Chaos
The sheep monster almost suspected that he had heard it wrong. He looked carefully and saw that under the flickering candlelight, the beautiful woman was looking at him kindly and asked softly, "Sir, how about taking a bath first?"
But he couldn't feel the slightest bit of charm, and combined with the words "shabu-shabu copper pot" just now, this smile seemed particularly scary in his eyes.
He touched his face. He was not a proper demon cultivator, but a natural demon. He happened to be touched by the spiritual energy of the cultivators during their tribulation and barely transformed. However, he could not retract his sheep head and sheep hooves. Wherever he went, people were afraid of him. Even the ladies in his family would wipe away tears from time to time when they saw him. Seeing Xu Shulou in this state, they could not help but ask, "Aren't you afraid of me?"
"Don't be afraid," Xu Shulou continued to look at him with a smile, "Young Master looks very delicious."
The sheep monster couldn't help but take a step back: "You, you really want to eat me? Are you a wolf cultivator?"
Xu Shulou had already jumped over and pinned him down. The "immortal" only had time to flutter twice, and was caught quite easily. Xu Shulou raised his eyebrows and said, "Stop talking nonsense, and tell me the whole process of how you deceived the villagers. If you cooperate well, I will allow you to freely choose a side dish to cook with you."
"Do you really want to eat it?" Bai Roushuang looked at the sheep monster hesitantly, "How can this be delicious? It's so skinny."
"I don't know." Xu Shulou patted the sheep's neck and looked at the lamb ribs. "In fact, I have never eaten food that has awakened spiritual intelligence."
The goat monster was frightened by her actions and almost lost his soul. He struggled to get away and begged for mercy: "I am not a goat, I am a black goat, my meat will not taste good!"
"Xuan Yang?" Xu Shulou was slightly startled. "This is the first time I've seen a Xuan Yang."
Bai Roushuang was curious: "What is that? His head is obviously no different from that of a goat."
"The Black Sheep is a demon," Xu Shulou lowered his eyes, "It is said that they feed on people's despair and pain. Now that the world is prosperous and peaceful, fewer and fewer of them are born... In short, it might be a good thing that it is a Black Sheep. The girls he took away may still be alive."
"Alive, alive!" Xuan Yang cried anxiously, "Don't eat me!"
"..." He cried so sadly that Xu Shulou almost thought he was bullying him.
Seeing that she remained silent, Xuan Yang stiffened his neck and said, "I won't take a bath anyway. If you want to eat, then eat it dirty!"
Xu Shulou held his forehead with his hand, turned around and instructed his junior sister: "I will continue to interrogate him, you go to the village head and beat the gongs and drums to gather all the villagers."
Bai Roushuang nodded and did as she was told. She was fed up with these people, so she used all her strength to beat the gongs and drums like thunder, instantly waking up all the people, chickens and dogs in the village.
People were thinking about the "immortal" event tonight and thought it was a call from the immortal, so they hurriedly put on some clothes and rushed to the village entrance. When they saw that it was Bai Roushuang who was beating the gong, some people started cursing.
Bai Roushuang didn't tolerate them. She rolled up her sleeves and started to curse at the middle-aged man who was in the lead. They engaged in a verbal battle and neither of them was at a disadvantage.
It was not until Xu Shulou tied the sheep monster by one of its hind legs and dragged it over that the entrance to the village fell into a terrified silence.
The cursing voice disappeared, replaced by a trembling voice of fear: "How can you be disrespectful to the immortal?"
Someone cried to Xu Shulou, "You thief, you are disrespectful to the immortals. Don't let this bring trouble to our village!"
Xu Shulou suddenly had an idea: "If I say now that I am an immortal who is more powerful than him and I need you to provide a strong man to cook and eat every year, will you turn around and offer sacrifices to me?"
The middle-aged man in the lead immediately changed his expression and shouted angrily: "What nonsense are you talking about? Who would believe you?"
Xu Shulou touched his face and said, "At least I look more like a god than Xuanyang, right?"
The man immediately turned to the villagers and said, "Don't listen to her. She is just a passer-by who can't even drive a bullock cart properly. How can she be an immortal?"
Xu Shulou smiled, and slowly took out a teaching stick from his Qiankun bracelet, pointing it at the black sheep monster: "Let me teach you a lesson. Anyone who asks you to offer human sacrifices must not be a real immortal. If you encounter such a thing again in the future, go to the nearest cultivation sect for help as soon as possible. Don't send your children to them without knowing the truth!"
Someone mustered up the courage to question, "If he wasn't a real immortal, how come we didn't harvest any food from the fields the first year we stopped offering him sacrifices?"
Xu Shulou gestured to the sheep monster: "You speak."
Xuan Yang had been trained by her to be obedient. Hearing this, he replied, "That year, I took advantage of the dead of night to carry a bucket and spread salt on the fields from house to house."
“……”Everyone looked at each other.
"I didn't dare to spread too much because I was afraid you would starve to death," Xuan Yang lowered his head, "and there was no effect the second year. Later you began to offer me sacrifices, and I even helped you spread fertilizer in the middle of the night. In the year of drought, I also found a way to bring water from the mountain."
"..."The so-called good weather and great harvest were actually all achieved by a hard-working sheep monster manually at night. Such a simple truth was unbelievable to everyone.
Looking at the silent crowd, Xu Shulou was curious: "In fact, he has no magical power at all. At most, he can use some tricks. Didn't you even try to resist and directly agreed to offer the girl as a sacrifice?"
When the villagers heard that he actually had no magical powers, they immediately became agitated. The man who had just firmly believed that he was an immortal picked up a dung fork and stabbed at the sheep monster, shouting, "Everyone, go! Kill him! Avenge the girl in the village!"
A few people followed and rushed forward cursing "liar" and "monster".
Xu Shulou flicked his folding fan slightly, freezing the people in place: "Aren't you going to ask about the whereabouts of those girls first?"
A woman came over and asked, "Erya, is my Erya still alive?"
Xuan Yang nodded reluctantly.
The woman kicked the pinned man and said, "Bah, you bastard! Hurry up and throw away your dung fork and come with me to get Arya back!"
The group looked at Xu Shulou, who had just performed magical skills, with some fear. Seeing that she had no objection, they escorted Xuan Yang to her cave to pick up the person.
The so-called cave residence is actually just a spacious cave. There is a vegetable garden in front of the cave, where some common onions and cabbage are planted.
There was a woman in her twenties who was sitting cross-legged at the entrance of the cave and eating melon seeds. She was startled when she saw a group of people coming up the mountain in a mighty manner.
The middle-aged man in the lead had tears in his eyes: "Guihua, I'm here to rescue you!"
The woman called Osmanthus spat out the melon seed shells in her mouth and shook her head: "I won't go back."
The villagers were all shocked, thinking that she had been bewitched by Xuan Yang, and were about to shout and kill him, but were stopped by Xu Shulou.
Guihua sneered, "You thought the black sheep were cannibals, but you sent us out. Now you're acting like a hero. I won't go back. Anyway, I can eat and wear warm clothes here."
The sheep monster began to cry: "Go back, or they will kill me!"
“…”
The leading man swung his dung fork vigorously and said, "Humph! The reason why Guihua became like this must be because you ruined her innocence and made her lose her mind. I will kill you first!"
"I didn't," the sheep monster hid behind Xu Shulou, feeling very aggrieved, "I am a little lustful, but at most I just admire it. If we, the natural monsters, combine with ordinary people without spiritual power, they will die. The fact that she is still alive proves that I don't have it!"
Xu Shulou sighed and testified for him: "It is rumored that Xuan Yang was born from chaos, and there is no distinction between male and female, nor between good and evil. It is possible that he was tainted with lust and evil thoughts in the human world, but he should not... do such a ridiculous thing. You don't need to question the innocence of these girls."
Guihua was chewing melon seeds nonchalantly, and continued to taunt: "You still doubt my innocence? Stop waving your dung fork. If you had had half the courage, we wouldn't have been taken to the mountain. I haven't forgotten that you were the first one to agree to the idea of offering people! If I really lose my innocence, you should pay for it!"
The man was a little embarrassed and didn't want to pay any more attention to her. He just asked: "You are not going down the mountain, okay! What about the others? Are they not going down either?"
Guihua rolled her eyes at him and said, "Then go ask them one by one."
"Mom!" Another girl came out from the depths of the cave and saw the woman in the crowd at a glance.
"Arya!" The woman rushed forward and hugged the girl.
The man holding the dung fork glanced at Guihua with a bit of complacency, and the latter rolled his eyes at him without hesitation.
Two more girls came out and recognized their relatives one by one. One of them was eager, but the other had an indifferent expression. It was obvious that she was sacrificed without hesitation by her family, and now she still couldn't get over it.
"Er Ya," a woman apologized while crying, "I didn't agree at the beginning, but your father insisted on taking you with him, and I couldn't stop him."
"It's actually not that bad here," the girl hastened to comfort her, "but every few days we have to pretend to be in pain and fear and cry in front of our husband. He just wants to see us cry. Once we cry, he will stop scaring us."
The sheep monster was speechless and choked: "I was wondering why I am always hungry. It seems that your suffering is all fake?"
Guihua ate melon seeds and watched the fun: "What else? No matter how scary you are, you can't be so scary that we cry every time we see you, right?"
The sheep monster, who had been badly deceived, cried very sadly: "I don't want to keep them anymore, send them back home quickly!"
Guihua said impatiently: "Stop crying. At worst I can cry more sincerely next time."
"Wuwuwu... I'll give you the cave, can't I just leave?"
Xu Shulou looked up at the sky. What was going on?
The girl named Erya still showed some longing for her mother, but she only called her father "human" and didn't say much. It was also heard that today's incident was caused by the parents of the Li family in the village secretly letting their daughter escape. In contrast, this love for their daughter made several people a little sad and they were unwilling to speak.
A total of four girls, including the stubborn Guihua, finally chose to go down the mountain. They wanted to live with Xuanyang out of anger. She still longed for a normal life and knew that living in the mountains was not a long-term solution. However, they could never get along with the villagers the same way as before, especially since Guihua had decided to leave Qizhu Village and live in the town.
Xu Shulou took Xuanyang away. At this time, he was carrying a cow, sighing as he carried it.
Bai Roushuang looked at him and sighed, "The girls are innocent. Although the sheep monster is certainly at fault, I feel that the villagers who agreed to the sacrifice without hesitation are more at fault. When you threatened them that they would need a strong man to be sacrificed, how scary were their faces? It seems that they don't feel pain until they are hit by the stick."
Under Xu Shulou's command, Xuan Yang carried the cows to a wider mountain road and adjusted the direction of the cows.
When they first met in the mountains, those people said they would help them move the carriage out. But not only did they not help, they even stole one of the white jade wind chimes hanging on the four corners of the carriage.
Guihua asked her to wait, went back to the village to pack up her things, and then fiercely banged on the doors and cursed the villagers one by one, and demanded back the wind chime that Xu Shulou had lost.
Xu Shulou was stunned for a moment, and he admired this slightly aggressive girl: "Since you asked for it back, I'll give it to you. If you need it in the future, you can take it to the pawn shop."
Guihua didn't plan to stay in the village for long, so she took Xu Shulou's ox cart to the town. Xu Shulou treated her to a hot pot meal, and Guihua ate three large plates of freshly cut mutton with gritted teeth. Xuan Yang waited at the door, shivering.
Before leaving, she asked a question: "Miss Xu, are people like you the legendary cultivators? Do you think it is possible for me to cultivate immortality?"
Xu Shulou raised his hand and touched her Dantian, carefully feeling her internal organs and meridians, and shook his head regretfully: "No, but it is not absolutely certain. Some people may not develop spiritual energy until they are sixty or seventy years old."
Guihua nodded. Although she felt regretful, she was not disappointed. Her face was still full of longing for a new life in the town.
Xu Shulou smiled and said, "If you really embark on the path of Taoism one day, you can come and worship me as your master. I am Xu Shulou from Wuchen Island."
Guihua had never heard of this name, so she naturally did not understand the weight of this promise at this time.
After they said goodbye, Xu Shulou stayed for a few more days. Only when he saw that Guihua had found a handy job and had a place to stay temporarily did he leave with his junior sister.
Xuan Yang sobbed and asked Xu Shulou: "What about me? Can I always follow you?"
"Why are you following us?" Xu Shulou asked back, "We don't have any pain for you to absorb."
Xuan Yang leaned over and sniffed her: "It is the clear smell that has settled after experiencing pain. It is also very attractive to our clan."
Xu Shulou pressed his face and pushed him away, thinking that he did not deserve death. "I will spare your life today and take you back to Wuchen Island to serve a year in prison. If you do something like this again to deceive the people into offering sacrifices, I will kill you with my own hands."
Xuan Yang suddenly became excited: "There must be a lot of pain in prison that I can absorb!"
Xu Shulou sighed and said to his junior sister, "We have to go back to Wuchen Island."
Bai Roushuang glared at Xuan Yang: "Because of this troublesome guy."
"Not only that," Xu Shulou gave a very practical reason, "Because I'm running out of spirit stones."
Bai Roushuang looked at Xuan Yang with ill intent: "Maybe we can also go and perform."
"It's not impossible," Xu Shulou thought seriously, "I've seen street performers perform tricks. I can perform ventriloquism, swallow a sword, or break a rock with my chest."
"No, no, no..." Bai Roushuang tried to stop him. She felt as if a huge rock was breaking in her chest. Even thinking about it would be a defilement to her senior sister.
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