Zhou Yan and Li Zhiwei shouted loudly, quickly drawing the attention of all the little demons in the estate. It was the middle of the night, and before they could figure out what was happening, they saw the house blazing fiercely for unknown reasons.
Then with a start, they immediately sobered up.
“How did it catch fire?!”
“Don’t know.”
The hierarchy among demons was strict. For such a small house fire, the great demons like the workshop masters couldn’t be bothered to care, but they would still hold someone accountable afterward. The little demons panicked and mobilized, frantically fighting the fire.
In the chaos, it was even harder to distinguish friend from foe as the demons ran back and forth.
Zhou Yan naturally led Li Zhiwei outside in this manner. Li Zhiwei had never expected such a development, watching this arsonist Zhou Yan with a face full of anxiety, unease, and fear as he conversed with the approaching demons, showing no trace of what he had done.
“We’re going outside to find more helpers to fight the fire!”
Leaving behind these words, Zhou Yan and Li Zhiwei hurried forward.
The two walked one shoulder’s width apart, front and back.
This place had reached the corridor leading to the exit. Only now did Zhou Yan breathe a slight sigh of relief. As he walked forward, he suddenly thought of something and asked casually:
“Just now when that hungry ghost caught you, why didn’t you call for me to save you?”
Li Zhiwei’s eyes were very large. She thought for a moment and answered:
“Because if I called out, you would definitely be exposed.”
“If you’re capable, you would naturally save me without me calling; if you don’t want to save me, calling would only make you unhappy.”
“And if you’re just another captive like me, you must have had great difficulty escaping. If I called out and exposed you, I would only have harmed you.”
“So I didn’t call out.”
Zhou Yan found this little girl’s reasoning very logical.
He asked with a smile: “Then weren’t you afraid?”
Li Zhiwei glanced at him, then said quietly:
“I was afraid, but watching you at that time, you looked very afraid too.”
Yes, afraid and fearful, but beneath this natural fear, she had acted with such courage. This bravery beneath terror was rather surprising.
Zhou Yan fell silent, patted his thigh, and sighed:
“Yes, afraid. My legs are still a bit weak now.”
Li Zhiwei asked earnestly: “We don’t know what’s outside—it might be a meat shop, or it might be a ‘ghost market.’ It’s still somewhat dangerous. Do you know what to do after we get out?”
Zhou Yan replied: “We’ll take it one step at a time. It’s better than being made into meatballs in here.”
He had originally wanted to say, “When facing death, even birds fly skyward; if you don’t die, you live ten thousand years.”
He had already chopped up so many demons—it wasn’t a loss overall.
But it didn’t feel quite refined enough.
“Oh.”
Li Zhiwei lowered her head and pondered for a while, then took the initiative: “I have a method to send a message for help. I’m not sure if it will work, but if it does and they can make it in time, someone should come looking for us.”
Zhou Yan asked: “Are you confident?”
Li Zhiwei replied: “I actually used it once before I was captured. If they really came, they should already be in this area. If I can use it again now, I can tell them our location.”
“At least, we don’t have other choices.”
Zhou Yan said: “Good.”
From this little girl’s manner of speaking and composure, he had already guessed that she was at least not of common birth. If reinforcements came, first they could escape danger, and second he could naturally enter human society. His spirits lifted somewhat.
The two began walking side by side. Li Zhiwei took out something like a talisman from a hidden pocket sewn inside her sleeve, and dropped a drop of fresh blood on it.
At this moment, Zhou Yan’s breathing stopped slightly.
………………
In the green mountains, a middle-aged man wearing golden heavenly king armor and holding a long-handled war blade frowned slightly as he looked at the eight-trigram jade disk at his waist.
“Found it.”
He stepped forward like a soaring dragon.
On the other side below a mountain cliff, a man in ink-colored mountain-pattern armor remained silent, gripping the horizontal blade at his waist. His bronze token glowed faintly in response.
“Someone is in distress.”
They moved from different directions.
………………
The talisman in Li Zhiwei’s hand glowed faintly.
Then, two beams of light appeared on the talisman in succession.
A trace of smile appeared on Li Zhiwei’s face.
She was still young, her face smeared with black, but this smile carried a hint of beauty and, from the relief in this smile, one could glimpse the intense fear that had been hidden beneath her calm exterior.
“Someone’s there!”
“Two people… they responded to me in a special way, and they’re not too far away. We can be safe once we get out.”
She closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling.
Then she made up her mind and stuffed the talisman into Zhou Yan’s hand.
Zhou Yan was stunned: “This is…”
Li Zhiwei took out another one, also dropping her blood on it, and whispered quietly: “I still have this talisman, but we don’t know what’s outside. If it’s dangerous, we’ll split up and run. With this talisman in your hand, you can also be found.”
Zhou Yan was overjoyed, grasped the talisman, and patted Li Zhiwei’s head, saying:
“You’re quite capable, little girl.”
Li Zhiwei said: “You don’t look more than a year or two older than me, yet you speak so maturely.”
Zhou Yan touched his own face, only then coming to his senses.
After inexplicably falling from the mountain into this world, he seemed to have become much smaller. He didn’t know how old he appeared to be now. He gripped the talisman tightly and said: “About time. Let’s slip out while there’s still chaos.”
Li Zhiwei nodded, then suddenly remembered something. Following closely behind Zhou Yan, she took out something from her second hidden pocket and stuffed it into Zhou Yan’s hand, whispering:
“My name is Li Zhiwei. Zhi meaning ‘to know,’ Wei meaning ‘subtle essence of the Dao.'”
“Subtle essence of the Dao?”
“The Dao-heart is subtle and refined.” Li Zhiwei smiled gently.
“My family taught me that one must remember kindness. I don’t have anything to give you. This jade thumb ring was given to me by my mother. Please accept it.”
The people she had met before would politely accept her gratitude.
But they wouldn’t take her things.
Yet this young man with a somewhat rough and chivalrous temperament was completely unconcerned about taking it, grabbing it and casually putting it in his pocket:
“Good!”
Li Zhiwei was stunned.
Eh???
Eh eh eh?!!
She almost forgot to follow.
Zhou Yan stopped and turned back, puzzled: “Come on, what’s wrong?”
He understood and smiled: “Reluctant to part with your things?”
Li Zhiwei raised her head slightly, then lowered it, paused, and said quietly but firmly:
“No!”
They had been walking and talking in low voices the whole time.
Because of this inexplicable fire, the demons were in chaos. Even the demons at the entrance were frantically carrying water buckets to help. The two were delighted and hurried outside.
They had reached the front of the woods—the exit was just ahead.
They could get out.
Zhou Yan’s consciousness touched the jade册 in his mind. Ahead, the jade册 detected no aura that could be subdued, meaning no demonic energy. Zhou Yan’s heart eased—it seemed the demons in this area had all been drawn away by the fire.
Zhou Yan grabbed Li Zhiwei, who was hesitating and worried about the situation outside, and strode forward.
After walking a dozen steps, in about twenty or thirty breaths’ time, he glanced around and saw a familiar face.
Well, calling it familiar was an overstatement—he had only seen him once.
It was one of the people who had been tied up along with him when Butcher Zhao caught him. One of them apparently wasn’t dead yet, bound here with straw rope, his face ashen gray. The demon who should have been guarding him had been drawn away by the great fire Zhou Yan had set.
This place was safe.
Seeing someone who had fallen to the same fate, Zhou Yan planned to help within his capabilities.
They were already at the entrance.
After getting out of here, everyone would go their separate ways.
That person also saw them—this was natural, as there was only one straight path leading outside, and anyone would find it hard to avoid being seen.
Then, this numb person saw Zhou Yan’s face.
Perhaps because there were so few people who could fly up and kick a butcher in the face while being sold, leaving a deep impression, he recognized him at once.
Then his eyes widened just like Li Zhiwei’s had before.
Zhou Yan signaled him not to speak, but the person’s expression twisted, paused, then opened his mouth. He strained his voice and let out a sharp cry mixed with flattery and rage:
“Someone’s escaping!!!”
“Someone’s escaping!”
His face was deathly pale, but his eyes were bloodshot with fear and excitement, staring straight at Zhou Yan, his breathing becoming rapid and heavy, his expression twisted.
Both in hell, sinking together!
How can you run?!
How dare you run?!!
I’ll drag you down, drag you down!
Die together, die together. If you’re caught by me, I can live, stepping on your corpse, eating your corpse, I can live, I can live!
The man never considered the possibility that they had come to save him. His eyes red, his voice loud, he screamed in sharp, angry, unwilling tones that were yet humble and flattering—
“Someone—no—”
“Livestock! Not people, livestock!!”
“Livestock trying to escape!!!”
Zhou Yan looked ahead.
According to the jade册, there was no demonic energy.
But here, ahead—
Was there really no demons?
