Chapter 38: The Village in Despair

Things were already bad. What the Young Girl saw with her own eyes was far worse than what the Middle-aged man had described half a year ago.

She felt a faint annoyance at her own powerlessness. If she had even a fraction of Ning Su’s strength, she wouldn’t have put this off for so long.

The reason she had only returned to Weiyuan Fort now wasn’t because other matters had delayed her. It was because it had taken her this long to become strong enough to solve the problem here.

Originally, she had thought that even if the filth had grown ten times stronger, she could still handle it. But now it seemed it might not be just ten times.

She had nearly retreated. But what she saw with her own eyes made her resolute again.

Even if there was only the slimmest chance, she wanted to try before leaving. Otherwise, she would be left with nothing but regret.

This Jurchen village was burning corpses. The air was thick with a foul smell.

Two women were struggling to drag bodies into the fire, while two others kept adding wood.

But they were running out of wood.

The village was filled with cries and wailing. Some knelt begging for food, others called out to the dead.

It was a scene of hell on earth.

There were also corpses at the village entrance, already rotting and maggot-infested.

No one dared to come to the entrance to move the bodies.

Maybe someone had tried before, but no one did now.

Finally, someone noticed the Young Girl. It was an elderly man with a cane. He came over, gesturing frantically.

He shouted hoarsely, very agitated. She couldn’t understand the language, it wasn’t one she knew.

But she could read his gestures. He was telling her to leave quickly.

More people saw her. Those who had been weeping and begging for food ran to the village entrance but didn’t dare step outside. They knelt, begging her for something.

The desperate hope in their eyes, she met their gaze and could not forget it.

She walked forward, step by step, and resolutely entered the village shrouded in an ominous aura.

The old man with the cane, not caring who she was, grabbed her and pushed her back, not wanting her to come in.

She still said nothing. Though shorter than him, she reached up and patted his shoulder, offering a reassuring smile.

For a moment, the old man was stunned. Tears fell from his eyes, and he stopped blocking her.

People ran through the village, shouting. More villagers gathered around her, all speaking at once.

Everyone had something to say, something to pour out.

She made a few gestures to calm them, but it didn’t work.

It was the old man’s cane thumping on the ground that silenced the agitated crowd.

Anyone could see that the Young Girl was no ordinary person. Her feathered robe, usually an ostentatious hindrance, now became a talisman of hope.

She walked on, axe in hand.

The old man with the cane knew they couldn’t communicate through language, so he used gestures.

From what she could gather, someone in the village had once known the language of the Great Ming, but he had fallen ill and died. His body had been burned.

The old man gestured toward a particular house, signaling for her to follow.

She followed, looking around, observing the village.

These people had been on the verge of collapse. Now, a glimmer of hope had appeared. They embraced each other, celebrating the arrival of a cultivator.

They reached the front of a house. The Young Girl could easily sense the thick miasma emanating from within. There was something unnatural inside, no doubt about it.

She gripped her axe with both hands, waiting nervously as the old man removed the lock and opened the door.

Light flooded the room.

Inside, people were moaning and sobbing.

There were people in there. About three were still alive, and four were dead.

They all looked almost the same, similar to the later stages of the Middle-aged man’s condition.

Their heads were tilted, as if pressed down by a heavy weight, unable to straighten. They were severely twisted.

They were very weak.

The old man with the cane picked up a cup of water and tried to enter to feed them.

But the Young Girl stopped him.

She took the cup and entered the room alone, feeding water to each of the people inside.

Even though the room was filthy and stank, she did not show disgust.

She could clearly see the filth parasites attached to the humans. They seemed afraid of her, retreating slightly, not daring to cause trouble. But they did not leave, still clinging to their hosts.

Each parasite was about the same level as the one on the Middle-aged man. With her current ability, she could kill one, but only one.

She had a guess. There might be a big one controlling all these parasites.

As she was about to leave, a young man lying on the bed suddenly grabbed her hand. His eyes were full of tears, and he said something.

She didn’t understand his words, but she knew what he meant. She nodded in response.

She had thought there was no hope of solving this problem, but now there was.

The young man let go, trusting her.

She left the room and continued scanning the village.

The old man gestured again, trying to communicate, looking very worried about the people inside.

She nodded firmly. Now she was more than thirty percent sure she could solve the problem.

She was searching for the source of the filth.

Why were people who left the village infested? Why did the parasites return to this place? Why did they all seem to originate from here?

She didn’t see any obvious leader among the parasites. If each one had about the same concentration of aura, they wouldn’t be able to command so many.

Noticing that she seemed to be looking for something, the old man gestured again, asking if he should gather everyone.

After a while, she understood and nodded.

The old man with the cane began shouting loudly. His message spread quickly, and all the villagers gathered.

Only twenty-one people remained. Even those bedridden from illness were carried over.

She examined each one. Suddenly, she noticed an eight-year-old child with traces of filth aura, but he wasn’t infested. The aura on him was special, highly concentrated, compressed into pure filth.

She bent down to look at the confused child, but the others stepped back in fear, moving away from him.

She pointed at the child and made some gestures.

The old man took a while to understand, then quickly asked the child some questions.

The child lowered his head as if he had done something wrong. Then he pointed to many places, indicating he had been running around everywhere these past few days.

The old man sighed and relayed the child’s words to the Young Girl through gestures, saying the child had been to many places recently.

She didn’t dwell on it. She decided to visit all those places.

The old man led the way.

First, they went to where the bodies were stored. Not there.

Then to the house next to the sick. Not there either.

Next, a large woodshed. No.

Then to a dangerous high place in the village. Nothing.

Suddenly, the old man remembered another place. He took her to the child’s home. Just as she was about to shake her head, he led her to a cellar.

He lit a lamp, and the cellar brightened.

This time, she didn’t shake her head. She stared down at the cellar floor. To ordinary eyes, it was just bare dirt. But she saw something different. An ominous aura was seeping out of the earth, not much, just a little.

The child had played in the cellar, passing through that spot, and had picked up a trace of that very special filth aura.

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