Black Wind Village Annihilated

"Li Mo... where did he run off to?" Lu Shaoyou's voice was hoarse, carrying an icy chill that brooked no doubt.

The bandits all trembled, looking at one another with blank bewilderment in their eyes.

"Hero, I don't know! All I know is that Young Master left the village before dawn!" one bandit stammered.

Bang!

Lu Shaoyou paused his Qi Mei Cudgel. The bandit's forehead burst apart, and without so much as a groan, he toppled over.

"Then what use are you?" His cold gaze swept toward the next man.

"You. Speak."

The bandit pointed at by the long cudgel had both legs shaking and nearly collapsed to the ground. "Sir, I truly don't know! I'm just a horse keeper. I never even got to see Young Master in ordinary times!"

Bang!

Another dull thud rang out. Blood and brains stained the ground red.

"I know something, please spare my life!" Seeing his companions die one after another, a bandit had long since been scared out of his wits. Crawling and rolling across the ground, he cried, "Before you came up the mountain, Young Master took several trusted men and headed toward Azure Province. He said he was going to seek refuge with the Blood Saber Sect!"

"Is that true?" Lu Shaoyou's imposing aura pressed down upon the bandit like a mountain, sending him sprawling to the ground, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Sir, it's absolutely true! I was on gate duty last night and vaguely overheard the Village Chief speaking in secret with Young Master. They mentioned the Blood Saber Sect and said there was someone powerful backing them over there!" To stay alive, the bandit spilled every fragment he had overheard.

Azure Province, Blood Saber Sect!

Lu Shaoyou silently repeated the name of that place. The flames of vengeance in his heart had not subsided; with this new lead, they blazed even more fiercely.

Amid the hopeful gazes of the few surviving bandits, the Qi Mei Cudgel in Lu Shaoyou's hand did not pause in the slightest, falling with the speed of hailstones.

Puff... puff... puff!

The screams stopped abruptly, ending their sinful lives.

Killing was meant to end even more killing.

If he spared them today, they would surely return to their old trade someday and bring ruin upon even more innocent people.

Leaning on the Qi Mei Cudgel, Lu Shaoyou drew a deep breath. The searing pain in his left shoulder made his brows knot tightly.

He swiftly sat cross-legged, fumbled some wound medicine out of his pack, and roughly treated the injury. Then he circulated his inner energy and meditated for a moment, suppressing the churning blood and qi within him.

He rose to his feet and swept his gaze over the village strewn with corpses, without a trace of pity.

He began searching the village carefully, leaving no corner unchecked.

Any bandit who tried to put up a stubborn last stand was killed with thunderous force the instant he showed himself.

Before long, not a single living bandit remained in Black Wind Village.

Following the information provided by the bandits, Lu Shaoyou soon stopped before a storeroom deep within the village.

With a thunderous boom, he kicked the door open, sending dust flying everywhere.

There was not much inside, only several chests.

When he opened them, gold, silver, jewels, and treasures dazzled his eyes. Beside them lay several weapons and a few yellowed booklets.

Lu Shaoyou casually flipped through the booklets and found only rudimentary inner cultivation manuals, saber techniques, and fist manuals, so he quickly lost interest.

After a rough count, Lu Shaoyou could not help clicking his tongue. The gold, silver, jewels, and treasures were worth a fortune, no less than ten thousand taels of silver.

A tiny Black Wind Village possessed such wealth. How many common people must they have preyed upon?

Though gold and silver were of little use to him now, taking them along was merely a matter of lifting a hand.

After leaving the storeroom, just as he was preparing to deal with the bandits' corpses, his ear twitched slightly. He seemed to hear an extremely faint sound of sobbing.

The sound came from behind a pile of clutter.

Lu Shaoyou raised a brow, walked over, and pushed the clutter aside. A hidden door appeared before him.

Without hesitation, he kicked it open.

Beyond the hidden door was a dark staircase leading downward.

Holding the Qi Mei Cudgel, he slowly descended. A damp, rotten stench rushed into his face, mixed with the faint, intermittent sobs of women.

The dungeon was not large. By the faint glimmer filtering down from above, Lu Shaoyou saw the scene within clearly.

More than ten women huddled in the corner. Their clothes were ragged, their hair disheveled, and their faces were streaked with tears and terror. Their eyes were numb and vacant, like wooden puppets that had lost their souls.

When they saw Lu Shaoyou holding a blood-dripping cudgel, Baleful Intent radiating from his entire body, they trembled even harder and squeezed together into a single cluster.

"Don't be afraid. The bandits of Black Wind Village are all dead." Lu Shaoyou tried to make his voice sound as gentle as possible.

Yet even so, the women remained terrified.

He paused, then continued, "I'm from Lu Family Village. You're all safe now."

Upon hearing the words "Lu Family Village" and "the bandits are all dead," the women were first stunned. Then a faint glimmer gradually appeared in their eyes, though disbelief and the confusion of surviving a catastrophe outweighed everything else.

One woman, slightly older and seemingly somewhat calmer, asked in a trembling voice, "Is what you said true? Are those beasts truly all dead?"

"They're all dead." Lu Shaoyou nodded firmly. "Their Village Chief, Li Batian, was also killed by me."

After a long while, a wave of long-suppressed sobbing erupted in the silent dungeon.

They wept, screamed, cursed, venting the humiliation and terror they had suffered these past days.

Lu Shaoyou stood quietly to one side, waiting for their emotions to settle somewhat.

"Come out first, all of you!"

"I'll find you something to eat."

Leaving those words behind, Lu Shaoyou turned and left the dungeon.

The next morning, at dawn!

At the village entrance.

Lu Shaoyou took out a bundle and said to everyone,

"Divide this silver among yourselves. Once you go down the mountain, either return home or find a peaceful place and begin your lives anew."

The women looked at the bundle of silver, then at Lu Shaoyou, unable to find words for a moment.

The older woman at the front dropped to her knees with a thump. "Benefactor, your great kindness and virtue shall never be forgotten by Chun Mei, even unto death!"

The other women followed suit, wanting to kowtow in thanks.

"There's no need for this." Lu Shaoyou sidestepped. "It was only a matter of lifting a hand. Leave this place quickly. It is not safe to linger here."

Seeing how resolute he was, the women did not persist. Supporting one another, tears in their eyes, they were filled even more with the excitement of being reborn and endless gratitude toward Lu Shaoyou.

"Benefactor, may we ask your honored name? Should we ever have the chance in the future, we will surely repay you!"

"Lu Shaoyou," he replied indifferently.

The women engraved that name deeply into their hearts. They knew that this youth, like a god of slaughter, had rescued them from hell.

They left the village looking back every three steps, departing from the nightmare that had filled their days and nights with terror.

Sunlight spilled over them. Though dazzling, it brought long-lost warmth and hope.

After all the women had safely departed, Lu Shaoyou returned to the village.

He dragged every bandit corpse in the village, including the bodies of the four chiefs and Li Batian, to the central square, piling them into a small mountain.

He found lamp oil and poured it over the heap of corpses and the surrounding buildings.

Whoosh!

He threw out a torch. The instant the flames touched the oil, a raging inferno erupted.

The blaze soared into the sky, staining half the heavens red.

Black Wind Village, this malignant tumor rooted here and plaguing the region, along with all its crimes, would turn to ash in the flames.

Standing outside the village, Lu Shaoyou watched everything in silence.

The crackling of the blazing fire rang without end, as though countless wronged souls were shrieking, or as though sin itself was wailing.

The blood debt of Lu Family Village had not yet been settled.

The chief culprit still roamed free.

His road of vengeance was not yet over.

Lu Shaoyou withdrew his gaze. The pain in his left shoulder reminded him that he needed to find a place to treat his injuries and restore his strength as soon as possible.

After getting his bearings, he headed into the deep mountains far from Black Wind Village.

As for the women he had rescued, they had their own paths to take.

And his own path had only just begun.