Chapter 212: The Shixiao Who Carried the Mountain Woman

After eating and drinking his fill, Chu Danqing routinely reviewed the knowledge granted by his mastered skills.

Though his learning efficiency was slow, learning was like rowing upstream—if you don’t advance, you fall back.

Even a little growth was growth.

What else would he do with this time?

Zhong Ting occasionally chatted idly with Chu Danqing, occasionally probing subtly about his origins and his intent to visit Yuanping Wang’s tomb.

But Chu Danqing kept his mouth shut; he couldn’t extract a single detail.

By nine o’clock, there was nothing left to talk about, so he finally went to sleep.

This counted as staying up late, since there was no entertainment to speak of.

Added to that, he had to rise early the next day, so most nights he slept as soon as it grew dark.

There was another reason: saving money.

Whether reading or writing at night, one had to light a lamp; over time, lamp oil became a significant expense.

Da Bao watched an animated show for a while, then went to sleep too.

He needed to conserve his strength—tomorrow might bring something unexpected.

Chu Danqing didn’t sleep at all; given his current state, sleeping was too wasteful.

Around the late hours, strange sounds emerged outside the mountain cave.

Yue Lan Wuying asked if he should go investigate; Da Bao instantly woke up.

He had been asleep, yes, but his instincts and intuition were still active.

So the moment he sensed movement, he sprang up immediately.

Zhong Ting, by contrast, had been utterly exhausted from his one-legged duel earlier that day.

Besides, the noise wasn’t loud, and he wasn’t a tomb robber—he had no need for vigilance while sleeping.

For all these reasons, he remained asleep.

“Ignore it. If it isn’t bothering us, we won’t go stirring up trouble,” Chu Danqing said.

He wasn’t the type to kill anything that looked strange; this night belonged to the monstrous, and if he acted recklessly, he’d draw powerful enemies.

The world’s power level was clearly high; before completing his talent quest, he didn’t want to invite complications.

The reward could be smaller, but the talent couldn’t fail.

If he completed the S-rank talent awakening quest, his evaluation would be at least S-rank.

He had his cultivation chamber; he had the maximum possible reward.

Hearing Chu Danqing’s words, Yue Lan Wuying naturally ceased all action.

Da Bao curled back up, preparing to resume sleep.

But the strange noise grew closer, forcing Da Bao to rise again—and even Zhong Ting was jolted awake.

“This sound… it’s a shixiao,” Zhong Ting listened carefully and swiftly identified the approaching monster.

“I’ve dealt with a few of these. Most are born from the resentment of adulterous couples who refuse to repent after death.”

“Hence, they crave lewdness.”

“Males are massive and rugged; females are alluring and seductive.”

“And they abduct men and women to forcibly copulate with them.”

“How could a human possibly match such a monster? One night wouldn’t be enough to guarantee death.”

“Second, they’re bloodthirsty—this is a trait shared by all monsters.”

“So even if you survive the night, you won’t escape death before dawn,” Zhong Ting said.

The monsters here were fewer than in Cangmang Guling, but due to the collapse of rites and the chaos of warlords, there were still many.

They were just weak.

The demonic corpses he’d encountered before would have been a scourge in his own region.

In Cangmang Guling, their strength was laughable.

“How strong is it?” Chu Danqing asked.

“Perhaps between a shimo and a shiwu,” Zhong Ting replied. He could only identify the type from the sound—he had no way of sensing its exact power level.

If he could do that, he’d have stepped out and kicked the shixiao to death right now—why waste words with Chu Danqing?

As soon as he finished speaking, a massive silhouette slowly approached outside the cave.

Its body was covered in fine green fuzz—Chu Danqing examined closely and realized it was mold—and it emitted a yeasty stench.

“Damn, others rot—you ferment,” Chu Danqing muttered instinctively.

But soon, his gaze shifted to the shixiao’s back, where a unconscious woman was slung.

Her face was ordinary; her clothes and skin matched those of a poor family; her hands bore calluses from farm labor.

“Something’s off. Nine out of ten things are wrong,” Zhong Ting suddenly said.

On the other side, the shixiao hurled the unconscious woman down; sensing living energy—and recognizing the gender as male—it immediately turned violent.

Da Bao charged forward immediately; combat erupted inside the cave.

“What’s wrong?” Chu Danqing asked.

“Shixiao are lust-driven. This woman wasn’t abducted from nearby,” Zhong Ting continued. “Normally, they’d find a secluded spot and start right away.”

“Why come all the way here?”

“Could she be from the village we passed?” Chu Danqing considered the possibility; after all, they’d been moving, so encountering her en route wasn’t impossible.

“Absolutely not,” Zhong Ting declared firmly. “They traveled in a different direction. The shixiao had countless places to go—why drag her right to us?”

“Instead, near Huanglong River, there’s a small village. My senior uncle once rested there.”

“Without doubt, this woman was abducted from that village.”

“But I don’t understand why she was brought here.”

At night in Cangmang Guling, danger lurked everywhere for humans.

But for monsters, it was routine. Given the shixiao’s lustful nature, once it seized a person, it would act within one or two li at most.

“If not the shixiao is abnormal,” Zhong Ting’s gaze settled on the unconscious woman, “then it’s her.”

Hearing this, Chu Danqing warned: “We don’t do victim-blaming.”

About five minutes later, Da Bao ripped the shixiao cleanly in two with a single claw.

The fight ended quickly—the shixiao’s strength was far below Zhong Ting’s estimate, barely stronger than a demonic corpse.

Against Da Bao, who was gradually adapting to combat intensity, it stood no chance—and died swiftly.

Yet after death, the shixiao did not drop a chest.

From this, Chu Danqing deduced that this shixiao, like the blind child he’d encountered earlier, was a minor enemy in a group event.

No chests would drop until all enemies were eliminated.

Moreover, the shixiao wasn’t the event’s core; Chu Danqing hadn’t yet engaged deeply with it.

Otherwise, the quest would have triggered by now.

After Da Bao dragged the shixiao’s corpse outside to a leeward spot, the stench inside the cave improved considerably.

Chu Danqing then had Da Bai heal the woman; since she was an ordinary human, one Spirit Technique: Spirit Healing sufficed.

The main goal was to purge negative effects, but the mechanism seemed complex—she didn’t awaken immediately.

Only after Zhong Ting slapped her face did she stir awake.

Clearly, the healing and purging had turned unconsciousness into deep sleep.

When she awoke, her expression was dazed; she didn’t yet understand what had happened.

But seeing strangers all around—and Da Bao entering with the shixiao’s corpse—she opened her mouth to scream.

Fortunately, Zhong Ting reacted swiftly, clamping his hand over her mouth before she could cry out.

“Quiet. It’s night. If you don’t want to draw monsters, keep silent. Understood?” Zhong Ting growled.

He’d seen the simple kindness of common folk—and also their stupidity and malice.

The woman nodded, signaling she understood.

Only then did Zhong Ting release his hand and ask: “What happened? How did the shixiao catch you?”

Calmer now, she grasped the situation—these people had saved her.

“It wasn’t just mountain monkeys—there were night cats, black rats… many monsters suddenly flooded our village.”

“I got lucky—I was taken but didn’t die,” she said, then burst into tears. “The others… the others…”

Zhong Ting’s brow furrowed instantly.

It wasn’t unheard of for monsters to swarm—earlier, they’d encountered the blind children, a similar case.

But such swarms usually involved monsters of the same kind; different types acting together was rare.

‘A great evil is commanding these monsters!’ The thought flashed through Zhong Ting’s mind.

“Any other abnormalities?” Zhong Ting didn’t jump to conclusions, pressing for more details.

“I don’t know. They just appeared,” the woman replied, then added: “Wait—these past two days, Huanglong River rose over three inches.”

Chu Danqing felt nothing—ten centimeters? Big deal.

But Zhong Ting knew: without seasonal change or rain, a rise of nearly ten centimeters was significant.

“Anything else?” Zhong Ting pressed.

The woman thought again, then said: “Five days ago, a group of drunken soldiers and a few oddly dressed men came—probably tomb raiders.”

“They arrived at our village and whispered something to the village head.”

“I don’t know the details—I only heard rumors from the village head’s daughter-in-law.”

“She said she was going to look for something called Xuan Nu Zhi.” The woman did not hide it.

Chu Danqing ran through the knowledge provided by his identity—there was no information on Xuan Nu Zhi.

But Zhong Ting’s expression changed; clearly he knew what Xuan Nu Zhi was, and from his demeanor, it was certainly no good thing.

“What is Xuan Nu Zhi?” Chu Danqing asked bluntly.

“Xuan Nu Zhi is not a type of spirit mushroom, but a title referring to Princess Zhi of the former Lin Kingdom.”

“In the final years of Eastern Lin, this princess claimed the Xuan Nu had bestowed military texts upon her in a night vision, and thus rose in rebellion to restore order, installing her younger brother as emperor and reviving Western Lin.”

“Later generations honored her as Xuan Nu Zhi.”

“Due to this merit, after her death, her brother, the emperor, buried her in Cangmang Guling with state funeral rites, to continue suppressing the Lin Kingdom’s destiny.”

“That group of warlord soldiers and tomb raiders went to Xuan Nu Zhi’s tomb.” Zhong Ting looked at Chu Danqing—his words carried an unspoken second half: the transformed Xuan Nu Zhi, now a great evil, might have emerged from the tomb.

(End of Chapter)