Dust filled the air, making it impossible to open one’s eyes.
Opening your mouth would fill it with sand, and the taste was strange, like moss and tiles, as if someone had ground the roof into powder and shoved it into everyone’s mouths.
People staggered out of their hiding places, covering their mouths and noses with their eyes closed, calling out the names of their family members in muffled voices.
“Father, Mother?”
“Wait, where’s our roof?”
The alley of Chenghuang Temple Street was narrow, with houses crowded together. It was never this bright, not even when standing on the street, because the eaves and makeshift shelters blocked out the sunlight. When the dust settled, everyone looked up, dumbfounded at the empty sky.
The roof was gone.
The beams were damaged, leaving only four walls.
Someone had hung things in a basket from the beams, and others had dried salted fish and vegetables on the roof, but now all of these things had vanished along with the roof.
No bricks or tiles fell down, and the tables and chairs had only shifted slightly. The people hiding under the tables and beds were unharmed, as if something they didn’t understand had happened after that loud explosion. Clearly, there had been bandits, and those martial artists had started fighting. And then?
The confused townsfolk began to hear distant shouts.
“A demon dragon has emerged… causing trouble…”
The stunned people suddenly snapped back to reality, grabbing their valuables and children as they fled for their lives.
“Help! There’s a demon trying to eat children! Someone save us!”
Mo Li, who had just pulled the apprentice from the cobbler’s shop next to the blacksmith’s out of the rubble: “…”
Where did this demon come from?
Mo Li had noticed something was wrong midway through the fight and had to abandon his original confrontation, cooperating with Meng Qi to attack the straw-hatted man from both sides, trying to direct the force of their combined attacks upward. It was like throwing a thunderclap firecracker into the air—it would explode but wouldn’t kill anyone, only the shockwave would knock people over.
By doing this, the worst that would happen was the roof would be blown off, leaving those hiding inside unharmed.
As a result, the full collision of their inner strength caused all the houses within half a mile to suffer. After the deafening explosion, everything turned to flying sand, swirling in the air.
The closer one was to the blacksmith’s shop, the more severe the damage to the houses.
The cobbler’s shop on the left collapsed entirely, while the wicker craftsman’s shop on the right lost most of its walls.
Upon discovering someone under the rubble, Mo Li didn’t hesitate to clear away the debris and start digging them out.
Fortunately, the main beams and bricks had turned to dust, and the goods in the shop weren’t too heavy. The people hiding under the tables had been shielded from the debris, and when Mo Li rescued them, they were still huddled, trembling, not knowing what had happened.
When they heard everyone shouting about demons, the younger apprentice suddenly burst into tears.
He cried while coughing from the dust.
It’s hard to blame the townsfolk for their suspicions—this “roof being lifted” scenario was straight out of tales of demon kings from certain mountains abducting boys and girls. Lift the roof, and see which house hides a chubby child. If it wasn’t a demon, then where did the roof go? Where did the tiles go? The salted fish?
—They’re all gone, so what else could it be but a demon?
Mo Li also rescued the people from the wicker craftsman’s shop. Without him needing to say a word, they fled in panic, not looking back.
The street was littered with debris and goods from the shops.
Meng Qi stepped on a rolling red lantern, sliced through a large bamboo basket flying at him, and leapt up to stand on the broken flagpole of a snack shop, his upper body slightly leaning forward, his right hand half-lifted, holding his sword.
Behind a partially collapsed wall four zhang away, someone was sneaking along the base of the wall.
He was the one who had shot the arrow at Blacksmith Wang earlier. After shaking off the swordsman, he had been hiding nearby, watching the situation. He thought Lady Liu would succeed, but after waiting for a long time without seeing her, he only heard a deafening explosion.
This didn’t seem like a firecracker explosion, leaving the assassin confused, and he decided to run.
But after only a few steps, he saw Meng Qi.
What a small world.
The assassin cautiously stepped back, holding his breath as he prepared to change his route. Suddenly, a sharp light flashed before his eyes, bricks cracked, and walls crumbled. The force knocked him down like a tumbling gourd. When he looked up again, he saw a figure standing on the ruins, backlit.
Dust filled his eyes, and even though he tried hard to see, he could only make out the person’s slowly falling hair and the hem of his robe.
Jet-black hair, brushing against a pattern of entwined golden osmanthus.
The embroidered flowers were extremely small, clustered together, and only the hem of the backlit fluttering robe revealed them.
“…A small fry who slipped through the net?”
A cold, mocking voice reached his ears, and at the same time, a cold light flashed. The escapee felt a sharp pain in his ankles as blood flowed, and with a scream, he collapsed to the ground.
His Achilles tendons had been severed.
Meng Qi didn’t spare him a glance, continuing to search the empty, collapsed street for any trace of the straw-hatted man.
After the loud explosion, both Mo Li and Meng Qi felt the blood in their chests surge, and the force of the counter-shock clearly told them that the martial skills of the straw-hatted man were in no way inferior to theirs. For experts of their caliber, it was already difficult to determine a winner, and if the opponent intended to escape and had the advantage of time and place, then he would be almost impossible to catch.
The straw-hatted man was not like the swordsman Suo Li. The deathly aura that surrounded him was already quite eerie, and now he had withstood their combined tenfold attack without a hitch. Although Mo Li had held back some of his power out of concern for the townspeople of Chenghuang Temple Street, the combined force of their inner strength was formidable. For the straw-hatted man to disappear without a trace now clearly indicated that he was unharmed.
This was troubling.
Meng Qi vaguely felt that he might not be able to defeat him.
The last time he had felt this uncertain was against the Ancestor Qingwu, Zhao Cangfeng.
“Strange.” Meng Qi frowned, just as concerned as Mo Li about the deathly aura surrounding the straw-hatted man.
After circling the chaotic street, they found no further anomalies.
Although it sounds slow, all of this took less than half a cup of tea’s time. When Meng Qi returned to the blacksmith’s shop, Mo Li had just finished rescuing the townsfolk and was examining the Western Liang experts buried in the rubble.
When the Empty Flower Array was broken by Meng Qi, these people had already suffered internal injuries.
When the straw-hatted man arrived, his sinister martial arts further damaged the hearts and minds of Lady Liu and the others, leaving them in a desperate situation.
—A top expert can control the range of their attacks, but within their dueling circle, the lethality is immense.
Those with slightly weaker skills and more severe injuries died on the spot, while the rest were completely buried in the ruins of the blacksmith’s shop.
Mo Li had first rescued the townspeople nearby, and by the time he reached this side, he found only one survivor.
“Where was the person hiding?” Meng Qi asked with some surprise.
He had anticipated the outcome when he struck, not intending to spare these people.
He just hadn’t expected that the straw-hatted man wouldn’t care about the lives of his subordinates.
Mo Li lifted a wooden plank and a pile of miscellaneous debris, then pointed to a dark well mouth exposed below: “Look, down there.”
Meng Qi leaned over and saw Lady Liu clinging to the well rope, trembling as she hung against the well wall.
“She’s quite clever.” Meng Qi sneered, amused by Lady Liu’s terrified expression.
Logically, looking down from the edge of the well should reveal nothing but darkness, but for some reason, Lady Liu felt as though Meng Qi could see the expression on her face.
She had hidden herself so well! She had planned to climb out after these two fiends left, but somehow, they had found her with alarming accuracy, as if they had known she was hiding there all along.
At that time, as her master was exchanging blows with these two, the gathered inner force was growing stronger, and neither side seemed inclined to hold back. The surrounding airflow was like sharp blades—any slight movement could result in a face full of cuts. Luckily, she had a quick mind and immediately spotted the only escape route.
The well.
It sounded easy, but to time her jump into the well just before the trio’s strikes landed and the explosion occurred, she had to rely on luck.
And luck was on her side, but whether it was good luck or bad luck was debatable.
“Not coming up yet?” Meng Qi said coldly.
If the well rope broke, Lady Liu would fall into the water.
She didn’t know if the well’s bottom connected to an underground river; ordinary households only dug wells until they found water, and they typically weren’t very deep. The so-called water inlet was usually just a crack in the stones. The well walls were smooth with no footholds—falling into the water would be a death sentence.
Her life was tied to the well rope, and the person above could easily sever it.
Thus, filled with fear but unable to suppress her resentment, she had no choice but to slowly climb up the rope.
Meng Qi, naturally, didn’t give her any favorable treatment. The appearance of the straw-hatted man had disrupted the situation they had carefully orchestrated.
Mo Li walked over to the ruins of the side room to search for the cellar, and his expression changed slightly.
“This is bad.”
The cellar had collapsed, and the body of Chief Clerk Li was crushed beyond recognition.
The floor of the side room was still intact, but the cellar below was destroyed. Upon closer inspection of the patterns on the bluestone tiles, it was clear that this was the work of the straw-hatted man.
… Striking through solid objects from a distance wasn’t unheard of.
Mo Li didn’t understand. With the straw-hatted man’s martial skills, while he might not have been able to save all the Western Liang experts in the courtyard, rescuing one or two shouldn’t have been difficult. Why, then, did he leave the living to perish and instead destroy Chief Clerk Li’s body?
He was even worse than Suo Li!
Suo Li would go to great lengths, even running a full lap around a mountain, to procure an opium pill to ensure his subordinates returned to the grave.
Hearing this, Meng Qi explained in a deep voice, “Their foundation in Run County still exists. As long as there’s no evidence of Chief Clerk Li’s ‘collusion with bandits,’ the county won’t descend into chaos anytime soon. It takes time to gather evidence, and the magistrate here isn’t someone who’s meticulous and intolerant of corruption. If he’s the type who prefers to take money and turn a blind eye, or is too cowardly to investigate, then the Western Liang remnants in Run County won’t be eradicated. But with Chief Clerk Li’s body, we can at least scare the magistrate. After all, we can’t stay here indefinitely to handle this matter, or we’d be stuck, while the Western Liang people could cause trouble elsewhere.”
“Didn’t you say yesterday that the magistrate was certain bandits had attacked the county, and that this was a serious matter that he would report to the court?”
“That was yesterday,” Meng Qi replied to Mo Li with a grim expression. “But you heard it yourself—now everyone’s shouting about monsters!”
Anyway, except for Chief Clerk Li, no one else in the barracks was harmed. Everyone only saw a gust of wind; the constables and soldiers searched all night, sealed the city gates, and found no trace of bandits or rebels. Conveniently, they could shift the blame onto some mythical monster—after all, it wasn’t the government’s fault.
Mo Li was speechless, looking at Meng Qi with a helpless expression.
How had they not anticipated this before the fight?
“There are always unforeseen circumstances in life,” Meng Qi lightly coughed, signaling Mo Li to look at Lady Liu, who was cowering to the side.
“Her?”
Before Mo Li could react, Meng Qi smiled and said, “Indeed, as the saying goes, ‘What is lost in the east can be gained in the west.’ The straw-hatted man destroyed Chief Clerk Li’s body, but didn’t he deliver a useful chess piece to us? And one who is disillusioned and no longer loyal—a truly generous gift.”
Lady Liu, with blood trickling from her mouth and nose due to internal injuries, did not refute Meng Qi’s words. She kept her head lowered.
The Empty Flower Array was difficult to master, and none of the straw-hatted man’s other subordinates had a deeper understanding of formations than they did. Because of this, Lady Liu and the others harbored some hope, especially when they sensed their “master” had appeared, leading to the illusion that their master had come to personally rescue them.
However—
“I still don’t understand. The straw-hatted man clearly had the chance to save them,” Mo Li said, perplexed. “Destroying the cellar didn’t take much time. This was their territory—he could have easily picked up a couple of people and led us on a chase. Given his superior martial skills, I wouldn’t have dared to separate from you, Meng. Once he found an opportunity, he could have tossed the two aside and turned back to stop us. Those two might have had a good chance of escaping with their lives.”
Why didn’t he do this? Why did the straw-hatted man only care about his own escape? Mo Li couldn’t figure it out.
The straw-hatted man could vanish amid the chaos after a three-way confrontation. He could escape from another location just as easily. He wasn’t the swordsman, afraid of Mo Li and Meng Qi pursuing him relentlessly.
“What’s the point of saving one or two people? How many people are needed to form the Empty Flower Array?” Meng Qi’s sharp words hit the mark.
Lady Liu’s body wavered.
Mo Li suddenly understood.
These Western Liang experts had trained in the Empty Flower Array, likely practicing together for over a decade, achieving seamless cooperation.
If one or two died, replacements could be found, and with enough practice, the array would still be effective. But if only one or two survived, they’d become ordinary experts—not worth the straw-hatted man’s attention.
“When he saw us, he knew there was no way to save his subordinates, so he simply gave up,” Meng Qi mused, stroking his chin. This man had the bearing of a hero.
But a hero? During the struggle for supremacy in the past, there were plenty with heroic traits—at least eight or ten—not that rare!
Meng Qi sheathed his sword and dismissed the thought with a wave of his sleeve. “He thought all his subordinates were doomed, but unfortunately, one survived… What did I just say? There are always unforeseen circumstances in life—no matter who you are, you’re bound to stumble!”
Mo Li suspected that Meng Qi had picked up that phrase from an “old friend.”
“Doctor, how are her injuries?”
“It’s internal damage, affecting her meridians and internal organs. She shouldn’t use her inner strength for now.”
“No danger to her life, then let’s take her with us.” Meng Qi grabbed her as if she were a basket, “It would be impolite not to accept the ‘gift’ her ‘master’ sent.”
Lady Liu, both angry and frightened, felt a surge of resentment.
Before she could say anything, her vision went black as Meng Qi struck her acupoints.
A team from the yamen was approaching, but they didn’t dare come near the “haunted” street, watching from a distance.
Mo Li finally had a chance to ask Meng Qi, “… That straw-hatted man, so strange and mysterious, able to manipulate spiritual energy—what do you think he is?”
“Not a dragon vein,” Meng Qi decisively denied.
“Not human either,” Mo Li added.
Meng Qi fell silent for a moment, then hesitantly said, “Could it be… a daemon?”
Author’s note:
Mo Li (holding a white fox, a giant python, and a white ginseng): I don’t want this kind of daemon. I firmly refuse.jpg
T/N: They were referring to them as demon. Not actual demons but rather shapeshifters or evil spirits or supernatural beings, so I just used daemon. Why? Just because. Using the word ‘sprite’ is also off since it’s mostly related to creatures who lives by the water. Fun fact, daemon (in ancient Greek belief) is a divinity or supernatural being of a nature between gods and humans. Not that far off. Technically speaking, dragon veins are also a sort of daemons, since they’re a supernatural ‘being’ (even though they’re literally just mountains gaining sentience). Sorry for rambling so much.
