Repaying Kindness: I Have to Help Them

She had indeed told Lin Qingyun yesterday that she needed to leave the mountains to search for relatives—but yesterday was yesterday, and today was today. People were, after all, fickle.

He Zhuoming dawdled over to the blue-gray horse, pretending to fiddle with the rattan saddle on its back. "I—I'm going alone? Didn't you just say that a Corrupted Deity usually attracts a lot of demons and ghosts... What if I run into some on the way?"

Lin Qingyun said, "Qing Yang will avoid them."

He Zhuoming: "Then—then what if it doesn't avoid them?"

Lin Qingyun smiled gently. "Qing Yang is very clever. You don't need to worry about that."

His tone was sincere, and He Zhuoming racked her brain for a counterargument. It wasn't until the corner of her eye caught the iron shovel in his hand that she spoke up again. Clearing her throat, she awkwardly changed the subject. "Why are you carrying a shovel?"

Lin Qingyun explained patiently, "Didn't I tell you yesterday? The dead come first. I need to bury the villagers who died in that wild shrine."

"There were so many of them, so I'll need to dig a lot of graves to give them all a proper burial."

He Zhuoming's eyes lit up when she heard that. "Then I'll help you!"

Lin Qingyun hesitated. "But aren't you going to find your relatives..."

He Zhuoming said with righteous indignation, "You saved my life—you're my lifesaver! How could I just look after my own business while you dig all those graves alone? No, no, I have to stay and help. Think of it as giving me a chance to repay your kindness. If my relatives knew I was doing this to repay a debt of gratitude, they'd definitely support me!"

She finished the whole long speech in one breath, confident that her reasoning was sound and her terms were clear. Yet she still feared Lin Qingyun would turn her down, so after she finished speaking, she stared at him without blinking.

Lin Qingyun held her gaze for a moment, then suddenly changed his mind and agreed with a smile. "Alright, come help then."

No worries about tools—they found some in the farmhouse's wood shed. He Zhuoming also picked out an iron shovel, and followed Lin Qingyun to the wild shrine. They walked along the ridges between fields, with green rice seedlings brushing their waists on both sides. The blue-gray horse followed behind He Zhuoming at a leisurely, unhurried pace.

Halfway there, the sun rose, and the heat began to beat down on them.

He Zhuoming's forehead quickly beaded with sweat. She lifted an arm to wipe it with her sleeve, then suddenly realized that the sound of horse hooves she'd been hearing behind her had stopped. When she turned to look, she couldn't help but shout, "Qingyun! Your horse is gone!"

Lin Qingyun said calmly, "It disappears often. It'll be fine."

He Zhuoming: "So it's not an ordinary horse, is it?"

Lin Qingyun: "Mm, it's actually a dragon."

He Zhuoming: "...Saying it's a dragon is a bit much."

Lin Qingyun laughed openly. "Really? I thought it sounded interesting, hahaha—"

Chatting as they walked, the two soon crossed the rice paddies and arrived at the wild shrine.

The walls outside still bore red double-happiness paper-cuts, and the eaves were still decked with lanterns and banners, unchanged.

He Zhuoming grabbed the open temple door and cautiously peered inside: the temple was strewn with corpses and severed heads, and the sinister deity statue at the center had been split in half from the middle, toppled to either side.

Lin Qingyun was about to walk straight in when he saw He Zhuoming's sneaky posture. Finding it amusing, he moved behind her and also craned his neck to peek into the temple.

He Zhuoming said, "It's been two days, and it's summer. Why haven't these corpses rotted yet?"

Lin Qingyun: "Those affected by a Corrupted Deity leave corpses that are beyond the norm after death. The anomalies vary according to the Corrupted Deity they served."

A Corrupted Deity, as the name implies, is an unclean and unorthodox deity—in the worldview of *Asking the Way*, any spirit that builds its own shrines and temples in the name of a god and collects incense offerings is a Corrupted Deity.

But not just any spirit could claim that title. A spirit that could dominate a piece of land and possess temples, even if its power couldn't match that of a True Deity, was still a powerful regional demon lord. As long as it wasn't too cruel in temperament, cultivators wouldn't go out of their way to oppose it.

As for genuine True Deities—as long as a Corrupted Deity didn't stir up trouble on their turf, they were even less likely to act.

He Zhuoming vaguely remembered, though, that the male lead absolutely hated Corrupted Deities, to the point of killing them on sight.

But from the parts of the story she'd read before transmigrating, it didn't seem to mention why the male lead hated Corrupted Deities so much—wait, was it that the author hadn't written it yet, or that she'd forgotten again?

He Zhuoming was confused for a moment, unable to tell, but she quickly realized that the male lead himself was standing right behind her. She bent her arm and nudged Lin Qingyun in the chest with her elbow, asking, "Let me ask you, why did you want to kill this Corrupted Deity?"

Lin Qingyun glanced down at his chest, then up at the top of He Zhuoming's head.

She hadn't even turned around to ask.

Lin Qingyun reached out, pressed her head, and turned it toward him.

He Zhuoming: "?"

Lin Qingyun smiled, his eyes narrowing. "Look into my eyes and ask again."

He Zhuoming was puzzled, but she did it anyway, meeting his gaze and asking one more time.

Lin Qingyun replied, "It's not that I wanted to kill the Corrupted Deity. I just felt sorry for the villagers—controlled by the god, losing their ears and tongues, turning into half-human, half-monster creatures."

"People turning into monsters is pitiful enough. But on top of that, they have to serve as the god's reproducers, birthing a nest of little monsters. What meaning is there in living like that... I have to help them."

His words were sincere, and a faint but very endearing and approachable smile lingered on his face as he spoke.

He Zhuoming thought his words sounded a bit strange—she both thought Lin Qingyun's idea was kind-hearted and yet felt that this guy had killed so many people, which was... quite...

Looking at his face, which was tilted toward her, and the dimples on his smiling cheeks, He Zhuoming found herself unable to utter a single negative adjective while looking at his face.

Just as she was getting tangled up, Lin Qingyun suddenly let go of her head and instead snapped his fingers in front of her. "Don't space out. Time to get to work, Xiao He!"

He Zhuoming snapped back to reality, but she was still a bit confused. Clutching her shovel, she followed Lin Qingyun into the wild shrine.

Seeing it from outside was one thing; stepping inside was another—a strong smell of blood hit her so hard that He Zhuoming's whole face scrunched up, and tears welled up in her eyes before her thoughts could catch up.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve as she carefully avoided the corpses and heads on the ground, trying to find a place to step among the mess.

As long as she didn't step on a body, that was enough—as for cleanliness, He Zhuoming no longer had any expectations, because every single tile on the floor of the shrine was soaked with dried, dark bloodstains.

The girl was stumbling and struggling with each step, but Lin Qingyun walked briskly, as if he were treading on flat ground in this charnel house, all while managing not to step on a single corpse or head.

He picked up the nearest corpse, examined it briefly, then picked up the matching head from the floor and reattached it.