Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

“I think those people may not have lied about the ‘child abduction’ incident.”

"If it doesn't abduct the children for hunting purposes, then there might really be a group of children it has kidnapped in its den."

Linghui remained silent for a moment, then looked at the strips of cloth binding the mandrill's legs. "You're right. Although this mandrill understands human nature, its intelligence is only about that of a mentally immature child..."

"No matter what, we can't just leave it here and ignore it. We still need to go and check on its nest."

"Yunling, take out the Mystic Fire Talisman and try to communicate with it again."

“This…” Yunling felt a pang of pity and said, “Senior brother, it has already been terrified. Even so, there are still some things it is unwilling to reveal. If I take out the Xuanhuo Talisman again to coerce it… I’m afraid it will stop communicating with me in its fright.”

"Do you have any other ideas?" Linghui asked, looking at her.

“I think… if we want it to lead us to its lair, perhaps we can find a way to gain its trust,” Yunling said.

"What do you want to do?" Linghui asked.

"With its claws, it's unlikely it could bandage a wound like the one on its thigh. So it's very likely that when it was injured, it had someone it trusted treat its wounds. And now that it's seriously injured, if I could help treat its wounds..."

“This mountain demon is a monster.” Linghui interrupted Yunling. “Although it is meek and submissive in front of us now, when I fought it just now, every move it made was aimed at my vital points. If I had not been able to defeat it, I would be dead by now.”

"If you want to treat its wounds, you will inevitably have to get close to it. Do you know that its sharp teeth and claws can take a person's life in the blink of an eye?"

“I know.” Yunling exchanged a glance with her senior brother.

"I may not be able to protect you completely," the senior brother continued.

“I…I want to try…” Yunling said.

Yunling looked at Zhuang Xing, who suddenly remembered the first time he and Yunling encountered the white rat.

On that day, Yunling's eyes were the same as they are now.

That day, she was determined to dig open the animal burrow and rescue the white rat.

But... back then it was just a tiny white rat, but today it's a mandrill with sharp teeth and claws.

Zhuang Xing was worried and hesitant, unsure whether he should support Yunling here, since Yunling would probably listen to what he said.

But... he also knew that Yunling's perception was different from his. She had always sensed things that he couldn't. For example, back in the village, Zhuang Xing didn't understand what the white rat was saying, but Yunling could understand what the white rat meant.

The white rat retrieved the jade slips for the two of them and asked them to help pick snake fruits; Yunling was the first to figure this out.

Although he didn't believe in the mountain demon, he believed in Yunling.

“Let me do it.” Zhuang Xing took a step forward. “I’ll bandage this mandrill.”

“I specialize in swordsmanship at the temple and have been practicing with Senior Brother Lingyi for more than half a year. If the mountain demon suddenly attacks, I will definitely be able to react. At that time, Senior Brother Linghui will be there with his sword to defend me, and I will be fine.”

Linghui glanced at the battered mandrill and said, "If Qiaoxia still had any strength left, she should have been sent. Do you really want to do that?"

“I believe in Yunling,” Zhuang Xing said.

“But…” Yunling suddenly opened her mouth, but she was stuck and didn’t know how to refute it.

Zhuang Xing came to her side and took her hand: "Don't you believe me?"

Yunling felt the warmth from Zhuang Xing's palm, looked into his eyes, and finally nodded.

Thus, under his senior brother's watchful eye, Zhuang Xing approached the mountain demon.

As professional demon exorcists, they always carry fine cloths to treat injuries. Zhuang Xing took out a small wooden box, which was the same small wooden box that Master Qingxuzi used to store the dregs when he refined the body-tempering fluid with pearls.

He hadn't had a chance to use the medicine inside, but since he needed to gain the mandrill's trust, he naturally wanted to use the best medicine.

Yunling stood aside and communicated with the mountain demon, one hand behind her back, tightly gripping the Xuanhuo Talisman.

Under her words, the mandrill stayed still. Zhuang Xing squatted down, came to the mandrill's side, and gently applied medicine to its wounds.

"I'm sorry, I accidentally slashed you with my sword just now," Zhuang Xing apologized to it.

Surprisingly, when Zhuang Xing applied medicine and bandaged it, it was extremely well-behaved, sitting quietly in place, and even actively cooperated by raising its arm.

It's like... there used to be someone, like Zhuang Xing, who bandaged it up.

Zhuang Xing wrapped a fine cloth around the mandrill's chest, specifically to cover the hairless area.

Zhuang Xing's forehead was covered in a fine sweat. Although the mandrill did not make any unusual movements throughout the process, he was inevitably nervous and his nerves were on edge, fearing that its claws would suddenly come down. Now that everything was over, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and stood up.

The mandrill's body finally stopped trembling. With its cloudy eyes, which were covered by long fur, it looked at Yunling and Zhuang Xing, then turned to look at Linghui, who was holding a sword, and Qiaoxia, who was sitting on the ground tearing meat jerky.

Yunling tried to communicate with the mandrill again. This time, the mandrill no longer showed the fear it had shown before. It picked up its sword, took the tattered breastplate, and walked forward.

“It told us to go with it,” Yunling said.

"it is good."

Linghui helped Qiaoxia up, and the four of them followed behind the mandrill, walking through the quiet forest.

The mandrill walked alone ahead, and before long, it led the four of them to an open area.

What appeared before Zhuang Xing was a small wooden house.

This is a cliff where you can see the starry sky and the bright moon when you look up.

The wooden house was extremely old, with a thick layer of dead leaves covering the roof, and green moss and unknown plant vines climbing through the cracks in the wooden planks.

Zhuang Xing sensed a dozen or so presences inside the wooden house. They were huddled behind the door, peeking out cautiously.

With a creak, the door opened a crack.

A little boy with a wooden cane came out. There were many eyes behind him. The boy limped over to the mandrill and looked towards Zhuang Xing.

The boy was dressed in rags, his hair was messy, and he looked like a little beggar, but his eyes were extremely calm, not at all like a child.

He touched the coarse cloth on the mandrill's leg, then looked at Zhuang Xing and the other three without saying a word.

“We are Taoist priests from Xuanqing Temple,” Linghui said. “The village at the foot of the mountain asked us to exorcise a demon, saying that a mountain demon has stolen many children from their village. Are you a child from that village?”

The boy paused for a moment, then nodded, then shook his head.

He looked up at the mandrill for a long time, and seeing that the mandrill was calmly facing the four of them, he finally spoke, "Please, Taoist priests, come inside."

He seemed to have not spoken for a long time; his voice was dry and hoarse.

Chapter 84 Diary

The boy pushed open the door of the wooden house, and Zhuang Xing and the others followed him and the mandrill inside.

Inside the wooden house was a hearth. Sparks flew from the square earthen pit, and the glowing red charcoal in the slightly sunken ground illuminated the somewhat cramped wooden house.

Zhuang Xing glanced around and saw that, including the little boy with the cane, there were a total of sixteen children in the wooden house: ten boys and six girls. They were all dirty and dressed in tattered clothes. The youngest child looked to be only five or six years old, and the oldest child looked to be no more than twelve years old.

Upon seeing the four people enter, the children shrank into a corner.

They lowered their heads, none of them daring to meet the four men's gaze.

“Don’t be afraid, everyone,” the little boy said, comforting the other children. “These four Taoist priests were brought by Mr. Mandrill. They are not bad people.”

"Brother Chu Sheng... I'm so hungry..." A very young boy looked over.

The child called Chu Sheng looked at the mountain demon, touched his belly, and pointed to his mouth. They seemed to be communicating with this body language, as if to express that they were hungry and needed to eat.

However, the mandrill just shook its head. Chu Sheng licked his dry lips and sighed.

"I have some dry food here, you can take it and eat it." Zhuang Xing took out millet cakes and pork jerky from his satchel.

The little boy who had been complaining of hunger stared longingly at the dry rations in Zhuang Xing's hand. He ran over quickly, grabbed a rice cake, and hid in a corner to wolf it down.

The children around him swallowed hard at the sound of chewing, their eyes fixed on the food in Zhuang Xing's hand.

To be honest, Zhuang Xing was also a little hungry, but compared to the hunger of these children, his hunger was nothing.

“Let’s share our rations with these children.” Brother Linghui set an example by taking out his own rations as well.

The four of them shared the food from their bags.

Qiaoxia scratched her head, feeling a little guilty. She had just eaten a lot of food. If she had known there were so many hungry children here, she wouldn't have eaten.

Chu Sheng bowed to them, holding a rice cake, and said, "We haven't eaten for more than a day, so we are very grateful for the provisions provided by the Taoist priests."

"Why are you here?" Linghui asked. "What is your relationship with that village? And what's the deal with this mandrill?"

"This..." Chu Sheng paused, "Was the Taoist priest really invited by them? Didn't they tell you anything?"

“That villager only said that there were mountain demons causing trouble around their village and that they had stolen the children from their village. We were called here just to exorcise the demons,” Linghui said.

"Is that so..." Chu Sheng took a bite of the rice cake and said as he ate, "Then let me start from the beginning. It's not that complicated. In fact, we children were all trafficked to that village."

"Human trafficking?" Linghui raised an eyebrow.

"Yes." Chu Sheng nodded. "For me, this should have happened more than two months ago. I was going to the city with my father to sell charcoal, but while I was waiting outside, someone grabbed me from behind and put a cloth soaked in sleeping potion on my face. I was too weak to struggle. When I woke up, I found myself in that village and realized that I had been kidnapped."

“Those people locked me in a dark cellar. They said that as long as I behaved, they would let me out in a few days.”

“But I know that the day I am released, they will definitely sell me. I don’t know where I will be sold to or whether I will ever see my parents again. So I have been trying to find a way to escape.”

"So that's how it is. So you escaped here?" Linghui said.

“I only escaped the cellar, but I couldn’t escape the village,” Chu Sheng said. “Those people only treated me like a child and had no suspicion of me, so I pretended to be sick. When they saw that I was not feeling well, they let me out and made me drink medicine. I took the opportunity to steal the key. When the person guarding me went to the toilet, I secretly opened the lock and ran out.”

“Because I was afraid that the other children would be a burden to me, I ran away alone. I finally managed to escape from the cellar, but when I got outside, I met Mr. Mandrill.”

"And then this mandrill brought you here?" Linghui asked.

Chu Sheng shook his head and said, "No, actually it was Mr. Mandrill who captured me and took me back."

"Take them back?" Linghui asked thoughtfully. "So, this mandrill really does have a close relationship with that village. Is it the jailer responsible for guarding you?"

"Well... now that I think about it, I think it's probably because Mr. Mandrill thought it was too dangerous for children to run out of the village, so he caught me and put me in front of the guard. He probably didn't mean any harm," Chu Sheng said.

"You mean it thinks it captured you to protect you? Then what happened? How did you get to this place?" Linghui asked.

“That’s right, after I was taken back, the very thin, hunchbacked guard got really angry.” Chu Sheng lifted his lame leg. “He hit my leg hard with a stick.”

“My leg was bleeding a lot, and I screamed loudly. Then... Mr. Mandrill suddenly went berserk. He scratched the guard’s face and snatched me away.”

"Then the skinny guard got angry at Mr. Mandrill and tried to hit him with a stick. Mr. Mandrill broke the stick in half with one claw, then picked me up, climbed up the mountain, and put me here..."

"What about the other children?" Linghui asked again. "Are they all like you? Were they brought here by the mandrills?"

“Yes.” Chu Sheng nodded. “However, it’s a little different from when I was here. Some of them were stolen directly by Mr. Mandrill, and some were on carriages. Every time those human traffickers tried to transport people away, Mr. Mandrill would intercept their carriages. So it took about half a month for so many people to gather here.”

"We've been living here for the past two weeks. As for food, Mr. Mandrill goes hunting in the mountains during the day and brings back pheasants, rabbits, and river fish. When there are fewer people, we have enough to eat, but when there are more people... it's a bit not enough..."

"Didn't you ever think about running away from here and asking someone for help?" Qiaoxia suddenly asked.