Oxheart Village

Chapter 300: Oxheart Village

“Dad! Mom! Where are you?!” Bai Lingmiao, tears streaming down her face, searched frantically through the entire village of Oxheart.

Behind her, Li Huowang followed, searching alongside her, even though he could already tell the whole village was empty except for the two of them.

Just then, Lü Zhuangyuan, wearing a cautious, ingratiating smile, approached.

“What the hell happened here?” Li Huowang asked, his brow furrowed, turning to Lü Zhuangyuan who had arrived before him.

Lü Zhuangyuan put on an innocent expression. “Little Daoist, how would I know? When I got here, the whole village was already deserted.”

“I thought I’d just gotten the place wrong, so I went looking for miles around. I searched the whole Oxheart Mountain, and this is the only place I found.”

Hearing this, Li Huowang said nothing more. He took a deep breath and walked toward Bai Lingmiao in the distance.

Bai Lingmiao kept searching the village, over and over again, but still found nothing.

When Li Huowang saw her, sweating with anxiety, start searching from the first house again at the village entrance, he rushed over, grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her into his arms.

In that moment, Bai Lingmiao could hold it in no longer. She leaned against Li Huowang’s shoulder and burst into loud, wracking sobs. “Brother Li, my home is gone! My family is gone!”

After waiting so long with such hope, it had all shattered in an instant. Li Huowang knew that feeling. He could feel it with her.

“Don’t cry. Maybe they just left temporarily. It doesn’t have to be something terrible. Try to think positive.”

Lü Zhuangyuan chimed in from the side, trying to console her. “Miss Bai, the Little Daoist is right. Maybe they fled, just like we did. When they come back from fleeing, you’ll see them again.”

Seeing this, the others gathered around, chipping in with their own words of comfort for Bai Lingmiao.

But these hollow words did little to ease her pain. She wasn’t a fool. The entire village vanishing—that was no small matter.

Bai Lingmiao’s weeping tainted the joy of their reunion, casting a shadow over the village. No one spoke a word during dinner.

After dinner, Li Huowang circled the village under the moonlight. He wasn’t looking for people; he was looking for clues.

A whole village couldn’t just disappear. Something had to have happened. Even if they’d been eaten by evil spirits or tricked by the Zuowandao, there would be signs.

“Little Daoist, I told Miss Bai her family probably fled to make her feel better, but honestly, I don’t think that’s it,” Lü Zhuangyuan said, trailing behind Li Huowang and rambling. “Who locks their doors but leaves their house when they flee? And when we first got here, the pigs in the backyard were starving to death.”

Li Huowang crouched down, studying the grain of the stone paving on the ground. “Was the village in chaos when you got here?”

“No, not at all. Clothes were still hanging out to dry. Cattle, dogs… everything was fine. Just the people were gone.”

“I even checked the wardrobes in every house. No clothes were missing. They clearly didn’t go on a long trip.”

Li Huowang’s gaze scanned inch by inch, searching for details and any potential danger.

After pushing open yet another door and finding nothing, he took the wadding out of his ears and listened intently to every sound around him.

He wandered through the village, even summoning a Wandering Lord to dig three feet underground, but this time was different from before. There were no hostile stares, no eerie spirits. There was nothing at all.

When Li Huowang finally returned to the Bai family’s three-courtyard home, he saw Luo Juan and Chun Xiaoman sitting on either side of Bai Lingmiao in the brightly lit main hall, trying to comfort her.

The others stood around the edges, talking amongst themselves in small groups. When they saw Li Huowang return, they all looked his way.

“Go get some sleep. We’ll deal with things tomorrow,” Li Huowang said. The others didn’t argue and drifted away in twos and threes.

Bai Lingmiao’s pink eyes were even redder from crying. Her gaze, filled with profound grief, met his as she choked back sobs.

“It’s late. Which room is yours? Let’s wash up and sleep.”

Pressing her lips together, Bai Lingmiao stood up and walked toward the water vat in the kitchen.

Half an incense stick later, the two of them lay silently in a bedroom filled with a faint, lingering fragrance.

Looking at the furnishings and the white mosquito net, this was clearly Bai Lingmiao’s old maiden room.

On the bed, Bai Lingmiao curled up on her stomach, her shoulders trembling constantly as she held back her tears.

Then she felt herself being pulled close, leaning against a solid chest.

“Don’t cry. When you run into trouble, you solve it. We’ve got power now. What’s there to be afraid of? We’ll find them.”

Bai Lingmiao’s trembling shoulders stilled. She burrowed her head against Li Huowang’s chest. Then, suddenly, she broke free from his embrace, grabbed the skin-drum and bone-club from in front of the bronze mirror, and rushed outside.

“Boom-boom-boom! Boom-boom-boom! When things happen in the sky, the flying immortals handle them! When things happen on the earth, red and yellow deal with them! When things happen in the underworld, we call on the Sorrowful King to help… I stop the horse’s head to ask the dynasty’s name, I pull the reins to find my hometown. Surnamed Zhang, surnamed Wang, surnamed Li, surnamed Huang… Zhao-Qian-Sun-Li, Li Cunxiao, Zhou-Wu-Zheng-Wang, Wang Yanzhang…”

Listening to the rhythmic drumbeats from outside, Li Huowang slowly closed his eyes.

The next morning, when Li Huowang opened his eyes, he found that Bai Lingmiao, who was always an early riser, was still lying in bed, silent.

“What did the immortals say?” Li Huowang asked as he dressed.

“They can’t find them,” Bai Lingmiao answered, forcing herself to hold back her grief. “Even the immortals can’t find them… Brother Li, do you think my parents are really gone?”

Li Huowang walked over, patted her on the shoulder, then turned and headed out the door. “I’m going. While I’m gone, keep an eye on things.”

Just as he turned, Bai Lingmiao opened the door. Her red-rimmed eyes wide with surprise, she said, “Brother Li, where are you going?”

“Where else? If the immortals can’t help, I’ll have to figure out where the whole village went myself. You’re like this now—how could I just ignore it?”

Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao rushed over, wrapped her arms around Li Huowang’s waist, and pressed her face against his back, her tears soaking his clothes. “Thank you… Brother Li.”

She had thought his cold reaction meant he didn’t care about what had happened to her family.

She never realized he had already planned what to do. He just hadn’t said it out loud.