Chapter 25

The moment Gu Chufu lifted her foot, a force suddenly shot toward her with lightning speed and grabbed her arm.

It yanked her hard. Before Gu Chufu could even react, she was dragged up into the air.

A slick, pitch-black claw was gripping her shoulder. Gu Chufu immediately struggled and screamed.

“Help! Save—!”

She could not see what kind of demon was behind her. The only thing she could confirm was that its scent was somewhat similar to the bat demon from earlier. Don’t tell her there were more of them in this village?

Village chief, you damned old bastard, why didn’t you say so earlier?!

A heart-piercing pain drilled through her shoulder. Gu Chufu had only managed to scream twice before that demon sealed her voice, leaving her able to make only muffled whimpers.

But that scream had indeed woken the people in the courtyard. Not many had been sleeping in the first place, and with that, almost everyone was startled awake.

“Whose voice was that?”

The people on the floor stood up one after another and opened their eyes. Someone took out an illuminating magical artifact, and the dim room instantly brightened. The moment Shen Jingjun heard that cry, she had already determined that Gu Chufu had been taken.

…She really never let anyone stop worrying about her, did she?

With a beckon of her hand, the sword resting on the table immediately flew into her grasp. Shen Jingjun gripped the sheath tightly. That demon from earlier must have used some method to hide its demonic aura. Even she had failed to notice it in time.

The look in her eyes darkened unreadably. Her divine sense caught a faint trace of the same fishy stench as the bat demon. Sure enough, demons came in nests.

From the villagers’ descriptions, and from the mission Shen Jingjun had received, there had only been mention of a bat demon with fairly high cultivation causing trouble in the village.

No one had expected there to be several smaller ones too.

They must have sensed the death of their elder and followed the scent here for revenge.

“Senior Sister Shen… this is bad! Senior Sister Gu is gone!”

Everyone gathered together and counted their numbers. Only Gu Chufu was missing. Thinking back to the scream from earlier, they all looked anxiously at Shen Jingjun.

“I know.”

“Half of you stay here. The other half will follow me out to pursue them.”

Shen Jingjun was not certain whether those demons would suddenly attack the entire village while she chased after them. If that happened, she would have fallen for the demons’ plan to lure the tiger away from the mountain.

But Gu Chufu absolutely could not die here.

The people in her hands, the people she had brought out—however many there were, all of them had to return intact.

“Understood, Senior Sister.”

“Ye Jing and I will stay here.”

“I also brought out the magical artifact Master gave me before we left. Senior Sister, don’t worry. This artifact can block out noise that disturbs the mind.”

Originally, he had wanted to take it out earlier, but the battle had been too intense. In his nervousness, he had not even managed to open his storage pouch before being blown to the ground.

“Mm. While I’m not here, all of you must be careful. Demons are full of tricks. Do not fall for their schemes.”

Ye Jing was considered one of the more talented younger disciples of Shuiyun Peak. Shen Jingjun’s performance earlier had left all of them utterly entranced. With that kind of ability, never mind the inner disciple competition within Qiling Sect—even in a competition among the disciples of the Nine Great Sects of the Nine Provinces, she might not necessarily fall behind.

“No. I want to go with Senior Sister Shen.”

“Senior Brother Zhang, you should stay.”

Ye Jing squeezed out from the crowd. She was on the younger side among this team. Lifting her brows, she insisted on following Shen Jingjun. Zhang Cang, who had suddenly been called out, touched his nose.

“Ah, this… Senior Sister Shen should decide.”

The man was caught in a difficult position. He did not understand why Ye Jing insisted on following Shen Jingjun. Did she think the rest of them were unreliable?

That was a little too damaging to their pride.

Hearing Ye Jing’s still somewhat childish voice, Shen Jingjun merely glanced at her. She remembered seeing this girl during several previous missions.

Perhaps Ye Jing was afraid to stay here alone and felt safer by her side.

“Fine. Zhang Cang, if there’s danger, use a voice-transmission talisman to notify me immediately.”

……

Gu Chufu had no idea how many winding mountain paths the demon had dragged her through.

When she opened her eyes again, she was already inside a cave. Everything around her was pitch-black, and the sound of dripping water echoed through the darkness.

Drip. Drip.

“How the hell are we supposed to get back? There’s no computer here, no phone, no internet. Heaven won’t answer, earth won’t respond.”

“And we turned into these ugly things. The moment we go out, those cultivators will kill us.”

“Damn it. Why does everyone else transmigrate into immortal cultivators, while the few of us became ugly-ass monsters?”

Then a sharp female voice answered, seemingly trying to comfort the rough-voiced demon.

“Don’t think of it that way. At least… we learned a few little spells, didn’t we?”

The more Gu Chufu listened, the more wrong it sounded. [bailiantales.com]Could these people also have transmigrated here? But right now, she was tied up tightly on the ground. The most she could do was barely open her eyes and wriggle continuously like a maggot.

“Hey… are you guys also, Chinese?”

Gu Chufu blinked. Although her breath was a little weak, her voice was especially clear in the cave. The moment she spoke, the three demon faces by the campfire all turned toward her at once and appeared before her.

A pig demon, a fox spirit, and a rat spirit.

“Don’t pull that foreign-language crap.”

“…Wait. Are you also one of us?”

Gu Chufu nodded hard. Then she held her breath and continued,

“Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing.”

“Sounds like your history is pretty good.”

The three of them stood up one after another and walked over to Gu Chufu. Three ugly faces kept studying her as she lay on the ground.

“Why do I feel like you look kind of familiar… like I’ve seen you somewhere before?”

What an outdated pickup line.

Could they please try something else?

“Hold on. Even if you’re also one of our fellow countrymen, weren’t you the one who killed our bat dad on this side?”

“We… still can’t let you go.”

The pig demon’s face was full of bulging flesh. His long tusks curved outward, and a few messy strands of hair stuck out from his forehead. He looked terrifying.

When he spoke, pig-like grunts mixed into his voice. His words were unclear and a little airy.

“Why did you get to… transmigrate into a human, while the rest of us could only become demons!”

The rat spirit was full of resentment. Back when he had been in school, he had also been a peerless handsome guy, charming countless fanboys and fangirls. When he played basketball, he could even make three-point dunks.

Now he had become this shifty-eyed rat spirit. When he first transmigrated here, he had been heartbroken for a long time.

“Damn, I’m about to get depressed—why did you get to transmigrate into someone this pretty?”

Gu Chufu’s face was buried in the dirt. The cave smelled unbearably foul and fishy, and she had no idea what it was. Since they were all modern people… could they please care a little about hygiene?

It could not be bat poop, could it?

She was really going to throw up.