Chapter 39 A New Beginning

Chen Mu and Liu Ziming exchanged a look and silently stepped forward to help; the three men dug for a full two hours before they managed to finish two earthen pits.

When Blind Li touched the already stiffening corpse of the Cat-Faced Old Woman, his face remained expressionless; he merely brushed away the residual blood and dust from her face bit by bit, tidying her tattered coarse cloth garments.

Then, he bent his waist and used his already frail body to carry his wife on his back, stumbling toward one of the pits.

Chen Mu stood up, not offering to help, but merely pointing out the direction, watching as he personally placed her inside.

There was no coffin, not even a straw mat, only handful after handful of yellow soil covering her body.

Blind Li's movements as he buried her were slow yet exceptionally solemn, as if he were performing some sacred ritual; he was not burying the monster that had plagued the entire village, but the lover who had accompanied him for decades.

In the end, he let out a long sigh, one that contained too many emotions.

Attachment, regret, relief, liberation, and endless sorrow.

After burying his wife, he staggered over to the side of the old dog's corpse; this time, his movements were even gentler.

He crouched down, and just as he had petted it countless times, he tidied its messy fur, arranged its lifeless head into a serene position, and then picked up the old dog as well, placing it into a smaller pit right next to the other.

The old dog was very light, which made his heart ache all the more, so he slowly took off his outer garment and covered the old dog's body with it.

"Old friend, it is I, Blind Li, who has failed you... It is my incompetence... that made you suffer so many years with me..."

"In the next life... if we can still meet... you must come find me..."

The whimpering sounds rose again from Blind Li's mouth, but what he spoke were not mad ravings, but sober repentance and memories.

As he wept, he used his hands to push the soil and pack it down, his murky tears falling drop by drop onto the freshly turned earth.

The yellow soil gradually covered the loyal dog's body, rising into a small mound; Blind Li leaned against the mound, head tilted back, his shoulders shaking incessantly.

Moonlight shrouded the two graves, one large and one small, in the Mass Grave, with an old man with a face full of sorrow collapsed beside them, and two young men with solemn expressions standing to the side, looking like mourners, yet also like silent witnesses.

At the same time, dozens of miles away from Sangye Village.

In a desolate, uninhabited mountain range, inside a hidden cave, a litter of newborn puppies, eyes yet to open, were huddled under their mother's warm belly, jostling for milk.

One of the puppies, entirely jet-black, did not struggle and jostle like its siblings.

It suddenly stopped suckling, poked its little head out from under its mother, and sniffed in a certain direction with its wet nose; in those eyes that had not yet fully opened, a flicker of extremely faint golden light seemed to flash.

Toward the direction of Sangye Village, it wobbled to its feet, only to immediately fall over, struggling as it tried to crawl out of the nest, its throat emitting the whimpering sounds of a pup.

The puppy's movements were quickly discovered by the mother dog; the next moment, a large, warm, and rough tongue curled it back, forcefully pressing it back against the warm belly and feeding the rich milk to its mouth.

The mother dog let out a low whimper, as if to soothe, yet also like a warning.

The puppy struggled a couple of times, but ultimately could not resist the temptation of warmth and food, as well as the deep-seated yearning for maternal love within its bones, so it quieted down to suckle again, blending back in with its siblings.

Yet, in its tiny heart, a vague shadow regarding guardianship and a promise seemed to remain.

The fate of Reincarnation seemed to quietly turn at this moment.

Chen Mu, who was at the Mass Grave in Sangye Village, seemed to sense something and looked up toward the direction of the desolate mountains, but there was only swirling mist, and he could see nothing, just like his own heart, which was similarly a tangled mess of confusion.

The mysterious nature of the Beimang Sect, the real Buddha-light in his dream—these various tangled and unsolvable mysteries made him realize that the trouble in Yunmeng was far from over.

...

When Chen Mu and Liu Ziming returned to the village with Blind Li, the men and women who had been imprisoned in various households had already put on their clothes one after another and walked out, limping.

They were all gaunt and emaciated, the bruises and scratch marks covering their bodies hidden beneath their cloth garments, but the memories of being cruelly abused could not be easily erased.

"Save them." Chen Mu's voice was hoarse and weary, yet it carried an unquestionable firmness.

Most of the imprisoned men and women were already mentally deranged, their eyes hollow, their bodies covered in wounds. Some women had protruding bellies, clearly already pregnant.

"What a sin..." Liu Ziming leaned on a tree branch, looking at the miserable scene before him, shaking his head and sighing.

Chen Mu remained expressionless, silently using his sword to chop open the door locks of each house, rescuing the villagers who had been tied up with ropes one by one.

Some villagers knelt on the ground and cried bitterly after being rescued, while others remained dazed and foolish, having no reaction to the outside world.

"These people... I'm afraid it will be very difficult for them to recover." Liu Ziming said, full of worry after checking the condition of several villagers.

Chen Mu did not speak, merely silently helping the people one by one out into the sunlight.

Some of the villagers' wounds had already festered; he simply cleaned and bandaged them, then searched the homes of the slain monster-turned villagers for some stored food, which he distributed to everyone.

Blind Li stood in place; he could not see, but he could hear the wailing of the people, smell the faint scent of blood permeating the air, and his body trembled slightly.

The prosperous village he imagined, where no one would pick up lost property and doors were left unlocked at night, was gone, leaving only corpses everywhere; this reality gouged at his heart like a knife.

Without anyone needing to say anything, he had already sentenced himself to death in his heart.

After working for an entire morning, they finally managed to settle all the survivors they could find.

A rough count revealed there were still thirty-seven people, a number that made Chen Mu's heart sink.

At its peak, the entire Sangye Village had at least two or three hundred people; now, less than one in ten remained.

Ever since returning to the village, Blind Li had been following behind Chen Mu, helping out.

Although he was blind, he knew the location of every household in the village like the back of his hand, and instead became the best guide.

Those withered hands were exceptionally gentle when supporting the villagers, as if he were atoning for some sin.

The three of them worked in the village for the whole day.

They organized the villagers who still had the ability to move and cleaned up the corpses and filth in the village together.

There were too many corpses—remains of normal villagers who had been persecuted to death, as well as the Cat Demon Puppets that had been slain by Chen Mu after turning into monsters.

Chen Mu directed the villagers to dig a large pit and bury all the corpses of the monster-turned villagers.

As for the remains of the innocent villagers who had been slaughtered and left as corpses, they were buried separately in an open space at the west end of the village, with simple wooden tablets erected.

Suppressed sobbing sounded intermittently before the graves; at first, it was just one or two sniffling sounds, but later it merged into a chorus, with men and women hugging each other and crying bitterly. There was relief for having survived, grief for the loss of family, but more than anything, there was bewilderment.

Though the monster plague was eradicated, their families were broken and their loved ones lost; how were they to live their lives from here on?

Liu Ziming was also affected by this scene, his eyes slightly red; he saw the people's confusion about the future after escaping death. Although it was not his personal business, he was, after all, an official, and he had to seek a way out for the common people, so he approached Chen Mu and asked in a low voice.

"Chen Mu, what do you think they should do from now on?"

Chen Mu did not answer; looking at the desperate faces before him, he fell into deep thought.