Perfect Acting

They got three pieces of information from the spider demon.

First, the reason why the villagers of Yaozu Village often gave birth to “dead babies” was because the spider demon’s evil spirit made these babies fake death. When the villagers threw the “dead babies” into the abandoned baby tower, the spider demon would take them back to raise them.

Second, the spider demon would come to Yaozu Village to hunt every once in a while, picking people who were entangled in murder. The villagers who had a lot of essence sucked out could still survive in a coma for a few days, and the symptoms were like a sudden serious illness. Many villagers did not believe in the existence of the spider demon.

Third…

“Why do you want to adopt human children?” Shen Leyan asked.

It can’t be that the spider demon has a habit of “loving to be a mother”, so she likes to pick up children everywhere to raise, right?

 “… Three years ago, I was injured while fighting for territory with other monsters in the jungle, and I also lost my only child.

At that time, I was seriously injured, and only the monster pill and a few souls remained. I urgently needed to find a host. A young woman met me in the jungle, and she said she was willing to sacrifice her body and become my host. She only asked me to avenge her and raise all the children in Yaozu Village – I promised her.”

After the spider demon finished speaking, she snorted coldly: “If you want to kill me, do it quickly, don’t dilly-dally.”

Shen Leyan and Lu Yuanyi exchanged glances, and the spider silk that bound the spider demon became ashes.

If the spider demon hadn’t adopted those children, I’m afraid those children would either be drowned or poisoned by the bad atmosphere of Yaozu Village, and grow up to become executioners who kill their own children.

 “You can go – but I have to remind you that those children are human after all. If they are fed with demonic energy for a long time, their life span will be shortened. You can find a few good families for them.”

The spider demon quickly jumped onto the wall and looked back at them.

“… They can only maintain the appearance of human faces spiders now. Is there a way to restore them to human form?”

“Sect Master Lu?”

Lu Yuanyi lowered his eyes, and the moonlight cast a little gray shadow under the other’s deep brow bone, making the dark golden pupils even deeper.

“Are you okay staying in the village alone?”

Shen Leyan nodded: “I plan to go to the room where Senior Brother Chen Jing and the others disappeared. If I encounter anything…”

The young man spread his hands.

[Sect Master Lu, umm, sound transmission note, please.]

Lu Yuanyi’s lips curled slightly: “This is a sound transmission talisman. If there is any accident, send it immediately.”

“Okay!”

Lu Yuanyi’s figure disappeared into the vast night with the spider demon.

Shen Leyan let out a long breath, walked to the side of the silver-haired woman, and used his spiritual power to feel her pulse: very weak, it seemed that there was no medicine to cure it.

The woman married to Yaozu Village and watched her two daughters and a granddaughter drowned. From the fruitless resistance to the complete loss of the courage to fight, she was both pitiful and hateful.

“…I should have died a long time ago.” The woman lay in the yard, her lifeless eyes reflecting the stars in the sky, “It would be good to go to the underworld to see my two children.”

Shen Leyan was silent.

“…The cultivators who came half a month ago lived in an empty house near the back mountain of the village. You can go and take a look.”

He responded.

 After a few breaths, the woman stopped breathing with a peaceful smile on her lips, as if she saw her daughters whom she had been thinking about day and night in the last few seconds before her death.

Shen Leyan did not leave immediately.

There are still many doubts about the disappearance of Senior Brother Chen Jing and others.

For example, since the villagers had received the silver and planned to move away, why didn’t they leave when they found that Senior Brother Chen Jing and others were missing?

Besides, it was too incredible that several cultivators disappeared in a room without any trace.

Even if a person with cultivation such as Lu Yuanyi took action personally, it would be impossible to make several cultivators’ bodies and souls disperse in an instant without leaving anything behind.

Sometimes, people’s evil deeds are far more creepy than demons’ evil deeds.

He pulled off a large ball of spider silk and hung it on his body, smeared a lot of mud on his face and clothes, tore his robe into tatters, and then performed the “Qingying Xuan Jue” to leave the village.

Late at night. 

The young man’s voice was full of panic: “Help – someone come – there is a big spider – the spider demon eats people -“

Every household in the village soon lit candles. Shen Leyan saw several villagers running out with forks and hoes. He immediately twisted his foot and pretended to be exhausted and fell to the ground, with blood marks on his palms.

Several villagers helped him up. Seeing the dense spider silk on his body, they obviously believed that there was a spider demon.

“Little brother, are you okay?”

“Where is the spider demon now?!”

Shen Leyan covered his chest and coughed violently for a while. His face turned pale, and then he spoke intermittently.

 “… I wanted to go to the mountains to hunt some game tonight so that I could cook it on the road tomorrow. I didn’t expect that as soon as I reached the village gate, I saw a spider monster bigger than a tiger jumping out of the village.”

He described the appearance of the spider monster vividly, causing the villagers beside him to hold their breath from time to time, and a layer of cold sweat appeared on their foreheads after listening.

“If the spider monster hadn’t looked full… I’m afraid I wouldn’t have escaped its clutches. Everyone, go to the village and see if anyone has been injured by the spider monster.”

Two villagers supported him, and the rest ran to the village to look for it door to door.

Soon they found the yard covered with spider silk and the body of the woman lying on the ground, which was already cold.

 “…It seems that the monster coming to the village to hunt is true.”

“What should we do? This spider monster is so powerful, we should move away quickly!”

“The graves of our ancestors are still in the back mountain! How can we move them so easily? You unfilial descendant!”

“If you are filial, then stay! They are already feeding the monster, and there is not even enough money to move them away. Who cares whether the ancestral graves are moved or not?!”

“If the ancestral graves are not moved, our descendants will be extinct!”

“Alright, stop arguing, don’t let the outside guest laugh at you!”

The villagers glared at each other in dissatisfaction. When they heard the words, they all turned their eyes to the boy who had just been chased by the spider monster.

 “I remember this little brother came to stay for the night yesterday, right?”

Shen Leyan nodded. He pinched his palm and squeezed out a few tears: “To be honest, I am a disciple of Yunxi Sect, I came down the mountain to gain experience. I wanted to go to the southwest jungle to collect herbs, and stayed in the village for one night, but I didn’t expect…”

“So you are a cultivator! You are really a young talent!”

“Yes, yes, little brother is really young and promising!”

The villagers praised him for a while.

Shen Leyan pretended to be embarrassed and lowered his head to wipe his tears, while quietly observing the expressions of the villagers.

Several tall young men looked honest at first glance, but their eyes were a little erratic.

He made up his mind.

 “Everyone! Our sect master taught me since I was young that a cultivator should take it as his duty to eliminate demons, defend the way, and protect the people! Although I can’t beat the spider monster, I still have some silver here. Take the silver and move away quickly! If the spider monster comes back, I’m afraid there will be more casualties in the village!”

As he said, he took out a purse from his sleeve and poured out dozens of taels of silver from it.

The villagers’ eyes were suddenly straightened. They reached out to take it several times, looked at each other and restrained themselves.

Shen Leyan pretended that he didn’t notice anything, and everyone got one or two taels of silver.

“Everyone go back and pack up your things, and leave tonight, so as not to have more troubles!”

A villager stepped forward: “Little brother, you gave us so much silver, what will you do if you don’t have money?”

The young man smiled, with a pure look.

 “No, I still have a lot of silver and elixirs in my bag, enough for me to return to the sect.”

Several villagers looked at each other and greeted him warmly: “Brother, you went to the mountains to hunt wild game but failed. Are you hungry? I still have two native chickens at home. I can kill one and make soup for you to warm your body!”

Shen Leyan half-seriously declined: “How can I take advantage…”

“What’s there to be embarrassed about! If it weren’t for you reporting the news, I’m afraid that spider demon would have killed several more people! Don’t be polite, brother. Come, come, come to my house and sit for a while!”

Shen Leyan went back to the room to get his bag, and was surrounded by several villagers to a house.

He sat in the house and counted the money he had to spend. The aroma of chicken soup drifted in from outside.

The villagers who were chatting with him in the house would occasionally glance at the things in his bag.

Shen Leyan treated himself as the stupid son of a landlord and counted them one by one.

“This bottle is a healing elixir. If you don’t have enough money, you can sell it. It can be sold for about 20 taels of silver.

This is the best silk. It should be worth at least 5 taels of silver, right?

And this, this is a secret book of cultivating immortals, which is a priceless treasure…”

“The chicken soup is here! Little brother, drink it while it’s hot. This is a free-range chicken. The stew is delicious!”

Shen Leyan looked at the big bowl of chicken soup in front of him. The aroma was fragrant and sprinkled with a handful of chopped green onions, which was particularly tempting.

He thanked him.

 “Don’t be so polite! If you still don’t have enough, I’ll give you another bowl!”

Shen Leyan picked up the bowl and drank the warm chicken soup.

“Pah!”

The empty bowl suddenly fell from the boy’s hand and smashed to pieces on the ground.

The smiles on the faces of several villagers disappeared. They watched the boy stagger a few steps and fell to the table expressionlessly. After kicking him and finding that he hung his head and did not react, the vigilance in their eyes gradually relaxed.

A villager flipped through Shen Leyan’s bag and laughed.

 “These cultivators are really stupid and rich. Look, this guy was knocked out by a bowl of knockout drug. There are a lot of good things. I heard that this bottle of elixir can be sold for dozens of taels of silver…”

“Stop talking nonsense, divide the silver quickly, and then carry this kid to the cellar and lock him up.”

“But there was another person who was traveling with this kid yesterday. That person’s hair was all white, but he looked like a young man in his twenties. This kid seemed to call that person ‘master’… What if the other party returns to the village and finds that this kid is missing, will he cause trouble for us?”

　 “What are you afraid of? Didn’t no one come to rescue the cultivators we drugged last time? What ‘master’… If he is so awesome, how could he not be able to defeat a spider demon?”

“Brother is right. Hurry up, send this kid to the cellar. Remember to add some cartilage powder to the cellar, don’t let the imprisoned cultivators run away!”

Two villagers carried the unconscious boy and walked quickly towards the back mountain. They didn’t notice that the boy who was drugged had quietly opened his eyes, and his dark pupils were cold…

They stopped by a dry well.

One of the villagers tied Shen Leyan’s waist with a hemp rope for hanging a bucket and sent him to the bottom of the well. Then another villager followed.

There was a secret passage under the dry well that led to a deeper underground, and there was a stone door blocking it.

 The villager cursed: “If it were you, I would just kill all these cultivators and bury them all. Keeping them here will waste a lot of cartilage powder every day…”

As he spoke, he threw Shen Leyan into the cellar behind the stone gate.

A puff of smoke blew in through the crack of the door. It should be the “cartilage powder” mentioned by the villagers.

This poison can make people’s limbs sore and weak. If the dose is enough, even cultivators cannot use their spiritual power to resist.

Shen Leyan first used his spiritual power to force out all the chicken soup in his throat, and then a gust of wind blew up, driving out all the cartilage powder that had just floated in.

The villagers’ puzzled voices rang out outside the stone gate.

“Hey… what’s this smell…”

Shen Leyan laughed softly: “The smell of cartilage powder.”

Before the villagers could scream, they fell to the side of the stone gate because of their weak limbs.

Shen Leyan kicked open the stone door, half squatted down, pinched the villager’s neck with one hand, and said coldly.

 “Antidote.”

The villager’s eyes bulged slightly, and he wanted to reach out to save himself. Shen Leyan increased the strength of his fingers and repeated it.

“Antidote for cartilage powder! I’ll kill you here, and no one will know.”

The villager whimpered a few times: “Antidote… antidote, the antidote is not here… the man up there has it.”

Shen Leyan condensed a wind blade in his hand, crossed the villager’s neck, and lowered his voice: “Tell the man up there that you’ve done the job, and let him pull you up – if you dare to say one more word, you can try whether he comes down to save you faster, or my wind blade is faster.”

The wind blade left a fine blood mark on the villager’s skin.

The villager glanced at him in horror, and responded with two “woohoo” sounds.

Shen Leyan exchanged robes with the other party.

 They came to the well mouth. The people guarding above did not get suspicious after hearing the noise below. They quickly let down the hemp rope and urged: “Why did you take so long this time? Hurry up.”

Shen Leyan controlled the wind blade to stay at the villager’s neck to prevent any accidents. After tying the hemp rope, he let the other party pull him up.

After a while, the boy returned to the cellar with the antidote.

The air in the cellar was turbid and exuded a rotten stench.

Some rotten rice and steamed buns were scattered on the ground, all of which were moldy.

Senior Brother Chen Jing and several disciples of Yunxi Sect were tied up with hemp ropes and lying on the ground. Their robes were dirty, their cheeks were thin, and their eyes were closed. It was impossible to tell whether they were still alive.

Shen Leyan’s heart tightened.

He walked to Chen Jing’s side, fed the antidote first, and then immediately held the other’s wrist and poured his spiritual power into the other’s meridians.