Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 42: They knew nothing of the Han dynasty, let alone the Wei and Jin dynasties.
"I beg the gods to forgive me—"

As the old man spoke in a drawn-out, stilted manner, he knelt down as he approached Wang Ergou, looking terrified. The little girl beside him also knelt down, her face pale.

Upon hearing Wang Ergou's question, the old man raised his head and glanced at him, then shook his head and replied, "This old man doesn't recognize the immortals, I deserve to die! Please forgive me, immortals!"

Wang Ergou found it utterly absurd: "If you don't recognize me, why do you call me a god?"

The old man was stunned: "You...you're not a deity?"

"No, I am a disciple of the Taiyin Sect nearby, not some kind of deity!"

"Not a deity!?"

The old man's voice suddenly rose, and the doors and windows next to him made a faint creaking sound, as if many villagers were secretly observing the place.

The little girl's face regained some color. She looked at Wang Ergou with her big, round eyes and, mustering her courage, asked curiously, "If you're not a god, how did you get in?"

"An Ya'er! Who gives you the right to speak here!"

The old man scolded the little girl sharply, which made her shrink back, purse her lips, and dare not utter another sound. The old man then stood up, seemingly with renewed courage, and said to Wang Ergou with a smile, "This place is blessed by the gods; only gods can come here. I've heard that the outside world is full of war and people are suffering. Are you survivors? If you have nowhere to go, stay here. I think since you've entered, the gods won't blame you!"

"War? And the people will suffer?"

Wang Ergou's face was practically covered in question marks.

"There's no war going on outside!"

"No war?!" The old man seemed somewhat surprised. "Then which deity governs you?"

"Under the rule of gods?"

Wang Ergou couldn't help but mutter in the group chat, "Wait, I can understand every single word the NPC says, so why can't I understand them when they're put together?"

Players who heard the "live stream" through the group's microphone were also confused. Someone suggested, "Group leader, ask him if he knows about Guangchengzong!"

“Grandpa, no, sir,” Wang Ergou asked, “have you ever heard of the Guangcheng Sect?”

"Guangchengzong?" Upon hearing this name, the old man's expression turned sorrowful, and he sighed repeatedly, saying, "Isn't Guangchengzong gone? Alas, when we were still under Guangchengzong's rule, life was so much better! Unlike now, we have to offer sacrifices to the Water Goddess every year... Oh dear! I misspoke!"

Wang Ergou found it increasingly absurd, and he quickly pressed on, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, how come Guangcheng Sect is gone? Wasn't everything fine? I saw Du Da and Du Er from Guangcheng Immortal Abode in Taiping Town yesterday! And who is the Water Goddess?"

The so-called Du Da and Du Er refer to two NPCs who reside permanently in Guangcheng Immortal Abode. One is named Du Zhong and the other is named Du Heng. Both are disciples of Guangcheng Sect.

The two NPCs treated the players quite well, offering higher prices for spirit herbs, plants, and finished talismans than the unscrupulous merchants from the sects. However, they repeatedly asked the players why the disciples of the Taiyin Sect preferred to control puppets with their divine sense instead of walking, and why they liked to hop and jump around, leaving the players unsure how to answer… The old man was even more surprised upon hearing about the Guangcheng Sect: “The Guangcheng Sect is still around!?”

"Yes, I'm here! I'm perfectly fine!"

The old man's expression suddenly changed: "How could this be? When we entered the valley to seek refuge, the immortals clearly told us that Guangcheng Sect was gone..."

Clearly, there seems to be some secret behind this.

But Wang Ergou really didn't want to engage in any more of this riddle-like banter with the NPC in front of him. The plot was so clichéd and ridiculous, like an old woman's foot binding cloth, long and tedious. He asked impatiently, "Let's put aside whether Guangchengzong is still around or not. Um, who exactly is this 'Water Goddess' you're talking about?"

As is customary, this water goddess who doesn't sound like a proper deity might be the new quest boss—whose good-hearted deity needs living people as sacrifices every year?

The old man, of course, noticed Wang Ergou's impatience. Seeing that he had come here without knowing anything about the Water Goddess, he became somewhat apprehensive: "The Water Goddess is—hey! Since you don't know the Water Goddess, then, how did you get in?"

Wang Ergou already had a guess in his heart: "If you are talking about the demon in the pool at the mouth of the valley, that thing has already been killed by us!"

"The... demon in the pool? Kill it, kill it, kill it!?"

The old man's hands trembled, his expression shifting from surprise to worry, and finally to doubt. He said, "We've never seen the Water Goddess's true face. We only hear her commands when we're near the cold pool, and every year she appears in our dreams, telling us to send living people to the cold pool at the valley entrance as sacrifices, or else... sigh... you really killed something in the cold pool?"

"If nothing unexpected happens, that pool is clean now, there's nothing in it! You can go out and see for yourselves if you don't believe me!" At this point, Wang Ergou suddenly remembered the dungeon and quickly added, "There might be something in the future, but it probably won't concern you anymore. We plan to stay in this area and kill everything in the dungeon every day... uh, kill whatever's coming out of the pool! Hmm!"

The old man's voice choked with emotion: "Is this really true?!"

Wang Ergou skillfully waved his banner: "We are disciples of the nearby Taiyin Sect! We are also under the Guangcheng Sect. We've come here specifically to exorcise demons! Once our sect has established a base here, we definitely won't let a single demon or monster escape! You can rest assured!"

The old man's voice trembled as he asked incredulously, "You are immortals from the Guangcheng Sect!? Then, the water... the water demon at the mouth of the valley, were you really killed by you?"

He didn't remember the name of the demon Wang Ergou mentioned, only that it was roughly some kind of monster—

How could they not be demons? Demanding living sacrifices every year—if it had always been this way, it would be one thing, but a hundred years ago, everyone lived under the rule of Guangcheng Sect. Back then, life was peaceful and stable; as long as the assigned sacred fields were properly tended, the immortals never complained. In comparison, this Water Goddess, and the immortals who led everyone to live in seclusion in the valley, not only force everyone to tend to more sacred fields, but also demand living sacrifices every year…

It's not that no one doubted what the deity had said, but... how could mortals defy the gods? The villagers who had tried to escape had all vanished without a trace, so what else could they do?

The old man was over a hundred years old, a rare and precious longevity. The happy days under the rule of Guangcheng Sect outside the valley, which had been almost forgotten, seemed to reappear before his eyes. The immortals who occasionally cured the villagers' headaches and fevers, and the life-saving pills and talismans for exorcising evil spirits that they could exchange for just some wild delicacies, all seemed so ordinary at the time...

His cloudy eyes seemed to be going blind, his vision gradually blurring, but his hearing was unusually sharp. He heard a young, energetic, and vibrant voice say in his ear:
"We are a sect nominally affiliated with Guangcheng Sect, called Taiyin Sect. And what immortals? We are cultivators, what kind of immortals are we! But the Demon of the Cold Pool is indeed dead, completely dead!"

He also heard his own trembling, humble voice: "What offerings does the Taiyin Sect... want us to prepare?"

(End of this chapter)