Chapter 45 – The Small Town Strewn with Corpses

“Something’s wrong! Why is it so quiet?” Xiaojiu  stopped in her tracks, gazing at the small town ahead with furrowed brows, an inexplicable unease rising in her heart.

“What’s the matter, Xiaojiu ?” Shi Xian noticed her stopping and asked in confusion.

“It’s too quiet. It shouldn’t be like this.” Xiaojiu ’s tone was serious. “Last time Man Cang said that these few days are the town’s sacrificial festival. There should be daily festivities, bustling with activity—gongs and drums on the streets, parades celebrating, and it would go on until late at night. But now…”

Hearing this, Shi Xian followed Xiaojiu ’s gaze.

The town ahead was unusually silent, not a hint of human presence.

Very strange.

A light breeze passed, carrying with it faint traces of blood in the air.

Having grown up on the battlefield, Shi Xian was very familiar with that scent.

“It’s the smell of the dead.”

“Dead?” Everyone’s expressions turned grim.

“Let’s go in and take a look.” Qin Xu’s face darkened. He knew this town well—when people from the Medicine God Valley came down the mountain, many would rest here.

The townsfolk had always been kind and hospitable, simple and honest.

Xiaojiu  dashed down the mountain, Zhao Hu and the others close behind.

The closer they got to the town, the stronger and more nauseating the stench of blood became.

Xiaojiu ’s hands clenched unconsciously, and Zhao Hu’s group tightened their grips on the daggers at their waists.

They moved forward cautiously, every step deliberate.

As soon as they entered the town, they saw the townspeople lying sprawled across the street—faces twisted, eyes wide with unwillingness and terror. Blood stained the bluestone roads, forming shocking little streams.

Even the wind seemed to have halted at the sight, leaving only deathly stillness and lingering sorrow in the air.

“Th-this… what happened here?” Zhao Hu’s voice trembled. They had never seen such a brutal scene.

Xiaojiu  didn’t answer. Her eyes scanned the surroundings, hoping to find a survivor—or at least a familiar face who could tell her what had happened.

But only deathly silence and the omnipresent scent of death replied to her.

The vendors who had cheerfully hawked their goods the day before, the young couples eagerly guessing lantern riddles, the burly lion dancers who drew rounds of applause…

Now all lay on the ground, covered in blood, eyes open in death.

The group rushed into the inn they had stayed at before.

Inside, tables and chairs were overturned, shattered bowls littered the floor…

The cheerful attendant who had welcomed them was now lying in a pool of blood, motionless.

Behind the counter, the innkeeper sat slumped against the wall, eyes wide in terror, his body soaked in blood like a frozen statue—still clutching an abacus in his stiff hand.

Xiaojiu ’s heart sank. She walked over to the innkeeper and gently checked his breath—nothing.

Her eyes reddened as she continued scanning the room.

“Where’s Man Cang? I don’t see him.”

A glimmer of hope flickered in everyone’s hearts.

They began searching everywhere.

Upstairs, the backyard, the kitchen, the woodshed…

They went through every corpse, but still found nothing.

“Could it be… Man Cang ran out and isn’t in the inn?” A Dou actually wanted to say—what if he ran out to play, and his body is outside?

Xiaojiu  used her spiritual sense to probe the surroundings.

A faint groan came from underground.

Her heart leapt.

A cellar.

She extended her spiritual sense further to find the cellar’s entrance.

The counter?

She walked over, gently moving the innkeeper’s body aside.

Knock knock—hollow.

Where’s the switch for the cellar?

Xiaojiu  got up, ready to smash it open with her fist.

But she rose too abruptly and didn’t notice Shi An right behind her.

The moment Shi An was hit, he stumbled backward, bumping into the abacus clutched in the innkeeper’s stiff hands.

The abacus fell to the floor and was accidentally stepped on by Shi An.

Suddenly—

Click!

The floor in front of Xiaojiu  slowly opened, revealing a hole just big enough for a person to enter.

Xiaojiu  glanced back at the abacus under Shi An’s foot. So… the switch was on the abacus? This kid had accidentally triggered it.

Without hesitation, Xiaojiu  headed straight for the cellar.

Zhao Hu and the others followed close behind.

Inside, it was pitch black. Xiaojiu  switched on a flashlight, restoring light to their surroundings.

In one corner, under a wooden table, a small figure was curled up, clutching the bag of candy Xiaojiu  had stuffed into his hands before she left the day before—it was the boy they’d been looking for, Man Cang.

“Man Cang!” Xiaojiu  and the others hurried over, crouching down to check on him.

Man Cang trembled in the corner, and when he heard someone call his name, he raised his head in fear.

Seeing it was Xiaojiu  and the others, the emptiness in his eyes finally lit up.

Zhao Hu quickly lifted him onto his back. “Let’s get you out first.”

They emerged back onto the ground level.

The moment Man Cang saw his father lying in a pool of blood, he could no longer hold back. He broke into heart-wrenching sobs, tears streaming down his young cheeks like beads on a broken string.

He stumbled to the innkeeper’s side, his voice trembling as he called over and over, “Dad… Dad, wake up. Man Cang did as you said, I stayed in the cellar… Dad, don’t leave me.”

Man Cang, who had only his father to rely on, now clung to his father’s cold, lifeless body, drowning in endless grief and despair.

Xiaojiu  and the others patted his back gently, trying to offer some comfort, but their own eyes grew red.

To Man Cang, this town was his home, and his father was his only family and support.

But now, the once lively town was littered with corpses, and his only relative had left him forever.

For a once innocent, lively six- or seven-year-old, this sudden tragedy was far too heavy a burden.

Shi Xian and Qin Xu stood silently to the side, their expressions equally grim.

“Do you know what happened here?” Shi Xian crouched down, patting Man Cang’s head in an attempt to give the boy some warmth.

He had examined the wounds on the corpses earlier—they were the work of large blades, common enough. But for an ordinary small town, why such a massacre? And stranger still, there wasn’t a single child’s body among them. Where had the children gone?

“A group of people… in black clothes,” Man Cang stammered through trembling lips. “They… took the children… killed people… so much blood… Dad… Dad hid me in the cellar, told me not to come out.”

Though his words were broken, everyone present understood clearly.

A group of black-clad men had come to town, taking away all the children. As for the rest of the townsfolk, they were all slaughtered to silence them.

“Those black-clad men again!” Xiaojiu ’s eyes blazed with fury.

“Can you explain more clearly?” Qin Xu asked.

“Before, Zhao Hu and the others were captured by black-clad men and taken into a cave. Inside, there were many other children who had been taken.”

“Despicable!” The chubby boy and the others recalled the time they were inexplicably abducted.

Fortunately, Xiaojiu  had found and rescued them in time. Otherwise, their families might have been wiped out too.

“It seems these black-clad men aren’t only in Qingshan County,” Shi Xian said grimly. “They’re spread across different places. I fear this has happened in more towns than we know.”

“What on earth are these people after?” Xiaojiu ’s group’s eyes were red with anger.

How many had died under the blades of these men? How many children had been taken away, forced to live like the ones in that cave—lives worse than death?

They didn’t dare imagine.