"That's right, it's not nighttime yet..." the man muttered to himself, "There's a monster on this mountain! None of the villagers who went up the mountain recently have come back; they've all been eaten by the monster!"

"Why don't you just stay away from the mountain?" Zhao Cheng didn't believe in any monsters. He said, "Just because you're scared, you're not even planting crops? And you all want to run away?"

"Young master, you don't know, the monsters on the mountain are really evil! They come to the village every night to kidnap people, and almost all the women and children have been taken!"

“Our child…” The woman beside him began to cry as she said this.

Zhao Cheng glanced at the village and asked, "Is there no one left in the village?"

"That's all. We were the last to leave!"

Zhao Cheng asked no more questions and walked straight towards the village.

The man shouted, "Young master, don't go! That monster only takes women and children; it kills men on the spot! I don't know where you want to go, but just go around Lingshan!"

"It's getting dark. Since there's no one left in the village, I'll find a better house to stay in."

Seeing that Zhao Cheng didn't take it seriously, the man shook his head, pulled the woman away, and muttered, "They're courting death, they're courting death!"

Upon entering the village, sure enough, there was no one there, and some corpses were left exposed on the street, unburied.

Zhao Cheng chose a slightly tidy house to stay in and noticed that there were still a few pieces of women's clothing scattered on the floor.

"It's likely that the woman in this family was taken up the mountain, and the man left without taking any of the woman's clothes," Zhao Cheng analyzed.

Yang Taozhi said, "It's also possible that the whole family has been wiped out."

Zhao Cheng found a stool and sat down: "Logically speaking, mountain bandits would raise villagers like pigs, harvesting them every now and then to maintain a long-term supply relationship. What's wrong with the mountain bandits of Lingshan?"

"They all say it was done by a monster, but you don't believe it at all?"

"Only fools believe in demons!" Zhao Cheng curled his lip and said, "Sister, why don't you do some good deeds and bury those corpses outside?"

Yang Taozhi nodded.

"Change into these village women's clothes," Zhao Cheng said, pointing to the women's clothes on the ground.

Yang Taozhi asked, "Why?"

"How will you lure them out if you don't dress up as a village woman?"

Zhao Cheng smirked and said, "Whether it's a monster or a bandit, we'll know once we take a look!"