On the other side.
Jiang Qiran opened his eyes in blank dismay.
Beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance, a group of children crowded around him, pointing fingers and shouting aggressively.
Yue Qian had suddenly vanished without a trace, and He Yumian was in secluded cultivation at Wuhan Mountain without stepping out. The entire Dan Peak, and indeed the entire sect, was frantic, leaving no one to spare a single thought for him.
Some disciples even seized the opportunity to chase him down the mountain.
The eyes of the youths wearing Lingxiao Sect attire were filled with malice. “You are not even worthy of carrying Senior Brother Jiang’s shoes.”
“A good-for-nothing, and yet you don’t even know your own weight.”
The mountain-guarding protector had been bribed, and Jiang Qiran found no way to seek an audience with the elders, leaving him with no choice but to head back along the way he had come.
On the road, he ran into bandits. While fleeing in a panic, he unfortunately became separated from the family servants. Young Jiang Qiran was frantic and terrified, forcing himself to push forward for an entire night before finally reaching this village.
Who could have expected that on his very first day in the village, unfortunate as he was, the local children would treat him as a beggar and a thief, shouting that they would beat him to death to vent their anger.
If System Xiao Jiu had known about this, it would have understood that this was actually the inevitable force of the plot.
Everything in the original book was set in black and white as a foregone conclusion. Except for the important characters involved in system missions, the endings of other characters were basically impossible for a transmigrator to alter.
Because the novel followed a predetermined trajectory, system missions could only be regarded as compromised concessions through negotiation, and altering the endings of other characters was akin to going against the will of heaven.
In the dark, a force would push the plot forward so that everything fell into its original ending.
Just like Jiang Qiran wandering around for all these days, he still could not escape his ordeal in the end.
Because this was precisely the village where Chi Yuan resided, and tomorrow it was destined to be destroyed by a rampaging beast tide.
The leader of the children brandished a wooden stick and shouted aggressively, “Catch the thief! Everyone, grab him!”
Jiang Qiran stumbled forward as he ran. His hair was messy, and his originally fair and clean little face was covered in mud.
A stone flying suddenly from afar struck his ankle dead-on, and Jiang Qiran cried out in pain as he tumbled to the ground.
Seeing this, the other children picked up stones from the ground and hurled them at him, while others fiercely swung thorny rattan vines, leaving glaring bloody welts across his calves.
“Stinky thief, shameless, get out of our village!”
“That’s right, a good-for-nothing born to a mother but raised by no one, why won’t you hurry up and hand over what you stole!”
Jiang Qiran clutched his small cloth pouch and shook his head vigorously, as this held his only belongings.
“It wasn’t me, I didn’t steal anything! This was mine to begin with!” he argued through a crying voice, but his voice was soon completely drowned out by the jeers of the other children.
“Wretched thing, still stubborn! Let me kick you to death!”
“Keep hitting him, everyone, beat him until he surrenders!”
Children harboring boundless malice crowded around him, some kicking with their feet and others striking with their hands. Jiang Qiran curled his body into a ball, whimpering while trying to crawl away.
“Wuwuwu, don’t hit me anymore, it hurts so much, Daddy, Mommy, where are you…”
A filthy child hiding in the bushes not far away watched all of this with an expressionless face.
The child who was surrounded and beaten was obviously not from this village. Although his clothes were stained with mud, it was easy to see they were made of the finest silk.
The skin on his arms and calves was also tender and fair, swelling into severe red bruises at the slightest blow.
A child from a rich family… did he get separated from the adults?
Chi Yuan thought silently to himself. Looking at Jiang Qiran, who was crying while shielding his head, he seemed to see a reflection of himself.
After the grandmother who adopted him passed away, he had been reduced to a beggar scavenging for food, and whenever anyone was in a bad mood, they could grab him and beat him at any time to vent their anger.
Perhaps he had grown somewhat numb; it was not until the other child was beaten almost to the point of fainting that Chi Yuan finally snapped back to his senses.
Even though he knew what was about to happen a moment later, he still went ahead without a second thought.
Chi Yuan bent down, picked up a stone, and threw it at the ringleader.
The chubby child widened his eyes, turned his head, and spotted Chi Yuan in no time at all.
He grinned excitedly, as if he had found a new toy: “Stinky wretch, your skin starts itching if you don’t get beaten for a day, doesn’t it?”
Seeing that he had successfully drawn their attention, Chi Yuan turned on his heels and bolted into the distance.
Sure enough, those children dropped the half-conscious Jiang Qiran and immediately gave chase to Chi Yuan.
Chi Yuan’s build was even leaner and smaller than Jiang Qiran’s, and he was quickly caught, kicked, and knocked to the ground.
Amidst waves of buzzing curses, Chi Yuan instinctively curled himself tightly into a ball to protect his head and abdomen, taking the violent beating without moving.
Through a series of ringing insults, Chi Yuan caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of the child he had just saved running toward him in tears.
In his panic, Jiang Qiran suddenly remembered that he had an amulet given to him by Yue Qian inside his cloth pouch, and he hurriedly pulled it out and hurled it at the group of assailants.
A surge of vibrant spiritual energy erupted abruptly into the surroundings.
Many of the assaulting children were blasted flying backward, and a few even fainted on the spot.
The ringleader, Ma Dajun, widened his eyes in horror, his face turning pale with fright: “A—A cultivator!”
The layers of fat stacked around his neck seemed to tremble as he lingered in shock for a long time before he finally mustered the courage to hurl more threats:
“Hmph! So what if you’re a cultivator? My dad is a cultivator too! He’s at the Great Perfection of Qi Condensation and is about to reach Foundation Establishment! No one in these dozens of villages can match him! Just wait, I’m going to call him right now to come deal with you!”
With that, he dashed away into the village and vanished from sight.
Jiang Qiran rushed over in a flurry to help Chi Yuan up: “Are you alright? Thank you just now…”
The child of similar age before him paid him no mind, pulling himself up entirely through his own effort.
His face was covered in dust. He patted his ragged clothes and turned around.
Seeing that the other person was about to leave, Jiang Qiran grew anxious: “W—What is your name? My name is Jiang Qiran, you’re bleeding so much… I have some spiritual medicine in my bag, would you like me to share some with you?”
“Leave me alone.”
Chi Yuan’s tone was harsh and cold. He pushed Jiang Qiran aside, clutched his arm, and hurriedly walked away.
Jiang Qiran watched his retreating figure with a look of utmost dejection: “Why won’t you be friends with me… You even saved me just now…”
He hesitated for a moment, then took small, hurried steps to chase after the direction where Chi Yuan had left.
Meanwhile, inside village chief Ma Dacai’s house, it was packed with the parents of the children who had been injured by the amulet.
These people were furious and strongly demanded an explanation from Ma Dacai.
His wife, Liu Xiulian, also covered her face and wept: “My son, my son Dajun, how could he run into such a thing?”
Ma Dajun was the only son whom they had cradled in the palms of their hands from infancy, yet now he had been injured into such a state by someone. How could they, as parents, be happy about this?
Ma Dacai’s eyes were practically spitting fire as well: “Audacious scoundrel, daring to harm my son.”
“I will definitely give them a taste of what’s coming.”
Seeing that Jiang Qiran was dressed in ragged clothing, Ma Dajun didn’t think much further and stubbornly insisted that the talisman must have been stolen by that little beggar, meaning the child was not to be feared.
His father, Ma Dacai, agreed to exact revenge as his son wished, intending to help him kill the little beggar to vent his anger.