The Lower Three Continents, Flowing Fire Prefecture.
Wang Laoqi was more than forty years old and was a strange man. Every day at 5:00 AM, he would wake up and stare at the leaking roof of his thatched hut with open eyes.
Only after a long while would he slowly sit up. He didn’t meditate or eat; he only counted the few grains of brown rice beside his pillow over and over before getting off the k’ang bed.
Outside the door, the sky was a dusty gray, and it was impossible to tell if it was morning mist or the dust haze that never dissipated year-round.
He shouldered his hoe, his footsteps sinking into the parched earth with a dull thud.
His neighbor, Old Sun, stuck his head out. The two wrinkled faces looked at each other with a numb understanding.
“I’m afraid it’s going to rain today,” Wang Laoqi said, his eyes fixed on the seemingly forever-shriveled ground.
“Rain? That’s damn ash!” Old Sun sneered.
Wang Laoqi remained silent, merely shifting the position of the hoe on his shoulder as if doing so could somehow change his fate.
When he reached the ridge of the field, he suddenly stopped and looked at the murky, desolate mountains in the distance that hadn’t changed all year.
For a moment, he couldn’t tell if it was a mirage or a real mountain.
“…Sometimes, I actually envy those mortals. At least they have four seasons.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Wang Laoqi felt they were absurd, so he gave two dry laughs.
Old Sun joined in. “Envy them for what? Envy them for returning to the earth after one hundred years?”
Wang Laoqi shook his head, then nodded again. “If you were given a chance to go to the mortal realm, would you go?”
“Would you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Then neither would I.”
“Hahahaha…”
The two old men, both nearly fifty, looked at each other and laughed. Their laughter held a hint of bitterness amidst the dust.
Wang Laoqi had never been to the mortal realm and didn’t know what the soil there looked like. He only knew that since birth, what lay before him was “crimson mud” that was so red it looked like it could drip blood. It was as hard as iron and as hot as coal.
Only a lowly crop called “fire-vein potato” could survive in it. It grew by absorbing the violent energy of the earth’s fire, and its tubers would leak a sap that looked like magma when sliced open.
It was the staple food for the people of Flowing Fire Prefecture; eating too much of it caused irritability and shortened one’s lifespan, but if one didn’t eat it, they would die.
***
By 9:00 AM, Wang Laoqi’s wife woke up.
The air became scorching and the sun grew piercing, but the good news was that the dust had cleared.
His wife thoughtfully wiped Wang Laoqi’s back with a wet towel. Once finished, she sat under the eaves and exhausted a great deal of effort to use a spell to create a small block of ice.
Then, she skillfully took out a small knife and began to grind “scorpion-tail grass.”
This was one of the few plants in Flowing Fire Prefecture that could be used for weaving. The cloth produced was coarse, hard, and durable, yet it always carried a fishy stench that could not be dispelled.
If one was diligent enough, the grass could be collected and sold. Whether sold to the dynasties in Yu Gong Province or the alchemists in Yunmeng Prefecture, it would bring in a decent income.
Their five-year-old son had been woken up either by the heat or by the barking of Dahuang at the edge of the village.
However, he didn’t cry or make a fuss. He simply squatted beside his mother, poking a sun-dazed scorpion with a wooden stick he had picked up from somewhere — a rare toy for the child.
By noon, Old Sun’s wife personally took to the kitchen and cooked a pot of fragrant soup for the six members of both families. Inside, there was not only meat and vegetables, but also rice.
“The Red Fire Sect was finally willing to distribute rice?” Wang Laoqi was surprised.
The Red Fire Sect was the local major sect. They monopolized the mines and collected high tributes from the subordinate villages and towns.
Although their protection was limited, they occasionally distributed relief goods. The villagers had complex feelings toward the sect, feeling both dependence and resentment.
“Of course. It was our family’s turn today, and tomorrow it will be yours!” Old Sun’s daughter-in-law chuckled, her dark face overflowing with joy.
After the meal, Wang Laoqi and Old Sun sat in front of the house to enjoy the cool air.
Even though it wasn’t cool at all.
“I heard that people in the upper three provinces eat ‘jade stalk rice’ and drink ‘morning dew tea.’ I wonder what that tastes like?” Wang Laoqi salivated, the lingering fragrance of the meal still in his mouth.
“You can find anything in your dreams.” Old Sun puffed on his dry tobacco, leaning back leisurely against his chair.
“I’m not as greedy as you. As long as I can trade for enough heart-clearing pills to suppress the fire poison in my kid’s body, that’s enough for me.”
“Didn’t the Red Fire Sect’s selection say your kid was pretty good last time?” Wang Laoqi remembered that Old Sun’s daughter possessed three spiritual roots.
It wasn’t an amazing talent, but it was enough to meet the threshold of the Red Fire Sect. If she was lucky, she might even climb the ranks and become a phoenix one day.
“The fire poison is too deep. She needs spiritual elixirs to supplement her foundation,” Old Sun sighed. “Otherwise, why do you think I want them so badly?”
Wang Laoqi fell silent.
He understood the deeper meaning behind those words — the Red Fire Sect had no interest in wasting elixirs on a girl with three spiritual roots.
“Do you think… if I had been a bit more diligent when I was young, the child wouldn’t have to suffer so much?” Old Sun blew a smoke ring and asked.
Wang Laoqi didn’t speak.
He didn’t know.
The afternoon remained busy.
By evening, Wang Laoqi used a precious half-inch of “grey salt” to rub the fire-vein potatoes and added a bit of brown rice before handing it to his son.
“Tomorrow we’ll have refined rice to eat. We’ll indulge ourselves today!” Seeing his son grin with his teeth showing, Wang Laoqi couldn’t help but flick his forehead.
“Every day, you only know how to be happy for no reason.”
His wife was nagging nearby about how there had been some movement at Widow Zhang’s house in the next village in the middle of the night, fearing that “white-maned dogs” had entered again, and wondering when the people from the Demon Inspection Department would finally come to their corner of the world…
This was their most relaxed moment of the day.
The night was relatively peaceful, except for Dahuang at the end of the village barking incessantly, just as he had during the day.
Wang Laoqi had a dream. He dreamed that he had become a cultivator of the Golden Core stage, capable of summoning wind and rain.
His wife was as beautiful as when she was young, and his son had become famous at a young age, becoming a leader in the cultivation world and entering the Heavenly Way Academy.
His son had even brought home a girl from a prestigious family the day before. The girl was so beautiful that her every frown and smile were like a true “fairy” from a storybook.
“Awooo—!”
A shrill, miserable scream pulled Wang Laoqi back from his dream.
The night outside the window was like congealed blood, and a single glance was enough to make one’s blood run cold.
Dahuang’s head suddenly flew in through the window from the east side of the village, causing his wife and son to scream in terror.
Wang Laoqi quickly covered their mouths and made a shushing gesture.
After calming his wife and son, Wang Laoqi crept out of bed, grabbed his hoe, and slowly pushed open the bedroom door.
He didn’t see a “white-maned dog,” but he saw something even more terrifying — a rolling, “giant demon leech” with lava-like cracks on its body.
Just by lying there, it was as tall as six Wang Laoqis.
A Golden Core stage demon beast…
Wang Laoqi’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he slowly shifted his gaze away from the demon leech.
Old Sun’s house had already been bored through with a massive hole.
Wang Laoqi saw Old Sun’s daughter, who had been smiling sweetly at him just yesterday — half of her body was hanging outside the door, her frame already turned into a shriveled strip of cloth that swayed in the wind.
The village was in chaos.
Crying, running, and burning.
Some people resisted, but their pitiful Qi refining stage cultivation and hoes were thinner than paper in the face of the demon.
Just like their lives.
Wang Laoqi wanted to turn back and grab his wife and son to run, but he couldn’t move.
It was as if his legs were broken. No matter how Wang Laoqi commanded them to move in his mind, they didn’t react at all.
The next second.
*Pfft!*
Wang Laoqi slowly turned around and saw two small leeches that had burrowed out from some patch of earth. Looking at the life gradually fading from the faces of his wife and son, his eyes turned red.
He let out an angry roar and jumped up with all his might, smashing his hoe onto the juvenile demon leech!
However, this strike, which was even more violent than those of his youth, only produced a few sparks on the demon leech’s shell.
The hoe snapped, and Wang Laoqi was sent flying by the powerful recoil, crashing into a stone wall. He didn’t know how many of his ribs were broken.
Despair submerged him like a tide.
‘Clearly… I was going to have rice to eat as soon as I woke up…’
Just then, a shrill sound like a hawk’s cry tore through the night sky!
A man wearing a hawk-bill mask appeared as if out of thin air.
Without using any fancy spells, he was as fast as black lightning as he drove a long blade into the middle of the largest demon leech, twisted, and tore!
Purple-black demon blood sprayed everywhere.
The demon leech let out a violent shriek, struggled twice, and then crashed to the ground, turning into foul-smelling pus.
The remaining juvenile demon leeches seemed to be hit by something invisible. Almost at the same time the giant demon leech fell, they all collapsed dead on the spot.
Xuan Sun expressionlessly sheathed his long blade and flicked the demon blood off it with a look of disdain.
From his appearance to the kill, only three breaths had passed.
Dead silence.
The surviving villagers slowly gathered around. Their faces were blank with the shock of surviving a disaster, but they were soon consumed by immense grief and began to cover their faces and sob.
Coughing up blood, Wang Laoqi struggled to crawl up from the ground and staggered to the ruins.
Gritting his teeth and enduring the pain, he dug out the corpses of his wife and son, who had long since been sucked dry, from the stone bricks. He held them in his arms, his body shaking like a broken bellows.
Xuan Sun expressionlessly scanned the ruins and the survivors, as if confirming whether any of the demon race remained.
After confirming there were no problems, Xuan Sun turned around, prepared to conduct a routine inspection of the demon corpses to extract residual information and track the leech king’s nest.
Wang Laoqi’s hoarse voice rang out, very softly. “Demon… Inspection… Department…”
Xuan Sun didn’t stop.
“Why didn’t you come earlier—!!”
Wang Laoqi suddenly looked up, his eyes bloodshot, tears mixing with blood and dust. Every word he roared was accompanied by bloody foam.
“Isn’t your Demon Inspection Department supposed to protect the people?! Ah?! My son was only five years old! Five!! If you had come just a moment earlier, even just one moment, he wouldn’t have had to die!!”
The grief of the other villagers seemed to find an outlet. Silent resentment ignited in their numb eyes as they looked toward Xuan Sun.
Xuan Sun stopped.
He slowly turned around, his hawk-bill mask reflecting a cold, hard light in the residual firelight.
There was no explanation, no defense, and no comfort.
He only remained silent for a moment before tossing down a bag of spirit stones. Then, he turned around again and continued walking toward the demon leech.
Although this was just a demon incident he had accidentally discovered while tracking Ling Yao, being late was being late. It was only natural for the villagers to curse him.
This bag of spirit stones was his remorse. It was a form of compensation.
But in Wang Laoqi’s eyes, it was full of irony.
His throat made a rattling sound, like a broken bellows leaking its last breath.
“Can your bag of broken stones… buy my son’s life? Who the hell wants it!”
Wang Laoqi’s voice was incredibly raspy. It didn’t sound like a question, but rather like a dull knife carving his own flesh.
“You people who fly in the sky… I’m afraid your hearts are just like this crimson mud, already hardened and burnt to coal!”
Xuan Sun retracted the leg he had stepped out with once again.
He slowly walked up to Wang Laoqi and looked down at the broken man.
“So,” Xuan Sun’s voice was very calm, so calm it made one’s skin crawl, “you think this is my fault?”
“It is your fault! It’s all your fault! You high and mighty cultivators never care about whether we live or die!!”
Wang Laoqi completely lost control, grabbing the half of his broken hoe and hurling it at Xuan Sun.
Xuan Sun didn’t move. The broken hoe was turned into powder by his Body Protection Qi three feet away.
The next second, a cold flash of light appeared.
Wang Laoqi’s angry roar came to an abrupt halt.
He looked down in disbelief and saw a small bloody hole in his chest rapidly expanding. Life drained away quickly along with his body temperature.
Xuan Sun retracted his long blade, flicking the blood off with the same disdain as when he had slain the demon.
He looked at the other villagers, who were as quiet as cicadas in winter and pale with fear.
“Powerless rage is useless for anything except attracting more demon beasts. If you want to live, either learn to become stronger, or… learn to shut up.”
His voice was still calm, but it was several degrees colder than the night wind of Flowing Fire Prefecture.
Shouldering the corpse of the demon leech, Xuan Sun said no more. He turned into a dark, eagle-like shadow and completely vanished into the crimson night.