These words did not do much to boost morale.
Ning Zhou was simply too robust; he looked like he could crush ten ordinary people with a single punch.
The hands of the townspeople gripping their weapons trembled more and more violently.
Seeing the fear on their faces, the woman gritted her teeth and said, “If we don't capture them, we are all dead meat!”
Song Yao grew even more curious and stepped forward. “Why? Why are you dead meat? Do you have some kind of quota for capturing cultivators? If you can't catch anyone, do they send you to be sacrificed instead?”
As she advanced, the townspeople backed away in terror, clearly inexperienced in matters of robbery and kidnapping.
The woman's face turned livid with anger at the sight. Spitting out a curse of “A bunch of useless trash,” she unsheathed a short dagger from her waist and lunged straight at Song Yao's face.
Song Yao didn't budge, nor did she even blink. With a light tap of her folding fan, the woman was instantly pinned in place, unable to move while still holding her short dagger high.
She said with a touch of helplessness, “No one else is doing anything, yet you had to make a move. You are not being very good.”
The woman's pupils shrank in disbelief. “Y-You... Why aren't you affected by the demon toxin at all?”
Song Yao thought about it. “Maybe it's because of my poor health.”
The woman was exasperated. “That's nonsense.”
With poor health, one might indeed absorb less demon toxin than others, but when it flared up, it would be far more lethal.
Yet she didn't look unusual in the slightest.
Could it be... that the demon toxin was ineffective against her?
Or was her cultivation too high?
Song Yao herself didn't really know what was going on.
She had been to the Earth Realm, the place with the heaviest concentration of demon toxin, so she actually knew how to dissolve the demon toxin in her body.
But after entering this place, she realized the demon toxin seemed to have no effect on her.
In fact, it couldn't even enter her body at all.
It was truly strange.
Having no time to ponder the reason, she lazily waved her folding fan and tried to negotiate with the woman before her. “Be a good girl and tell me the truth. Who knows, I might even be able to help you. What do you say?”
The woman stiffened her neck and glared fiercely at her. “You can't even escape Frost Country yourself. How are you going to help us?”
Quite stubborn.
Song Yao didn't push further. Instead, she swept her gaze over the panicked and terrified townspeople, picking out an easy target.
With a wave of her hand, the boy who had been puckering his mouth on the verge of tears was dragged forward as if pulled by an invisible string, landing right in front of her.
His terror instantly multiplied. Before Song Yao could even ask, he wailed aloud, “I don't know! I don't know anything! Please let us go, we didn't mean to! We just don't want to die!”
Just didn't want to die?
Song Yao asked in confusion, “If you don't hand us over, you'll die?”
The boy cried even harder, his tears pattering down. “If we don't hand you over, we... we will all die! Father is already dead! We will die too! I don't want to die, none of us want to die! Don't kill us! Don't kill us! I really don't want to die!!”
The more he cried, the more he broke down. His face turned beet red, and his wails grew shrill.
Song Yao was slightly startled. She glanced at him, then at the dazed Ning Zhou behind her.
Hiss—
The symptoms were somewhat similar.
The pinned woman's expression changed slightly. She said in a panic, “Ah Yao, deep breaths, deep breaths. Calm down. It's fine, it's okay, you won't die. None of us will die.”
Then she barked at the townspeople behind her, “Quick! Give him some water! Don't let him get too worked up!”
The people behind finally snapped out of it. Forgetting their fear of Song Yao, they hurriedly caught the boy and laid him on the ground, unbuttoning his shirt to help him breathe.
But it was to no avail.
He began to struggle almost maniacally, his eyes rolling wildly. “I don't want to die! I really don't want to die! I'm scared! Father, I'm scared! I'm so scared!”
Song Yao frowned and popped a Qi-Replenishing Pill into his mouth.
The woman gasped, “What did you feed him?! It's useless! Ordinary pills are useless!”
Song Yao ignored her. Pressing her hand to his forehead, a gentle stream of spiritual energy flowed from her palm into his body, quickly neutralizing the side effects.
As the medicine took effect, the boy's agitation gradually subsided. His reddish-purple and bluish face returned to a pale white, his wails suddenly cut off, and he opened his eyes to look dazed at the people around him.
The scene instantly fell silent.
An old woman beside him grabbed his hand and asked nervously, “Ah Yao, d-do you still recognize me?”
The boy's voice was weak. “Grandma Xu.”
Hearing him speak, the surrounding townspeople let out a collective sigh of relief, unable to conceal their astonishment. “His hysteria is actually cured! This medicine can treat the demon toxin!”
“He actually recovered after a flare-up?!”
“What kind of pill is this?”
One after another, glances darted toward Song Yao, carrying a mix of terror, guilt, and joy.
Song Yao remained crouching beside the boy. Feeling a bit cold from the breeze of her own folding fan, she simply tucked it away, wrapped her cloak tightly around herself, and asked him with a smile, “I just saved your life, so you can tell me now, right? Surely you guys aren't doing this just to trade us for money?”
The boy's mind was probably still not entirely clear. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak—
The woman beside him spoke up first. “Let me tell you instead.”
Song Yao glanced over, and the restriction on the woman's body instantly dissolved.
Carried by her momentum, she stumbled forward uncontrollably, barely managing to steady herself. Looking at Song Yao with a mix of complex emotions, she said, “Though you might not believe it, capturing cultivators is indeed a helpless act on our part.”
Song Yao couldn't keep crouching, so she sat down cross-legged. “How helpless?”
The woman's face was filled with bitterness. “Since the demons descended, the entire Frost City has been shrouded in demon toxin. As you've probably noticed, those infected with the toxin lose their minds and go mad before long. They even start hacking people on the streets. In the end, they die or get injured, meeting a tragic end.”
“At first, the Lord distributed a pill to everyone in the demon realm, saying that as long as we took it, we would be protected from the demon toxin.”
“But the problem is, the effects of this pill only last for a limited time. Once it wears off, we still get poisoned and go mad. Moreover, the more worked up we get, the easier it is to be poisoned.”
“By the time we realized something was wrong and went to beg for more pills, they told us we could only get them by capturing cultivators.”
“One ordinary cultivator can be exchanged for five pills, while a cultivator from the Nine Saints Hall...”
The woman looked at Song Yao and said, “...can be exchanged for ten.”
Song Yao came to a realization. “That is indeed quite a helpless situation.”
The woman bit her lip and suddenly knelt before Song Yao with a thud. Before Song Yao could stop her, she kowtowed heavily. “Capturing you was entirely my idea! They are all from a village near Frost City and are usually the most kind-hearted, gentle people. If not for my coercion, they would never have done something that harms others. If you wish to seek revenge, Immortal, come at me alone!”
“It's just...”
Her ears flushed crimson as she steeled herself to beg, “I wonder if you could spare them a few more of those miraculous pills from earlier, Immortal? They all have relatives at home who are suffering from the demon toxin and are on the verge of death.”
Rate on N.U.
