Young Noble Be Monster Slaying-Chapter 852: Young Boy, Young Girl

East Mountain Village, Lingguan Town.

A petite little girl ran out from the house, smiling brightly as she rushed to greet Xiao Ershan and his wife.

"Daddy, Mommy, you're back!"

Xiao Ershan quickly scooped her up, utterly terrified that someone else might see her.

"Lingling, didn't I tell you not to go outside?"

"But didn't you say that once the ritual was over, I'd be able to go out and play again?" the little girl, Lingling, asked in confusion.

"The ritual isn't over yet…" Xiao Ershan carried his daughter into the house and let out a heavy, troubled sigh. "Someone interrupted the ritual."

Lingling looked at her father with eyes full of innocence. "Why?"

Xiao Ershan fell silent for a while and hugged his daughter tightly. "No matter what happens, Daddy won't let anyone take his precious girl away. No one!"

After a moment's hesitation, he gritted his teeth and said, "My dear… how about we run?"

"Where would we run to?" his wife asked, her face equally clouded with worry. "Even if we leave, how would we make a living?"

"Better than staying here and letting them send Lingling off as an offering, isn't it?" Xiao Ershan replied resolutely.

The family of three packed up their belongings into cloth bundles. Under the cover of night, they snuck out to the rear gate of their courtyard and quietly pushed it open.

But the moment Xiao Ershan peeked his head out, a large hand clamped down on his head with great force. Through the gaps in the fingers, he saw a guard from the patriarch's household standing in front of him.

"The patriarch told us to look after Brother Ershan's home. We can't have anything else go wrong for tomorrow's ritual," the burly guard said quietly.

Everyone knew the truth. The burly guard said he was there to "look after" Xiao Ershan's home, but really, he was there to prevent Xiao Ershan from running.

Xiao Ershan retreated sullenly with his wife and daughter. The family of three sat inside their house with frowns on their faces, completely at a loss as to what they should do next.

"Daddy, why don't you let me take part in the ritual?" Lingling asked curiously. "Didn't they say that after riding down the mountain river, you'll become smart? And that nothing bad will happen?"

"What do you know…"

Xiao Ershan almost told her the truth, but the words died in his throat.

After a moment of silence, a third voice suddenly rang out. "If you know something, why don't you say it?"

"Ah!" the family of three shrieked, jolting up in shock.

Three young men suddenly appeared in the room out of thin air. It was as if they had entered the house by walking through the walls.

The three young men were the same ones who had stopped the ritual earlier.

"Y-you… how did you get in here?" Xiao Ershan questioned.

He stepped protectively in front of his wife and daughter, shielding them toward a corner.

He raised his hand and warned, "Lingguan Town has cultivators too. You'd best not act recklessly."

Shooting Xiao Ershan a sharp gaze, Chu Liang raised his voice and asked, "Xiao Ershan, do you recognize this man?"

With a whoosh, Chu Liang released the scholar ghost from his porcelain bottle. The moment the scholar ghost saw his killer, he erupted with rage and transformed into his true form as a resentful soul. Thick with resentment, he looked twisted and ferocious, the very embodiment of malevolence. He overflowed with chilling yin qi, desiring nothing but to lunge forth and tear his murderer apart.

"Aaaaahhh!"

Xiao Ershan's whole family collapsed to the floor in terror.

He and his wife begged repeatedly, "Please, esteemed cultivators, spare us! Spare us! We only did it to save our daughter's life. We didn't want to hurt anyone, truly! B-but we had no other choice!"

"Save your daughter's life?" Chu Liang stored the ghost scholar back in the porcelain bottle and glanced at Lingling. "Didn't your patriarch say the ritual doesn't actually kill anyone? That it's just having the children ride downstream?"

"T-that…" Xiao Ershan uttered hesitantly, clearly still trying to hide the truth. But when Chu Liang made a motion to release the scholar ghost again, Xiao Ershan panicked and cried out, "It's fake! All of it's fake!"

…

Under Chu Liang's gentle yet firm questioning, Xiao Ershan finally revealed what he knew about the ritual in Lingguan Town.

In the capital of Yu, Yao Dengxian governed the Great Dao of Cloud Dominion. While it was hard for him to oversee the far-flung corners of the nine provinces, he always made sure the Central Region, where the capital was located, enjoyed favorable weather. Lingguan Town was on the border of the Central Region, but it still enjoyed the same good weather, allowing its land to flourish.

The climate there was ever pleasant, with lush crops year after year, and the residents lived long lives free of illness. It was a place known far and wide for its longevity, and the residents believed it was all thanks to the ritual honoring the spirit officials.

Legend had it that in ancient times, two spirit officials descended from the immortal world to battle demons and monsters. Gravely wounded, they were unable to return to the immortal world above and were taken in by the local villagers. The people delivered food to them by floating it down the river. When the two spirit officials recovered and returned to the immortal world, they bestowed a blessing upon the land.

From that day on, the land enjoyed endless good fortune, and the town was renamed Lingguan Town in their honor.[1]

To show their gratitude, the people of Lingguan Town held an annual ritual. Each year, they would send two Spirit Children drifting downstream as a symbolic offering to receive the spirit officials' blessing.

"It's all fake," Xiao Ershan said once more. "I've asked around. The Spirit Children do not die during the ritual, but within the next three months, every single one of them will end up dead because of all sorts of reasons—without exception! The nonsense about it not being a live human sacrifice is just a cover story the patriarch spreads to deceive us… and the imperial court!"

Chu Liang's pupils dilated in anger. "So that's the truth?"

If the children didn't die immediately, that would explain why the imperial court didn't pay much attention to Lingguan Town. But if the Spirit Children always died within three months of the ritual, how was that any different from a live human sacrifice?

"Has no one else in Lingguan Town realized the truth?" Lin Bei asked. "Couldn't they have just stopped the ritual altogether?"

Xiao Ershan replied, "It's said there were a few times in the past when they did not make the offerings. But the town quickly got hit by floods, droughts, and plagues. People died in droves. Even those who had moved away couldn't escape it.

"Lingguan Town couldn't endure the calamities, so they continued giving the offerings, and peace returned to the town. Since then, everyone has accepted that this is our fate. They have chosen to do whatever it takes to secure the health and longevity of the town and its people, even if it means we have to sacrifice two children a year."

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So, the children were simply treated as a price to be paid for peace, Chu Liang thought. The earlier rituals might have been based on a harmless folktale, but the ones after that became actual trades.

Xiao Ershan went on. "If it had been another family, fine. But this year, it was our turn. My wife and I only have Lingling. We aren't young anymore, and she's the only child we've managed to have. How could we bear to let her die? We were planning to flee, but then a family from the capital came to stay the night… Desperate to save my daughter, I was consumed by evil thoughts…"

"You couldn't give up your own child, so you killed two people and took their child instead." Chu Liang shook his head. "No matter your reasons, you cannot escape punishment."

Xiao Ershan's wife fell to her knees as she wailed, "As long as our daughter can be saved, it doesn't matter if we're cut to pieces. We will accept our fate!"

"That much you can be assured of," Chu Liang said, gazing out the window. "Now that we know the truth, no innocent child will die again."

"What do you plan to do?" asked Ye Yongxing.

"Those two supposed spirit officials must be quite capable if they've managed to keep this ritual going for so many years. If we don't take part in it ourselves, I'm afraid we won't be able to catch them," Chu Liang replied calmly. "We'll let the ritual proceed."

"Proceed?" Lin Bei frowned. "Wouldn't that still put the children in danger? What if we fail to find those two spirit officials in time?"

"Of course, we won't let real children participate," Chu Liang said in deep thought. "Technically, I can still count as a young boy."

"..." Lin Bei gave Chu Liang a skeptical look. A moment later, he remarked, "If you still qualify as a young boy, then I suppose I could qualify as a young girl."

"Isn't that a bit of a stretch?" Ye Yongxing said, staring at Chu Liang and Lin Bei in disbelief.

If they used transformation arts, the fluctuations in their foundational qi would easily give them away. But if they didn't change their appearance at all and just went as they were... Well, evil spirits weren't blind.

"Forget it," Chu Liang said with a chuckle and shook his head. "We just need powerful young children, right? I can find a pair."