As night fell, Chen Xu took Xuan Chu and the others to the tree at the entrance of the village.
Hou Er's house was too small and had no open space for them. Large fellows like Bone Guard Two and Bone Guard Three would have had to crouch if they stayed inside.
Furthermore, it was a rare occasion for a rural family to eat meat, which was a joyous event in itself. Since they might want to add more joy to that joy during the night, he decided not to disturb their private interests.
Rotten Fish Village had two large trees, one at the end of the village and one at the entrance.
On normal days, the villagers mostly gathered near the one at the end, while few people stopped at the entrance.
This was because the entrance was close to the main road leading to the big city. If they were spotted by the passing lords or their lackeys, disaster might follow.
The mute old man from earlier that day was a prime example.
When he was young, he was simply waiting for his companions under the shade of the tree so they could go to the fields together.
Unexpectedly, he crossed paths with monks from the South Realm Buddhist sects and several clan lackeys, who kidnapped him by force.
By the time he returned, ten years had passed. He was mute, his soul was gone, and he was perpetually dazed. He spent his days sitting under the tree at the end of the village, doing absolutely nothing.
Logically, someone in that state who couldn't care for himself should have passed away soon after. However, lackeys had followed him back to find the chief of Rotten Fish Village and ordered him to provide the mute old man with food every day.
They didn't care how much was given, as long as the man didn't starve to death.
No one knew why the lackeys had suddenly become so kind. The villagers were curious, but no one dared to ask, not even the village chief. They could only follow the orders.
...
The ground under the tree at the village entrance was covered in a thick layer of leaves.
Chen Xu had Xuan Chu clear a space so they could sit on the ground.
Sitting there, Chen Xu released his mental strength to conduct a detailed search of the village.
As his mental strength swept through, he realized just how backward this village truly was. It was hard to imagine such a place existing in the era of dungeons.
Forget products like televisions or cell phones; even simple flashlights were only owned by a few households.
Even before the dungeon era, technology shouldn't have been at this low of a level. In this era, people could excavate various strange technologies from dungeons to create new "Dungeon+" technologies.
This was likely a deliberate act by the aristocratic clans. As Hou Er had said, these servants were nothing more than livestock in the eyes of the clans.
After a few more rounds of investigation, Chen Xu retracted his mental strength. Throughout the village, there was nothing but complaints and the hardship of tilling the land. There was no other valuable information. It seemed he would have to go to the big city after all.
However, the evil of these aristocratic clans exceeded Chen Xu's imagination. Chen Xu understood one principle: when facing evil people, you must be even more evil than they are.
...
The next morning, before the sun had even risen, many villagers were already heading out to work.
They carried their tools and ran quickly past the village entrance, perhaps having noticed Chen Xu under the tree.
When the sun officially rose, Chen Xu stood up, patted the dust off his robes, and prepared to set out.
He hadn't walked far when the sound of galloping hooves, the roar of car engines, and the wails of people reached his ears.
In the distance, he saw two open-top trucks loaded with people. Beside them, five riders on horseback were cracking whips, chasing down several villagers who were still trying to flee for their lives.
With a flick of a whip, a villager's feet were bound, and they were dragged across the ground for several meters before being violently tossed into the trucks.
Chen Xu had only seen pigs being herded onto trucks in his previous life. This was the first time he had seen humans being driven like livestock.
Or rather, they were treated worse than livestock. When herding pigs, one might fear the pig dying, but these people were dragged along the ground and thrown high into the air before crashing down. They were all simple farmers; many were likely taking more breaths out than they were taking in.
After all the villagers were captured and thrown onto the trucks, the group continued toward Rotten Fish Village.
Soon, the other party spotted Chen Xu—or more accurately, they spotted Bone Guard Two and Bone Guard Three.
"Captain, look ahead! Four people, and two of them are giants."
"I'm not blind. Stop the vehicles!"
The one called captain was a one-eyed man. He ordered the vehicles to stop and stay put while he went ahead to investigate the situation.
The one-eyed man rode forward alone, holding the reins in one hand and firmly grasping a long whip in the other.
As he drew closer, the one-eyed man realized that besides the two giants, there was actually a monk. Judging by their positions, the monk seemed to be the leader.
This monk was extremely strange, using human skulls as prayer beads. He didn't look like a man of the cloth; instead, he looked more like a member of the Voodoo Cult. Furthermore, from the moment he approached, the monk had been looking at him with a beaming smile that made his skin crawl.
But as a clan lackey, he had no choice but to step forward. After all, being a lackey wasn't easy; if he failed his mission, he would suffer dearly. He kept his distance, steeled himself, and shouted loudly.
"May I ask which Buddhist temple the Master hails from? I am a guard of the Wa family from Liuqing City."
Chen Xu smiled but said nothing. He simply sent a silent soul message to Xuan Chu.
Upon receiving the message, Xuan Chu gave Invincible a sharp slap on the rump.
Invincible reared up on its front hooves and let out a high-pitched neigh.
Chen Xu took the opportunity to shout, "Where did these peasants come from, barking like dogs so early in the morning and daring to startle my horse! Number Three, go and take him down for me!"
"Yes!"
Bone Guard Three drew a long blade from his back and charged at the one-eyed man with a thunderous roar.
The one-eyed man was stunned, unable to understand what was happening. It had been several seconds since he had spoken; how could the horse have been startled by him now?
He raised his hand, intending to flick his whip at Bone Guard Three. But Bone Guard Three was already upon him. With a flash of the blade, the one-eyed man instantly became a one-armed man.
Then, Bone Guard Three pinned the horse with one hand and grabbed the man with the other, forcing the horse to the ground. The terrifying aura caused the poor pony to let out low whimpers.
"Captain!"
Seeing their captain captured, the remaining men galloped over. The two trucks also accelerated and rushed forward.
The men leaned over to pull AKs out of the bags on the sides of their horses, aiming them at Bone Guard Three.
"Let the captain go, or we'll open fire!"
In the trucks behind them, the drivers leaned halfway out of the windows, shouldering RPG launchers and aiming them at Chen Xu's group.
"Oho, weapons from the previous era? Not bad!"
Chen Xu was actually amused. The rifles and rocket launchers these people were holding were products from before the dungeon era—antiques over a hundred years old.
In Daxia, such things were kept as special collectibles. Although the lethality of century-old antiques wasn't low, this was a hundred years later; everyone else was playing with "Dungeon+" fantasy weapons.
Since the opposition chose a gunfight, Chen Xu naturally wouldn't refuse. He searched through his storage ring and pulled out a long cylinder, sliding it onto his right hand before aiming at the men on horseback.
Seeing Chen Xu raise the strange object, the men immediately shouted, "Don't move! Or I really will fire!"
"What's the rush? I'm still aiming."
The toy in Chen Xu's hand was something he had swiped from Xia Deliang. When he had gone to Heavenly Crafts to install equipment for Kunpeng and the others, Chen Xu had spent some time wandering through the Heavenly Crafts laboratories while learning to fly the fighter jet.
He had found many fun things and picked up a few for his collection, mostly oddly shaped guns and cannons.
Most of these weapons were discarded prototypes from the research process. In Xia Deliang's words, they were flashy but useless.
However, Chen Xu and the researchers of these weapons held the opposite view. The older generation was too focused on utilitarianism and didn't understand the romance of youth at all.
For example, the cylinder on Chen Xu's arm was actually an elemental laser gun—a combination of a rifle and a cannon.
The highlight of this weapon was that it allowed the user to lock onto enemies with their mental strength and fire refractive lasers that could sweep through multiple targets in one shot.
Since it was his first time using it, Chen Xu wasn't very practiced, and it took him a bit longer to aim.
Once he had locked onto the four men on horseback and the two in the trucks, Chen Xu triggered it with his mental strength.
Instantly, a beam of laser light shot out, bouncing between the targets before finally hitting the ground.
Chen Xu retracted his arm and blew a puff of air onto the muzzle.
The four men on horseback fell in unison, and the two in the trucks also tumbled out.
"Full marks. A perfect ten."
After stowing the elemental laser gun, Chen Xu first patted Invincible, who was still headbutting Xuan Chu, to calm it down. Then, he walked toward the one-eyed man.
"Who... who are you? The Wa family is behind me!"
Although the one-eyed man was being held by the head by Bone Guard Three and couldn't see what was happening behind him, he had heard the sounds of heavy objects hitting the ground after Chen Xu raised that strange cylinder. He guessed those were his men.
"Amitabha. This poor monk is, of course, a monk. Benefactor, although you startled my horse, my Buddha is merciful. I am still willing to deliver you from the sea of suffering, just like those other benefactors back there."
"However, before that, we must discuss the matter of compensation. This steed of mine is a sacred pet of the Buddhist path and is quite pampered. Now that it has been startled, it won't get better without some spiritual medicine to calm its nerves."
"Heh, monk, if you have the guts, go to the Wa family in Liuqing City and ask them for it."
Seeing that Chen Xu was actually asking for compensation, the one-eyed man became convinced that he was just a monk from the South Realm—a crazy one at that. He must have gone mad from scraping too much from the commoners and now dared to look for trouble with a great clan.
"This poor monk had exactly that intention."
He had Bone Guard Three place the one-eyed man onto the horse he had been riding. Bone Guard Three then led the horse by the reins.
He then had Bone Guard Two open the doors of the truck trailers to let the villagers down.
Chen Xu and his group then continued their journey toward Liuqing City.
By the trucks, several villagers from Rotten Fish Village were among those who had just stepped down. Seeing that it was Chen Xu who had saved them, they knelt and kowtowed in his direction. Seeing this, the others also knelt and followed suit.
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