Scripture of Days Past

Zheng Sanshui led Chu Qiguang and Chen Gang into the inner room, then removed a straw mat to reveal a body in such horrific condition that Chen Gang stumbled back in horror before throwing up onto the ground.

”Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Zheng Sanshui sighed with a shake of his head. ”He was bitten to death by the fiend, so his entire body is covered in bite marks.”

After covering the corpse again, Zheng Sanshui told Chu Qiguang that he was going home to rest.

”It’s about to get dark, and going out at night is really dangerous. If you want, you two can spend the night at my place, then go back tomorrow morning.”

Chu Qiguang refused the kind offer, telling Zheng Sanshui that he wanted to look around and see if he could uncover any leads. In reality, he was going to meet back up with Qiao Zhi and the others.

As soon as they reunited with Qiao Zhi outside the village, Big Head immediately began rubbing against Chu Qiguang’s leg as he yelled, ”I found the fiend, Godfather! I sniffed it out all on my own!”

White Rice and Qiao Zhi both rolled their eyes in disdain at Big Head’s sycophantic display.

”Well done. Take me to see it,” Chu Qiguang said as he stroked Big Head’s head.

Big Head rubbed his head against Chu Qiguang’s palm with a blissful look on his face, then he led everyone to a hole in the ground.

”The entire area around the village reeks of a foul odor, and this is where the smell is coming from. I’ll go in there and capture it for you, Godfather!”

”There’s no need for that,” Chu Qiguang replied, then instructed everyone to gather some firewood.

He placed the firewood at the entrance of the hole and started a fire, while Chen Gang took off his clothes and used them to fan the smoke into the hole.

A few minutes later, the soil around the entrance of the hole trembled, and a yellow vole sprang out of the earth, snarling at Chu Qiguang and the others menacingly.

The vole was the size of a pig, but it quickly realized that it was no match for Chu Qiguang and his entourage. It hurriedly fled the scene while crying out in panic.

The vole took a paw strike to the back from White Rice, then had its face scratched by Qiao Zhi’s claws. In its blind panic to escape, it ran headfirst into Chu Qiguang and was knocked to the ground. Chen Gang, White Rice, and Big Head immediately pounced on it to make sure it couldn’t escape.

The vole struggled desperately with all its might, but White Rice gave it a slap on the head and scoffed, ”That’s what you get for sneak-attacking me.”

”You’re that useless cat from last time!” the vole snapped. ”I could beat you easily even if I didn’t sneak an attack on you! If you didn’t have all these people helping you, I could beat your ass even with three paws tied behind my back!”

Just like the villagers, the vole looked rather emaciated.

Noticing this, Chu Qiguang asked, ”Did you start stealing food from the villagers because you’re starving?”

”I deserve that food! I’m the one doing all their farming!” the vole replied indignantly.

”Oh? What do you mean by that?” Chu Qiguang asked.

”Who are you?” the vole asked. ”Are you a cat fiend in human form?”

White Rice slapped the vole on the head once again and snapped, ”This is our king! You better show him some respect!”

The vole’s attitude improved slightly after learning that Chu Qiguang was also a fiend, and he said, ”This entire shitty village is full of liars and scammers...”

As Chu Qiguang listened to the vole’s story, a look of surprise gradually appeared on his face.

The vole’s name was Jin Ji, and he had come from the Great Zhu Nation, far away in the west. According to him, the nation was ruled by three-headed fiends, and the nation operated under a class system imposed on all its residents.

Fiends of a higher class could eat lower-class fiends and humans as they pleased. Humans and voles were both considered bottom feeders of society in the Great Zhu Nation. They were essentially slaves who had to farm all day, and they were constantly at risk of being eaten by higher-class fiends.

In pursuit of a better life, Jin Ji fled the Great Zhu Nation and defected to the Great Qian Empire with his family of eighteen. However, by the time they arrived, only eight of them were left.

Life wasn’t much better on the northwestern grasslands. They were captured, enslaved, and forced to work all day, often without any food. Before long, only four of them remained. Thus, they fled once again, this time to the Great Han Empire, but Jin Ji was the only one who ultimately completed the journey alive.

Upon arriving at Southern Ravine Village, he discovered it was a very sparsely populated area with large stretches of barren, uncultivated land, so he thought it would be a good place to start his new life. Over time, he was even able to reach an agreement with the villagers. They would give him their land to farm, but in return, he would give them half of his harvest.

This was a far better arrangement than what he had endured in the Great Zhu Nation and the Great Qian Empire, so he happily agreed. In the beginning, he was quite wary of the villagers, but he soon discovered that they really didn’t seem to harbor any animosity toward fiends. In fact, they would even help him from time to time.

”I was a fool to have believed them!” Jin Ji spat through gritted teeth. ”After my harvest, they invited me to drink wine with them to celebrate, then stole all my wheat while I was drunk! This village is full of frauds and thieves!”

”Is that why you steal food from them every night?” Qiao Zhi asked.

”It’s not stealing!” Jin Ji yelled furiously. ”I’m just taking back what’s rightfully mine! I haven’t been able to recover much anyway. I don’t know where they’ve hidden the food, but most of it is gone!”

”Why did you bite that villager to death? Was it for revenge?” Chen Gang asked.

”What are you talking about? I’ve never killed anyone!” Jin Ji denied.

”You didn’t bite that villager to death?” Chen Gang asked.

”No!” Jin Ji yelled.

”Lemme try to make sense of this,” Qiao Zhi mused with a thoughtful expression.

”Why bother trying to make sense of this ourselves when we can just ask the warden?” Chu Qiguang scoffed. He tied Jin Ji up, then began making his way toward the village.

White Rice was tasked with keeping an eye on the bound Jin Ji, while Chu Qiguang and Chen Gang entered the village. Qiao Zhi and Big Head accompanied them in the shadows.

Even though it was already very late at night, they heard the sounds of many windows opening and closing as soon as they entered the village. It seemed that many villagers were still wide awake and observing them from the darkness.

Chu Qiguang made his way to Zheng Sanshui’s house, then knocked on the door and called out, ”Are you still up, Zheng Sanshui?”

There was no response.

”We found that vole fiend,” Chu Qiguang continued. ”He says that you rented your land to him in exchange for his farming services. Is that true?”

His voice carried far and wide through the deathly silent village, and it seemed as if everyone was holding their breath in anticipation.

After a long silence, a resigned sigh finally rang out from inside Zheng Sanshui’s room.