Boom!
It was as if they had been struck by five bolts of lightning.
Everyone on the lakeshore was instantly shaken by the roar, stumbling and falling unconscious to the ground.
The two men pushing the boat were no exception; they also rolled their eyes and collapsed into the mud by the shore.
A moment later, Li Hai’s figure descended from the sky, accompanied by gusts of turbulent wind.
Upon arriving, he first shivered slightly, forcefully dispersing the swirling, boiling wind rings around his body.
Then, with a casual wave towards the small boat, he conjured a strong gust of wind that swept all the salt from the boat into the lake, revealing the two children buried under the salt.
Only after seeing the children’s chests rise and fall with normal breathing did Li Hai feel a slight sense of relief.
Immediately, he looked coldly at the foolish men and women by the lakeshore, slightly raising his foot and stomping hard on the ground.
Clang—
Instantly, a wave-like ripple of ground tremors rapidly spread out, shaking all the unconscious villagers awake one by one.
When the old man who had led the villagers in the human sacrifice woke up, he saw that the coarse salt, which had clearly covered the small boat, was now gone, and he immediately wailed at the top of his lungs:
“The salt is gone? It’s… it’s the Salt God’s wrath, the Salt God is angry!”
His wail immediately terrified the villagers on the shore, making their legs tremble, unsure what to do.
“What a load of rubbish Salt God!”
Seeing the old man still spreading misleading rumors, Li Hai snorted coldly, raised his hand, and, from dozens of feet away, remotely slapped his old face.
Slap!
A strange gust of wind swept by, and the old man was instantly slapped into a rolling ball, tumbling seven or eight zhang away, half of his face swollen.
Upon witnessing Li Hai employing such a ‘Divine Ability,’ the villagers were all immediately struck dumb with fear, no one daring to utter a sound.
Seeing that no one was making a fuss anymore, Li Hai then opened his mouth and asked:
“What are you sacrificing? How long has this been going on? Who made you do this?”
Hearing the questions, the villagers looked at each other, and not a single one answered.
Finally, the old man with the swollen face got up and answered these questions.
“Reporting, my lord.”
The old man said, covering his face with slurred speech, “We are sacrificing to the Salt God of this Li Lake. We have to sacrifice every season—spring, summer, autumn, and winter. If we miss even one sacrifice, the Salt God gets angry, causing fish monsters to crawl out of the lake, livestock in the village to die of illness, and the salt from the salt field to become poisonous.”
“Fish monsters? Salt field?”
Li Hai looked into the distance, surveying the lakeshore, and indeed, he discovered a small salt field about half a li away.
As for fish monsters, he looked around but didn’t find any.
This saltwater lake was not very large; its depth was unknown, but its total area was at most a few li, so Li Hai could see it all in one glance.
Then he turned to the old man and asked, “Then, in your village, how long has this custom of worshipping the Salt God existed?”
The old man replied, “My lord, it has been over a hundred years.”
“Over a hundred years?” Li Hai said coldly, “Doesn’t that mean thousands of children have already been harmed?”
“This… this…” the old man stammered, “This is a rule passed down by our ancestors; it’s hard for us to change it.”
“If it’s hard for you to change, then I’ll change it.”
Li Hai pulled out his Commandant token and said in a deep voice, “This official is a Wood Rank Commandant of the Dajing Demon Slayer Division, specially tasked with overseeing all illegal and un-canonized unauthorized sacrifices among the populace. According to my preliminary investigation, this so-called Salt God of your village even requires human sacrifice. It is definitely an evil god and an illicit cult, and from today onward, it must be abolished!”
He wasn't deliberately misleading them; the Demon Slayer Division indeed had this responsibility. It was just that the essence of most illicit cults among the populace was actually for the gentry to accumulate wealth, so such cases were often handled by yamen runners and constables in the end.
Even so, the Demon Slayer Division still retained jurisdiction over illicit cults among the populace from beginning to end.
Li Hai knew all this from the archives in the Demon Slayer Division’s Niujiao Town outpost.
“Dajing Demon Slayer Division?” The old man’s expression was somewhat bewildered, as he had never heard that name before.
He knew about the Jing Dynasty, but he truly didn’t know what the Demon Slayer Division was.
In fact, this situation accurately reflected the current understanding of many common people in the Dragon Mountain region.
Although this area, spanning several thousand li, nominally belonged to the Jing Dynasty, it was in essence a lawless land.
No force dared to claim complete control over it; in plain terms, they were merely carving out territories and governing themselves.
And while the Jing Dynasty had the qualification and ability to make such a claim, it was too lazy to do so because it didn’t value the region.
For instance, as for Yu Family Village, let alone the Jing Dynasty, not even a single stronghold force bothered to claim territory or assert authority here.
This was simply because the place was too remote and too barren, possessing neither resources nor fertile land.
There was just a simple salt field that could produce some barely usable coarse salt, and about ten mu of inferior land, almost like saline-alkali land, which could yield just enough rough grain for Yu Family Village to subsist on.
Had Li Hai not flown over and discovered this place during his journey, others would have had to cross swamps and mountains to reach such a godforsaken place.
“I suddenly thought of something.”
Li Hai said, “Although it’s hard to leave one’s homeland, given how difficult the environment is here, and with an evil entity like the Salt God entrenched, why don’t you leave this place and live somewhere else?”
“This…” the old man hesitated, “My lord, you don’t know, the people of Yu Family Village… cannot leave here?”
“Why?” Li Hai frowned in confusion, “Is someone stopping you? Could it be that Salt God?!”
“Alas~”
The old man sighed, “My lord, this area of ours… has a curse. Anyone who stays here for too long cannot leave anymore. Once they leave this place, the curse will activate.”
“What kind of curse?” Li Hai asked.
“This curse is called the ‘Inverted Worship God’.”
The old man replied, “As soon as someone leaves this area, within a short time, their hands and feet will become inverted, hands turning into feet, and feet into hands.
At this point, this person must go to the Salt God Temple in the village, turn their body upside down, kneel, and pray to the Salt God to absolve them of their sins.
Otherwise, after a while longer, their nostrils and ear holes will invert, and even…”
The old man hesitated, a look of fear on his face, and said, “Their mouth and between their legs will also invert.”
“Huh?” Li Hai was startled, “How does it invert?”
“Alas~” the old man lamented, “The tongue… will move to between the legs down below.”
“A tongue growing out of the chrysanthemum?!”
Li Hai said with a look of disgust, “Doesn’t that mean… every time one goes to the outhouse, their tongue will taste it first?!”
The old man nodded silently.
Li Hai couldn’t help but immediately snap, “This Salt God… is truly malicious!”
“Cough cough cough cough~”
Just then, the boy and girl suddenly coughed and climbed up from the small boat.
Then, as they rubbed their eyes and saw the old man kneeling on the ground, they innocently asked:
“Grandpa Village Chief, weren’t we going to see the Salt God? How come you came along too?
Could it be that the Salt God changed his taste and doesn’t want to eat children anymore, but prefers to eat old people?”