The sword light trailed a meteor-like tail, radiating a biting chill. Wherever it passed, not a spark survived. In the blink of an eye, it extinguished most of the flames and swept straight toward them.
Shen Leyan had arrived in this world less than half a month ago. The most he had seen at the sect was inner disciples flying on swords; this was his first time witnessing swordsmanship that looked like movie special effects. He murmured an admiring "Wow."
If those were special effects, they definitely weren't the cheap kind. They deserved a trending hashtag!
His senior brother stammered, "Th-th-this... could this be... could this be the sect master's Jiangxue Sword...?"
After muttering to himself, his senior brother suddenly glanced sideways at him, his expression turning mysterious.
Shen Leyan: "?"
"Tell your senior brother the truth. Do you have some connection to the sect master?"
Did the relationship between a reader and a character in a book count?
Shen Leyan shook his head honestly.
His senior brother looked even more mysterious. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone—what is the sect master to you? Your father? I never heard that he'd married and had a child..."
Shen Leyan: "..."
Only when the sword light came within an inch of them did it scatter and drift down like a flurry of snow.
The strange villagers surrounding them, drooling at the prospect of barbecued human flesh, turned to ash along with it.
Once the swirling, crystalline snow and the black ashes of the fire dispersed, their surroundings suddenly changed as rapidly as a mural losing its colors. The burned houses vanished, as did the pungent smoke left by the blaze.
Shen Leyan looked around. They were still standing at the cellar entrance, with the same thatched hut housing the injured before them, intact and peaceful. Only the rain pouring through the open bluestone slab had soaked their hair and clothes.
So that fire just now had been... an illusion?
His senior brother wiped the rain from his face. "You could count the demons capable of creating illusions in all the Nine Provinces on one hand... How could the cultivators who came last night have missed it?"
Shen Leyan watched a shard of ice floating before him that had yet to dissipate. It must have been a remnant of the sword light, and it seemed to be telling them to follow.
The ice shard guided them all the way to the village's ancestral hall. Shen Leyan faintly caught a scent like incense burning in a Buddhist temple. Keeping his guard up, he spoke quietly to his senior brother.
"There seems to be someone inside. I'll keep watch out here. Go get the other senior brothers and sisters."
His senior brother nodded and hurried off to round everyone up.
About seven minutes later, his senior brother returned with over twenty bleary-eyed outer disciples of the Cloud Radiance Sect.
On hearing that something suspicious might be happening inside the ancestral hall, the hot-blooded disciples in their twenties immediately stormed through the door together.
Shen Leyan skulked along at the very back. The moment he stepped inside, he heard the senior brothers and sisters ahead shouting.
"How dare you perform evil rites in this village?!"
"Restrain them all and report this to the sect immediately!"
Evil rites meant worshiping an evil god.
Evil gods were often demons masquerading as deities to covet the power of worship. They used demonic power to grant their followers benefits such as riches, status, and influence, drawing in more believers and gaining more offerings to strengthen their cultivation.
Over a dozen wooden spirit tablets stood in the center of the ancestral hall. Unlike ordinary tablets, they were an ominous dark red all over, as though they had been soaked in layer after layer of blood.
Before the tablets, the elderly villagers, including the village chief, were kneeling and kowtowing devoutly, burning incense and murmuring prayers.
They had come here to perform rites in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.
No wonder his senior brothers and sisters thought they were conducting evil rites.
Apparently caught off guard by the sudden arrival of the Cloud Radiance Sect disciples, the villagers had their arms pinned by several disciples before they could recover from their shock.
The half-burned incense sticks in their hands fell to the floor and abruptly went out.
His senior brothers and sisters were indignant.
"We gave you grain and medicinal herbs out of kindness, cared for your injured, and rebuilt your homes, yet you've been performing evil rites behind our backs?!"
"Evil rites cost people their lives! Don't you know that?!"
Standing behind the crowd, Shen Leyan quietly observed the village chief's expression.
Apart from surprise, the old village chief showed little reaction to being restrained, as though he had always expected to be exposed one day. But when he saw the incense sticks fall, snap, and go out, his clouded eyes suddenly filled with a tangled mixture of shock, fear, and grief.
He threw himself to the floor, trying to pick up the broken incense and light it again.
"These aren't evil rites! We're not performing evil rites!"
The old village chief's voice was hoarse. With a sudden, violent struggle, he actually broke free of the two Cloud Radiance Sect disciples behind him and snatched the incense off the floor.
Unfortunately, those incense sticks would no longer light.
The blood-colored spirit tablets before them also faded little by little, turning into ordinary brown wooden tablets beneath the old village chief's anguished gaze.
"My son... my son..."
The old village chief suddenly burst into sobs, scrabbling wildly at the incense ash on the floor.
"My son... your father has failed you..."
The other villagers in the ancestral hall lowered their heads and wiped away tears as well, crying aloud.
After chatting with the system, Xiao Du, for a while, Shen Leyan finally recalled a portion of the original novel's plot from the old village chief's fragmented words. It matched what was happening here.
The original novel had mentioned a small village under the Cloud Radiance Sect's jurisdiction where a great fire broke out every three years, claiming over a dozen lives. When cultivators came to rescue the villagers, their Demon-Seeking Compasses found no trace of demonic power, so they assumed the fires were accidents caused by villagers knocking over candles.
Then, one time, the Cloud Radiance Sect's outer disciples went to deliver medicine to the village, only to perish in the flames.
Zheng Ziheng, the sect master's first disciple, came to investigate personally. Only then did he discover that the village fires were not the work of demons. During the first fire, the village chief's son had died fighting the blaze. His resentment had trapped over a dozen souls here that should have passed on to reincarnate.
When souls wandered the mortal world for too long, they lost all awareness, leaving them to relive the agony of their deaths over and over.
Thus, every three years, the village reenacted the fire of that day. By devouring new lives, the souls could remain in the mortal world instead of fading into oblivion.
The old village chief and several villagers who had lost their children had discovered this long ago. Unable to bear watching their "children" cease to exist, they came to the ancestral hall to burn incense and perform rites whenever the fire was due to repeat, helping these souls, long stripped of their awareness, create the illusion of a blaze.
Perhaps because he had been lost in thought for too long, his senior brother turned to look at him with concern.
He tugged up the corners of his lips in a smile and mouthed, "I'm fine."
In other words... if he hadn't been a soul from another world who had transmigrated here and changed the course of events, his senior brothers and sisters would all have died tonight.
As he was settling the faint melancholy in his heart, a gaunt hand suddenly seized his trouser leg.
It was the old village chief. At some point, he had slumped to the floor. One hand clutched a fistful of incense ash, while the other gripped Shen Leyan's trouser leg. He seemed to have made some decision. The tear tracks on his wrinkled face had yet to dry, but his expression had calmed.
"I knew all along... someone would discover this one day.
If no one dies in the village tonight, my son's soul will be destroyed, and he'll vanish from this world forever...
Luckily, I buried gunpowder beneath the floor tiles of the ancestral hall long ago. All for this day... No one can stop me from saving my son!!!"
Before you continue