72: Cloth, children, and thunderstorms

Seeing Lin Zifeng fall silent, Jiang Lan said, "Right now, what you should be concerned about isn't me."

The once-fine county town had been ravaged by a Jiao Demon, leaving a scene of desolation everywhere the eye could see. Countless families were torn apart, and lives were lost.

Compared to the new scar on his chest, dealing with the surviving citizens in the town was clearly what Lin Zifeng needed to worry about.

Lin Zifeng understood this. Seeing that Jiang Lan didn't seem to be in any trouble, he gritted his teeth and said, "I'll deal with things here first. Take care."

Jiang Lan didn't speak. He squatted down on his own accord, using his long saber to gesture and mark the Jiao Demon's corpse.

Earlier, he hadn't been entirely just trash-talking the Jiao Demon.

Jiang Lan genuinely felt that the Jiao Demon's scales were quite good.

Seeing that Jiang Lan wasn't speaking, he didn't intend to stay put either.

"Thanks to you today. When I return to the capital another day, I will surely reward you handsomely."

Jiang Lan coming this time had truly helped him a great deal.

If he had returned alone and fought the Jiao Demon, he wasn't sure how it would have turned out.

If his luck was bad, he might have even died at the Jiao Demon's hands.

"Go."

Jiang Lan didn't turn his head, merely waved his hand, and continued to strip scales from the Jiao Demon's corpse.

He had come on this trip specifically for Lifespan.

Now that his objective had been achieved, whether there was a reward or not was irrelevant.

Skinning, sinew-pulling.

Before long, the three sections of the corpse that had been covered in scales were stripped into three sections of pale, fleshy strips.

In Jiang Lan's hands, there was a pile of black scales and two sections of Jiao Demon sinew, each one and a half zhang long.

Although he didn't know what these things were for, no matter what, they were stripped from a Jiao Demon.

When he returned to the Demon Suppression Division, he would see if there were any skilled craftsmen who could process them for him.

Casually tossing the items on the ground, Jiang Lan looked around and saw a cloth shop not far away.

The cloth shop's door was tightly shut and had not been affected by the fire. However, a badly mutilated man's corpse lay two or three steps from the shop entrance, his entire waist and abdomen crushed into a bloody mess, lying face up on the ground.

Getting up and walking to the cloth shop's entrance, Jiang Lan stepped over the corpse and pushed the door open.

The shop was filled with various fabrics. Without much thought, he intended to tear off a piece.

He couldn't carry all those scales with just two hands; he needed something to put them in.

"Tear--"

Casually tearing off a piece of undyed hemp cloth, Jiang Lan walked to the counter.

It was then that he noticed a woman hiding behind the counter, trembling incessantly, seemingly clutching something in her arms.

Hearing footsteps, the woman buried her head even lower, and the amplitude of her trembling shoulders grew larger and larger.

Seeing this, Jiang Lan narrowed his eyes.

Reaching into his chest, he then remembered that his robe was still lying next to the Jiao Demon's corpse.

Without a word, Jiang Lan walked out of the shop, went to the Jiao Demon's corpse, and picked up the black robe he had been wearing.

After rummaging inside for a while and taking out a gold ingot, Jiang Lan draped the black robe over himself and returned to the cloth shop.

At the counter, he lightly tapped the counter twice and placed the gold ingot in his hand down.

"Boss, I'm buying cloth."

Hearing a voice, the woman behind the counter stopped trembling and slowly raised her head.

It was then that Jiang Lan clearly saw that in the woman's arms was an infant who looked to be less than a year old.

The infant's breathing was even, clearly unharmed, and was sound asleep.

"You..."

The woman's face was streaked with tears, but her tone was somewhat uncertain and surprised.

"I'm here to buy cloth." Jiang Lan pushed the gold ingot on the counter forward. "That thing outside is dead."

As Jiang Lan's words fell, various emotions rapidly shifted across the woman's face.

Fear, hesitation, grief, anger, hysteria.

Jiang Lan had never seen so many emotional changes appear on a person's face in such a short time.

Three seconds later.

Tears flowed from the corners of the woman's eyes, followed by soft sobs, eventually turning into hysterical wailing.

Her cries were deafening, as if she wanted to cry out all her grievances.

The infant in her arms was also startled awake and began to wail loudly, mixing with the woman's cries.

"Wah..."

Jiang Lan didn't leave but remained standing in place.

A quarter of an hour later.

Perhaps exhausted from crying, the woman looked up at Jiang Lan again, her expression complex.

"Did you kill that monster?"

"Yes."

After receiving an affirmative answer, the woman's expression flickered, and all her emotions turned to resentment.

Her sinister eyes made it seem as if Jiang Lan was an enemy she wished she could devour alive.

She screamed hysterically:

"Why didn't you come sooner? If you had come earlier, my husband wouldn't have died! Why didn't you come earlier? Why didn't you come earlier?!"

"Wah..."

The infant in her arms seemed to be frightened and started crying loudly again.

Looking at the scene before him, Jiang Lan felt a surge of Qi rise in his chest, making him feel a bit stifled.

He turned and walked out the door.

The night wind, mixed with a strong smell of blood, hit Jiang Lan's face.

"Hoo..."

Jiang Lan let out a long, turbid breath.

He didn't find the woman pathetic; he just found the world absurd.

Untying the four corners of the hemp cloth and tying it into a bundle, Jiang Lan walked to the Jiao Demon's corpse and stuffed all the scales and Jiao Demon sinews into the bundle.

He turned around and walked step by step towards the city gate.

Just as he was about to step out of the city gate.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Three signal flares exploded in the sky.

Jiang Lan turned and looked up, the lingering light of the flares reflecting in his eyes, disappearing in a blink.

It was as if they were seeing him off.

And also as if they were mourning the corpses filling the city.

Turning again, Jiang Lan didn't look back this time, stepping directly out of the city gate.

He knew without thinking that the signal flares just now were sent out by Lin Zifeng to call for people.

He had finished what he needed to do, and staying here any longer was meaningless.

He couldn't possibly stay to help move corpses.

It was deep night, and the wind howled fiercely.

"Boom!"

Thunder exploded.

Sheets of rain poured from the sky, soon forming a continuous curtain of water.

Jiang Lan walked alone in the rainy night, heading towards the capital.

Three hours later.

As the sun broke through the dawn, Jiang Lan stopped, looking at the city gate of Yan Capital before him.

The curfew had not yet been lifted, and the city gate had not yet opened, but there were soldiers guarding the city wall.

Seeing Jiang Lan, who was drenched, one of the soldiers shouted a question.

"Who goes there?"

Jiang Lan directly threw the token in his hand onto the city wall.

"From the Demon Suppression Division."

The soldier was startled, thinking the suddenly flying token was some kind of hidden weapon.

The token landed at his feet, and then he heard Jiang Lan's words. Only then did he bend down to pick up the token.

The moment he saw the three large characters "Demon Suppression Envoy" on it, he quickly called out to the person next to him:

"Open the gate quickly!"

Even if he hadn't seen a pig eat, he had seen a pig run. He knew what kind of position a Demon Suppression Envoy held.

"This lowly one did not know it was an adult returning to the city. I hope the adult will forgive me!"

"