Demon-Luring Disaster

The sun slanted west, and the dying light was red as blood.

Liu Family Village stood against the mountains, backed by the rolling foothills of Great Black Mountain.

At this hour, smoke would usually rise from every household while children played and shouted. Now the village was eerily quiet. Only the occasional cry of an unknown bird echoed through the empty lanes, deepening the desolation.

Behind the village, a narrow, winding path led to a dilapidated Mountain God temple at the foot of the mountain.

No one knew how many years the temple had stood abandoned. Its red walls peeled, tiles were missing, and half a door hung crookedly from its hinges.

The weeds before it reached half a person's height, concealing a newly trodden path.

A figure in blue-green slipped silently through the weeds like a wildcat and stopped on the branch of an old locust tree.

Chu Bai held his breath and peered through the sparse leaves into the ruined temple.

The Keep One Scripture circulated on its own, and the wisp of Divine Sense he had just refined reached slowly into the temple like an invisible tendril.

Divine Sense had neither shape nor substance. Unless it encountered someone whose Divine Soul cultivation far surpassed his own, it was exceedingly difficult to detect.

The scene inside the temple took clear shape in his mind.

There was no fox demon trailing a sky-high cloud of demonic aura, nor any deadly trap.

There were only two slovenly men in plain clothes, sprawled on the offering table before the statue.

A greasy roast chicken sat on the table beside two jars of cheap aged wine.

They tore at chicken legs as they cursed, spraying spittle everywhere.

"Pah! That skinflint Wang gets stingier by the day!"

One of the men, his face