Missing?

On the spider silk, a little doll with a human face and a spider body was swinging back and forth. When Shen Leyan looked in the direction of the sound, the spider silk just swung in front of him.

The little doll with a human face and a spider body screamed: “Ah – I can’t stop!”

Then it swung into Shen Leyan’s arms.

Shen Leyan: “…”

He looked at the sticky spider silk on his hands, and then looked at the scared little spider demon with tears in his eyes.

The little doll looked cute, with big eyes and a small mouth, but her body was a real spider, with eight hairy legs and as big as a baby.

“…I advise you to take back the spider silk immediately and get off me.” Shen Leyan took a deep breath, “I’m afraid of insects, and I may not be able to control myself and slap you in a while.”

The little spider demon kicked its eight spider legs like wheels when she heard it, almost kicking out sparks, but the spider silk was entangled, and it tied them both tighter.

 “…My palm is ready.”

“Wait, wait–“

“Can’t you take back your own spider silk?!”

The little spider demon said aggrievedly: “I’m still a child, and I’m not very proficient in controlling spider silk!”

Shen Leyan: “Jiang Xue Sword, please help me!”

The Jiang Xue Sword drew his sword hesitantly and cut off the spider silk entangled between them.

Then he flew back to Lu Yuanyi’s hand, signaling the owner to help it clean the sword.

Shen Leyan breathed a sigh of relief. While pulling the remaining spider silk on his body, he looked at the Jiang Xue Sword gratefully.

The spider silk was of good quality, and it could actually attach to the Jiang Xue Sword.

The little spider demon finished cleaning up his spider silk and looked at them curiously.

 “What you just talked about, was it about Yaozu Village?”

Shen Leyan’s eyes narrowed slightly: “How do you know?”

“Because my mother told me that my brothers and sisters all came to her from Yaozu Village.

If I hadn’t heard you talking about Yaozu Village from afar, I wouldn’t have crawled over to listen and then fell into your arms!”

“What, what do you mean…”

He didn’t understand the relationship between Yaozu Village and the little spider demon for a while.

In theory, the mother of the little spider demon should be a big spider demon.

 Could it be…

“You mean, your father is a villager in Yaozu Village? Your father and your mother…are they still in love?”

The little spider demon put his eight legs on her waist: “No! I don’t have a father! I only have a mother!”

[ (⊙o⊙)]

Shen Leyan turned his head and asked Lu Yuanyi: “Can spider demons reproduce asexually?”

“She is not a real spider demon.”

Shen Leyan: “?”

“She was supposed to be a human, but after years of being fed by the spider demon’s demonic energy, she became a human-faced spider.”

“In other words, she was adopted by the spider demon?”

Lu Yuanyi nodded.

Shen Leyan whispered to Lu Yuanyi, overcame the urge to fan away the insect when he saw it, and touched the little spider demon’s cheek.

 “Where is your mother now? Where are your brothers and sisters? Why are you the only one here?”

“I ran out because I was too playful! My brothers and sisters are all sleeping in the cave. As for my mother… I think she went hunting today.”

Hunting?

“Where did your mother go hunting?”

“Of course, she went to Yaozu Village. My mother said there are many people who are obsessed with killing. They are used as food and their essence is sucked out. They are delicious!”

Shen Leyan handed the bones collected from the abandoned baby tower to the little spider demon.

 “Please help build a grave for them here.”

“Were they killed by the people of Yaozu Village?”

“…Yes.”

The little spider demon started digging a hole with all eight legs: “No problem, I will bury them properly – you are not going back to Yaozu Village, are you? I see your clothes should be from other places. You don’t look like bad people, be careful not to be hurt by my mother.”

Shen Leyan jumped onto the Jiang Xue Sword and waved at the little spider demon.

“No – the white-haired guy next to me is very strong!”

Yaozu Village was silent under the hazy moonlight, and it seemed no different from when they left, as peaceful as an ordinary mountain village.

Shen Leyan stood on Jiang Xuejian, and when he approached, he felt that the sky above the village was shrouded in thick demonic energy. The invisible spider silk woven with spiritual power wrapped the village into a huge cocoon. All the villagers trapped inside were prey to the spider demon, and they were at their mercy.

The demon-hunting compass given to him by Zheng Ziheng in his arms vibrated violently, and he could hear the “buzzing” sound of the compass needle spinning and colliding.

“That big spider demon seems to have a high level of cultivation…”

“Mm. To be able to feed many children with demonic energy, she must have reached the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage.”

If the spider demon at the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage wanted to slaughter Yaozu Village, I’m afraid Yaozu Village would have become an empty village long before they came.

 A sword flashed past, and the tough spider silk covering the village was cut open like a piece of paper. Shen Leyan followed Lu Yuanyi into the village. The spider web behind him surged and healed the wound cut by Jiang Xuejian.

“The spider demon will feel that we have entered her spider web, right?”

“Yes.” A dark golden light flashed in the depths of Lu Yuanyi’s pupils, “But the spider demon is hunting over there, and it should not have time to pay attention to us.”

As soon as Shen Leyan’s words came to his throat, his wrist was circled. When he opened his eyes again, they had arrived at a house near the village gate.

The house looked familiar at first glance.

It was the wing room arranged for them by the woman who took them in.

The buzzing sound of the monster-hunting compass in his arms became stronger and stronger. Shen Leyan saw through the window that the spider silk in this courtyard was particularly dense, covering all the doors, windows and walls that could escape tightly – the spider demon was hunting here!

 “Bang!”

The wooden door across the yard was suddenly knocked open.

The woman who took them in during the day fell to the ground in the yard with a ball of spider silk wrapped around her body.

Then a spider demon as big as a carriage squeezed out of the dilapidated wooden door. The face of the spider demon was that of a young and beautiful woman, with eyebrows and eyes like spring water peach blossoms. But there was a cold arc of sarcasm raised on her bright red lips.

The woman coughed a few times while covering her heart, and her tied-up hair fell apart, revealing a few strands of silver.

“…Those children, how are they?”

The spider demon walked in front of the woman, and one of its spider legs turned into a sharp blade, hanging on the woman’s neck.

 “You have three innocent babies’ lives on your shoulders, and you still have the nerve to ask this?”

“…I know. I should have died a long time ago.” The woman’s face was not panicked or frightened. She seemed to have known about the existence of the spider demon for a long time. She looked calm. “I just want to know if those children are doing well…if they have grown up safely.”

Shen Leyan looked up and asked Lu Yuanyi in a low voice: “The children they are talking about are the little spider demon and his brothers and sisters we saw in the jungle, right?”

“Apart from turning into a human-faced spider body, will there be any other effects on human children fed by the spider demon’s demonic energy?”

“After all, the human body cannot carry the demonic energy very well. If those children are fed with demonic energy all the time, they will gradually lose their human intelligence and completely turn into a bloodthirsty demon beast.”

The spider demon’s pupils are vertical pupils of beasts, and it stared at the woman coldly for a moment.

 “Those children are living well – at least much better than staying in Yaozu Village.”

The woman laughed at herself, tears flashed in the corners of her eyes: “That’s good…”

She closed her eyes, as if waiting for relief.

“Spider… Sister!”

The spider demon paused. Her vertical pupils shrank suddenly, and turned to look at the wing where they were with murderous eyes. A ball of spider silk condensed on one of the spider legs.

“Who is it?!”

Shen Leyan opened the window and maintained a polite smile: “Spider sister, misunderstanding, misunderstanding… Please listen to us first…”

The spider demon’s eyes swept across their clothes. When she saw the Jiang Xue Sword, a trace of fear flashed across her eyes.

“Another cultivator… What’s going on here has nothing to do with you, don’t meddle in other people’s business, and if you don’t want to die, just get out of here!”

Shen Leyan raised his hand and condensed a wind blade, cleared the spider silk wrapped around the door, and walked to the woman.

 “Have you ever met a cultivator before? Then you should know that cultivators like to meddle in other people’s business… Moreover, since human lives are involved, we have to figure out the cause and effect of the matter before deciding whether to get involved.”

“Half a month ago, several cultivators, like you, talked about chivalry and justice and tried to stop me, but I beat them away-

This woman allowed her husband to drown her two daughters, and then watched her little granddaughter die in front of her. She is entangled in murderous sins, and even if she is sent to the government, she will die. Why can’t I kill her?”

The cultivators who came half a month ago should be Brother Chen Jing and his group.

Hearing that the spider demon did not kill those cultivators, Shen Leyan secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

 “You mean… the people you hunt are all murderers?”

“Yes – have you asked enough?” The spider demon’s tone gradually became impatient, “My children are still in the cave waiting for the demonic energy to feed, and I don’t have time to waste time with you here.”l

As the voice fell, a trace of black air wrapped around the woman’s neck, and a look of pain appeared on the woman’s face.

Her hair turned silver-white from the end of the hair at a speed visible to the naked eye…

The spider demon was absorbing the woman’s essence. If a person’s essence is exhausted, there is naturally no way to survive.

After performing “Qingying Xuan Jue”, the boy left a few phantoms in the air, and his figure instantly came to the side of the spider demon. A wind blade slashed at the spider demon, leaving only a shallow white mark on the opponent’s hard shell.

The spider demon was immediately enraged and ignored the woman. A ball of web-like spider silk flew towards him!

 “Master Lu——”

Shen Leyan relied on his agility to jump around in the yard, walking the spider monster.

“Master Lu – this spider sister is different from the snake brother. She seems to have a bad temper and doesn’t give people a chance to talk!”

The spider demon chased him closely behind, spitting spider webs on him like pinballs.

“Who is your sister? Don’t recognize relatives randomly-“

A quarter of an hour later, the spider demon had a red mark on its face from the Jiang Xue Sword, and was tied to the ground by its own spider silk.

The eight spider legs struggled to dig a big hole on the ground, and the dust was flying.

“Don’t always think about reasoning with monsters when you meet them in the future.” Lu Yuanyi said in a flat tone, “If you can’t beat them, run first, and if you can beat them, beat them. Isn’t it good to talk to it now?”

Shen Leyan raised his sleeves and waved the dust in front of him, looking at the spider demon in front of him who was so angry that her eyes were about to burst but couldn’t move.

[Isn’t it because there are is a thug here that I can reason with it. If the thug wasn’t here, I would have run ten miles if I could sense the breath of a Yuanying stage monster from afar.]

To be a hero, you must have strong cultivation and strong fists.

Otherwise, you will just die as cannon fodder.

“We just met a little spider demon in the mountains. She said you are her mother.”

Spider demon: “What did you do to my child?!”

“… We asked her to help dig a grave and bury the bones picked up from the abandoned baby tower in Yaozu Village. She should have returned to the cave to sleep now.”

The spider demon stared at them doubtfully, as if she didn’t believe they were so kind.

Shen Leyan was too lazy to explain.

 “Your child is safe, shouldn’t you answer a few questions for us? You said you met a group of cultivators half a month ago. What happened at that time? Are they injured? Where are they now?”

“I came to this village to hunt half a month ago, and happened to run into those cultivators treating villagers, and then we fought. But those cultivators were not very skilled, and they all fell down in a few moves.

One of them was a fool who didn’t know what was good for him, and he said he would report to the sect to take me back.

I let them go because they didn’t know about the things in Yaozu Village. They only suffered superficial injuries. As for where they are now, so many days have passed, how can I know?!”

The spider demon’s tone and expression didn’t seem to be lying.

Shen Leyan looked at the woman who was barely breathing and sent a trace of spiritual power to her: “Do you know that group of cultivators?”

The woman’s eyes were ashen, and it seemed that she only had one breath left. She said in a hoarse voice: “…those people are missing.”

Shen Leyan’s heartbeat paused for a few beats. 

“What?! What do you mean missing?!”

“…After the spider monster left the village half a month ago, those cultivators came back to find us. I still remember a young man named Chen Jing, who said they could escort the villagers to move out of the village to avoid being harassed by the monster.

He also took out some silver and distributed it to the villagers, asking them to pack up and leave overnight.

The people in Yaozu Village were already in a panic…The villagers who stayed wanted to move away. Now that they had enough silver and were escorted by cultivators, everyone packed up their things that night and gathered at the village gate to leave together.

However…we waited at the village gate for a long time, but did not wait for those cultivators.

When we went to the house where they lived, there was no one inside, and all the bags they brought were gone.

It was a rainy day, and it was impossible for so many people to leave without leaving any footprints. Not to mention that many people were waiting at the village entrance, and no one was seen coming out…So, they are missing.”