SWORD OF THE DEMON WOLF

Exiled from the Village

Once he snapped out of his daze, the man named Song Rui rushed out of the house in a panic.

“What’s wrong? What happened inside?” asked a woman, confused by the terrified and anxious expression on Song Rui’s face.

“Come inside! Li Lan and her child are dead!” Song Rui replied, his voice trembling.

A wave of shock spread among the villagers gathered in front of Xiao Yu’s house. Some of them finally mustered the courage to step inside.

Song Rui also asked two women to come in with them. Given that Li Lan was found completely naked, it wouldn’t be proper for only men to handle her body.

Four men and two women who witnessed the scene inside were shocked and confused. But Sujak immediately led them to the bedroom where Li Lan’s corpse was.

Screams erupted from the two women as they saw Li Lan’s lifeless body. They were also stunned to find Xiao Chen lying unconscious and seemingly dead. However, upon closer inspection, they found that he was still breathing.

The four men carried Xiao Chen out of the house, while the two women stayed behind to tend to Li Lan’s body.

“Ying Yue, can you tell what this is?” asked the older woman whose hair had almost turned entirely white. She looked to be around sixty, and her finger pointed toward Li Lan’s inner thigh.

Ying Yue, a woman in her thirties, followed the direction of the older woman’s finger. She saw a wide, white stain on Li Lan’s inner thigh, as well as similar marks on the bedsheet.

“This is dried semen. But whose? Could it be Xiao Chen’s?” Ying Yue blurted, curiosity flooding her mind. Who could have left such a large amount?

“Hush… Watch your mouth! There’s no way Xiao Chen would commit such a heinous act against his own mother. Besides, you saw his body—he’s covered in wounds,” the elderly woman snapped, glaring at her.

“Enough. Let’s prepare Li Lan’s body so she can be buried soon,” she added.

The two women quickly cleaned Li Lan’s body before wrapping it in cloth.

Outside, an elderly man who served as the village healer examined Xiao Chen’s condition. His already wrinkled brow deepened as he noticed the strange marks on the young man’s body.

“A normal person would’ve died from wounds like these,” he muttered to himself.

Not long after, a burly middle-aged man ran toward the crowd and stopped nearby, his breathing heavy and heart pounding in his chest.

“You four—come with me! I found Xiao Yu’s body near the edge of the forest,” he announced, sparking curiosity among the villagers.

The four men quickly followed him as he turned and rushed back in the direction he came from.

---

That day, Li Lan and Xiao Yu were buried side by side. Meanwhile, Xiao Chen temporarily stayed with the village healer to receive regular treatment.

Days passed quickly. It had already been a week since the tragedy that took the lives of Xiao Yu and Li Lan. But the conversations around the incident showed no signs of dying down.

The old, the young, men and women alike—everyone kept talking about it. Especially about Xiao Yu’s martial prowess and the semen found on Li Lan’s corpse.

Elsewhere, Xiao Chen, who had returned to his home, could only sit and stare blankly at the ruins of his life. He never imagined that his once-happy family would be destroyed in a single night. His eyes were empty as they scanned the wrecked interior of the house.

In that frozen moment, the twenty-year-old remembered his mother’s final words. He slowly stood and made his way to the kitchen to grab a hoe, then walked to his parents’ bedroom.

Once his mind was calm, Xiao Chen began digging beneath the bed where his mother had spent her last night alive. Gently, he struck the dirt floor with the hoe, bit by bit, until he hit something hard.

“There it is,” he muttered.

His eyes fixed on a rusted metal box buried about half a meter deep. Eager to uncover its contents, he dug faster.

Soon, the box was fully unearthed. Xiao Chen opened it slowly, revealing a light-blue-covered manual and a tightly rolled piece of dried leather. But just as he reached out to examine the manual, he heard footsteps entering the house.

He quickly closed the box and hid it among the rubble. Then he hurried out of the bedroom.

A tall, broad-shouldered man shook his head as he looked around the devastated home.

“Sir…,” Xiao Chen said after recognizing Lu Feng, the man who had just entered.

“So you’re here, Xiao Chen. I asked Lu Han to look for you, but he said he hadn’t seen you anywhere,” said Lu Feng, eyeing Xiao Chen from head to toe.

“I know the death of your parents hit you hard, but you must stand up and move forward. Your future is still ahead of you—don’t let this tragedy ruin it,” he continued.

“Thank you for your concern. I’ve been thinking the same. I can’t stay buried in grief forever. There comes a time when I must rise and move forward,” Xiao Chen replied. His fists clenched tightly. The desire for revenge burned fiercely in his mind.

“Actually, I came to talk to you about something important. Listen closely.” Lu Feng took a deep breath before continuing. “There’s a rumor going around that the villagers are planning to exile you. I suggest you leave before they do.”

“On what grounds would they banish me, Sir?” Xiao Chen asked, confusion clouding his face.

Lu Feng exhaled roughly, then pulled out a small cloth pouch from inside his shirt. “They say you and your family are a disgrace to this village—especially your mother, who was raped even after her death.”

The father of Lu Han handed the pouch of coins to Xiao Chen. “Take this. Consider it severance pay for your service to me. I have to go now—it wouldn’t look good if the villagers saw me here.”

Without waiting for a reply, Lu Feng placed the pouch on the table and walked out.

Not long after Lu Feng left, Xiao Chen began wrapping the metal box and some of his clothes in one of his mother’s old cloths. Then he heard voices yelling from outside.

He slung the bundle over his shoulder and stepped out.

A group of villagers—men and women—stood there, looking at him with disgust, as if he were filth that offended their sight.

“Get out of this village and never come back!” shouted a middle-aged man, pointing directly at him.

“You’ll bring disease upon us if you stay. Leave now!” added Ying Yue, the woman who had discovered the semen on Li Lan’s body.

“Leave! Leave! Leave!” the crowd chanted in unison.

Xiao Chen turned his head, taking one last look at the house where he had grown up over the past twenty years. Without a single word to defend himself, he turned and walked away, leaving behind the hateful villagers.

Before heading to Mount Huashan as his mother had instructed, Xiao Chen made his way to the graves of his parents, deep in the forest, to bid farewell.

But just before he reached the graves, he heard voices coming from behind the dense trees.

“I’ve driven Xiao Chen out of his home. Later, I’ll send people to search the house and retrieve the manual.”

“Good… We need that manual immediately. If you find it, we promise to make you the head of Qincheng Village forever.”

Hearing his name mentioned, Xiao Chen crept closer to the voices.

“Lu Feng…!” His heart sank as he recognized the man he once respected. Lu Feng was talking to two of the very people who had murdered his parents and defiled his mother’s corpse.