Chapter 154: The Deserted Town

"What are you laughing at?"

Du Feng asked with a dark, grim face, his voice sharp and stern.

Had they not been just a group of children, he would have already used his scabbard to slap the smiles right off their faces, just to see if they could still laugh once their mouths were battered to a pulp.

Yet, these dozen or so children were not intimidated by Du Feng at all. They chimed in together, laughing derisively:

"We're laughing at your utter lack of self-awareness, actually trying to capture the Master!"

"We're laughing at your ignorance and stupidity, preferring to believe lies rather than accept the truth!"

"Who is stupid? You can blindly believe such absurd nonsense, yet you have the nerve to call others stupid! Just look at you lot—brainwashed to the point of wanting to destroy your ancestors' tombs and murder your own parents, yet you still don't realize your wrongs and think you're completely right! In a moment, I'll make sure your mothers and fathers find out just what kind of 'filial paragons' they've spawned. Just wait until your bottoms are beaten to shreds!"

Du Feng gritted his teeth in fierce vexation.

His anger was not directed at these children, but rather at that heretical Master who had deceived them and warped their fundamental values!

Fortunately, Feng Nan, Liu Zhi, and the others had noticed something was amiss here upon discovering the excavated graves in the burial forest. Otherwise, had that Master been allowed to linger in Xixi鎮 (Xixi Town) for much longer, there was no telling how thoroughly these children would have been brainwashed or what horrific actions they might have committed!

However, upon hearing Du Feng's words, the children showed no fear whatsoever, looking rather smug instead.

"Our parents have known about our filial piety all along, and they've even been urging us to quickly help our ancestors gain release from their suffering, so that they can be freed from the torment of toxic erosion and escape the misery of their prison."

Du Feng couldn't help but curse under his breath, "Damn it."

He immediately turned his head and said to Shang Lu, Tu Pi, and the others, "It seems it's not just the children. Quite a few people in Xixi Town have been bewitched by that heretical Master."

Shang Lu nodded and had someone gag the children's mouths—partly to avoid listening to their fallacious nonsense, but mostly to prevent them from shouting and alarming the target once they reached Xixi Town.

At the same time, he pulled a sound-transmitting conch from his tunic, mounted his official horse, and rode swiftly to a small stream beside the burial forest.

After pouring water into the conch, he recounted the bizarre situation discovered here to Feng Boyuan, urging him to dispatch shamanic officials immediately to investigate and make arrests alongside them.

This time, Feng Boyuan did not keep Shang Lu waiting for long.

Just as Shang Lu was holding the sound-transmitting conch and returning to rendezvous with Du Feng, Tu Pi, and the others, a slightly distorted voice emerged from the shell:

"Received. I'll have men sent over right away... That so-called Master is likely a sophist from the School of Names. Practitioners of this lineage excel in verbal eloquence and often use words to bewilder people. You must be extremely cautious; do not let him turn black into white and lead you astray..."

"A sophist from the School of Names?"

Having assumed the post of County尉 (County Commandant), Shang Lu had reviewed numerous documents and records in the county yamen and had gained a solid understanding of the various cultivation systems popular in this world.

Here in the State of Ba, the Shamanic Dao was by far the most prevalent. Not only were shamanic academies established to train shamans, but many officials in both the imperial court and local governments also hailed from these academies.

Yet, alongside the mainstream Shamanic Dao, practitioners of other schools were far from uncommon.

For example, Zheng Quan, the former Registrar of the county yamen, had followed the path of the Legalist harsh official.

Regrettably, he had failed to grasp the essence of the school, mastering only the cynical arts of manipulating power and amassing wealth.

It quite suited his name—Zheng Quan, meaning "contending for power."

As for the School of Names mentioned by Feng Boyuan, it was renowned for logic and debate.

Yet, most adherents of the School of Names spent their time pondering philosophical conundrums such as "the sun at noon is the sun declining, things are born and things are dying," or "a hard white substance cannot be accumulated, its expanse is a thousand miles."

Through their comprehension and sudden enlightenment of such philosophical questions, they sought to understand the truth of the world and elevate their own cultivation.

Only sophists were different.

These individuals belonged to the malevolent fringe of the School of Names.

They used all manner of absurd and bizarre fallacies to deceive the world, warping people's basic values and driving them—under the influence of their bewitchment and deception—to commit acts that violated morality, ethics, and the law, all while reaping the benefits to advance their own cultivation.

That Master in Xixi Town, using the preposterous claim that digging up graves, desecrating corpses, and murdering one's parents constituted the ultimate filial piety to trick children into destroying their ancestral tombs and killing their closest kin, fit the profile of a School of Names sophist to perfection.

After rendezvousing with Feng Nan, Liu Zhi, and the other patrollers outside the burial forest, Shang Lu issued a specific warning, instructing everyone to steel their hearts and hold fast to their values, lest they be beguiled and manipulated by that heretical Master's fallacies.

To prevent any accidents, he also retrieved a handful of fine needles—crafted from the bones of an unknown animal—from his saddlebag and distributed them to the group.

These bone needles, known as Soul-Locking Needles, were shamanic artifacts Shang Lu had discovered while taking inventory of the armory.

They were said to have the effect of instantly clearing a person's mind, though the armory clerks could not explain the exact mechanism of how they worked.

Soul-Locking Needles were equipment developed by the Shamanic Academy and issued to governments at all levels to deal with demonic anomalies and supernatural crises.

Using this shamanic artifact required a cultivation level of at least the minor accomplishment stage of bone-tempering. Furthermore, they required regular maintenance and the infusion of shamanic power to ensure they would function effectively when needed.

In the past, the former Magistrate of Luoshui County took no charge of affairs, and the Registrar cared only about wielding power and pocketing money; they had hardly maintained the shamanic artifacts in the armory at all, let alone allocated them for use by the three yamen rosters and local militias.

When Shang Lu took over the armory and began his inventory, he even found discrepancies in the account books.

Many shamanic artifacts had been labeled as "damaged," yet no trace of the broken items could be found.

After a round of questioning, the armory clerk finally confessed that the so-called "damaged" artifacts had actually been sold off at high prices to outsiders by the Registrar through channels like the Black Wind Gang.

Zheng Quan had indeed been blindingly bold. Relying on his ability to rule Luoshui County single-handedly with no one daring to oppose him, there was nothing he wouldn't dare to do!

From that perspective, it truly was karmic retribution.

Had Zheng Quan bothered to care about the shamanic artifacts in the armory back then and permitted the three rosters and militias to check them out for missions, Shang Lu's predecessor might not have died, and the subsequent chain of events would never have been set in motion.

In that case, Zheng Quan might still be the Registrar of Luoshui County today, perhaps even winning honors and rewards, rather than being hauled off by shamanic officials to the commandery headquarters for investigation under the additional charge of stealing and selling shamanic artifacts.

Shang Lu handed a Soul-Locking Needle to Du Feng as well.

Du Feng had been practicing cultivation extremely diligently lately. Coupled with the careful instruction from Tu Pi and other frontier soldiers, along with the medicinal liquid reward promised earlier by the Shamanic Academy, his cultivation had indeed made significant progress, finally breaking through to the minor accomplishment stage of bone-tempering.

Shang Lu had also promoted him to a full-fledged bailiff, without extracting a single copper coin from him in tribute.

Tucking the Soul-Locking Needle close to his body, the group followed Shang Lu and rode toward the outskirts of Xixi Town.

Deep in the night, Xixi Town was shrouded in silence.

At first, the group did not suspect anything amiss, assuming that in the dead of night, everyone would be fast asleep, and a quiet town was only natural.

Soon, however, they realized the silence in Xixi Town was unnaturally eerie!

Inside the rows of houses throughout the town, there was not a single person.

Not a single soul!

The entire population of the town seemed to have vanished into thin air!

More than just people, even animals like cats, dogs, birds, and snakes had all disappeared without a trace, leaving no sound behind...