Upper Pan Village

More than a dozen battle-hardened men knelt stiffly on one knee in the middle of the official road.

Jiang Yuechu stood where she was, silent.

Go?

Or not?

Did she even need to think about this shit?

Only a lunatic would go!

She could barely look after herself.

The people of Upper Pan Village were suffering terribly.

But in times like these, who wasn't suffering?

If she died just like that, who would pity her?

Besides, she knew absolutely nothing about the strength of those wolf demons.

Even with a cheat at her side, the best plan was to start with the easy targets.

Find some deserted place, secretly grind monsters for experience, and grow stronger step by step—that was the true survival strategy for a transmigrator!

Rushing in rashly meant too much risk for too little reward.

Only an idiot would do it.

With her current intimidating appearance, she only needed to casually make up an excuse like "official business" or "another urgent case" to brush this matter aside.

No matter how unwilling these people were, they would never dare let out another peep in front of the Demon Suppression Office.

But the words reached her lips.

Then she saw the look in Chen Qingyuan's eyes gradually dim.

The men behind him were the same.

To them, Jiang Yuechu's silence was already a wordless refusal.

Of course.

What kind of existence was the Demon Suppression Office?

A few wild demons slaughtering a village was probably such an ordinary matter to figures like her that it would not even make it into the case files.

In the end, he had asked for too much.

Chen Qingyuan slowly lowered his head, his voice filled with bitterness.

"I was... too presumptuous."

A wave of suppressed sighs rose from behind him.

The night wind swept past, stirring up dust from the ground.

Fuck.

What a rotten world.

A nameless fury suddenly surged up from the bottom of Jiang Yuechu's heart.

Annoying.

Fucking annoying.

She wasn't some saint, nor did she want to be a hero.

But seeing these people like this made her inexplicably irritated.

She slowly exhaled and lowered her voice. "Tell me the situation."

Those four short words made the already despairing Chen Qingyuan freeze.

"My lord... My lord, you... you've agreed?!"

Jiang Yuechu turned her head away, refusing to look at him.

"Why are you talking so much nonsense?"

"Yes! Yes!"

Chen Qingyuan was so excited that he could barely form a coherent sentence. He hurriedly climbed to his feet and gave Jiang Yuechu another deep bow.

"Thank you, my lord! Thank you for saving the hundred-odd people of Upper Pan Village!"

The dozen or so men behind him also rose one after another.

"Thank you, my lord!"

It wasn't as though they were truly so chivalrous that they were willing to risk their lives for unrelated villagers.

Guangwu County governed four villages: Upper Pan, Middle Pan, Lower Pan, and Great Pan.

The villages throughout these ten miles were all neighbors who saw one another constantly, their family ties tangled and deeply rooted. Whose household didn't have relatives connected by blood or marriage?

In the end, they were saving their own people.

A young man with an immature face reacted fastest. He quickly led over a fine, tall horse and respectfully offered the reins to Jiang Yuechu.

"My lord, please."

Jiang Yuechu did not stand on ceremony and swung herself onto the horse.

She had ridden horses occasionally in her previous life. Though she was far from proficient, she could manage well enough and would not make a fool of herself.

The group wasted no more time. They turned their horses around and galloped back along the official road.

The night wind howled past their ears.

Chen Qingyuan rode alongside her, explaining the situation in detail as they traveled.

"That pack of wolf demons has around seven or eight members. Their leader is a giant wolf covered in blue fur. It has learned to speak and can talk like a human."

"It calls itself the Azure-Faced Lord. It is agile, tireless, and possesses claws and fangs sharper than anything. Ordinary blades cannot hurt it at all. Two of the best swordsmen in my sect were torn apart by it in a single exchange."

"I fought it myself. Even after giving it everything I had, I only left a wound beneath its ribs... That beast has likely already entered the String-Hearing realm."

Chen Qingyuan's tone was full of apprehension.

String-Hearing?

Again, String-Hearing?

Jiang Yuechu's grip on the reins tightened slightly.

She knew nothing at all about the cultivation realms of this world.

But she had something to compare it with.

That tiger demon had also been a String-Hearing realm demon.

If they were in the same realm...

She now possessed twenty-five years of cultivation, along with the Fierce Tiger Swift Blade at mastery.

She might not be unable to fight it.

Having thought it through, she felt greatly reassured.

Chen Qingyuan continued, "As for the other wolves, they're merely minor demons that gained sentience not long ago. They are fierce as well, but nowhere near as troublesome as that blue-faced wolf demon. If our Flying Eagle Sect members join forces, we can barely handle them."

Jiang Yuechu said nothing. She merely nodded silently and committed every piece of information to memory.

The horses sped on, and the night passed without incident.

The eastern sky began to pale.

Upper Pan Village was built against the mountainside, its houses scattered in neat layers.

A small river wound past the front of the village. It should have been a peaceful place, where roosters crowed and dogs barked amid pleasant scenery.

The group pulled on their reins and slowly stopped at the village entrance.

The stone monument bearing the words "Upper Pan Village" lay off to one side, broken into two pieces.

The village road where children once chased and played was now empty. Only congealed black bloodstains and scattered scraps of torn clothing remained.

Most scalp-numbing of all were the rows of wooden racks standing outside every house in the village.

They had once been used by the villagers to dry clothes and cured meat.

But now, the racks were covered with mangled human bodies.

Severed arms, thighs, torsos ripped open from chest to belly.

Even Chen Qingyuan, who had already seen this once before, had gone deathly pale. His lips trembled, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"My lord... this... is Upper Pan Village."

Jiang Yuechu watched it all expressionlessly.

Her stomach churned violently, but she forcibly suppressed it.

Not far from the village entrance, two wolf demons leaned against an earthen wall.

They were bare-chested, with nothing but tattered loincloths around their waists. Clearly, they had spotted this group of uninvited guests as well.

One of them threw back its head.

"Awoo—"

Chen Qingyuan and the others looked grim, each tightening their grip on their weapons.

Very soon.

Several figures staggered out from deeper within the village road.

The wolf demon walking at the front was different from the others.

It was actually wearing a blue robe, stolen from somewhere unknown. With both claws clasped behind its back, it paced about like a scholar.

But its body was large, and the robe stretched tightly over it, looking utterly ridiculous and out of place.

The blue-robed wolf demon narrowed its pair of green eyes, yawned, and looked thoroughly impatient.

"I thought someone impressive had arrived. So it's still you lot."

"Letting you escape yesterday was already the greatest of good fortune. What, you dare come back today to die?"

Behind Chen Qingyuan, one young man could no longer hold himself back. His face flushed bright red.

"Beast!"

He cursed furiously, "You slaughtered our fellow villagers and occupied our village. Today, we'll fight you to the death!"

"..."

Chen Qingyuan grabbed the young man who was about to dismount, but his gaze fell upon Jiang Yuechu.

Hearing this, the blue-robed wolf demon bared its fangs in a grin. "What? You're allowed to eat, but we're not?"

"Humans eat pigs and sheep. Wolves eat humans. It is the natural order. Those so-called fellow villagers of yours are no different from livestock in a pen in my eyes."

"They are nothing more than food."

The Flying Eagle Sect members present all looked as if their eyes were about to split open, unable to restrain themselves.

Just then.

A soft sound rang out.

Jiang Yuechu swung down from her horse, her boots landing on the dust-covered village road.

She did not speak. One hand merely rested on the hilt of the blade at her waist.

One step.

Then another.

She walked toward the blue-robed wolf demon.

The blue-robed wolf demon, which had been prattling on grandly, also fell silent.

Its gaze finally shifted away from Chen Qingyuan and landed on the frail figure approaching it.

When it clearly saw the black uniform streaked with red patterns, it straightened up, and the claws behind its back slowly lowered.

The footsteps stopped.

Jiang Yuechu stood there, at the boundary between the morning light and the village's shadows.

The blue-robed wolf demon stared fixedly at her with its green eyes and asked tentatively, "Demon Suppression Office?"

Jiang Yuechu slowly raised her head.

Her long hair was tied behind her head, revealing a cold, pale face.

"Azure-Faced Lord?"

Not only did she refuse to answer, she questioned it in return.

The wolf demon's throat bobbed as it answered instinctively, "Yes."

The moment it answered, it realized something was wrong.

Fuck.

It had lost a notch in terms of presence.

Before it could think further, Jiang Yuechu sneered.

"Good."

"Killing a beast that can speak human language should be worthwhile."

The blue-robed wolf demon flew into a rage. "If you weren't wearing that skin, I couldn't be bothered to waste words on you!"

After roaring those words, it felt that something was off.

The words were vicious enough, yet they sounded strangely like it was imitating the tone of the girl before it.

Thinking of that made the blue-robed wolf demon even more irritated.

It said no more and merely slowly raised one claw, five blade-like nails snapping out.

"Kill her!"

Azure-Faced Lord