Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

Soon, the three of them arrived near the village.

The village was silent; the bonfires lit at dusk had all gone out, and there was not a trace of human life in sight.

Linghui walked ahead, cautiously stepping into the village entrance. Zhuang Xing found a wheel rut on the muddy road, indicating that the small mountain village had become an empty shell.

Led by the mandrill, they found the cellar that Chu Sheng had mentioned.

The cellar door was wide open, and there was a musty smell of dust and mold inside. The huge cellar was empty; all the children had been taken away.

"It seems my guess was right..." Zhuang Xing said in a low voice.

Although he selected the correct option, he was not happy.

They left the village at sunset, when even the moon was already high in the sky.

At least two or three hours had passed between their departure and return; these human traffickers had been riding for two or three hours.

The senior brother and sister's horses are still on the mountain, two or three hours behind. How can they catch up on foot?

These human traffickers really figured it out; there's no shortage of clever people in this world.

"We're still a step too late..." Linghui sighed.

Beside her, the mandrill howled a few times at Yunling. Yunling nodded and turned to say, "It said it can go find those children."

"Can we still catch up?" Linghui asked.

“It says yes,” Yunling said.

Linghui pondered for a while and said, "If it wants to catch up with the carriage, it will definitely need to use all its strength to travel. It was also injured by Zhuang Xing and me. Those thieves are not kind people. If it tries to fight them head-on, it will be in danger on this trip."

"Yunling, could you tell it not to reveal its whereabouts after it finds those thieves? I will then use the compass to locate it, and we will attack together once we arrive."

"I'll give it a try," Yunling said.

She continued to communicate with the old mandrill, but after a while, she shook her head.

"Senior brother, these words are too complicated; it seems unable to understand what I mean."

Zhuang Xing looked at the old mountain goblin's arm and wondered if it could carry those children up the mountain, could it also carry him on his journey?

Although the mandrill is not very intelligent, if it can take Zhuang Xing with it, it will be able to adapt to changing circumstances.

Zhuang walked up to the mandrill, gestured with his finger to its arm, and asked, "Can you take me with you?"

The mandrill actually understood what he meant, nodded, and stretched out its long arm.

"Senior brother, let me go with it!" Zhuang Xing said. "I'll have it keep a safe distance so the thieves won't notice, and it can also help you."

"this..."

Linghui was a little worried, but then she thought of what Zhuang Xing had said in the cabin earlier and realized that Zhuang Xing's insight was far beyond that of ordinary people. Even she, an experienced disciple of the Red Rice Hat Sect, was not as thoughtful as Zhuang Xing.

Do you know what's going on?

"Don't worry, senior brother, I will definitely not act rashly." Zhuang Xing patted his chest and laughed, "I'm still young, I haven't lived enough yet."

Linghui was taken aback for a moment, realizing that Zhuang Xing's sudden joke was meant to lighten the mood. As the senior brother, he had actually made his junior brother worry, which was really inappropriate.

He thought to himself that if the mandrill were a little stronger, it would be great if it could take him with it. He should have been the one to lead the charge, but he also felt that Zhuang Xing should be able to handle it well.

"Alright, then let it be." Linghui patted Zhuang Xing's head and took out a stack of talismans from Qiaoxia's bag. "The laws of the Great Yu state that anyone who abducts male or female children can be executed. Keep these talismans safe and use them when necessary. Don't hesitate."

Yunling looked at Zhuang Xing, bit her lip, and stuffed two Xuanhuo talismans into Zhuang Xing's hand, saying, "Be careful in everything."

Zhuang Xing only asked for a Xuanhuo Talisman, then hugged Yunling, sat on the old mountain demon's arm, and whispered, "I'll be careful."

Chapter 89 The Chase (2/3) (Seeking First Subscription)

At the village entrance, Zhuang Xing cut off a lock of hair from himself and a lock of hair from the mountain demon, and handed them to his senior brother Ling Hui.

The senior brother placed his and the mandrill's hair on the compass, tapped it a few times, and then the compass needle pointed to the two of them.

"You may go ahead. Yunling and I are going up the mountain to fetch the horses. We'll be back soon."

"Okay." Zhuang Xing nodded, patted the mandrill's arm muscles, and said, "Let's go!"

The mandrill seemed to understand him perfectly, and it picked him up and ran off in the direction the cart tracks had left behind.

Its three-jointed arm bent, holding Zhuang Xing firmly, while its other arm touched the ground. It used both its hands and feet, its long arm acting like a pole, to pull its body over.

The mandrill's running posture was truly unique, but its speed was by no means slow, reminding Zhuang Xing of the feeling of opening the car window and letting in the wind after a long time.

However, the mandrill's center of gravity is very stable. Even when it runs at full speed, the vibration is minimal. During its strides and jumps, the height of the mandrill off the ground hardly changes.

They left the village quickly, and when Zhuang Xing looked back, he could no longer see his senior brother and Yunling.

He was a little nervous. There was at least one clever person among those thieves. Now that he thought about it, if everything was planned, then from the moment the villager led the group on their journey, they had been falling into the other side's trap step by step.

From horses and rhetoric to millet stalks and farm tools...

It is these subtle details that create a delicate balance, somewhat reminiscent of the Empty City Stratagem. They manage to disguise a village that is out of ammunition and food and on the verge of collapse as a bandit village, making Zhuang Xing and his group suspicious and hesitant to investigate further.

Zhuang Xing thought to himself that during those three days, the villager was clearly wary of the four of them, yet he still managed to deliberately reveal the flaws he wanted them to see. His acting skills were definitely worthy of an Oscar.

We must be extremely careful on this trip and must not be arrogant or complacent.

He held his breath and focused his attention, adjusting his breathing.

When he first encountered the mountain demon, he had already used a Spirit Qi Talisman. A Spirit Qi Talisman can last for half an hour, or one hour. Now that the effect has not worn off, he feels refreshed and in good condition.

This was, after all, a spiritual energy talisman given to him by Daoist Qingxuzi, and it was not comparable to a spiritual energy talisman drawn by an ordinary person.

Ordinary spiritual energy talismans require one to temporarily surpass their limits by overdrawing their physical strength, but Master Qingxuzi's spiritual energy talisman is different; there is no such side effect when using the first one.

Even after the effect wears off, he won't feel tired because he didn't use too much true qi beforehand. The true qi that has been activated won't disappear like in a game, as long as it's not used.

The dissipation of true qi is a process, and according to his estimation, its effects will not truly wear off until dawn.

In case of emergency, he has two more Spirit Qi Talismans. Master Qingxuzi said that if he uses the second one within a day, he will faint from exhaustion when the effect ends. In other words, after using the second Spirit Qi Talisman, he can fight again for at least half an hour.

Moreover, he possessed a powerful weapon, the Xuanhuo Talisman, as well as two Thunder Control Talismans, a Swiftness Talisman, and an Iron Sand Talisman, which he had obtained from Senior Sister Qiaoxia.

His talisman blade was already highly refined; he could casually pick up a leaf and throw it as a flying knife, which possessed a sharp cutting energy. A year ago, his innate energy could only cut through a dry bamboo, but after taking the body tempering liquid and cultivating diligently on the mountain for a year, his talisman blade can now split through bluestone.

In terms of lethality, he is a walking weapon of mass destruction. Although he is still young, if it were a life-or-death struggle, a group of human traffickers with no real Qi would be nothing more than targets in front of him.

If he wanted, he felt he could even have the mandrill carry him on a sneak attack from afar, wiping out the thieves completely.

However... he has never killed anyone. To this day, the most ferocious thing he has ever killed was a grass snake that was attracted by the smell of snake fruit back then.

He had anticipated that one day he might have to kill someone, but he didn't expect that day to come so soon.

He let out a long breath and gripped the sword at his waist.

The man-eating tiger spirit appeared before his eyes. The tiger spirit had died long ago, and its body parts had been sold off by the old hunter and Miss Huai'an. Its tiger skin might be hanging in the hall of some noble family, its meat might be bought by martial arts practitioners to make soup, its bones might be soaked in medicinal wine to cause trouble, and its remnant soul had been personally severed by Zhuang Xing a year ago.

The tiger spirit was dead beyond any doubt, but Zhuang Xing never forgot it for a single moment.

Zhuang Xing felt that the tiger spirit was right about one thing: the strong prey on the weak, and that's the way of the world.

The natural law of survival of the fittest applies at all times, which is why he cultivates so diligently. He never wants to encounter a situation like five years ago again, where he can do nothing but watch from the sidelines.

Even before he could speak, he recognized the cruelty of this world, so he would never show mercy!

...

Under the moonlight, four carriages moved slowly across the dry ground.

The villager drove the horse, sitting in the front carriage, his body swaying with the carriage.

"Brother, we've traveled a long way."

The skinny monkey took out tobacco leaves from a basket woven from red willow branches, shook them into the bowl of his pipe, lit them, and gave them to the villager.

"We can't see the road clearly at night. Should we rest for a bit and continue our journey tomorrow morning?"

The villager took a long puff of his pipe, glanced back at the ground, and said, "No rush. We need to get through this rocky mountain path first, otherwise we'll leave tire tracks. Once we've finished this section, there's a dilapidated temple not far away. We'll go there to sleep."

"Big brother is so thoughtful," the skinny monkey said with a grin.

The villager, longbow tucked under his arm, silently smoked. He dared not relax; for nearly a month, they had not gone out to scout the area and were unaware of the surrounding conditions.

In the past, they would travel during the day and send out a scout to explore the way ahead. If there was any situation, the scout would blow a whistle. For ordinary monsters, a dozen of them could shoot them dead or scare them away by firing their bows at the same time. However, traveling at night would greatly limit their visibility.

Don't walk at night; this is a rule that everyone in this world follows.

But they had no other choice. The village's food supplies were running out. They had money, but it couldn't be exchanged for rice; it was just scrap metal. They took all their belongings and left the village, turning from law-abiding citizens into fugitives. If they were caught by the authorities, they would all face imprisonment. In addition, given the dirty work they had done, they would surely be sent to the executioner's block.

Chapter 90 White-tailed Jackal (3/3) (Seeking first subscription)

All that could be heard along the way was the sound of horses' hooves and the creaking of wheels.

The villager sniffed and smelled a foul odor coming from the carriage, and several boxes shook restlessly.

"Skinny Monkey, we'll be there soon. Take some men and prepare the medicine. Don't feed these guys today; let them sleep."

"Also, open the box. Don't make another mistake and suffocate the goods."

"Understood, brother." Skinny Monkey nodded and went to the side to greet the others.

They took out aconite and aconitum carmichaelii from several red lacquered wooden boxes. These were herbs used to make medicinal soup. They boiled these herbs in water to make a soup, then soaked a towel in it. Just by wrapping the towel around the face, the person would fall into a coma. Even a burly man couldn't withstand it.

After the villager finished smoking the tobacco, he unscrewed the pipe and shook the ash onto the ground.

The dilapidated temple was just ahead. His nose twitched again, and he suddenly raised his hand. "Stop!"

The riders pulled on the reins and took up their bows and arrows.

The villager smelled the stench of rotting flesh. He had a very keen sense of smell and should have noticed it much earlier, but the cart was carrying many children. The bumpy ride had caused the children to be drugged and placed in wooden boxes, and they couldn't control their urination and defecation. The foul smell had interfered with his sense of smell, and he only noticed the stench when he got very close.

The stench was far beyond the smell of rotting pork or mutton; just a whiff of it made the villager feel nauseous.

Having traveled extensively over the years and seen countless things, he could tell at a glance that this was the stench of a rotting person.

He had also handled corpses before. When they first started working, their techniques were not yet proficient, and they didn't know how to drill holes in the boxes, which suffocated many of the goods.

The smell emitted after a person dies is unlike any other stench; the strong stench of a corpse can permeate even when buried in the ground.

The smell was telling the villager something: someone had died in that temple.

Regardless of how that person died, this is definitely not good news.

Even worse, he saw those shadows darting out of the temple.