#304 - I slay demons in Dafeng
“Young Master Wei, what do you think of Tong’er?”
The sunlight was dazzling, and the white robe was blown against his body by the warm wind, outlining Li Qi's slender figure.
Hearing the latter's question, Wei Changtian was speechless for a long while before asking back with a blank face:
“Your Majesty... Which aspect are you referring to?”
“Naturally, all aspects.”
Li Qi smiled and said, “Appearance, background, personality, all these... do they catch Young Master Wei's eye?”
“...”
Catch my eye?
No matter how slow Wei Changtian's reaction was, he could roughly guess what Li Qi wanted to do, but at the same time, he was very puzzled as to why the latter would do this.
He had just killed a third-rank general of Da Feng under Yuanzhou City, but Li Qi not only didn't mention it, but instead wanted to give away his daughter?
The best way to deal with this situation was to play dumb, so Wei Changtian pondered for a moment, and then replied with a solemn expression:
“Your Majesty is joking.”
“Princess is of noble status, how dare this humble one make random comments.”
“Hahahaha, very well.”
Li Qi laughed a few times: “Then we'll talk about this later, both I and Tong’er can afford to wait.”
Wait for your sister, can you talk about something serious?
Muttering in his heart, Wei Changtian decided not to talk to Li Qi about these irrelevant things, and simply took the initiative to ask:
“Your Majesty, the Princess mentioned earlier that she wanted to ask me for help, I wonder what it is?”
“This ah...”
The smile on his face slowly faded, Li Qi strode forward and walked slowly on the bluestone path, his robe swaying slightly with his steps.
“Young Master Wei, I hope you won't tell too many people what I'm about to say.”
Finally!
Wei Changtian's expression sharpened: “Your Majesty, rest assured, this humble one will definitely keep his mouth shut!”
“That's good...”
Li Qi nodded, reached out and stroked his long sleeves, and told a mysterious story.
One hundred and twenty years ago, it was exactly sixty years since the last war between Feng and Ning.
Also in early summer, several murders suddenly occurred in a county town within the Jingning Prefecture of Da Feng.
The deceased were all unmarried young boys and girls, with no wounds on their bodies, nor any internal injuries.
At first, the government office only thought that this was the work of an evil person, so they transferred the case to the Night Watchmen for handling.
However, unlike the Suspended Mirror Division, which had branches in various states within Da Ning, the Night Watchmen did not have offices in various parts of Da Feng, so by the time the news was sent to Fengyuan, and the Night Watchmen set off to investigate the case in Jingning Prefecture, more than ten days had passed.
And in these ten days, the case deteriorated again, the number of children who died tragically increased from several a day to more than ten a day, and finally reached a terrifying number of nearly a hundred a day.
Although a county town had a large population, nearly a thousand children died in half a month, and anyone could notice the strangeness.
For a time, the people were panicked and frightened.
All the children in the city were locked in their houses by their parents, but it was useless, as long as they were left unattended for a moment, the children were very likely to die suddenly for no reason.
Such a killing method was simply unheard of.
However, when committing crimes everywhere, some people would be lucky enough to see the appearance of the evil person...
Or rather, it was not a person at all, but a monster that looked like neither an eagle nor a leopard.
This monster could not only transform between reality and illusion, but also transform into a human form, and even after the Night Watchmen brought in a second-rank expert, they could do nothing about it.
Helpless, the government office had to temporarily avoid its edge and move all the children in the city outside the city.
This approach did work, and all the children who left the city did not die suddenly, and the adults in the city were also safe.
And when there were no more unmarried young boys and girls in the city, the number of deaths was fixed at three thousand two hundred and sixteen.
Although the monster had not yet been captured, at least no one would die anymore, as for the people in the city, they could all be moved away in the future.
The lives of the people slowly returned to stability, and the turmoil caused by this incident in Da Feng gradually subsided.
Just when everyone thought that this disaster was about to pass, something happened on the night of July 15th that made Li Qi's voice tremble even when he talked about it.
Overnight, 72,000 households in the city, along with all the pigs, cattle, chickens, sheep... all living things died suddenly before dawn, their deaths being exactly the same as those of the previous children.
Before sunset, the city had a population of hundreds of thousands, and after sunrise, only a dead city remained.
When this kind of thing happened, the Da Feng court was naturally shocked and grieved, and wanted to thoroughly investigate it.
But since then, the monster had never appeared again, and no clues could be found no matter how much manpower and material resources were spent.
“If it were a few months ago, I would definitely answer you, yes.”
Li Qi shook his head and gave a very strange answer: “But now... that is not the case.”
“...”
Wei Changtian did not respond and waited quietly for the following.
Li Qi was silent for a moment before continuing.
“In the case of Huailing Prefecture, we were also helpless against the monster at first.”
“The methods of all sects and factions, Taoism, Buddhism, Demon, Confucianism, and all kinds of methods have been tried, but they are still as helpless as they were one hundred and twenty years ago.”
“Until a swordsman suddenly approached the Night Watchmen and said that he could subdue this demon.”
“At first, no one believed him, but at that time, we couldn't care so much, and we were willing to try any method.”
“But who would have thought that this swordsman actually killed the demon... with just one sword.”
“With the demon destroyed, nearly one million people in Huailing City were spared.”
“At that time, I was still young, and the late Emperor had promised this swordsman a lifetime of wealth and glory, and even wanted to marry my eldest sister to him.”
“But who knew that he didn't want anything, he just wanted to spar with ten sword masters of Da Feng.”
“The late Emperor agreed and found ten of the most skilled swordsmen in Da Feng to compete with this person.”
“The swordsman won all ten battles, and then left without saying goodbye. The next time we heard of his whereabouts was nine years later.”
“In your Da Ning, also looking for people to compete with swords...”
“...”
Hearing this, Wei Changtian suddenly froze for a moment, recalling the mysterious swordsman that Qin Zhengqiu had told him about, who had killed Zhang Benchu on Tianshan Mountain fifty years ago.
The strength, time, and behavior all matched, it seemed to be the same person.
“Your Majesty.”
Temporarily stopping thinking about the swordsman, Wei Changtian carefully went over what Li Qi had said, and then asked in a deep voice:
“Now that sixty years have passed since the demon disaster in Huailing, and you just said that the demon is still not dead... could it be that something similar has happened recently?”
“Yes.”
Li Qi did not hide anything and nodded with a wry smile: “Right here in Fengyuan.”
“...”
From a county town to a prefectural city, and then to the capital of a country.
If this demon cannot be resolved and the entire city will be destroyed, then these three crises are completely not on the same level.
Wei Changtian instantly understood Li Qi's pressure, and after a long silence, he asked again:
“Your Majesty, this demon is so powerful, it must have a name, right?”
“There is no name, after all, no one has ever seen this thing before.”
Li Qi shook his head: “But the people in the streets call it...”
“Yama.”
