Chapter 811: Escaping the Jianlao and Intelligence on the Monsters

The young man named Lanu gave a bitter smile and explained in a low voice: "Yes, just as you, my lord Knight, guessed, on the night of a certain day some time ago, that group of monsters wearing human skin attacked the town."

"Those monsters must have planned it for a long time, eyeing the weaknesses in the town's defenses. Qiaoyi and I don't know how they managed it, but regardless, it was a very chaotic night."

Jier strode to the well in the center of the Cunzi, patted his warhorse, and then began to dismantle the Horse Armor from Tianxuecao. Lanu was stunned by the fully armed warhorse and thus paused his speech.

"Keep talking, why are you dazed?"

After being urged by Jier, the young man eagerly wanted to step forward to help, but Jier dismantled the warhorse's Metal Breastplate and threw it to him, directly pinning Lanu to the ground.

At this, Jier laughed heartily, and the Armed Civilian nearby also burst into mocking laughter. These people all knew that matters regarding the Knight's warhorse were basically handled by Jier himself or the few Grooms in the team. Although the Grooms had only tended to donkeys or Plowing Ox in the Cunzi before fleeing, warhorses were actually not very difficult to tend to, especially since Tianxuecao was a smart horse that listened to commands.

Others could not, and did not need to, step in to help.

For one, unfamiliar people were not reliable enough; after all, the warhorse was the biggest part of a Knight's combat power and was very important. For another, this work had some technical requirements; rushing to intervene would not help, but would easily 'cause trouble' instead.

The heaviest part of the Horse Armor was this front chest piece. Lanu managed to push this thing aside with great difficulty. After he stood up, Jier pointed at him: "Just stand where you are and talk, you don't need to help."

"Uh, right, alright my lord, as you command, my lord Knight."

Lanu curled his lips, rubbed the scraped skin on his arm, and after a moment, continued to recount from where he left off: "The town was set on fire. That day was extremely chaotic. The Soldiers of the Security Office were like headless jumping frogs, hopping around in every place, suppressing the panicked populace on one hand, and fighting the 'Bandit' who were hurting and capturing people everywhere on the other."

"At that time, a monster wearing human skin posed as a Bandit, holding a blood-stained large Cleaver, and killed its way into the Security Office. Sss, the two of us, locked in the Jianlao, saw with our own eyes the few prison guards responsible for watching the prisoners get killed one by one by that guy's blade."

"Killed?" Jier frowned and asked suspiciously: "Not parasitized and occupied?"

"My lord, we don't know what happened either. It was dark and chaotic in the Jianlao at the time, and we couldn't see clearly. Perhaps that guy did something, and we didn't know."

"Perhaps is not a good answer. Forget it, continue. How did you two escape? Theoretically, you should have died there too, if the other side had any ideas about poor people like you who had nowhere to run." Jier unfastened the lock of the Multi-layer Protective Cloth on the horse, and then, like taking off a piece of clothing, helped Tianxuecao place this 'garment' to the side.

Lanu stepped aside a few paces to avoid being knocked down by this heavy and bulky thing. He continued: "Anyway, at that time, the monster did indeed have the intention of splitting open the door of the Jianlao that held us both, but just at that moment, a squad of armored Soldiers rushed in from the outside, fighting and moving with that powerful monster, and fought their way outside."

"Qiaoyi likes to wander around the town. He recognized that those were the Refining Qi soldiers left in the town by the lord specifically to protect the family. Although that monster was powerful, it had no way to deal with the Refining Qi soldiers who held Metal Round Shield, wore full iron Armor, and carried One-handed Hammer. The soldiers swarmed up and smashed that guy's head with sharp spiked balls on short chains. But there was no brain inside the monster's head. The two of us, who were peering at the battle outside from the Jianlao gate, only then realized that guy was not Human!"

"Not Human!"

Lanu repeated loudly.

As a result, his intensely reactive shouting only made the surrounding Armed Civilian laugh heartily. Someone shouted at him: "Calling as loud as a little girl, I bet this guy definitely wet his pants at the time! Hehe."

Someone nearby reminded him: "Lanu, just today, we also killed a group of such guys. They, none of them are Human, you don't need to be so surprised."

Jier also shrugged and removed the Metal Faceplate and horse protective Helmet from Tianxuecao's massive horse head. The horse had been wearing this armor for a long time; after it was taken off, it excitedly stretched out its tongue and licked Jier.

"Uh, is that so, haha, so that's how it is." The young man Lanu awkwardly scratched his hair, which hadn't been washed for many days, and then whispered a defense: "When we were in the Jianlao, those hateful Security Soldier only gave all the prisoners one Hemp Sleeveless Robe that reached the knees; in fact, we had no pants to wear at all."

Jier heard this whispered defense, grinned, and gestured for Lanu to continue.

"Alright my lord, just now I mentioned those Refining Qi soldiers fighting the monster and running out. After they fought and moved outside the Security Office, Qiaoyi and I happened to discover that right outside our Jianlao gate, that damned hateful guy who interrogated us died there. The monster split him in two with one blade! The head and neck, and the right arm were connected together, while the rest of the body was on the other part of the body."

"The key to the Jianlao gate! I think you must have noticed it, right?"

Jier patted his metal belt and then said.

"Yes, yes, I was a bit worried about things outside at the time, and my friend Qiaoyi, he noticed the key, so he first stretched his hand through the gap in the wooden bars of the gate to reach the other party's corpse. He soon found he couldn't reach it, then he used his leg. Although the gap in the wooden bars was limited, at that time we were both very thin due to hunger and torture, so our legs could still reach out."

When Lanu said this, his whole person seemed to have entered the previous memory, his breathing was heavy, and he appeared very nervous.

"Qiaoyi tried for a long time, uh, maybe not that long, but you must know, at that kind of life-and-death moment, every second is very long. His leg was a bit short, and he was just that little bit away from hooking the corpse's clothes. But soon it was my turn to try. Fortunately, my legs were longer and my feet were a size larger. I used my toes to clamp the clothes on the corpse's wrist, and just like that, I dragged the corpse, which was still bleeding after death, over bit by bit."

When Lanu said this, he was gritting his teeth, his fists clenched tightly, as if cheering for his past self and also feeling nervous for his past self.

"When the distance was close enough, Qiaoyi dragged the corpse to the outside of the gate in one go. He nervously removed the key ring from the corpse, and then tried the Metal Lock outside the door one key at a time. I was exhausted at the time, so I just slumped against the wall nearby, watching my companion, my friend, work hard for this god-given escape line."

"You eventually succeeded."

Jier signaled the idle Armed Civilian nearby to go to the blue well nearby to fetch some water; he wanted to scrub Tianxuecao's armor and also give the horse a good wash.

Tianxuecao looked expectantly at the crowd going to the well to turn the well windlass, snorting from time to time, as if urging them.

"My lord, it was truly too thrilling at the time. That guy Qiaoyi had very bad luck; he only found the right one when trying the very last key."

Jier interrupted Lanu's words: "No, your luck was not bad, but very good. If the Goddess of Luck didn't favor you, if the corpse had been just a tiny bit further from your gate, ha, you two would only be able to wait honestly in the Jianlao for an unjust trial. You are very lucky, understand?"

Lanu was stunned for a while, as if he had understood Jier's words, and then smiled sheepishly: "Perhaps the great God of Agriculture saved us at that moment."

"Perhaps." Jier curled his lips and muttered in a low voice: "That deity has plenty of trouble to deal with; I reckon he couldn't spare the time for a little Camilla like you."

Lanu continued: "As soon as the door opened, Qiaoyi pulled me up from the ground with great force, shouting: 'We have to run fast, the timing is rare!', ha, the other guys locked up outside our Jianlao were originally quiet, but when we were about to escape, they all shouted and begged us. Even though they usually looked down on us for being locked up for theft, at this moment, they said all the nice things they could to beg."

"But Qiaoyi still threw the key to whoever, letting them save themselves, and then we quickly escaped in the direction from which the Refining Qi soldiers had rushed in."

"How was it outside?"

"Outside..." Lanu took a breath, as if he couldn't stand at this moment, and sat on the stone floor in the center of the Cunzi, not caring that a layer of moss had grown on the stone slabs, and said heavily: "The sky was red, and the town's south wall and the shacks of the populace outside the town seemed to be on fire. Thick smoke rose into the sky with the fire, even darker and more terrifying than the night sky."

"Screams were everywhere, as well as the crisp sound of weapons colliding, roars, and people's wailing."

"Fortunately, our Cunzi and Qiaoyi's Cunzi, oh, that is the blue well small Cunzi we are in now, the villagers were mostly in the northwest of the town. In fact, because the northwest of the town was where those monsters were, it was considered the main direction of the Bandit's attack at the time. I think no one could have imagined that those cunning monsters wearing human skin would set fire and attack from the south side of the town. That was another night, and in the chaos, I guess even if the number of monsters was not large, it still caused a lot of destruction."

Jier hummed, not knowing where he pulled out a handful of Bean to feed Tianxuecao: "Destruction, perhaps not just caused by those monsters. You have to know, night, war, chaos, fire, thick smoke, screams, these things will urge people who cannot hold themselves back in their hearts to turn into beasts, or even monsters, at that moment. And the real monsters, those guys who parasitize in the human body and crave flesh and blood, the damage and destruction they caused might be far less than the damage and destruction between humans that night."

Lanu lowered his head: "You are right, my lord. You are right. When we escaped, we saw many of those evil things you mentioned. Heh, theft, haha, I think after that night, the Jianlao of the Security Office probably couldn't hold any more. If there were any Security Soldier who survived that night."

"You don't need to worry about this. Talk about what happened later, about how you arrived here after escaping the town in the chaos. And the most important point, who told you that if you smear the tree trunks with flesh and blood, those monsters won't come to patrol?"

Lanu thought for a while and said to Jier: "My lord, my lord Knight. This wasn't told to us by anyone; in fact, it was something Qiaoyi and I discovered together. When I was a boy, I liked to wander around this vast land outside the town, and Qiaoyi didn't like to help his family with farm work either. We two actually know this land under our feet very well."

"Where there are dens of small beasts, where snakes appear, where you can dig up muddy water, where there are deep pits under the grass if you push it aside, we know it all! And after escaping from the town, in fact, after leaving the town, there wasn't half a person in any of the Cunzi. But just by relying on the birds circling overhead, we knew roughly which Cunzi had things moving in it and which Cunzi had nothing at all."

"Just at that time, we avoided many 'Bandit' wandering in the barren farmland and uninhabited Cunzi, heh, they were actually all monsters. We noticed that the monsters were divided into two parts."

"Two parts?" Jier frowned and asked: "Talk in detail about the monster part. I killed some along the Shanglu, but my understanding of them is actually not much, and I have no chance to observe their habits in secret."

Seeing the Knight become serious, the young man Lanu also climbed up from the ground, bowed slightly, and said to the equally young Knight: "Yes, my lord Knight."

"Cough cough, let me think. Hmm, it's like this. The monsters are divided into two parts, one part acts alone, and the other part forms teams of three or five to wander and hunt people nearby. I'll talk about the former first."

Jier raised his hand to signal him to go ahead.

"The monsters that act alone like to use the animals they catch, uh, any animal will do, or the corpses of humans or other animals sent by another kind of monster, to use their corpses, uh, they fiddle with those corpses and smear the flesh and blood on the tree trunks they like, perhaps the ones they have selected. We don't know what they are fussing about, anyway, this part of the monsters likes to do these things. Every time a tree trunk is smeared, another kind of wandering monster, perhaps responsible for fighting, sends humans who are still alive."

Lanu swallowed his saliva: "The monster that acts alone will find a rope and hang the humans sent over on the tree! My lord, but that's not all. The people who are hanged don't die at all, but after a day or two, they will struggle, struggle to fall off the tree themselves, and then, and then that person, ay, becomes a monster wearing human skin!"

"This sounds, hmm." Jier touched the fine stubble on his chin and muttered to himself: "Like a parasitic reproduction method of monsters. A bit cumbersome, and it also seems to have a sense of ritual. Must hang a living person on a tree smeared red?"

"My lord, according to a monster that Qiaoyi and I observed for several days, that's how it is. And this kind of solitary activity, in fact, they don't really leave those trees. This kind of monster seems to still possess intelligence and likes to talk to itself, but strangely, even though these monsters all act alone, when they are there by themselves, it's as if several people are talking."

Jier remembered the parasitic monster he encountered yesterday evening, a body parasitized with several parasitic human faces. After thinking for a while, he seemed to understand what was going on.

"Mm, continue, tell me everything you know."

"Qiaoyi and I observed those Monsters for a period of time. In fact, these Monsters are not very keen; they also rest, especially after catching animals and eating their fill, often leaning against the Flesh Tree Trunk covered in flesh and blood, snoring away as they sleep. At such times, those Monsters' vigilance is very lax. That guy Qiaoyi even boldly crept up to a Monster and stole a small Dagger used for cutting meat."

Jier smiled slightly: "Is that the little trinket he used to hurt himself? Ha, true, that thing is only useful when you're self-harming; in any other situation, even a wooden stick would be more useful than that thing."

Lanu also pulled at the corners of his mouth in a smile; he also felt that thing was useless, and it would be better to go with his idea—directly dismantling a wooden bed leg from a house, which could cause more damage if swung around.

At the very least, it could knock an enemy unconscious.

If that didn't work, throwing it could also injure someone.

"Any other discoveries?" Jier asked.

Lanu added: "After the wandering groups of Monsters catch people, they send them to the Flesh Tree Trunk nearby and hand them over to the individual Monster there. But if there is only a Flesh Tree Trunk and no Monster present, those wandering Monsters often just circle around and leave after not staying long. Even when those wandering Monsters haven't caught anyone, they won't approach the Flesh Tree Trunk. It was because we discovered this pattern that Qiaoyi and I caught some animals and, enduring the nausea, painted a Fruit Tree from our hiding place—actually, it was the Fruit Tree at Qiaoyi's home—to look like a Flesh Tree Trunk, following the way the Monsters did it."

"That was a few days ago. Since then, we have been hiding in this Cunzi, carefully going out together during the day to find food, and hiding in the cellar of his house at night, not making a single sound."

Lanu remembered something at this moment, his face turning pale: "At night, those Monsters are more active—uh, I can't say more active, but it's more like they aren't affected by the night. I suspect they can definitely see more than us Humans at night."

"That is possible," Jier judged: "Exactly how much stronger their observational ability is at night compared to us Humans, I cannot say, but it is enough for them to attack people passing through the area, as well as attack Yemei Town."

"Once, in the middle of the night, several Monsters wandered over under the cover of darkness, even herding a few captured people. I knew from the sounds that they weren't our locals. They ran to Blue Well Small Cunzi, presumably looking for the individual Monster beside this Flesh Tree Trunk."

"They didn't find their Monster companion, so they cursed and swore while herding the captured people away. It was only then that I realized these wandering Monsters, which look more like Monsters, can actually speak. Qiaoyi and I hid in the cellar, not daring to move for the entire night, just terrified that the Monsters outside hadn't left."

"The next day, we waited until the afternoon, confirming that there were no sounds of Monster activity for most of the day, before we snuck out to find food."

Lanu shook his head.