Chapter 3: Black and White Clear
Magnesium powder and water react to produce hydrogen, which, when encountering an open flame, erupts with extremely high temperatures.
This heat directly struck the eyeball, unbearable, feeling like a chisel piercing straight into the forehead.
The little demon shrieked after two breaths of stunned silence, its brain numb from the intense pain.
Zhou Yan had already pulled his hand back to avoid getting burned.
Before the man could even howl, Zhou Yan’s left hand, wrapped in a thick bundle of rough rescue clothing, was shoved deep into the man’s mouth, his two fingers pushing down the throat to stifle any sound.
At the same time, he used the momentum to tackle and subdue the man.
Zhou Yan’s heart pounded wildly, but the intense desire to survive and the suppressed anger within him burned, making him three times stronger.
The demon’s eyes were in excruciating pain, the eyeballs practically cooked under the high temperature, unable to scream.
Its thrashing was also suppressed.
Before it went blind, in its fiery red vision, it saw a pair of ruthless pupils.
Human eyes.
Black and white, distinct.
Zhou Yan pulled out a Swiss Army knife from his lower back, flicked it open, and took a deep breath.
To be honest, his body was still trembling.
Fear surged, but courage was even greater.
He held the knife in a reverse grip and stabbed down fiercely.
The finger-length blade pierced into the demon’s eyeball.
Finally, a horrific shriek, though muffled, erupted from the demon’s choked throat.
Its body struggled violently, trembled, and then ceased to move, but Zhou Yan maintained his stabbing posture.
He held it for several breaths before finally stopping.
His fingers loosened, and he gasped for air.
All his strength had vanished, his arms and legs felt weak.
He exhaled, collapsing there, and murmured:
“Damn.”
“You scared me to death.”
The lying demon had no words.
Zhou Yan didn’t rest much; he had to act quickly.
He sat up, intending to strip the demon’s clothes and put them on, but he paused slightly.
He saw a wisp of black Qi floating up from the demon’s corpse and flying towards him.
The next moment, Zhou Yan felt a buzzing in his Sea of Consciousness.
He felt that in his mind, or rather, in a deeper level of consciousness, a jade book had appeared.
This jade book seemed to have always been there, only awakening after he, a Mortal, had personally killed a demon.
… … … …
Although Zhi Niang's birthday banquet was set for three days later, many demons had already arrived today.
As one of the territories under the Fangzhu, this manor still had to prepare meals to entertain these guests.
Just as the jade book appeared in Zhou Yan’s Sea of Consciousness.
All the demons, big and small, in the entire manor froze.
Whether they were drinking, eating, or playing finger-guessing games and dice, they all stopped suddenly, then whispered, spoke aloud, or mumbled in their hearts, all saying the same thing.
“It smells so good—”
Zhao the Butcher sniffed his nose and murmured, “Why does it smell so much like that person we caught today? No, that’s not right… ”
“It smells even better than that person.”
… … … … … …
Zhou Yan stripped the demon’s clothes and put them on himself.
It almost made him faint from the stench.
His vision went black; he felt like he was seeing his great-grandmother.
He swayed for several breaths before he could barely steady himself.
Then, looking at his own clothes, which he had only worn a few times, his eye twitched with a pang of regret.
But in the end, he put his good clothes on the demon’s body, then arranged the demon in a side-lying position, as if it were sleeping.
He casually grabbed some soot from the bottom of the pot and smeared it on his face, then headed out under the cover of night.
At first, he walked cautiously.
After a few steps, he suddenly felt something was wrong.
What proper demon would be so sneaky in its own territory?
Looking at his reflection in the nearby water jar, his face was pitch black, wearing a loose, dark blue robe, unkempt and probably unwashed for days.
A rusty machete, belonging to a small demon, hung at his waist, and he wore a pair of tattered straw sandals on his feet.
Being cautious only made him stand out.
He pondered.
Zhou Yan cursed with a laugh, “Being timid? What the hell am I afraid of?”
He pulled his collar open a bit more, making him look even more slovenly and uninhibited.
First, he strolled, then he walked with purpose, and finally, he simply swaggered out.
He didn’t look at all like someone who had been captured; he looked like a local demon.
As for the jade book in his mind, Zhou Yan had no time to ponder it.
He only knew that it couldn’t be opened yet, as if the treasure had a spirit and hadn’t recognized him.
Zhou Yan didn’t care; he just wanted to get out of here.
He was naturally bold and had a casual personality.
Now, having somewhat escaped his predicament, his courage expanded, and he carried a lantern as he walked out.
When he encountered small demons along the way, he didn’t hide or avoid them, but actively struck up conversations.
The demons of this manor thought he was a servant brought by Zhi Niang's Third Aunt, while the outsiders thought he was a new demon in the manor.
Zhou Yan carried a lantern, his tattered sleeves flapping, swaggering freely and naturally.
He even pretended to be an outsider demon and asked a drunken demon, who was carrying a jug of wine, for directions out, claiming he was ordered to buy something.
The drunken demon, in a haze, believed him about eighty percent, slurring:
“Hah, go on, go on, brother.
You, you go straight ahead, past where we brothers drink, towards the big locust tree, then forward past the third small tree next to it.
The path we brothers take isn’t so winding.”
“We can’t take the path our Aunties take, can we?”
“Hah, then thank you, brother!”
Zhou Yan laughed twice, even snatching the drunkard’s wine jug.
In a moment, he reached the place, only to find it was a kitchen.
He walked in and found a small partitioned room.
Pushing open the door, he saw a large hall filled with a variety of grotesque demons, all heavily drunk.
Further ahead was the small exit door.
Should he sneak past this group of drunken demons?
Zhou Yan exhaled, feeling a bit nervous, his palms sweating.
If he were exposed, he feared he would be torn alive.
While thinking, he already acted nonchalantly, greeting the cook responsible for the little demons’ food and drink.
He approached with the manor’s wine jug, his gaze sweeping, then freezing slightly.
He saw a table nearby.
Various meats hung on taut ropes.
Among them was an arm, slender, with rough calluses on the palm.
The shape of the fingers looked very familiar, like the one that had touched Zhou Yan’s wound earlier.
Zhou Yan’s footsteps paused.
The image of that woman flashed before his eyes.
A sense of pity, melancholy, and unprovoked anger surged within him.
He knew he was in a very vulnerable state right now, but even so, even as a weakling, that fire simply wouldn’t extinguish.
Even the ice and snow of fear could not extinguish the initial anger and sense of injustice in his heart, as a human.
Zhou Yan was still rational.
He clenched his hand, then loosened it, carrying the wine jug as he walked out.
The cook, at this moment, stomped out, shouting, “Tell them to stop yelling for now, new dishes are coming soon!”
“Good meat personally brought by Zhi Niang's Third Aunt’s godson.”
“What a feast.”
Zhou Yan smiled and agreed, his peripheral vision catching sight of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl being brought out.
Her face was deathly pale, her eyes filled with terror.
Her eyes darted around in fear, then landed on Zhou Yan, and she froze.
Her pupils visibly widened.
Zhou Yan, for no reason, realized from her eyes that this little girl recognized him as a human.
Zhou Yan’s heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively thought:
“Damn it, please don’t scream! If you scream, I’ll get caught too.”
In the next second, he felt a pang of moral shame for this thought.
But after freezing, the little girl didn’t speak.
She kept her mouth shut, then immediately avoided Zhou Yan’s gaze, looking only at the demon.
Though terrified, she didn’t cry for help.
In front of Zhou Yan was the door; he could blend in with the wine jug, walk past this group of demons, and outside would be the exit.
Behind him was the pot-bellied demon sharpening its knife, and a person about to be eaten.
Fear and the desire for survival surged within him.
His gaze struggled.
But he saw that arm, and the calluses from diligent labor.
Intense struggle erupted in his eyes.
And in the depths of his consciousness, the jade book remained dim and calm.
… … … …
Li Zhiwei's eyes were filled with terror as she watched the demon approach with a knife.
The knife was dull and rusty.
She wanted to scream for help, but when she saw the young man, who was only about a year older than herself, she saw the same fear in his swaggering, seemingly carefree eyes as in her own.
So she didn't scream, hoping the young man could get out alive.
But as the demon approached, her body still trembled.
The demon raised the knife in his hand and chuckled, “How strange, an unprovoked scent, it’s brought out all the gluttons in my belly, I can’t resist it.”
“This little face is so tender, let me just pinch off a piece to taste first!”
He reached out his hand, his fingernails long, thick, and yellowish-green.
Coming towards her face.
Li Zhiwei’s eyes widened.
The lanterns here swayed, and as the demon bent down, the young man behind him was revealed.
His black hair was short, his face smeared with black mud, but his eyes reflected the candlelight, like a fire lit on wild grass.
He held a knife with both hands.
His facial muscles twitched.
In that instant, the demon, obsessed with meat, seemed somewhat simple-minded, while the man raising the knife was more ferocious than a ghost.
Die!
Zhou Yan grasped the knife and, without hesitation, ruthlessly plunged it into the demon’s neck.
The demon shrieked in agony.
The next instant Li Zhiwei froze, she also deliberately shrieked, like a young girl’s desperate cry when being murdered.
Her high-pitched scream drowned out the demon’s wails, making it seem as if the demon was brutally attacking the girl.
Zhou Yan breathed a sigh of relief.
The knife was halfway in, caught by the tendons, bones, and blood vessels in the neck.
A fierce determination rose in his heart.
Taking advantage of the little demon’s panicked state due to the intense pain, he kicked off the wall, using the leverage to exert another powerful thrust.
The dull blade scraped several times before finally piercing straight through.
The cook struggled greatly before finally choking to death.
Zhou Yan gasped for air.
He had killed a second demon, but there was no time to rest.
Outside, demons were already impatiently shouting.
“Is it killed? If it’s killed, hurry up and bring out the meat!”
Now, the cook was killed.
The person was saved.
The room blocking the exit was full of demons clamoring for meat.
Retreat was not an option; saving the person was not regretted.
But I want to live!
What should I do?
Zhou Yan’s mouth twitched.
He looked at the demon dead beside him.
He walked slowly over.
Li Zhiwei watched as the young man in ragged clothes dragged the demon and threw it into a huge stone vat used for pounding meat paste.
Then, he reached out and grabbed the large stone hammer, which had a lever for leverage.
Li Zhiwei’s eyes widened: Is he going to…
Zhou Yan pulled the rope connected to the stone hammer.
The stone hammer was too high, then he let go, allowing the stone hammer to smash down fiercely.
“You like eating meat, right!”
The sound of flesh being pounded, ‘crunch,’ reached the ears of the demons outside, who assumed the demon had started preparing the meat and cheered while drinking.
Zhou Yan’s eyes were sharp and determined, striking again and again, as the demon was pounded into meat paste by the stone hammer.
Sharpness, ruthlessness, decisiveness, and necessary kindness.
They mixed into an indescribable feeling.
In the Sea of Consciousness, the jade book slowly lit up, and finally, with a fierce blow.
The meat paste was formed, with such force that a whooshing sound spread out.
Whoosh!
The jade book suddenly unfurled.
The scent on Zhou Yan’s body that attracted demons instantly receded.
Zhou Yan exhaled, released his hand, and looked at the large puddle of meat paste.
Demons eat people, and people kill demons.
“You like eating meat, right?”
… … … … … …
The demons outside were boisterous, when suddenly, with a crash, the wooden door opened.
A ‘demon’ in ragged clothes, with a rusty knife at his waist and straw sandals on his feet, walked out, carrying a large pot of fresh meat paste.
“Brothers!”
The young man’s mouth twitched, a brilliant smile on his face:
“Meat’s ready!”
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