Yuchi Bing Xia insisted on stopping at every village along the Long mountain range. He finally had the opportunity to leave the sect grounds with proper justification so naturally, he’d make full use of the situation.

Looking at the simple townsfolk that had gathered around the market square, he smiled brightly and smoothed out his sleeves. "Slowly, slowly. We aren’t in a hurry. We’ll listen to everyone’s worries."

Wu Min Huan sighed. This wasn’t the first time his Master reacted like this. He had reminded him several times again that they were here to acquire missions for the sect, not to help out the villagers and townsfolk on their own. But what could he do? His Master obviously had a lot of fun doing it this way and regarded this more as an outing between them than a real task he should do as the Sect Master.

Yuchi Bing Xia was currently patting an old woman’s hand, talking to her in a placating tone that had often been used to calm down his disciples when they were still young.

The woman was sobbing with tears in her eyes. "He just didn’t come back anymore. He was never like that! Even when all the other children were making trouble, my Ah Yang stayed filial. I swear you’ll never see a more filial child than him. He wouldn’t just run away. He’d at least come see me! He loved his granny the most."

A middle-aged woman walked up to her and gently gripped her arm. "Mother-in-law don’t be like this! These cultivators aren’t here for that kind of thing. Our Ah Yang just wanted to see the wide world. There’s nothing strange about that. Lots of young people are like that. Some of them sooner and some of them later. We’ll just have to wait until he comes back. It’s only been two months."

Another woman couldn’t help but pipe up at those words. "I heard that Ah Lin from the neighboring village also disappeared. I wouldn’t be so sure that this isn’t some supernatural thing happening."

Yuchi Bing Xia raised his brows. A supernatural thing? In fact, that wasn’t impossible. If several children vanished just like that, then it was likely that the demonic sects would have something to do with it.

Wu Min Huan had the same thought. He turned to the old woman and smiled warmly. "Your Ah Yang, when did you say he vanished?"

The old woman let go of Yuchi Bing Xia’s hand and trudged over to Wu Min Huan as fast as she possibly could on her old legs. She grabbed his sleeve, happy that somebody was finally willing to listen to her, and pulled him closer. "It was about two months ago. In the evening, he was still there but when I woke up the next morning, he was gone. We searched all over the village for him and even went to look in the woods. But you know there have always been bandits in the woods so we couldn’t search for too long. He didn’t come back even once since then."

Wu Min Huan nodded and turned to the other woman. "Then what about that Ah Lin from the neighboring village you talked about?"

The woman raised her brows and took a deep breath, pursing her lips in thought. "That … should have been about two weeks ago?"

Yuchi Bing Xia and Wu Min Huan exchanged a glance. It seemed even more likely now that this wasn’t aboveboard.

Yuchi Bing Xia cleared his throat and went over to the old woman, gently patting her shoulder and pulling her off his disciple. "Don’t worry about it, Madam. The Yun Zou Sect will take care of it. If this is truly the work of demonic practitioners, we will definitely find out."

"Will you really be able to bring Ah Yang back to me?"

Yuchi Bing Xia hesitated before nodding solemnly. "We will do our best to bring him back to you." He wasn’t too sure if there really was a chance of bringing him back. The boy had vanished two months ago. Either he was dead or he was part of the demonic sect now. In neither case would they be able to return the child home.

Yuchi Bing Xia nodded at the older woman’s daughter-in-law and took one last look at the other townsfolk before he left with Wu Min Huan. The two of them stopped several meters away from the edge of the town.

Yuchi Bing Xia looked back at the gate and then observed the forest in the distance. "If this is the work of demonic practitioners, then they should be hiding in the forest."

"Then should we go there and search for their hideout?"

Yuchi Bing Xia shook his head. "Blindly looking around won’t help. Let’s go to the villages closer to the forest edge. If children vanished from there too, that should reveal their traces."

Wu Min Huan nodded and followed his Master towards the forest. He didn’t doubt that they would be able to find the demonic practitioners with his Master there. He couldn’t help but furrow his brows though. "Master, would the demonic practitioners really be so daring to open up a hideout this close to our Yun Zou Sect?"

Yuchi Bing Xia sighed. "I hope it’s not true but who knows? Our Yun Zou Sect isn’t at the top of the first-tier sects anymore. Maybe it made them think they had a chance to go unnoticed. Well, a child vanished two months ago, it might not even have been the first one. And we only found out about it now. It seems we’ll have much to do in the coming months to make sure something like this won’t happen again." He sighed once more and shook his head, motioning to the side further away from their sect. Now, he could only hope that the hideout of the demonic practitioners wouldn’t be too close. Otherwise, where would they put their face as one of the first righteous sects?