We bear people have power

The little girl was diligently clearing away the dishes, completely ignoring the menacing group. It wasn't until she had finished clearing the table and was about to move it into the kitchen that she realized they were all staring at her.

The attention from everyone made the little girl a little scared, and she asked timidly, "W-what's going on?"

Master Liaoyi stared intently at the little girl, as if he had noticed something amiss.

The village chief frowned, also confused, and asked, "Master, could she be a monster?"

"Who is this young girl to you?" Master Liaoyi asked in return.

“A few months ago, I saw her collapse at the village entrance and rescued her. When she woke up, she didn’t remember anything, not even her parents’ names, so I adopted her and had her do some chores at home. Master, I have no relation to the girl,” the village chief said, trying to distance himself from the situation.

"A few months ago? Could it be the time when the birds and beasts disappeared?" Master Liaoyi pondered.

Upon hearing this, the villagers all agreed, saying, "That's right, that's right!"

Upon hearing this, everyone looked at the little girl with suspicion and resentment.

The little girl was surrounded by onlookers, her eyes brimming with tears of grievance. Before she could even speak up to defend herself, Lingxiu couldn't bear to watch any longer.

"A bunch of grown men bullying a little girl, how shameless!" Lingxiu stood with her hands on her hips, shielding the girl who was not much younger than her behind her, and pointed at Master Liaoyi while cursing.

Having been orphaned and destitute since childhood, Lingxiu had also experienced discrimination and bullying from her fellow villagers, so she naturally empathized with this scene. If Gongsun Jing hadn't stopped her with a look, she probably would have even drawn the Azure Dragon Sword.

Although Guan Bo and his group were well-dressed and generous, the villagers were not as polite as they had been at the beginning when it came to matters of survival in the village.

As soon as Lingxiu came out to cause trouble, some villagers started cursing: "What kind of wild child dares to interfere in the affairs of our Beiwang Village? He's born of a mother but has no manners..."

Before he could finish speaking, a gust of wind swept through and filled the man's mouth. The next moment, he covered his mouth, and blood trickled from between his fingers.

Guan Bo said coldly, "Watch your mouth, or next time it won't be as simple as biting your tongue."

The villagers were all shocked. They never expected that this handsome young man was also skilled in magic. No wonder Master Liaoyi treated him with such respect.

Master Liaoyi, seeing that something was amiss, explained out of respect for Guan Bo: "Little girl, I'm not bullying you. There is indeed something strange about this little girl. If she does housework every day, why are her hands still so fair and delicate?"

Although Master Liaoyi's cultivation was not advanced, he was still quite experienced. Guan Bo could see that the little girl was unusual, and so could he.

Upon hearing Master Yi's words, the village chief was also taken aback and quickly said to the little girl, "You...you roll up your sleeves!"

The little girl dared not disobey, so she rolled up her sleeves, revealing her two small arms, white as lotus roots, flawless like white jade.

The villagers were puzzled, but the village chief pointed at her and said, "She really is a monster!"

"How can you talk like that? Are you jealous of this girl's natural beauty?" Lingxiu unreasonably accepted the girl as her younger sister, looking like she was determined to protect her to the end.

"Don't be rude! Master Liaoyi is an enlightened being, and his divinations are always accurate. You little brat, how could you know his power?" the village chief shouted.

Lingxiu, however, composed a jingle to curse: "There was a fortune teller with great skill, whose divine calculations were extraordinary; he predicted that there was an emperor in the palace of Chang'an, and that the emperor's wife was called Niangniang; he predicted that among the five grains, broad beans were the largest, and among the crops in the fields, sorghum grew the longest; he predicted that among the three generations of a father and son, the father was the oldest, and that the wife's mother was definitely the man's mother-in-law; and lastly, this prediction he made was the most accurate—his head was on his neck."

Lingxiu was the most quick-witted, and most people couldn't out-talk her. The village chief had no choice but to say to Master Yi, "The day before yesterday, I saw her steal money from the house, so I whipped her with a rattan cane. It's only been two days, how could there not be a single scratch on her hands? She must be a demon!"

"No, I didn't steal it, I really didn't." The little girl cried, her large tears making her look pitiful.

However, she only said she didn't steal the money, but she didn't deny being beaten up.

The villagers all knew that the old village chief had ill intentions and often beat and scolded the little girl, so it was probably true. Seeing this strange scene, they believed it to be true, and their eyes turned more resentful and wary towards the little girl.

"Whether there's a problem or not, you'll know once you try it. I have a bottle here..." Master Liaoyi said, taking out the jade bottle from before to show off.

But as soon as it was taken out, it was discovered that it was covered with cracks. If you looked closely, you could see that the cracks were exactly the same as the gold patterns made by Guan Bo's fingertip blood.

That was because the Buddhist power it contained was too strong, causing it to crack the bottle.

"My...my darling!" Master Liaoyi cried out in anguish, looking at Guan Bo with a resentful expression.

Guan Bo shrugged and said, "You were the one who made me drip my blood to verify my identity, and now you're blaming me?"

Master Liaoyi experienced the heartache of throwing a thousand taels of silver into the water; the jade bottle was probably worth more than a thousand taels.

However, that's not the main point. The main point is that the jade bottle is broken and the compass is broken, so Master Liaoyi no longer has a way to quickly distinguish between humans and demons.

Master Liaoyi looked at Guan Bo, but the latter clearly had no intention of helping. He simply said, "This matter is of great importance. Master, if you have any other way to prove that she is a monster that harms people, please produce it quickly. Otherwise, relying solely on speculation is not reliable."

Guan Bo was naturally in spectator mode. Although this matter seemed unusual, it was none of his business, and no major incident like someone dying had occurred, so Guan Bo couldn't get involved.

As the Black Bear Spirit said, people all over the world eat meat and drink alcohol, so you can't force others to be vegetarian and observe abstinence.

Strange things kept happening, so it's no wonder the villagers invited Master Yi to exorcise the evil spirits; the little girl's origins were unknown, and she was mysterious in every way, so it was only natural that people would suspect her.

Not long ago, Monkey King ran back to Flower Fruit Mountain in a huff because of the Three Battles with the White Bone Demon, so Guan Bo naturally wouldn't judge people by their appearance like Tang Sanzang.

Without Guan Bo's support, Master Liaoyi had no choice but to say to the village chief, "The monster is too cunning. I need to set up an altar and perform a ritual to make it reveal itself. Go and prepare an altar for me, more than three zhang high, with an eight-immortal table, a grand master's chair, an incense burner, five offerings, candlesticks, yellow-edged paper, a cinnabar brush, coriander, five kinds of grains, and a bowl of water from a rootless source. As for this little girl, keep an eye on her for now."

The village chief agreed to everything, and before leaving, he gave the little girl a cold look, his disdain and disgust undisguised.

The villagers felt the same way. Looking at the scene, even if it was eventually proven that the little girl was not a monster, they would probably still vent their resentment on her.

A village woman, looking fierce, tried to come up and arrest the girl, seemingly intending to detain her first.

Lingxiu naturally refused, but Gongsun Jing pulled her back, letting the villagers arrest her. The little girl looked submissive, and even when the wicked women pinched her a few times in secret, she just silently shed tears and didn't utter a sound, only staggering away with the villagers.

Only after everyone had dispersed did Guan Bo comfort the indignant Lingxiu, saying, "Please calm down. Now that I've encountered this situation, I will not let them wrong an innocent person."

But at this moment, Xiong Shanjun, who had been sulking and silent, spoke up: "This time, I'm afraid I haven't wronged anyone. This little girl has a deathly aura about her, unlike that of the living. It's the kind of aura that comes from frequently dealing with corpses and ghosts. And if I'm not mistaken, she's missing a few bones in her feet."