Chapter 338: Borrowing a Name

Today, Yu Lin did not stay long in the former county town with Diao Chan, but set off early, heading in another direction—Yingchuan.

He calculated the timing in his mind, estimating that the imperial main forces and the Yellow Turban main forces should already have gathered there, and a decisive showdown was about to begin.

Going to witness this historic scene with his own eyes wasn't bad at all.

He walked onward with Diao Chan keeping pace, and the road through the hills and fields was fairly level.

After traveling an unknown amount of time, the scene ahead suddenly changed.

Just off the road not far ahead, a village was shrouded in thick smoke and flames, with faint cries and maniacal laughter audible.

Approaching the village entrance, a brutish man wrapped in a Yellow Turban, his face swollen with flesh, licked blood splattered on his lips, then casually tossed a freshly hacked, eyes wide open head aside as if discarding trash, cursing in a filthy voice:

"To your mother! We were originally just fellow villagers, only after money, not wanting to take lives! Just hand over the money and grain obediently, and that's all!"

He spat a thick mouthful of saliva at the headless corpse on the ground and feigned righteousness, saying, "If you force us old men to act, that's truly a sin, a sin indeed!"

At that moment, a gaunt man also wrapped in a Yellow Turban slipped out from behind a still‑burning house, his face still bearing a lecherous grin, and leaned toward the brutish man, flattering:

"Big brother, you're the clever one! Leading all our brothers into the Yellow Turban forces, you've really hit the jackpot!"

He looked around the wrecked village with pride, lowered his voice and laughed, "The authorities once called us mountain bandits, but now we're a respectable uprising!"

"Using the Great Sage Benevolent Master's 'Acting for Heaven' banner, those idiots actually think we're here to rescue the suffering! Hahaha!"

He laughed heartily, clearly having taken advantage of the Yellow Turban name during this time to burn, kill, loot, and commit every evil, reaping great profit.

The brutish man was about to push him aside, muttering a few curses, when a corner of his eye suddenly caught two figures standing silently in the middle of the road ahead, having appeared at an unknown moment.

One large, one small, as if they had been there all along, watching everything coldly.

The brutish man's gaze first met the calm, unruffled eyes of the young man ahead, causing an inexplicable throb in his heart; instinctively, his eyes dropped to the smaller figure—a plainly dressed yet undeniably graceful little girl, her clear eyes fixed on him.

The brutish man's ferocity instantly turned into a greedy, lecherous hunger as if spotting a rare prey; he licked his lips and expressed nauseating delight, "Good! Good! I never expected this remote backwater to have such a pretty little girl! Take her back, raise her well, she'll surely become a stunning beauty!"

The gaunt man beside him fixed his gaze on Yu Lin, also showing a mix of surprise and delight, rubbing his hands and shouting sharply, "Big brother! I want that man!"

"Look at this look, this figure—so handsome! Even better than a woman!"

The brutish man at that moment had no patience to indulge his perverse fancy.

He strode forward, drawing a gleaming short blade from his waist as he went, a ferocious grin on his face, and bellowed at Yu Lin, "Kid, you'd better be……"

"Whoosh—!"

He hadn't finished his threat when everyone saw a flash before their eyes, as if an invisible massive force materialized out of nowhere! The brutish man's massive body was suddenly seized by an unseen giant hand, ripped upward, turning into a small black dot that shot upward at astonishing speed, vanishing instantly into the low‑hanging clouds!

The whole process was faster than anyone could imagine; the gaunt man hadn't even realized what had happened.

The next moment—

"Bang!!!"

A deep, thunder‑like boom exploded at the village entrance, shaking the ground violently.

The onlookers stared in horror as a massive, shocking crater suddenly yawned not far from the gaunt man.

Amidst swirling dust, the bottom of the pit held only a muddied, indistinct pool of crimson flesh and bone, no trace of a human shape left.

The gaunt man was splattered with dust and fragments of flesh, frozen in place; his lecherous grin had been replaced by boundless terror, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva with great difficulty, a "gurgle" sound emanating from his throat.

He watched helplessly as that young man, like a death‑bringing Yama, led the little girl step by step toward them, his stride steady, his gaze still calm, yet more chilling than any demon.

He was overwhelmed by extreme terror, letting out a piercing, distorted scream, using all his strength to roar toward the village:

"Enemy attack! Enemies are invading!!"

"Brothers! Grab the weapons! Kill… kill him!!"

His harrowing scream was like a spark tossed into hot oil, instantly igniting the latent brutality within the village.

In an instant, dozens of Yellow Turban bandits burst out from behind burning houses and broken courtyard walls, howling.

Although they also wore the Yellow Turban symbol of the Way of Peace, their spirit and demeanor were completely unlike the Yellow Turban believers Yu Lin had previously seen, such as Li Chang, who healed the wounded.

Each had fierce eyes, hostile faces, blood‑stained weapons, clearly men who habitually roamed the countryside as lawless ruffians.

They didn't know how the brutish man had vanished or how the massive crater appeared, but relying on their numbers and arrogance, intoxicated by the recent rampage, they suddenly felt a surge of bloodlust, howling like beasts and swarming toward Yu Lin like a tide.

Yet another strange scene unfolded.

The leading bandit, just steps away—still several yards from Yu Lin—was struck as if by an invisible battering ram, his body arcing backward, then like a kite with its line cut, whooshed upward into the sky.

Then the second, third, fourth…

Regardless of the direction they came from, regardless of speed, as long as an attack thought formed in their mind and they lunged forward, they all fell behind the same fate.

One after another, silhouettes shot skyward, tracing astonishing arcs accompanied by short, terrified screams, and then—

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Like dumplings dropping, dense, heavy thuds rang continuously around the gaunt man.

One after another, Yellow Turban bandits fell from the sky, smashing the ground, bones breaking, instantly dying.

Fresh blood quickly reddened the cracked earth, limbs and shattered weapons scattered, forming a horrifying ring of death.

In the blink of an eye, the once‑raging dozens of bandits were all wiped out, leaving only the gaunt man who had first shouted, sitting alone, collapsed amid the corpse‑filled blood pool.

He had been utterly terrified by the unimaginable, god‑like method before him.

His spirit completely shattered; a foul stench rose from his crotch, his body sagged like rotten mud, unable even to kneel, he could only pound his forehead on the ground, producing dull thuds, tears streaming, babbling incoherently as he begged for mercy:

"Immortal… Immortal elder, spare me!"

"I'm blind‑sighted! I have offended the immortal!"

"I was forced too! They forced me!"

Yu Lin didn't even glance at him; his gaze swept over the whole village, his spiritual sense flickering, detecting no living aura, only the unextinguished flames leaping on the ruined walls, silently recounting the recent tragedy.

He didn't linger, nor did he intend to waste effort here; he simply waved his hand casually.

A gust of cool wind swept through the village, over the corpses, over the blood, over the gaunt man still pleading on his knees.

Where the wind passed, something strange occurred.

The raging flames, the scattered corpses and blood, the shattered houses, and the gaunt man whose voice had abruptly stopped—all of it faded like a pencil drawing erased by an eraser, gradually turning translucent, then dissolving into specks of light, disappearing completely in the wind.

In just a few breaths, the village ruins that had been choked with thick smoke and horrific to behold suddenly turned empty, leaving only the original land and the distant natural mountain outlines. It was as if no village had ever existed here, no tragedy had ever occurred, and those vicious Yellow Turban bandits had never appeared.

Everything returned to peace, as if it had never existed.

After doing all that, Yu Lin slowly turned his head to look at Diao Chan, who had been standing silently beside him.

But he saw her staring at him with wide eyes, unblinking, her small face showing no expected fear or panic.

Yu Lin raised his eyebrows slightly, somewhat surprised, and asked: "You're not afraid?"

Diao Chan lifted her small face, shook her head: "Not afraid."

"Why?"

"Because they are bad people. Brother, you are eliminating evil for heaven, doing good deeds; I want to be like you when I grow up and kill all these bad people!"

Yu Lin looked at her earnest expression and simply nodded slightly: "Mm, as long as you're not afraid."

"Let's go."

He thought, if I pass on the Lian Qi Method to her, then when encountering Dong Zhuo and Lv Bu in the future........... perhaps we wouldn't need any Beauty Scheme, just rush straight through?

Hmm, future matters are uncertain; we'll talk about it later.

The two continued onward until afternoon.

Only then did they reach the borders of Yingchuan.