Chapter 2255: Red-Eyed Monster

Sun Hongye stood in place for a few breaths, then suddenly laughed. What am I even doing? Getting back to sleep is important.

He was about to take a step when he suddenly heard a "swish" sound, as if something had brushed past the base of the wall not far away, startling the fallen leaves on the ground.

Another twenty zhang north and you enter the restricted zone, where the military guards the Xuanjing warehouse.

The gate was right beside him, and Sun Hongye instinctively gripped the door crack to peek outside.

Upon looking, it wasn't a problem—directly opposite, three zhang away in the dark alley, a pair of blood-red eyes actually appeared!

Round and large, they even emitted a red glow.

Originally, this red light was facing the restricted zone, but when Sun Hongye pried open the door, it turned around and stared at him fixedly!

Sun Hongye's scalp went numb; he bit his tongue to keep from crying out.

On the ground, there was still a corpse, which was suddenly dragged into the dark alley with a swoosh.

Immediately after, that pair of red eyes also vanished.

Sun Hongye stood in place for a good while, until the pitch-black alley fell silent, and the insects and frogs in the pond began to croak again, before he finally relaxed.

What kind of ghostly thing was that?

Suddenly, a blade extended from behind him, its bright blade stabbing fiercely at his feet!

"Ah!" Sun Hongye jumped in fright, spun around sharply, only to see that the one who drew the blade was Puhua.

Puhua sheathed his blade and had him look at what was on the tip.

It was a dark red worm, still wriggling about.

At first glance it looked like an earthworm, but it had bristles and a white line along its side.

"A centipede," Puhua said, "very fast—it almost crawled onto the back of your foot. This thing seems highly poisonous."

Sun Hongye hurriedly thanked him.

I just got up in the middle of the night to use the toilet—if I were bitten by some worm for no reason, wouldn't that be unjust?

"What are you doing?" Puhua noticed his earlier posture was improper.

"Just now, something was hiding in the opposite alley, with a pair of blood-red eyes! It even killed someone and dragged the corpse into the alley." Sun Hongye whispered, "I got up at night, and this courtyard was deathly quiet—no frog croaks, no insect chirps."

The opposite alley?

"Go back to your room first; I'll go check and return shortly."

Before Puhua jumped over the wall to leave, he also glanced northward, clearly thinking the same thing about the Xuanjing warehouse.

There, lights were blazing, and guards were stationed and patrolling.

Sun Hongye waited for a quarter of an hour before Puhua returned.

"The alley is empty, but there are indeed drag marks on the ground." He took out a sheet of paper and wrote a few characters:

Thirty zhang south of the restricted zone, a red-eyed demon beast kills people.

Puhua.

Then he casually stamped it.

Sun Hongye saw him fold the note into a butterfly, sprinkle some pale yellow powder on it, and gently blow a breath.

Whoosh—

The paper butterfly suddenly flapped its wings and flew up.

It flew quite lightly, passing over windows and wall tops, heading north.

Not long after, this butterfly actually flew back again.

Puhua opened the note and saw that it still said his original line, but with a small clump of white silk added.

"All right, the camp has already received my warning and won't startle the snake." Puhua stood up, "Mr. Sun, you should rest first."

Sun Hongye had no objection, but he extinguished the lamp and lay down in his clothes.

He had a strong premonition that something would definitely happen before dawn.

After an unknown length of time, while Sun Hongye was regulating his breath, he heard a tremendous boom and felt the ground tremble.

Just as he opened his eyes, Puhua came running from the next room again: "Bandits have invaded the warehouse—fighting has broken out to the north!"

There's excitement to watch! Sun Hongye's sleepiness bug instantly scattered:

"Who's so blind? Did you catch it? Do you want to go help?"

Puhua laughed: "Don't worry, it can't get away!"

Seeing his confident smile, Sun Hongye became very curious.

Occasionally, light explosions flashed in the northern sky, and they could see them even through the window.

Every household lit their lamps—clearly, the entire mountain town had been awakened by the noise.

After more than a moment, the northern side finally fell silent.

Not long after, guards came to summon Puhua.

"Come on, mission accomplished."

……

Sun Hongye followed Puhua and easily crossed into the restricted zone.

Two guards stood at the gate; Sun Hongye lifted his eyes and just happened to see a white net hanging on the big tree beside the camp, with a small spider crouched on it.

Besides the houses and stables, this place only had warehouses and workshops, plus two roads leading to the back mountains, said to be the entrance to the mines.

The garrison here numbered about six hundred, led by a commander surnamed Chen, who immediately bowed respectfully upon seeing Puhua, his hands nearly touching the ground:

"Commander Puhua!"

This man is a high-ranking officer of the Black Armor Army, a fierce warrior who once followed the Nine Abysses Great Emperor in conquering Jiangshan.

Puhua waved his hand: "No need for formalities. Did you catch it?"

"We caught them!" Commander Chen personally led the two men toward the back mountains, saying along the way, "They were six scorpion demons, sneaking in under cover of darkness to steal the Xuanjing. We discovered them and they scattered in flight, but we've already captured five of them."

Sun Hongye understood: "The Awakening of Insects period?"

"Yes, in recent years, the monsters haven't been this rampant." Chen Tongling's job wasn't easy either, "The newly emerged monsters and those just out of seclusion don't care about local rules or people's livelihoods; once they arrive, it's either a massacre or large-scale plundering."

The Xuanjing veins of the Jinjin Plains all belong to the state, so these newly emerged monsters and immortals, unable to obtain them elsewhere, simply come to steal.

"In the past three years, guarding this Yueyue mine, I've already encountered eleven thefts, big and small."

Sun Hongye also deeply felt: "I was originally in Fu State, when suddenly a man-eating great monster appeared near the auxiliary capital, devouring all the living people of two towns, causing the populace to pale at the mention of it, and public sentiment became unstable. Fu State dispatched troops seven times before and after, and even invited experts to take charge, before barely managing to drive it away."

Note, it was only driven away, not killed.

Dealing with these sudden incidents is too difficult for a small state. After all, most countries previously had no such experience at all.

The recovery of heavenly and earthly spiritual qi, though a good thing, has imposed higher demands on state governance.

Several people walked to the storehouse, seeing several shallow pits in the central area, the excavated soil very fresh, likely the battlefield of an earlier fight; in one pit lay a basket containing five scorpions larger than dogs, under the spore lamp light they were black and oily-smooth, with red around the eyes.

Two of them were already dead, the other three had varying degrees of broken legs or severed tails. Sun Hongye saw one scorpion with an intact tail hook, sharper than a hook for catching deep-sea large fish, and its venom sac was as big as a chicken egg.

If stung by this thing, even if not dead, one would be half-crippled, right?

This basket itself is also a magical artifact; though the bars are thin, they emit a faint white light, otherwise an ordinary cage probably couldn't hold these few things.

Pu Hua asked Chen Tongling: "Any personnel casualties?"

"Fortunately, thanks to Lord Pu's warning, only three were injured, one of whom was critically stung, but after treatment by the Spider Empress, has turned from danger to safety."

Spider Empress? Sun Hongye had just heard this term when Pu Hua bowed deeply toward the darkness behind the warehouse, reverently:

"Greetings, Spider Empress!"

In that darkness, a furry figure slid out silently.