Even hybrid monsters have their day

She took a pink ball from her clothes, pressed it with her finger, and threw it into the grass, muttering "Break." Then, without thinking, she grabbed Ai Shao Chen, who was standing to the side unaware of the change, and ran back the way she came without looking back.

Having learned her lesson last time, she made sure to request some life-saving and escape-ready items from the armory this time.

Ai Shao Chen hadn't sensed anything amiss from beginning to end, but now, suddenly being led away like this, he was inevitably a little bewildered. He pulled his hand away from Geng Miao Wan's and asked, "What's wrong? What happened?"

He instinctively felt that Geng Miaowan's reaction was related to the bushes behind him. As if sensing something, he turned around to look as he ran. He saw countless eyes flashing green light staring at him from the dark bushes, eerily quiet and quite terrifying.

They seemed to be stopped by something in the grass, and a faint pink halo appeared at the point of impact.

Ai Shao Chen had never seen anything like this before, and he stood there dumbfounded. Geng Miao Wan tugged at him a few times, urging, "Run! My barrier won't hold for long." He suddenly snapped out of his daze and took a step forward with a start.

Without looking back, the two ran all the way to the foot of the mountain. After running along the main road for a while, they slowly stopped. They looked at each other, still shaken, and looked back together to make sure that the creatures hadn't followed them before relaxing.

"I didn't know you were a cultivator, young brother. I'm truly grateful for your rescue. But... what are those things in the bushes? Could they be... wolves?" In Ai Shao Chen's mind, the only creature with such eerie green eyes could be a wolf.

Geng Miaowan shook her head. Although it was the first time she had ever seen something like that, how could a wolf harbor such intense resentment? She looked at him, then at the mountain shrouded in darkness, and after casually making up a sect for herself, she asked, "When you came out of that bush just now, did you notice anything strange?"

"No, besides pebbles, there's only weeds." Ai Shao Chen felt a nauseous sensation, as if countless tiny insects were crawling all over his body, when he thought about how he had just come out from there. He had originally planned to send the yamen runners to the mountain tomorrow to search for the two runners who had disappeared during the day, but now it seemed likely they were in grave danger.

He shuddered and said, "Enough talk, let's leave here first." Seeing that Geng Miaowan agreed, he added, "Since you want to witness the Rain Ceremony, why don't you come back to Yonghe Town with me? The Rain Ceremony in Shangxing Town is still a few days away, while the Rain Ceremony in Yonghe Town is the day after tomorrow. After we've seen the Rain Ceremony in Yonghe Town, we can go to Shangxing Town in time. This will allow me to fulfill my duty as a host and repay your life-saving grace."

Geng Miaowan was taken aback. "How come there's a Rain Festival in Yonghe Town too?"

"Yes, ever since Shangxing Town received the blessing of the Rain God, neighboring towns and counties have followed suit, inviting Master Zhang to perform rituals and worship the Rain God every year, praying for favorable weather in the coming year."

Will Zhang Tianshi appear tomorrow?

"That's natural."

Upon hearing this, Geng Miaowan readily agreed. After all, her goal was to meet at Yuntian Pavilion and Zhang Tianshi, so she figured it didn't really matter where they met.

On the way back, Geng Miaowan learned a lot about the missing children from Ai Shaochen.

It turns out that not only Shangxing Town and Yonghe Town, but also towns and villages within a radius of a hundred miles have experienced mysterious disappearances of children. Based on the information currently available, Geng Miaowan has summarized them into three categories.

First, without exception, all the missing children were girls.

Secondly, the day before the child went missing, he came back from playing outside and was pale. He went straight to his room to sleep without eating or speaking.

Third, they all disappeared at night in their own rooms.

Yan Lian'er from the Yan family also perfectly fits these three criteria. Therefore, it is clear that the disappearances of children in these towns must be related, and it is very likely that they were committed by the same person.

She and Xiaobai followed the scent to this mountain, and the little girl Ai Shaochen saw on the mountain was very likely Yan Lian'er. Then… what about the other children? Did they all come to this mountain too? Where did they all end up?

Ai Shaochen said Yan Lian'er disappeared before his eyes. What exactly happened? And most importantly, why did they come to this mountain in the first place? And what are those things on the mountain? Are they related to the children's disappearance?

Geng Miaowan felt her mind was completely filled with these questions, but she couldn't find a single decent answer.

When they returned to Yonghe County, it was already midnight. Ai Shaochen arranged for her to stay at the county magistrate's residence. Yonghe County was a small county town, and the county magistrate's residence was not very big. Apart from the room where Ai Shaochen himself lived, there was only one room left.

It must be said that Ai Shaochen was a very warm-hearted county magistrate, at least one who truly cared about the people's affairs. After taking Geng Miaowan to stay in various places, he did not leave immediately, but stayed to continue discussing the matter of the missing children with her until late at night before reluctantly departing.

After Ai Shaochen left, Geng Miaowan finally had a chance to pick up Xiaobai and place it on the table, asking her about the things on the mountain. Xiaobai's answer, however, horrified her.

"You mean... those things that appeared in the bushes on the mountain were zombies? So many of them, all of them zombies?" She suppressed her shock and tried to control her voice as she spoke, "How is that possible? I've never heard of zombies appearing in hordes anywhere..."

“Just because you don’t know doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Luckily, those that appeared just now were only small zombies in their initial stages. Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t have escaped so easily.” Although it was also the first time Xiaobai had seen this horde of zombies mobilized, she was clearly much calmer than Geng Miaowan. “As far as I know, in the human world, there are people who make a living by raising corpses.”

"You mean... a corpse raiser?" She had read about this in books before her reincarnation; such a profession did exist in ancient times. "Then, those zombies are......"

Geng Miaowan was horrified by her own guess. If it were true, that person was too cruel. But after thinking about it, she felt something was off. "If he was a corpse raiser, how could he make a child walk so far to the mountains so far from the town in the middle of the night?"

Xiao Bai shook his head and said, "So things may not be as you and I think. As far as I know, corpse raisers don't specifically target age or gender, and they generally don't target living people. So, maybe those things in the mountains aren't the same as the child we're looking for. Maybe Yan Lian'er just happened to go there."

Although it said that, it lacked confidence.