White Bone Demon Trail

Chapter 4 Dad, you smell so good

Xiaoqu Village is surrounded by a stream flowing down from the mountain. The stream is clear and reflects the trees on both sides.

At the entrance of the village, there is a stone bridge about ten feet wide. Sitting on the bridgehead is a hunched old man, an elder of the village, who is over eighty years old but still in good health. The young men in the village call him Seventh Master.

Seventh Master, wearing a straw hat woven from rice straw, sat leisurely by the bridge, occasionally puffing on his pipe, watching the sun gradually rise in the sky, and wondering how far the group of people who went to the mountains last night had gone.

As he was pondering this, he suddenly caught sight of a figure at the village entrance. He looked over without thinking; it was an instinctive habit he had developed over the past twenty years of keeping watch at the village entrance.

He squinted and saw that the man was getting closer; it was Tian Erzhuang, the second son of the Tian family.

Seventh Master frowned and called out to him, "Erzhuang, didn't you go into the mountains with the village chief and the others? Why did you come back alone?"

Upon seeing the old man, Tian Erzhuang unconsciously spoke with a hint of respect, "Seventh Master, I was too tired last night and fell asleep halfway there, losing track of the village chief and the others."

This is my first time going into the mountains to return to my ancestral village. Without someone to guide me, how am I supposed to find the way?

"You brat!" Seventh Master scolded angrily upon hearing this, "How can you sleep on such an important matter!"

Go back and wait for your father to whip you with a rope! Did anyone see you doing this?

"No! No!" Tian Erzhuang hurriedly waved his hand and laughed, "The mountain road was all wet, how could I have met anyone? I was just really hungry, so I came down the mountain and came back."

"Hmph, you're in luck, kid. Da Fu has brought back another fat sheep from out of town, and he's cooking it up in the village right now. Go on over there."

Seventh Master waved his hand, dismissing him and refusing to gossip with the boy any longer.

Upon hearing the word "fat sheep," Tian Erzhuang's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed happily, "Alright, Seventh Master!"

After saying that, he hurriedly walked into the village.

Seventh Master took another puff of his pipe, and after inhaling too much, he coughed a few times. He glanced back casually and suddenly noticed that the shadow behind Tian Erzhuang was somewhat blurry, as if someone else was following behind him.

He rubbed his eyes, and the smoke from his pipe dissipated. Seventh Master simply assumed that he was old and his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Tian Erzhuang walked into the village and headed straight for the main hall. When he arrived at the hall, he saw a group of women gathered around a stove in a courtyard enclosed by mud walls. Some were tending the fire, others were washing vegetables, and several men were butchering some kind of animal.

"Woof~ Woof~"

"Woof woof woof~"

Just as Tian Erzhuang was about to go inside, several village dogs suddenly started barking, startling the people in the earthen hut who couldn't help but turn around to look.

A thin man, upon seeing him, asked in bewilderment, "Erzhuang, didn't you go back to the mountain stronghold with the village chief? Why are you back again?"

Er Zhuang gave an awkward smile and could only give a vague reply before walking into the hall, staring blankly at the meat that the men were slaughtering.

White, glistening meat was piled on the stone slab, with a pair of hands and feet piled together. Blood was everywhere, and the faces of the men cutting the meat were inevitably stained with blood. There was no fear on their faces, only excitement and a desire to see something delicious.

A large pot of water was boiling nearby, and a round piece of meat was already cooked through.

This scene, when witnessed by the women in the hall, did not seem unusual to them at all, as if it were an ordinary occurrence.

Tian Erzhuang felt no fear; instead, he swallowed the saliva that involuntarily escaped his lips.

"Sixth Aunt, where did this fat sheep come from? The meat doesn't look like that of an ordinary sheep!"

"Oh dear, it was your Uncle Fu who drugged me at a tea stall on the roadside. I heard he's a chivalrous knight!" A woman, boiling water in a pot, said with a laugh, "You're in for a treat!"

Tian Erzhuang nodded with a silly grin, his back seemed a little itchy again, and he couldn't help but scratch it.

A man chimed in, "Hey, this looks just as good as the wealthy Bai family. It's been months since we've had such a fat sheep!"

"If you ask me, if we didn't have to send so many fat sheep to the village, the Bai family alone would be enough to feed us until the end of the year."

"What nonsense are you talking about? If we didn't have a family member in the mountain stronghold, the government would have arrested us long ago."

"We are law-abiding citizens, farmers, what right do the government have to arrest us?"

"Alright, stop arguing. The village chief and the others went to the mountain stronghold again last night. They should be back in a few days. If we find a way then, we can go and catch more sheep to raise!"

A group of people chatted happily about everyday things, and before long a big feast was prepared. More than a hundred people from the whole village came to the hall to enjoy the delicious food.

Some young children also found the food delicious, and even after finishing the pieces of meat, they would put them back in their mouths and lick them again.

Throughout Xiaoqu Village, not a single person looked like a frail farmer; on the contrary, everyone had a rosy complexion and a robust physique.

If one were to shed their peasant clothes and don bandit attire, they would be virtually indistinguishable from mountain bandits.

After finishing his lunch, Tian Erzhuang patted his round belly and went home, where he inevitably got whipped over a hundred times by his father with a hemp rope.

But he didn't feel much pain in his back and buttocks; he just felt incredibly tired. After his father left, he climbed into bed and fell into a deep sleep.

……

As the sun began to set, Tian Erzhuang's father, Tian Li, returned home after finishing his farm work.

The thought of his second son made him furious. In the village, whose son was twenty years old and hadn't returned to his ancestral village? If he didn't return to his ancestral village, he wasn't considered to have truly accepted his family. And who knew how many bandits roamed the vast Daqing Mountains, which stretched for hundreds of miles?

The fact that Xiaoqu Village exists on this mountainside means it wasn't run by good people. This place was originally a den of bandits, inhabited by the bandits' relatives and some old bandits.

In such a chaotic world, only the wicked with blood on their hands can survive. The common people outside live worse than pigs and dogs. They are able to live the life they have today entirely because of the protection of the mountain stronghold and the customs passed down from generation to generation.

That is, cannibalism.

They couldn't grow crops on the mountainside, and they had no way to make a living. In the outside world, people even had to fight over tree bark to eat. The only way to survive was to eat people!

He sighed, looking at the unlit yard, and couldn't help but curse his wife: "You idiot, it's getting late, did you forget to turn on the lights?"

The courtyard was quiet, and no one answered him. Only from the main house came a rustling sound, like that of mice.

Enraged, Tian Li kicked open the door to the main room and yelled, "You wretched woman, you..."

He suddenly stopped halfway through his sentence.

His body seemed to be frozen in place, standing there motionless.

The last rays of light from the horizon shone into the dimly lit room. On the wall hung an old statue of Guanyin, whose kind face smiled down upon the world, but whose face was splattered with blood, which dripped down.

Beneath the Guanyin statue, his wife lay on the ground, her mouth agape as if trying to say something, but she had no strength left, her body convulsing uncontrollably.

His second son was lying on top of it, like a ravenous dog, tearing at the flesh and eating the bloody meat bit by bit. Even when the door was kicked open, Tian Erzhuang didn't react, focused on devouring the food in front of him.

Tian Li was utterly shocked and enraged. He stepped forward and kicked Er Zhuang aside, shouting, "You beast! What are you doing?"

Tian Erzhuang was kicked to the ground. He rolled over and lay face down, raising his blood-covered face. He grinned at his father and said, "Dad! It smells so good!"
Mom, she smells so good!
Come and try it!
Come and try it!

"You! You beast! I'll beat you to death today!"

Enraged, Tian Li grabbed a nearby iron rake and smashed it down hard.

"Clang!"

The iron rake struck Tian Erzhuang on the head, causing blood to gush out, the flesh to rip open, and even the bone on his forehead to appear exposed.

But Tian Erzhuang felt no pain at all. Instead, he spat the rotten flesh in his mouth onto his hand. The flesh, mixed with saliva and blood, looked somewhat black. He handed it to his father and muttered, "Dad, you have to try it."
It smells so good! It really smells amazing!

"Dad, why aren't you trying it? Doesn't it smell good?"

"You... you... monster!"

Seeing that his son's forehead was rotting but he still showed no sign of pain, Tian Li's fear finally overwhelmed his anger. He threw down the iron rake and turned to run out of the yard.

But a sudden force under his foot caused him to stumble and fall against the threshold. Tian Li turned around in a panic, only to see Tian Erzhuang lying on the ground, one hand grabbing his foot, grinning foolishly as he said:
"Dad, you smell so good!"

You smell so good!
"Dad, you try it! See if it tastes good!"

As he spoke, he ripped off Tian Li's foot with terrifying force, presenting the still-muscled foot to Tian Li, ignoring his father's screams and struggles, and continued:
"Dad, try your own flesh, isn't it delicious?"

Tian Li's piercing screams and wails rang out, drowning out the last rays of sunlight in the west and startling the village dogs into barking incessantly.

In the village's ancestral hall, with its green tiles and stone walls, a figure stood there, seemingly out of nowhere.

Bai Wuxiang listened to the screams and wails, but was not greatly moved.

Behind the shrine at his feet was a dry well, the bottom of which was covered with white skeletons.

These are the skeletons that Xiaoqu Village eats, some are old and rotten bones from decades ago, and some are fresh bones that have just been thrown in today.

Wisps of white mist emanated from his body, and streams of resentful energy rose from the well. This black resentful energy and death energy mixed with the white mist, slowly enveloping the entire Xiaoqu Village.

In the village, Seventh Master had planned to go to bed early.

But then he heard screams one after another, which startled the old man so much that he sat up abruptly.

He carried an oil lamp and went out of the house, only to see his seven-and-a-half-year-old grandson crying and screaming in the courtyard, his daughter-in-law biting off pieces of flesh.

His younger relatives were tearing each other apart, their bloodstains splattered all over the courtyard, and the sounds of tearing and swallowing filled the air.

Before Seventh Master could react, his son pounced on him. He felt a sharp pain in his neck, as if something was flowing out, and then everything went black as he collapsed.

The black dogs in the village continued to bark incessantly; the billowing white fog could obscure the minds of ordinary people, but it could not confuse them.

Bai Wuxiang looked down and saw figures that resembled both humans and dogs darting towards the black dogs. Several barks and howls rang out, and then the vast village fell into dead silence.

The billowing deathly and resentful energy surged like mist and was absorbed into Bai Wuxiang's body. The Resentful Spirit Pearl shimmered, and a spell entered his mind.

"Great Technique: The Tribulation of the Heart: All sentient beings in the world harbor fear. The fear of the heart is manifested as their tribulation. If the tribulation is not overcome, the heart dies..."

After gaining a clear understanding, Bai Wuxiang realized why this technique was called a great technique. Like the illusion techniques he himself practiced, it required the caster to expend their mental energy to create illusions and dreamscapes.

This Mind-Trapping Tribulation, on the other hand, manipulates the mind of the person being targeted, causing them to experience only what they fear most. Moreover, the illusions are numerous and difficult to distinguish from reality, making it far more sophisticated than my own minor illusions.

He looked at the entire Xiaoqu Village. So many lives and so much resentment had been used to awaken a great spell. If he were to pursue even more powerful magic and sorcery, wouldn't he be creating even more bloodshed?
Wouldn't I eventually become an invincible demon who only knows how to kill?

With this thought in mind, Bai Wuxiang realized that he needed to cultivate not only the Dharma but also his mind. Otherwise, with an insufficient mind, he would be unable to control his resentment and would only bring about his own destruction.

Moreover, it seems that resentment cannot be obtained solely through killing; there may be other methods.

He looked down at the piles of white bones in the dry well, frowned slightly, and took out a skeleton that was now only nine pieces long.

This skeleton was somehow connected to his original body, as if they were connected by blood and bone.

Bai Wuxiang remembered the child that Lao Jiang had mentioned. It wasn't his child, but rather the illegitimate son of the Bai family patriarch, who was his half-brother.

It seems he cannot escape his fate now; the bloodline connection in his bones will dissipate in a few months.

But Bai Wuxiang wouldn't allow himself to leave any leverage. If this bone fell into the hands of some demon-slaying master, he would be in big trouble.

There are likely some highly skilled cultivators in this world, which can be inferred from the three people from the Great Abyss Kingdom we encountered last night.

Caution is the key to longevity.

He looked at the desolate village and said softly, "I have avenged you. Your obsession should also dissipate. Go to your reincarnation, and this skeletal body will belong to me. We are even now."

Having said that, Bai Wuxiang turned around, transformed into mist, and flew away.

The human world is too chaotic and not suitable for his cultivation.

He needs to go to a secluded place deep in the mountains and forests, to find a treasure land with abundant yin energy, so that he can cultivate in peace.

Although Bai Wuxiang doesn't know how the strength of spirits is classified, he imagines that the older the spirit and the longer it has cultivated, the stronger it is.

In truth, he was nothing more than a skeleton demon born by chance, pitifully weak and too easily killed.

Bai Wuxiang flew through the mist for several hours. As the night gradually faded and the majestic sun appeared, he had no choice but to descend into the mountains and forests to avoid the sunlight, which even demons and monsters revered.

He landed in a dense forest where the sun could not penetrate the layers of lush trees. Bai Wuxiang slowly sat down cross-legged beside a giant tree, scanned his surroundings to make sure there was nothing unusual, and then calmed his mind to enter meditation.

Bai Wuxiang circulated the Yin energy within his body, nourishing his external skin, and his previously dry and cracked skin healed completely.

His body was actually a skeleton covered in human skin, which he needed to maintain day and night, otherwise it would dry out and decay.

Once the human skin is gone and only bones are used to walk, there will be too many inconveniences. Moreover, once the true form of the White Bone Demon is exposed, there are too many ways to deal with him.

Bai Wuxiang needs the skin of the young master of the Bai family to conceal his true form. He will only consider replacing it when the skin becomes worn out or inconvenient to wear.

(End of this chapter)