The tree roots penetrate into the mountain soil, letting their green hands reach up towards the sky. Thick and solid tree trunks faced each other, looking similar through the distances. The exuberant branches and leaves intertwined in mid-air.
Under the surroundings of these trees was a wooden house.
Around the wooden house was a tall and great fence constructed from green spear bamboo. The back and front area was all vegetable fields, and in the middle of the fields was a man-made well.
Just then, the little entrance of the bamboo fence was broken from the outside by someone.
"You are old man Wang?" Fang Yuan's cold expression with his eerie eyes, stepped forward with a lump of moonlight in his right arm.
The old man was shocked as he looked at the moonlight on Fang Yuan's hand, rapidly kneeling, "This old man pays his respects to Lord Gu Master!"
"Old man Wang, your son dared to offend me, I have executed him. Bring his corpse forward!" Fang Yuan stood proudly, staring at the kneeling old man as he brought out the main topic.
His words had just finished, and two young hunters carried Wang Er's corpse in.
Seeing this corpse, old man Wang's body shook!
"Second brother —!" The young girl screamed pitifully, rushing forward and grabbing Wang Er's corpse, her face flushed with tears.
"Wang family's daughter…" The two young hunters, seeing the girl they liked crying in front of them, felt terrible. They wanted to console her, but no words came out.
"Old man Wang, I heard you're a hunter, the best among the few villages. At such an old age, you can still hunt and get a good result every time, this is great."
Fang Yuan paused here for a moment, and continued expressionlessly, "Draw me a map of all the traps of the nearby mountain area now, as well as the results of your observation of wild beast territories from your hunting experience all these years. Draw it for me and I will spare your son's sin of offending me, if not… hmph."
These villages were under Gu Yue village's control. The villagers were all farmer slaves of the Gu Yue clan.
With Wang Er's offense for offending his master, according to the clan rules, their entire family would be implicated!
Old man Wang's body shook again, almost falling to the ground. An impact like this was too sudden and great to him.
"Murderer, you are the murderer that harmed my brother! You treat human lives like livestock, and you dare to confront us? I will exact revenge for my brother!!" The young girl screamed, her voice full of hatred and anger towards Fang Yuan, and she rushed towards Fang Yuan.
But she was only halfway there when she got stopped by someone.
It was not the two young hunters, but her father.
"Disgraceful wretch!" Old man Wang screamed as he gave the young girl a tight slap, sending her to the ground.
"Your second brother is dead, do you want to die too? Do you want this old father of yours to be old and alone forever?!" The old man cried profusely saying this, his body trembling furiously.
"Father!" The young girl was awakened by this, and her tears poured out. Her voice was full of sadness, unjust, pity, hatred, and helplessness.
The old man turned his body, facing Fang Yuan as he kneeled down and placed his forehead on the ground, prostrating deeply at Fang Yuan's feet. His voice shook as he said, "Lord Gu Master, my son offended you and deserved to die! I shall draw the map for you now, please spare us with your magnanimity."
Fang Yuan's expression turned milder, he looked at the old man arrogantly, saying, "Be at ease, as long as you draw honestly, I will spare you. But don't think of lying to me, for if I find any suspicious points, your lives will be forfeited!"
"I understand, this old man understands." Old man Wang kowtowed non-stop, "Please Lord Gu Master, allow me to retrieve my brush and paper."
"No need." Fang Yuan waved his hand, looking at the two hunters he had forced along, ordering, "Enter the room and find paper and brush, and bring them out."
"Yes, Lord Gu Master." The two youngsters did not dare to rebel under Fang Yuan's authority.
"Lord, the paper and brush are on the square table in the kitchen." Old man Wang said.
Fang Yuan's eyes shone but he remained silent.
The two hunters barged into the house and quickly brought out the paper and brush.
In the southern territory, the paper were specially made of bamboo, where the quality was bad and the paper was tough with green overlays. Paper like this was suited to the moist weather of the southern territorial weather.
If it was rice paper, it might be destroyed after a week due to moisture.
The old man carried the brush and kneeled on the ground, drawing out black lines, curves or dots.
He used over ten bamboo papers, before handing them all to Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan looked through them and split these bamboo papers into two, handing them to the two hunters, "Take a look if there's any inappropriate areas."
The two hunters took the bamboo papers, their hands trembling, eyes shining.
"This is hunter Wang's life experience and effort. Us hunters, although we keep in contact, it is all about trap placement, we will not tell others about the wild beast distribution. This bamboo paper, it is all the information that hunter Wang had gathered since his ancestors."
"So this valley has a herd of wild deer, haha, after I hunt these wild deer, I won't have to worry about expenses for the next three months! Ah, this stream has a cave of mountain bears? How close, I almost hunted at this region last time, note it, I must note it all down!"
These were precious information, it could be said to be a hunter's rice bowl!
The two young hunters checked for nearly fifteen minutes, glossing through the map multiple times. Only after Fang Yuan rushed them did they finally hand over the bamboo paper reluctantly.
"There is no problem, lord."
"The trap areas in these bamboo papers are all accurate."
The two answered.
"Lord Gu Master, this concerns me and my daughter's life, I would definitely not lie to you!" The old man on the ground shouted as he continued to kowtow.
"Mmm, not bad." Fang Yuan waved the stack of bamboo paper, yet suddenly his words changed, "But, I don't believe it."
Old man Wang jolted, raising his head, but only saw an eerie blue moonblade enlarging within the reflection of his iris.
Pew.
A skull flew into the air, fresh blood spewing all over.
The two young hunters were taken by surprise. Shock and disbelief showed on their faces.
"Father—!" The young girl cried out profusely as she leapt towards old man Wang's headless corpse, but midway, a moonblade flew towards her face.
Splat.
She fell onto the ground, lifeless.
Her beautiful face, from her forehead to her chin, slowly showed a thin red line.
The line became thicker as fresh red blood oozed out, flowing down along half of her nose and half of her lips. They flowed onto the black soil, dyeing half of her face bright red.
The other half of her face though, was still as beautiful, the skin fair and rosy. Under the bright blue sky, it seemed even more lustrous, like a work of art.
"At least she looks decent." Fang Yuan looked at the dead girl blandly, nodding satisfactorily.
"Wang family's daughter!" A young hunter fell onto the ground in despair after seeing her demise with his own eyes.
"Lord Gu Master, spare us!" The other hunter feeling Fang Yuan's faze, nearly died of shock as he plopped on the ground.
"Useless trash." Fang Yuan simply shook his head, and with a flick of his hand, two moonblades shot out, swiftly ending both their lives.
As he slowly walked into the house, his gaze instantly turned towards the firepit.
This firepit was connected to the chimney, used in winter to gain warmth. There was even some residue charcoal in the firepit.
Fang Yuan walked to the firepit, slowly squatting down and taking a shovel beside the firepit, digging out the charcoal.
Most of the charcoal still has their wooden shape, they were brittle and easily broken into two.
"Oh?" Fang Yuan inspected, suddenly finding a charcoal block that had a very tough material and was very heavy, not light like the other charcoal blocks.
He used the shovel to dig out this charcoal block, smashing it on the ground. The charcoal smashed into bits, revealing a bamboo tube.
Fang Yuan took the bamboo tube and opened it on one side, shaking it, causing a map to fall out.
The map was heavier than the stack of bamboo paper, made with a piece of white beast skin. The beast skin was huge, over a meters long and half a meter in breadth. There was black, green, red, yellow and blue lines on it, forming a complicated map.
The map's range was very big, extending far beyond the village's vicinity. As a mortal, it was not easy to map out areas so far away.
His gaze focused on five spots, those with wild boar herds.
Two were small sized, two were medium sized, and there was a large sized boar herd. In the middle of the large sized herd, there was a giant red cross.
Seeing this cross, Fang Yuan snickered. On his bamboo paper, there was no such marking!
The two young hunters had also seen the bamboo paper, and found no problems. This was their own inexperience, only certain of some areas. This red cross was far beyond the village, and from this, old man Wang's cunningness could be seen.
This was one of the reasons Fang Yuan chose to kill them.
The second reason was tied to his memory: during an upcoming trial, these hunters would reveal his identity to Old Wang's son. As a result, Fang Zheng would become a target and nearly lose his life. If not him, it would have been Fang Yuan who suffered instead.
His soul was damaged, and while he may have lost some memories, it wasn't complete amnesia. There were only fragments missing—gaps that would gradually be restored as he encountered familiar places or events tied to those lost memories.
In this life, he no longer possessed the Spring Autumn Cicada, so he had to tread even more cautiously than before.
After all, Fang Yuan would not kill for the sake of killing, killing is only a method. Using this method, if it can solve the problem, then why not?
"When cutting down weeds, you must get at the roots. Otherwise, the weeds will return with the spring breeze."
What, you said killing the innocent?
Hehe, no matter which world, as long as one lives in this world, they would be intertwined in karma, how can anyone be innocent? Humans slaughter pigs, aren't the pigs innocent?
Big fish eats small fish, and small fish eats shrimps, in nature there is only the food chain, there is no innocence.
In this world, anybody can live, anybody can die, but nobody is innocent!