Wei Wuxian left the donkey at the foot of the mountain, stepped over the remains of the stone wall, and walked up the mountain path. Not long after, he saw a headless stone beast. This stone beast weighed more than a thousand pounds and had guarded the mountain path for many years. Its body was covered with vines and leaves, and the sunken parts were covered with moss. The beast's head was chopped off with a heavy axe and thrown not far away, smashing it into pieces as a demonstration. The split surface was brand new, revealing the snow-white stone gall. Walking a little further, he encountered another one that was also split in half from head to toe.

Wei Wuxian guessed that these must be the mountain-guarding stone beasts that were placed by the families on the Feng Shui points of the mass grave after his death. This kind of stone beast has the ability to suppress evil spirits and exorcise evil spirits. The craftsmanship required is extremely high and the cost is also very high. Now I am afraid that they have all been destroyed by people, which is really a waste of natural resources.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked side by side for two steps. Wei Wuxian turned around inadvertently and saw that Wen Ning had appeared.

He stood beside the stone beast, head lowered, and said, "Wen Ning? What are you looking at?"

Wen Ning pointed to the base of the stone beast.

The stone beast was pressed on a thick, round, short tree stump. Next to the short stump, there were three smaller, shorter stumps scattered around, all of which seemed to have been burned by a fire and were charred.

Wen Ning knelt on the ground, dug his five fingers deep into the ground, grabbed a handful of dark soil, held it in his palm, and whispered, "...Sister."

Wei WuXian didn’t know what to say, so he walked over and patted his shoulder vigorously.

Wei Wuxian had spent two extremely difficult years in this place. He had no intention of revisiting the place.

For Wen Ning, the mass grave is a place he will never forget.

A gust of cold wind swept past, and the trees rustled, as if thousands of tiny voices were whispering. Wei Wuxian listened attentively, knelt on one knee, leaned down, and whispered something softly to the ground beneath him. Suddenly, the ground bulged slightly.

Like a pale flower blooming from the black soil, a skeletal arm slowly broke through the ground.

The small half of the skeleton arm was raised weakly, and Wei Wuxian stretched out a hand to hold it, leaning his body even lower. His long hair fell from his shoulders, covering half of his face.

He put his lips close to the skeleton's hand and whispered softly, then remained silent, as if listening to something. After a while, he nodded slightly, and the hand shrank into a flower bud and went back into the ground.

Wei WuXian stood up, brushed off the dirt from beneath him, and said, “Over the past few days, we have captured more than a hundred people and brought them up to the top of the mountain. They are all still alive. However, the people who captured them have already gone down the mountain. I don’t know what they want to do. Anyway, be careful.”

The three of them walked further up the mountain and came across some dilapidated shacks standing beside the mountain path.

Most of these houses are small, simple, even crude, and can be seen at a glance that they were hastily built. Some have been burned down to a frame, and some have collapsed to one side. Even the best-preserved ones have had half of their sides smashed to pieces. After more than a decade of wind and rain, with no one to take care of them, they are like ragged, lingering ghosts, silently overlooking the people coming down the mountain.

Wen Ning's steps had been particularly heavy since he came up the mountain. Now, standing in front of a house, he could no longer move.

This was a house he built with his own hands. Before he left, the house was still intact. Although it was simple, it was a good shelter from the wind and rain, where people he knew and cherished lived.

As the saying goes, “things have changed and people have changed”, but at least “things remain the same”. But in this situation, I can’t even think of the people when I see the things.

Wei WuXian said, “Don’t look at it anymore.”

Wen Ning said: "...I had already expected this to happen. I just wanted to see if there was anything left..."

Before he could finish his words, a human figure suddenly stood up staggeringly in the dilapidated house.

The figure staggered out of the house, its half-rotten face exposed to the thin sunlight. Wei Wuxian clapped his hands, but the corpse didn't notice anything unusual and continued to walk towards them. Wei Wuxian took two steps back calmly and said, "It's being controlled by the Yin Tiger Talisman."

The corpse puppets that have submitted to him will no longer be controlled by the Yin Tiger Talisman. Similarly, the corpse puppets that have been controlled by the Yin Tiger Talisman will no longer obey his orders. The rules are simple and crude: first come, first served.

Wen Ning took a step forward, roared, and tore off its head. Then, low growls were heard from all directions, and forty or fifty zombies slowly walked out of the black woods. These zombies were men, women, young and old, and most of them were fresh and dressed in shrouds. Most of them were the bodies that had been lost recently. Lan Wangji took out the ancient zither and played it casually. The sound of the zither spread like ripples, and the group of zombies that had just surrounded them knelt in a circle. Wen Ning lifted up an especially tall male corpse with both hands and threw it several feet away. Its chest was pierced by a sharp branch, and it was stuck on the branch and struggling. Wei Wuxian said, "Don't bother with them, just go up the mountain!"

It was unknown how many zombies Jin Guangyao had summoned crazily with the Yin Tiger Talisman in the past few days. Wave after wave, the three of them retreated the zombies while retreating up the mountain. The closer they got to the top of the mass grave, the denser the zombies were. Above the towering black forest, the sound of the piano reached the sky, and crows flew around. After nearly an hour, they finally got a break.

Wei WuXian sat on a damaged mountain guardian stone beast and sighed, mocking himself: "I used to use this thing against others, but today it's finally someone else's turn to use it against me. Now I know how abominable the Yin Tiger Talisman is. If I were in his place, I would also want to kill the person who made this damn thing."

Lan Wangji put away his zither, pulled out a long sword from his sleeve, handed it to him, and said, "For self-defense."

Wei Wuxian took it and looked at it, and it was just casual. After cutting the melon that day, he threw the sword away, and Lan Wangji put it away again. He drew the sword out of the sheath, stared at the snow-white blade for a while, and decisively put it back, smiling and saying, "Thank you." He casually put it on his waist, with no intention of using it. Seeing Lan Wangji staring at him, Wei Wuxian scratched his hair and explained, "I haven't used the sword for too many years. I'm not used to it." Then he sighed and said, "Well, the real reason is that my current body has low spiritual power. Even if I have a top-grade sword, I can't exert its due power. So, I still have to trouble Han Guangjun to protect a weak man like me."

Lan Wangji: “…”

The frail man sat for a while, and finally stood up by holding his knees. The three of them walked up a little further, and finally, at the end of the mountain path, they saw a cave with a dark entrance.

The entrance of the cave is more than fifty meters high and wide. Before you get close, you can feel gusts of cold wind blowing from afar, and you can even hear faint human voices and moans.

The legendary Demon-Suppressing Cave is the lair where the Yiling Patriarch killed people, refined corpses, and did extremely evil things.

The dome of the Demon Cave was high and wide. The three held their breath and sneaked into the cave. No one made any sound of footsteps, but the voices coming from the depths of the cave became louder and louder.

Wei Wuxian knew the terrain of the cave very well. He walked in front and made a stop gesture at a certain point.

The main cave was only one wall away from them. Through the hole in the stone wall, they could see a cave that could accommodate a thousand people. In the middle sat more than a hundred people, their hands and feet tightly bound by immortal ropes. And judging from the age of these more than a hundred people, and judging by their clothes and swords, they were either high-ranking disciples or direct descendants of aristocratic families.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji looked at each other. Before they could talk in a low voice, a young man sitting on the ground suddenly said, "If you ask me, you shouldn't have just stabbed him with the sword. Why didn't you just cut his neck?"

His voice was not loud, but the Demon Cave was very empty, and the sound echoed as soon as he spoke, so he could hear it clearly without eavesdropping. As soon as the young man spoke, Wei Wuxian felt that he looked familiar, and it took him a while to remember that this was Jin Chan who had fought with Jin Ling that day.

Looking again, who else could the sullen-looking young man next to this fellow be but Jin Ling?

Jin Ling didn't even look at him, and kept silent. A boy beside him made a loud rumbling sound in his stomach, saying, "They've been gone for several days. What do they want? Kill them or chop them up. I'd rather be killed by monsters while hunting at night than starve to death here!"

The young man who was chattering was Lan Jingyi. Jin Chan said, "What else can you think of? He must want to do the same thing to Wen Gou in the Sun Shooting Campaign, turning us into his corpse puppets, and then, then use us to deal with our families, making it difficult for them to kill us and letting the enemies kill each other." He gritted his teeth and said, "Despicable Wei Gou, you have no humanity!"

Suddenly, Jin Ling said coldly: "Shut up."

Jin Chan was stunned: "You want me to shut up? What do you mean?"

Jin Ling said, "What do you mean? Are you deaf or stupid? You don't understand what people say? Shut up! I told you to stop making noise!"

Having been tied up for so long, Jin Chan was already furious and said angrily, "Why do you want me to shut up?!"

Jin Ling said, "Your nonsense is pointless. Will it break the rope if you say a few more words? It's annoying to listen to."

"you!!!"

Another young voice said, "We are trapped here now. There are so many zombies on the mountain and we don't know when they will rush in. You guys are going to quarrel at this time?"

The calmest voice belonged to Lan Sizhui. Jin Chan said, "He was the first to go crazy! Why, you can curse, but you can't let others?! Jin Ling, hey, who do you think you are? Do you think Lian Fang Zun is the Immortal Supervisor, and you will be too in the future? I won't shut up, I'll see..."

With a "bang", Jin Ling's head suddenly hit him. Jin Chan screamed in pain and cursed, "If you want to fight, come on! I'm really angry. You're a motherless bastard!"

Hearing this, Jin Ling was furious. He was tied up and couldn't fight, so he used his elbows and knees to hit the opponent repeatedly, making him scream. But he was alone, while Jin Chan was always surrounded by people. When the teenagers saw him being hurt, they immediately shouted, "I'll help you!" and surrounded him. Lan Sizhui was sitting nearby and was involuntarily dragged into the torrent of group fighting. At first, he could barely persuade them to "calm down, calm down", but after being hit by a few elbows, he frowned in pain and his face became darker and darker. Finally, he shouted and simply joined the melee.

The three people outside couldn't bear to watch any longer. Wei Wuxian jumped onto the stone steps in front of the Demon Cave first and shouted, "Hey! Look here!"

His roar was so deafening in the Demon-Suppressing Cave that it was almost deafening. The scuffling teenagers looked up, and Lan Sizhui saw the familiar figure beside him and said happily, "Han Guang-jun!"

Lan Jingyi yelled even louder: “Han Guang-jun ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Jin Chan said in horror: "Why are you so happy? They... they are in the same group!"

Wei Wuxian stepped into the Demon-Suppressing Cave, unsheathed the sword, and threw it back. A figure flashed out and caught the sword. It was Wen Ning. The young men from the noble families screamed and yelled again: "Ghost ghost ghost ghost general!"

Wen Ning raised Suibian and slashed at Jin Ling with his sword. Jin Ling gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, but his whole body loosened and the immortal ropes were cut by Suibian's sharp edge. Next, Wen Ning walked around the cave and cut the immortal ropes. The young man from the noble family who was freed by him could not escape or stay. There were the ghost general of Yiling Patriarch and the traitor of the righteous path, Han Guangjun, inside, and countless walking corpses crying for food outside. He was caught in a dilemma and had to shrink in a corner of the cave, staring at Wen Ning who was walking around with an expressionless face. Lan Sizhui's face was full of light, and he said, "Mo...Senior Wei. You are here to save us, right? You didn't send people to capture us, did you?"

Although it was a question, his face was full of complete trust and joy. Wei Wuxian felt warm in his heart. He squatted down and rubbed his head, ruffling his hair which had been meticulously kept even after being in trouble for a few days. He said, "Me? You know how poor I am. How can I have so much money to hire someone?"

Lan Sizhui nodded repeatedly and said, "Yes. I knew this! I know that senior is really poor!"

“…”

Wei WuXian said, “Be good. How many people are there on the other side? Is there an ambush nearby?”

Lan Jingyi threw off the ropes on his body and said hurriedly, "There are so many people on the other side! Their faces are covered with black fog so we can't see their faces clearly. They tied us up and threw us here without caring about us, as if they want us to fend for ourselves. Oh oh oh, there are a lot of zombies outside! They keep screaming!"

Bichen unsheathed his sword and cut the immortal ropes that bound them. Lan Wangji sheathed his sword and said to Lan Sizhui, "Well done."

What he meant was that Lan Sizhui was able to stay calm and trust them, well done. Lan Sizhui quickly stood up and stood straight in front of Lan Wangji. Before he could smile, Wei Wuxian said with a grin, "Yeah, well done, Sizhui, you can even fight now."

Lan Sizhui's face flushed immediately, and he said, "That, that was... I was just impulsive..."

Suddenly, Wei WuXian sensed someone approaching, and turning back, he saw Jin Ling standing behind them with his hands and feet stiff.

Lan Wangji immediately stopped in front of Wei Wuxian, and Lan Sizhui stood in front of Lan Wangji again, saying cautiously, "Mr. Jin."

Wei WuXian walked out from behind the two of them and said, “What are you doing? You are stacking up like a human pyramid.”

Jin Ling's face was very strange, his fists tightened and loosened, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't. He just stared at the place in Wei Wuxian's abdomen where he had stabbed with the sword. Lan Jingyi was horrified and said, "You, you, you! You don't want to stab him again!"

Jin Ling's face froze, and Lan Sizhui hurriedly said, "Jingyi!"

Wei Wuxian held Jingyi on his left and Sizhui on his right, hugged the two kids’ necks and said, “Alright, hurry up and get out.”

Lan Sizhui said: “Yes!”

The other teenagers were still huddled together in the corner, not daring to move. Lan Jingyi said, "Let's go? Do you still want to stay here?"

A young man stiffened his neck and said, "There are so many zombies outside, do you want us to go out... and die?"

Wen Ning said, "Master, I will go out and chase them away."

Wei Wuxian nodded, and Wen Ning rushed out like a gust of wind. Lan Sizhui said, "The Immortal Binding Rope has been untied. At worst, we can just work together to fight our way out. If you don't leave, what if the zombies rush in after we leave? Given the terrain of this cave, wouldn't it be like catching turtles in a jar?"

After saying that, he pulled Lan Jingyi with him, and the two of them and several younger members of the Lan family followed Wen Ning out first. The group of teenagers looked at each other in bewilderment.

After a while, someone said, "Brother Sizhui, wait for me!" and followed him, and they left together.

This young man was the little "love-struck seed" who had burned paper money and shed tears for Ah Qing in Yicheng. Others called him Zizhen, and he seemed to be the only son of the Ouyang family of Baling. Then several people came one after another, all of whom were familiar faces from the last time in Yicheng. The remaining young men were originally hesitant, but when they saw Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji staring at them, they were scared when these two people stared at them, so they had to bite the bullet and go around. The last one to fall behind was actually Jin Ling.

Just as a large group of people were dragging their feet towards the cave entrance, suddenly a figure was thrown in, creating a deep human-shaped pit on the cave wall.

Gray stones fell down, and several young people in front shouted: "Ghost General!"

Wei WuXian asked: “Wen Ning? What’s going on?!”

Wen Ning reluctantly said, "...It's okay."

He fell from the pit, stood up and silently and roughly connected his broken arm. Wei Wuxian looked closely and saw a young man in purple standing in front of the Demon Cave with his hands hanging down. Purple lightning was flowing under his hands. Wen Ning was whipped into the cave by his whip just now.

Jiang Cheng.

No wonder Wen Ning had no intention of fighting back.

Jin Ling said: "Uncle!"

Jiang Cheng said coldly: "Jin Ling, come here."

From the dark woods behind him, a group of monks in various costumes slowly walked out. They gathered more and more, and roughly counted, there were about one or two thousand people. They surrounded the Demon-Suppressing Cave in a huge black mass. These monks, including Jiang Cheng, were all covered in blood and looked exhausted. The group of young men from aristocratic families rushed out of the Demon-Suppressing Cave, shouting, "Dad!" "Mom!" "Brother!" and rushed into the crowd.

Jin Ling looked left and right, still hesitant and undecided. Jiang Cheng said sternly: "Jin Ling, what are you dawdling about? Why don't you come over? Do you want to die?"

Lan Qiren stood in front of the crowd, looking much older, with some gray hair on his temples. He said, "Wangji."

Lan Wangji whispered, "Uncle."

But she still didn't stand back beside him.

Lan Qiren understood it all too well; this was Lan Wangji's unshakable and resolute answer. He shook his head in extreme disappointment and did not speak again to try to persuade him.

A fairy in white clothes stood up, eyes full of tears, and said, "Hanguang-jun, what happened to you? You... you are no longer yourself. It is clear that you and the Yiling Patriarch were irreconcilable and incompatible before. How did Wei Wuxian bewitch you and make you stand against us?"

Lan Wangji ignored her. The fairy had no answer and could only say with regret: "If that's the case, I'm unworthy of being a famous scholar!"

Wei WuXian said, “You guys are here again.”

Jiang Cheng said coldly: "Of course I will come."

Su She, carrying his seven-stringed ancient zither, also stood in front of the crowd and said leisurely, "If it weren't for the fact that the Yiling Patriarch was afraid that the world would not know about it when he just returned, and had not made a big fuss to dig up corpses and arrest people, I'm sure we wouldn't have come to your lair so soon."

Wei WuXian said: “I clearly saved these noble family children, why don’t you thank me, but instead accuse me?”

Many people laughed, and some even shouted "the thief cries thief". Wei Wuxian knew that arguing was futile, so he was not in a hurry. He smiled slightly and said, "However, the scene you came with seems a bit shabby, lacking two important figures. May I ask you, why didn't Lian Fangzun and Ze Wujun come to such a grand event?"

Su She sneered, "Humph, the day before yesterday, Lian Fang Zun was assassinated by an unknown person at Jinlin Terrace and was seriously injured. Ze Wu Jun is still trying his best to treat him. Why are you asking when you know the answer?"

Hearing that Jin Guangyao was "seriously injured", Wei Wuxian suddenly remembered his heroic act of pretending to commit suicide when he attacked Nie Mingjue, and he couldn't help laughing out loud. Su She frowned and asked, "What are you laughing at?"

Wei WuXian said, “Nothing. I just think Lian Fang Zun is often injured.”

At this moment, a small voice suddenly said: "Dad, I think it might not be him who did it. He saved us last time in Yicheng. It seems he is here to save us this time too..."

He looked in the direction of the voice and saw that it was Ouyang Zizhen who was speaking. However, his father immediately reprimanded his son: "Little boy, don't talk nonsense! Do you know what kind of occasion this is? Do you know who that person is!"

Retracting his gaze, Wei WuXian said calmly, “I understand.”

He knew from the beginning that no matter what he said, no one would believe him. What he denied could be imposed; what he admitted could be distorted.

Lan Wangji's words originally carried a lot of weight, but after being mixed up with him, he might have become the target of public criticism. I thought that the noble family had Lan Xichen in charge, so they should be able to mediate, but who knew that neither Lan Xichen nor Jin Guangyao showed up.

During the first mass grave suppression, Jin Guangshan led the Lanling Jin Clan, Jiang Cheng led the Yunmeng Jiang Clan. Lan Qiren led the Gusu Lan Clan, and Nie Mingjue led the Qinghe Nie Clan. The first two were the main forces, while the latter two were dispensable. Now the head of the Lanling Jin Clan has not arrived, and only sent people to accept the command of the Lan Clan; the Gusu Lan Clan is still under the command of Lan Qiren; Nie Huaisang has replaced his eldest brother, shrinking in the crowd, and his face is still full of "I know nothing", "I don't want to do anything", "I'm just here to make up the numbers".

There was only Jiang Cheng, still the same Jiang Cheng with hostility all over his body, a sinister look on his face, staring at him intently.

But.

Wei Wuxian turned his head slightly and saw Lan Wangji standing beside him without any hesitation or intention of retreating.

But this time, he was no longer alone.

Amid the eager gazes of thousands of cultivators, a middle-aged man could not hold back and jumped out, shouting, “Wei Wuxian! Do you still remember me?”

Wei WuXian answered honestly, “I don’t remember.”

The middle-aged monk sneered and said, "You don't remember, but my leg does!"

He lifted the hem of his robe, revealing a wooden prosthesis, and said, "This leg of mine was broken by you that night in the Nevernight City. I let you see it so that you know that I, Yi Weichun, also contributed to the people who surrounded you today. What goes around, comes around!"

As if inspired by him, another young monk also stood up. He said loudly: "Wei Wuxian, I won't ask you if you remember. My parents both died at your hands. You owe too much blood debt, so you definitely don't remember them. But I, Fang Mengchen, will never forget! Nor will I forgive!"

Then, a third person stepped forward. He was a middle-aged scholar with a slender figure, bright eyes, and a seemingly pure character. This time, Wei Wuxian took the lead and asked, "Have I ever crippled you?"

The man shook his head. Wei WuXian asked again, "Did I kill your parents, or wipe out your entire family?"

The man shook his head again. Wei WuXian asked curiously, “Then may I ask what are you doing here?”

The man said, "I have no grudge against you. I came here to fight just to make you understand: if you dare to do something that is condemned by the world and is punishable by everyone, no matter what inferior means you use, no matter how many times you crawl out of the grave, we will send you back. Not for anything else, just for the word 'righteousness'!"

When everyone heard this, they cheered and said, "Sect Master Yao is right!"

Sect Leader Yao stepped back with a smile, and the others were greatly encouraged. They stepped forward one after another and loudly declared war.

"My son was ambushed on Qiongqi Road and his throat was cut by your lackey Wen Ning!"

"My senior brother died from your vicious curse, his entire body was festered and he was poisoned!"

"Not for anything else, just to prove that there is still justice in this world and that evil cannot be tolerated!"

"There is still justice in this world, and evil will not be tolerated!"

Every face is filled with boiling blood, every word is righteous, every person is awe-inspiring, passionate, indignant, and full of heroic spirit.

Everyone had no doubt that what they were doing at the moment was a glorious feat and a great act of justice.

A crusade of "justice" against "evil" that will be passed down through the ages and praised by everyone!