beasts and monsters in this desolate wilderness to exchange for cultivation, improve her strength, and secure enough food to survive—or even live freely and happily—would not be difficult.

But she did not want to live as a savage for the rest of her life.

Find some remote village and conceal her identity?

Too risky.

Great Tang checked household registrations strictly. An unfamiliar stranger with no clear origins would sooner or later be questioned.

Forge household registration and travel permits?

That was even more impossible.

Where was a penniless, weak young woman like her supposed to find such connections?

No matter how she thought about it, every path led to a dead end.

Jiang Yuechu stopped walking and looked up at the solitary moon in the sky.

Forget it...

What else could she do?

She would take things one step at a time.

Just as she was thinking that, a rapid burst of hoofbeats suddenly approached from afar.

Clop-clop-clop—

More than a dozen riders charged toward her in a cloud of dust.

Jiang Yuechu's pupils contracted, and she instinctively tightened her grip around the hilt at her waist.

The riders drew closer and closer. The leader seemed to notice the lone figure standing in the middle of the road and abruptly pulled on his reins.

"Whoa—"

More than a dozen sturdy horses came to a simultaneous stop.

Torchlight drove back some of the darkness and illuminated the newcomers' faces.

They were a group of martial men in fitted outfits, all travel-worn and anxious, with swords and sabers hanging from their waists.

Their leader was a middle-aged man with a square face, a thick beard, and sharp eyes.

He had initially been on high alert, but when the firelight revealed the black uniform with crimson patterns on Jiang Yuechu, his expression changed abruptly.

The man dismounted, strode forward several steps, and cupped his fists in a bow.

"May I ask... are you an officer of the Demon Suppression Office?"

Jiang Yuechu's heart skipped a beat.

Damn it!

So what she feared had really come true.

She had only planned to wear this disguise for the time being, then find somewhere safe and replace it when she got the chance.

But she had not expected to run into people in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night.

And from the looks of it, they had taken her for an official of the Demon Suppression Office.

Her gaze swept rapidly over the group before her.

Every one of them was vigorous and alert, clearly no ordinary person.

They all rode fine horses. If she tried to kill them to silence them, she could not guarantee that even one would not escape.

Her thoughts raced, but Jiang Yuechu's face remained perfectly calm.

Pretend!

She had to keep pretending!

The more she said, the more likely she was to slip up. The coldest, most imposing act was saying nothing at all!

She did not answer, merely stared coldly at the man.

That oppressive silence indeed made him even more respectful.

After a long while, Jiang Yuechu finally said in a muffled voice, "What is it?"

Though she had deliberately lowered her voice, she was still a young girl in the prime of youth, making it sound somewhat comical.

The man was also rather surprised.

So young?

And a woman?

Besides, why would someone from the Demon Suppression Office appear alone in such remote wilderness?

The Demon Suppression Office had regional offices in every circuit, but no branches beneath them in the various prefectures and counties.

The nearest Demon Suppression Regional Office was far away in Liangzhou.

Could it be...

He shook his head and dismissed the stray thoughts.

"My lady, please hear me out! I am Chen Qingyuan, master of the Flying Eagle Sect in Guangwu County. We were ordered by the Guangwu County magistrate to rush overnight to Upper Pan Village."

"Upper Pan Village?"

"Yes!" Chen Qingyuan's face was filled with urgency. "Three days ago, a group of wolf demons entered the village, slaughtered the villagers, and occupied the place! We received the county magistrate's request for aid and intended to go exterminate them, but those monsters were numerous and exceptionally fierce. Our Flying Eagle Sect has already lost seven or eight skilled men..."

As he spoke, a trace of shame appeared on his face.

"We truly had no choice. We were just preparing to return to the county seat to report to the magistrate and seek another solution... Never did I imagine we would encounter you here!"

"The Demon Suppression Office's reputation is renowned far and wide. Since you are here, you must be pursuing an important case. But the hundred or so villagers of Upper Pan Village are in grave danger. I beg you to lend us your aid and save them from fire and water!"

With that, Chen Qingyuan actually dropped to one knee.

"I beg you to take action!"

The dozen or so men from the Flying Eagle Sect behind him also dismounted in unison and knelt on one knee, their momentum imposing.

"I beg you to take action!"

Jiang Yuechu: "..."

She was completely numb.

Fine, fine, fine...

Heavens, this was how you wanted to mess with me?

Then what was the point of living, damn it?

Just jump, brother.

Seeing that she remained silent for so long, Chen Qingyuan could not help growing anxious.

He knew that most people from the Demon Suppression Office had strange temperaments.

But given Upper Pan Village's horrific situation, he truly had no time to guess at this lady's thoughts.

At first, they too had assumed it was merely ordinary monsters passing through and harassing the villagers.

But when they charged in headlong, they discovered that things were far more complicated than that.

Those beasts had occupied the village and refused to leave!

They had penned up the survivors in the ancestral hall like pigs and sheep, dragging out several each day to devour them alive before everyone else.

The men were disemboweled, while the women and children were reduced to playthings.

The county magistrate had barely over a hundred soldiers under his command. They could handle bandits, but facing such monsters would be no different from sending themselves to their deaths.

The nearest prefectural city to Guangwu County was Lanzhou Prefecture.

Even riding at full speed, a round trip would take at least ten days to half a month.

By then, Upper Pan Village would already have become a village of the dead.

In other words...

The Demon Suppression Office officer before them was their only hope.