"Shen Leyan! Shen Leyan—wake up and drive the cart for me. I need to relieve myself."
It was the height of summer in August, and the sun blazed overhead.
A party of more than twenty people traveled down the mountain path with several donkey-drawn wooden carts. Sacks of grain and medicinal herbs were piled on the carts.
After calling twice, the driver lost patience. He had just pulled the reins to stop the donkey and was about to jump down when, without warning, he saw a sack of herbs on the cart behind him move.
"Aah!"
Woken by the startled cry, Shen Leyan pushed aside the herbs weighing him down, squinted to adjust to the glaring sunlight, and sat up.
"Senior Brother, what's wrong?"
Too embarrassed to admit he had been frightened, the driver muttered, "Go drive the donkey," then hurried into the woods beside the path.
Shen Leyan lazily patted the donkey's head, signaling for it to keep heading downhill.
Before transmigrating into this novel, he had been a college student who slept by day and came alive at night, capable of staying up until all hours. But the body he had ended up in was sickly, leaving him unable to get enough sleep no matter how much he slept.
Fortunately, he was a disciple of the Outer Sect of the Cloud Radiance Sect. The sect provided food and lodging, and all he had to do was watch the gate, cook, and handle the occasional odd job.
Today's odd job was to help the villagers of a small village at the foot of the mountain rebuild their homes.
A fire had struck the village yesterday, destroying more than a dozen thatched cottages and leaving the villagers homeless.
The Cloud Radiance Sect's cultivators had put out the fire last night, but building houses was beneath the dignity of cultivators who slew demons and vanquished evil. That left the job to disciples of the Outer Sect like them, who lacked the aptitude for cultivation.
When the senior disciple returned from relieving himself in the woods, he saw the boy driving the donkey with his dark hair in a tangled mess, his navy outfit hanging loosely on him, and his handsome, peach-blossom eyes half closed, as though he might fall asleep again at any moment. He could not help chuckling and teasing him.
"Shen Leyan, you sleep in class and sleep while watching the gate. Now that you finally get to leave the mountain, you're still sleeping?"
Shen Leyan nimbly climbed back onto the cart and leaned against the pile of herbs.
"Sleep is the essence of life."
By picking a college student, this whole transmigration business had punched a pillow.
"You..." His senior brother sighed. "Before we left the mountain, I heard that if we do a good job this time, we'll get another chance to have our Spiritual Root tested."
Only those with a Spiritual Root could cultivate.
Shen Leyan pricked up his ears. "Do you want to cultivate, Senior Brother?"
"Of course! Who wouldn't?"
Ninety-nine percent of the disciples of the Outer Sect of the Cloud Radiance Sect spent their days watching the cultivators of the Inner Sect fly on swords with Sword Flight and refine pills, listening to stirring legends of vanquishing demons and defending the righteous path. They dreamed of discovering a Spiritual Root someday, apprenticing themselves to a renowned master, and making a name for themselves in the cultivation world.
"I don't want to cultivate."
His senior brother and several nearby disciples of the Outer Sect laughed.
Shen Leyan laughed along with them.
He truly did not want to cultivate, because the novel he had transmigrated into was titled "Demons Run Rampant: Who Is the Chosen Ruler of Destiny?!"
It was bad enough that the author had made the Demon Clan and devil races ridiculously powerful. Then, right at the crucial Immortal-Demon War arc, the author had abandoned the story without a shred of professional integrity, leaving it unfinished!
In other words, as this world developed, there was a good chance it would remain stuck in the Immortal-Demon War, when cultivators' lives were worth less than dogs'.
As one of the four great righteous sects, the Cloud Radiance Sect had always stood on the front lines of slaying demons and vanquishing evil. Its cultivators were among the first batches of cannon fodder to die.
Even the sect master, Lu Yuanyi, revered by countless people, had been consumed by Karma Fire during the war, his body and soul utterly destroyed.
Shen Leyan knew he had neither the moral conviction to take responsibility for all living beings nor the ability to declare, "I'm the damn ruler of destiny!" After all, although he had transmigrated into the novel and knew the entire main plot, his cheat—
"Hello, host. I am your system, Xiao Du. Because of quantum mechanics, Xiao Du suffered brain damage in a fall while transmigrating with you. Xiao Du is working hard to repair the damage... Estimated time until repairs are complete: half a day. Probability of successful repair: 1%."
His cheat, Xiao Du, had most likely already been ushered into the afterlife by quantum mechanics.
He was nothing more than an ordinary person without a Spiritual Root.
All he wanted was to save a little silver, leave the sect, find a secluded mountain village, and live out a quiet, peaceful life.
Their donkey carts arrived outside the village, where the villagers had already gathered to wait. Upon seeing them, the village chief, whose beard was streaked with gray, quickly approached with his walking stick.
"Honored cultivators, thank you for making such a tiring journey! Our village has nothing to offer you as a welcome..."
"Please, there's no need to say that."
His senior brother hurried forward to support the elderly village chief, then called for the others to unload the grain and herbs from the carts and distribute them among the villagers affected by the fire.
Shen Leyan opened a sack of rice and scooped portions out for the villagers waiting in line. Beside him, he heard his senior brother asking the chief a question.
"Sir, where have you settled those injured in the fire? Could you please take me to see them? We brought some medicinal herbs, and I know a little medicine myself. I can take a look at their injuries."
The village chief nodded gratefully. "Please follow me, honored cultivator."
"Shen Leyan, bring the herbs and come along."
Shen Leyan answered, "All right."
The village chief was old and walked slowly. Following behind him, Shen Leyan took a careful look around the little village.
It was not large, with only thirty-odd households. Yesterday's fire had burned down roughly half the thatched cottages. The injured had been settled in the remaining houses, while everyone else had to live in crude wooden shelters erected on the village threshing ground.
The cottages destroyed by the fire had become gray-black ruins. Charred lengths of broken timber lay scattered along the roadside, giving off an acrid smell.
White mourning banners hung over the threshing ground in the distance, and sorrowful sobs could faintly be heard.
It was a summer afternoon, the hottest part of the day.
Shen Leyan lightly pressed his collar closed, blocking the draft slipping down his neck. For some inexplicable reason, he felt a sinister chill spreading from beneath the ruins and settling against the back of his neck.
The farther they walked into the village, the stronger the chill grew. At first, he thought it was because of his frail health, but by now, the warm sweat on his back had almost completely cooled.
It was as though... something was secretly watching them from beneath the ruins.
Supposedly, people with weak constitutions attracted sinister forces more easily and were more sensitive to them.
Shen Leyan quickened his pace to catch up with the others.
"Senior Brother." He cast an unobtrusive glance toward the ruins and lowered his voice. "Do you feel a little cold?"
His senior brother wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, looking puzzled. "In this heat? You're joking, right?"
Noticing that Shen Leyan looked a little pale, his senior brother softened his tone.
"Are you feeling unwell?"
As they spoke, the chill against his back seemed to sense something and abruptly withdrew.
Apparently, he was the only one who had felt it.
Shen Leyan shook his head and lowered his lashes. "I'm fine... Senior Brother, did the cultivators who came here yesterday mention anything unusual in the village?"
"No. If Demons had caused the fire, the sect's cultivators wouldn't have failed to notice. They all carry Demon-Seeking Compasses—besides, if there really were Demons here, the sect wouldn't have sent disciples of the Outer Sect like us."
Shen Leyan recalled the original novel's plot, trying hard to work out whether he had overlooked anything.
"Maybe I'm just too sleepy... and not quite alert."
His senior brother patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Once we've applied medicine to the injured, go get some rest."
After walking a little farther, they asked the village chief what had caused last night's fire.
The village chief sighed. "We don't know... Maybe someone knocked over a candle. Last night, a fire suddenly broke out. Everyone was still asleep. By the time we saw the flames and heard the shouting, the fire had already spread, burning through a whole stretch of houses...
"Losing the houses was bad enough, but several children lost their parents, and some of the elderly folk who couldn't get around well passed away too."
"It's dry in summer, so fires can start easily." His senior brother looked pained. "Please accept our condolences. We'll stay in the village for a few days and leave only after we've treated the injured and helped rebuild the cottages."
The village chief waved a hand and stopped outside a dilapidated thatched cottage.
"The injured are all inside. Sorry for the trouble, honored cultivators."
Shen Leyan pushed open the cottage door. The interior was dim, and he could vaguely make out several figures lying on the beds.
As the cool breeze from outside drifted in, the smell of blood inside faded a little.
He furrowed his brow.
His senior brother merely assumed that the boy, accustomed to life in the sect, had never seen such a horrific sight of flesh mangled by burns and was having trouble adjusting. He paid it little mind, taking the herbs and beginning to examine the injured.
Shen Leyan turned to close the door, the sunlight tinting his dark eyes with a thin layer of pale gold.
From the moment he had entered this cottage, the same sinister chill he had felt beneath the ruins had crept up the back of his neck again.
The cold was one thing.
But it kept blowing against his neck, too.
When he touched the right side of his neck, the left side itched.
When he touched the left side, the right side itched.
...If a Demon really was behind this, it hardly seemed like a respectable one.
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