The giant serpent’s scarlet vertical pupils stared intently at the human before it. Its head reared up high as it lunged at Gu Qingyun once more.
Gu Qingyun did not dodge or retreat. Her toes tapped the ground lightly as she raised her blade and delivered a savage downward cleave.
Seeing the spiritual light shimmering on the blade, the giant serpent twisted its body forcefully and slithered rapidly toward the mountain, actually attempting to admit defeat and flee.
Gu Qingyun’s eyes darkened. This snake had not only cultivated sentience but quite a high level of it. If it were allowed to continue its cultivation, who knew how many more lives would be lost to its maw.
Spiritual power circulated through the Blazing Sun Saber in her hand. She gripped the hilt tightly and flew through the air, pursuing the fleeing serpent. Realizing it could not dodge, the snake’s eyes flashed with red light. It pivoted its body and whipped its tail violently toward Gu Qingyun.
This was a strike with its full strength. The tail whipped through the air with a whistling sound, seemingly about to strike Gu Qingyun. However, her expression remained cold and indifferent.
A chilling glint flashed from the blade of the Blazing Sun Saber, and the giant serpent’s tail was severed in a single stroke. The tail fell to the ground, twitching and jumping incessantly, the raw flesh at the cut contracting violently.
The loss of its tail and the immense pain drove the giant serpent into a frenzy. It discarded all caution, its feral nature erupting as it launched a life-or-death strike. It opened its mouth wide, clearly intending to swallow Gu Qingyun whole.
Gu Qingyun’s gaze sharpened. She spun in mid-air, evading the head. The saber qi of the Blazing Sun Saber, wrapped in spiritual power, slashed fiercely toward the giant serpent’s head. Blood sprayed everywhere as the massive head was sent flying, landing a distance away. The serpent’s body crashed to the ground with a thunderous thud, its life force completely extinguished.
Gu Qingyun ignored the head and hurried to the serpent's corpse. She crouched down and extracted the snake gall.
Cats loved spicy strips, and this snake gall was highly nourishing. It should be beneficial for Little Black’s cultivation, making it an excellent extra meal once she brought it back.
It was a pity that although this snake had developed sentience and grown so massive from eating humans, it had not yet condensed an inner core. Otherwise, if she fed an inner core to Little Black, it might have directly transformed into a spirit beast.
After collecting the snake gall, Gu Qingyun looked at the snake skin. Just as she finished stowing the skin away, she flicked a bead of spiritual power from her fingertip onto the serpent’s corpse. It transformed into a ball of flame that began to incinerate the body. Footsteps soon approached from the distance.
“Qingyun, Qingyun! Are you still alive? If you’re alive, give us a squeak!” Head Constable Liu’s voice drifted over from nearby.
Gu Qingyun turned her head toward the newcomers.
“Squeak.”
Head Constable Liu arrived with Lu Hu, Zhao Si, and several others. Hearing that she was still in the mood to joke around, he felt a wave of relief.
“You little rascal, you’re quite the prankster.” He circled the burning serpent corpse, clicking his tongue in amazement.
“My word, you actually killed this massive thing all by yourself. Heroes really do come from the young. But why are you burning the snake?”
Gu Qingyun coughed twice.
“It was luck. Fortunately, my strength was sufficient, otherwise it would have been quite difficult. However, I’ve injured my internal organs this time. I might need a couple of days of rest before returning to duty.
“This snake had attained sentience, after all. If I didn't burn it and another mountain animal ate its remains, it might cause more animals to develop intelligence. That would be a disaster for ordinary people. It’s safer to burn it.”
Hearing this, Head Constable Liu and the others felt she was right.
Wu Yong supported her with a worried expression.
“That’s good, that’s good. I was afraid I’d be coming here to collect your body. That lad Lu Hu also suffered internal injuries. You’re quite the pair of brothers in misfortune. You’ll both need to recuperate well once we get back.”
With that, the group stopped looking at the serpent and headed down toward the village.
“Uncle Liu, are the villagers under control?” Gu Qingyun asked.
“Don’t worry. The Village Chief had some skill, but the rest were just a rabble. Except for a few who were killed for resisting too fiercely, the rest have all been captured.” Head Constable Liu patted his chest, looking proud.
...
Gu Qingyun looked at the people in the village. After being taught a lesson, they watched her walk down from the mountain perfectly fine, their eyes filled with total disbelief.
“You actually came back alive?”
Gu Qingyun let out a cold laugh.
“A man-eating snake, yet you dared to address it as the Mountain God. You were actually helping a monster commit atrocities.”
“What do you mean, ‘helping a monster’? That was our village’s Mountain God! He blessed us! As long as we went into the mountains to hunt, no other wild beasts dared to touch us. He protected us! What’s wrong with him eating a few people?
“Don’t humans eat chicken, duck, fish, and meat just the same? He only ate those we offered as sacrifices; he never touched our own villagers. He was a good snake, a good Mountain God!” one of the men shouted frantically, his eyes full of fanaticism.
Looking at the man’s deranged state, Gu Qingyun knew he had been brainwashed beyond all reason. She stepped forward and slapped him across the face.
“If you loved that Mountain God so much, why didn’t you wash yourself and jump into his mouth? Instead, you kidnapped passing travelers to sacrifice to him. In the end, you just wanted to sacrifice others for your own benefit. People like you deserve to die.”
Gu Qingyun took a deep breath and crouched beside a woman.
“I want to know why there are no young girls in your village. Every household only has boys.”
The woman spat and rolled her eyes at her.
“What use is a girl? Once she grows up, she belongs to someone else's family. Now, they’ve been fed to the Mountain God to go and live a good life. We don’t have to feed them or clothe them. Growing them up is a waste. This way, we save food and the Mountain God blesses the family. This is how they should repay their families.”
Gu Qingyun stared at her through gritted teeth.
“Then why did you give birth to them if you were going to treat them like that? Just because they were girls?”
The woman smiled coldly.
“Why? You ask me why? They were the ones who chose to be born in my belly. I only want to give my husband sons—lots of sons.
“I gave birth to several girls here, and all were sacrificed to the Mountain God. Ask the women here—which one of them hasn't given birth to a girl? All the girls were used as sacrifices.
“Even us—if we hadn’t given birth to sons, we would have been sacrificed to the Mountain God long ago. This village does not keep useless people.
“In recent years, the Mountain God’s appetite grew larger and larger. The ones we birthed couldn't keep up with the speed he demanded, so the men in the village started luring passing travelers to be sacrificed. You should know, in the past, we only took their silver and left them with their lives. Otherwise, how else would our village live so comfortably?”
Gu Qingyun scanned these ignorant, numb faces and took a step back. These people were beyond saving; they subconsciously believed they were right.
It wasn't that they didn't know they were killing people. However, for their own benefit, they chose to sacrifice the girls. From the women to the young boys, the entire village seemed to have accepted that girls were meant to be sacrificed.
The other constables also gasped, a chill running from the soles of their feet straight to their hearts. These people had lost their humanity.
Gu Qingyun took a deep breath and turned to walk toward Head Constable Liu.
“Uncle Liu, how should we handle these people?”
“Take them back and wait for the County Magistrate’s judgment.” Head Constable Liu looked at the kneeling villagers with disgust.
He ordered a few constables to dig a pit and bury the deceased on the spot. They prepared some food in the village, made the rest into steamed buns, and set out on the return journey with the captives.
Zhang Yutang’s horse was found near the ancestral graves. However, the carriage frame had been sunk into a pond and was unusable. In the end, they had to make the horse pull a flatbed cart to carry Zhang Yutang and the others back to the county seat.
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