Chapter 253 The Shocking Mountain Fire

As the morning light dawned, Chen Mu and his group of six rode out from the Demon Suppression Division, galloping along the official road.

Bai Junyi stood at the entrance of the Demon Suppression Division, watching them go until the sound of hoofbeats faded away completely. Only then did he slowly turn around, walking back into the courtyard with heavy footsteps.

There were two new faces in the team, both elites from Captain Ding. One tall and one short, one cold and one warm, they formed an interesting contrast.

The tall one was in his early thirties with a gaunt face. He had a bulging leather pouch hanging from his waist, though it was unclear what was inside. He just kept his head down as he rode, glancing briefly at Chen Mu and the others with a slight nod, acknowledging them.

The short one had a round face and eyes that crinkled into slits when he smiled. He carried a wooden box on his back that was wider than his upper body, filled with various tools. His name was Liu Quan, and he was a chatterbox; from the moment they left the city, his mouth hadn't stopped moving.

One moment he was asking Ling Xiaoning if his injuries had healed, the next he was leaning over to Feng Qing to praise his bow. Even when rebuffed by a cold face, he didn't get annoyed, just chuckled and turned to Shen Suning to ask about Kaoshan Village.

Ling Xiaoning leaned over his horse's back, looking curiously at the other man's box, and struck up a conversation.

"Brother Liu, how heavy is the box you're carrying? It looks wider than you are."

Liu Quan laughed.

"Not heavy, not heavy at all. It's just the tools of my trade—mechanisms, hidden weapons, lock-breaking gear—everything comes in handy. This time, since we're looking for a demon's nest, we'll definitely be going into mountains and caves, so these things of mine will surely be useful."

After saying that, he called out to the tall one.

"Brother Zhao, the road is tedious. I see that these folks from Team C are down-to-earth people, so let's chat and make friends to pass the time. Don't be like your name, silent as the grave."

Zhao Mo glanced at him but didn't speak, occasionally looking up to observe the surrounding terrain with a focused gaze.

The sun climbed higher, and the outline of Kaoshan Village gradually became clear.

As their hooves struck the village entrance, Chen Mu suddenly pulled on his reins, causing his chestnut horse to let out a long neigh. The five people behind him reined in their horses in unison.

Shen Suning followed Chen Mu's gaze and immediately frowned.

Dozens of people were gathered in the village, men and women, young and old, but everyone was covered in soot and grime, their clothes scorched by smoke and fire.

Some had faces streaked with black and white soot, while others had sleeves burned halfway off. A few young men were squatting on the ground, coughing violently, the phlegm they coughed up was black.

"What is this..."

Before Ling Xiaoning could finish his sentence, Chen Mu had already dismounted and was walking quickly toward the crowd.

When the crowd saw him approach, they were stunned at first, then someone recognized him and exclaimed aloud.

"It's Lord Chen! Lord Chen is back!"

"The officials from the Demon Suppression Division are here again!"

The crowd became agitated. Some wanted to push forward but were held back by those beside them, so they just watched from afar.

Chen Mu's gaze swept over the crowd and finally landed on an old man with a hunched back, surrounded by several villagers.

Wang Laogen.

This old village chief was in a wretched state. His face was streaked with soot, half his beard had been singed off by fire, and his coarse cloth jacket was riddled with holes, revealing a string of blisters on his exposed skin.

He was being supported by others, his steps unsteady, clearly exhausted.

Chen Mu stepped forward quickly and caught his swaying body.

"Village Chief, what happened?"

Wang Laogen looked up and saw it was Chen Mu. A glimmer of light flashed in his cloudy old eyes. His lips trembled, and it took a long time before he spoke in a hoarse voice.

"Lord Chen... the mountain... the mountain is on fire..."

Shen Suning also dismounted, took a Medicinal Pill from her robes, and popped it into Wang Laogen's mouth. She then took a waterskin handed over by a villager and fed him a few sips. Wang Laogen choked and coughed a few times before catching his breath.

A middle-aged man nearby, seeing that the village chief couldn't speak clearly, quickly took over and recounted the whole story from beginning to end.

Before dawn today, a man from the village who went up the mountain early to chop wood suddenly saw thick smoke billowing from the depths of the mountain gully when he reached the mountainside. At first, he thought a hunter had lit a fire for warmth, but the smoke grew thicker and blacker, and the flames shot up high, visible even from a distance.

People who live in the mountains rely on the mountain for their livelihood, and they fear nothing more than a mountain fire. The man immediately threw down his firewood, scrambled back to the village, and beat a gong as he ran.

"Fire! The mountain is on fire!"

Once the gong sounded, the whole village was alarmed. The strong laborers shouldered hoes and shovels, grabbed buckets and wooden basins, and rushed up the mountain. The women and children followed behind, carrying anything that could hold water.

When they rushed to the fire, they realized the situation was much worse than anticipated. The gully was in the shade and rarely visited, overgrown with low shrubs and weeds, along with a few small groves of shade-tolerant scrub trees. They weren't tall, but they were packed together densely.

That was where the fire had started.

The dry shrubs crackled and popped as they burned, thick smoke billowed into the sky, and the heat waves made it impossible to get close. What was worse, the place was far from any water source. They ran back and forth with buckets, but the water they splashed on it didn't even make a hiss.

Just as everyone was at their wit's end, someone with sharp eyes spotted a person lying on the edge of the fire.

A few bold young men grabbed their hoes and pushed the burning shrubs aside, forcing a path through. When they reached him, they saw who it was: it was actually Li Tiezui.

That half-blind fortune teller.

He was covered in blood, lying motionless on the ground. His clothes were tattered and scorched by fire, and his exposed skin was covered in dense, tiny wounds, some of which were still oozing blood.

The most terrifying thing was that the blood flowing from those wounds wouldn't stop; the ground where he lay had already been soaked through, turning a dark, bloody red.

He was still clutching a fire-starter tightly in his hand.

The young men scrambled to lift Li Tiezui and retreat, but the blood on his body kept flowing. There were too many wounds, densely packed; they couldn't possibly be bandaged. It looked like he had been bitten by something, which was horrifying to see.

The fire was still burning, and there was no time to treat the wounds carefully. The young men decided to get Li Tiezui to a safe place first, so they carried him and stumbled out of the fire.

The rest of the people stayed behind to continue fighting the fire.

The fire was too big and the water source too far; it couldn't be extinguished by force. Someone had a flash of inspiration and called everyone to grab hoes and pickaxes to desperately chop down the shrubs and weeds around the fire.

Although those low shrubs were dense, fortunately, they weren't thick, and one swing of a hoe could uproot them.

Some chopped, some pulled, some kicked, and finally, they cleared a bare firebreak around the fire. With no grass or wood left to ignite, the fire slowly weakened.

Chen Mu turned his head to look toward the west of the village.

Li Tiezui's home. The fortune teller, whose daughter had died a tragic death and who had gone mad and disappeared, was there right now, covered in blood, bleeding non-stop.

He recalled the wounds left by the Bat King. After Ling Xiaoning was bitten, he also bled non-stop and fell into a coma. If not for the styptic powder Shen Suning carried, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Was Li Tiezui's injury the same?