Dance Of The Dragons
Chapter 368 : Demon Trap (1)

Chapter 368: Chapter 368 : Demon Trap (1)

The urgency of the situation demanded immediate action. Thus Village Head Chen, accompanied by Qiao Wei and Bai Ling, set out for Mount Wu without delay.

Having not seen the man for a long time after leaving Dong Village, Bai Siyang was pleasantly surprised to welcome him to his Wushan Temple.

"Village Head Chen, it has been quite a while!" a smile erupted on the sect leader’s face as he stood up, throwing his arms open wide in a heartfelt greeting.

"Indeed, indeed." Village Head Chen embraced Bai Siyang tightly, his eyes drinking in the opulent interior of the imposing temple. He could not help but feel a twinge of inadequacy when he found himself amidst so many accomplished cultivators, a feeling only amplified by the respect they showered upon him.

As the saying went, a gilded cage or a silver cage was not as good as one’s own dog kennel. He still felt a lot more comfortable back in his humble Dong Village. The village head thus hurried to report his predicament to Bai Siyang.

"Sect Leader Bai, I would never come to intrude if I had another choice. Please, please help us extinguish the evil spirits!"

Village Head Chen dropped to his knees and kowtowed three times in front of Bai Siyang.

"Evil spirits? What is going on?" Bai Siyang turned to look at Qiao Wei, who then cupped his hands and replied, "Shizun, Dong Village is facing some problems with spirits. So far, around ten people have been kidnapped by those spirits. According to Village Head Chen, they take the form of small children."

"Small children?"

Bai Siyang pulled Village Head Chen to his feet.

"Village Head, don’t be like this. Please take a seat," he said while gesturing to a nearby seat.

"Thank you, Sect Leader Bai..."

Village Head took his seat, and a maid hurried into the hall with cups of tea.

"Village Head, please go into detail about these spirits. What exactly happened?"

Village Head Chen wiped beads of cold sweat off his forehead. He emptied a whole cup before he began to tell the full story.

"We have only one eyewitness, a man we all refer to as Ah Zhu. According to his testimony, he was walking back from the forest with his brother, Ah Xu, when they heard the heart-rending cries of two small children.

Ah Zhu was carrying a lot of firewood, so he wanted to go home as soon as possible. Ah Xu, on the other hand, wanted to take a look at the crying children first.

Ironically, Ah Xu feared that monsters would come and claim the two children if left alone."

Village Head Chen shook his head in regret.

"After much argument, they then agreed that Ah Zhu should carry the firewood back home, and Ah Xu would go and make sure that the two children were safe and sound.

Ah Zhu was already a few hundred meters away from Ah Xu when he heard Ah Xu’s eerie words.

He said something like ’Huh? Why do you have horns and fluffy ears?’. Just as Ah Zhu turned on his heel to see what was going on, he heard his brother let out a blood-curdling scream.

Scared out of his wits, Ah Zhu threw all the firewood in his arm into the air and ran as fast as possible back to Dong Village. He said that he could hear tiny footsteps chasing after him, but they stopped as soon as he entered the village."

By the time Village Head Chen concluded his tale, a collective gasp rippled through the ranks of disciples standing guard along the wall.

All eyes darted towards Gu Shengxia and Wang Chunli, whose faces drained of color, ashen like curdled milk.

A tight frown creased Bai Siyang’s forehead as he fixed a narrowed gaze upon his two disciples.

"Disciple Gu, Disciple Wang, do you know something about this issue?"

"T-T-That..."

Anxious shoves were exchanged between Gu Shengxia and Wang Chunli, as each tried to force the other to speak first.

In the end, Wang Chunli had to swallow the bitter pill of seniority and speak up, all the while avoiding Qiao Wei’s gaze.

"Sh-Shizun, Gu-shidi and I had... We had a similar encounter at the bottom of Mount Wu. We... We found two children who fit Village Head Chen’s description very well.

One of them has dragon horns and a dragon tail. The other one has tiger ears and a tiger tail."

With a sharp intake of breath, Bai Siyang’s expression darkened.

"At the bottom of Mount Wu!"

He slapped his thigh in fury. "When did this happen? Why did no one come forward to report this matter?"

Both disciples turned their heads toward Qiao Wei.

Qiao Wei calmly spoke up on their behalf.

"Shizun, it happened around a week ago. I was there when they came across said two children. The children appeared harmless to me, so I released them when their father came to pick them up."

"And did they really sport such animalistic features on them?" Bai Siyang asked.

"Indeed, exactly the way Wang-shidi described them."

Village Head Chen’s mouth dropped open in a mixture of shock and disbelief.

"M-Master Qiao Wei, why would you let them go free? They are dangerous..."

Bai Siyang cleared his throat, prompting the village head to shut up at once.

"And this father, did he look like a tiger or a dragon?"

"He looked like a perfect human being," Qiao Wei said with a slight furrow. Now that he thought about it... what was that man exactly? A dragon, or a tiger? In any case, he could not be a human being. Not when his children looked like half-transformed beasts.

Bai Siyang heaved a deep sigh.

"Village Head Chen, you must be tired. I will arrange for a guest room for you. Please spend the night here. Everyone else, out. I wish to speak with Qiao Wei alone."

Nervously, Village Head Chen muttered his thanks. He was soon ushered out of the room, followed by all the other disciples but Qiao Wei.

As soon as everyone left, Bai Siyang said, "Qiao Wei, I do not need to tell you that this issue casts you in a very poor, if not terrible light."