"Are you saying we need to invite us to sail on the river and perform a ritual to worship the River God?"

As soon as Shu Ci returned home, she didn’t see where Baili An had gone. Before she even had a chance to put down the iron pot behind her, a large crowd of people came pressing in from outside.

They were all matrons and children from the village, surrounding the house inside and out, making it impenetrable.

They said something unclean had disturbed the village recently.

This attracted the old Immortal Huang Daoist Immortal Body from Qingyun Mountain to come here to exorcise the Evil Spirit and restore order.

Recently, there have been continuous strange events in the village, always during the cool evening twilight.

If a young lady washes clothes alone by the creek, she often disappears without reason, only for her family to realize it a few days later.

It’s because on the day of the young lady’s disappearance, her figure and voice frequently appeared in her own home at midnight.

This made the family think everything was as usual.

But upon thinking carefully about it later, the figure and voice of the young lady seemed unusually ethereal those days.

When truly recalling, an inexplicable fear struck.

It suddenly dawned that they hadn’t actually seen the young lady’s true appearance clearly at home.

Until they saw half of her clothes buried in the soil by the creek’s forest edge, it was evident she had been murdered for many days, yet her remains had vanished.

Such bizarre occurrences were rare in such a spiritually deficient remote mountain village.

In a short time, the ignorant village women, uninformed about the stars and geography, didn’t know what to do.

They lived in fear every night, afraid that these ghostly happenings would occur in their own homes.

Now encountering such an elder Immortal, they were naturally devoted in offering incense.

Moreover, Huang Daoist’s series of mystifying magic altar ceremonies, like fire blowing and talisman burning, amazed them.

In the eyes of these village women, it could be called great Divine Skills, worthy of kneeling in worship and believing without doubt.

In these days, Huang Daoist had essentially exploited the situation to his advantage, making a hefty profit in this poor and remote mountain village.

Various worn items, such as Peach Wood Sword, Yellow Talisman Paper, Five Emperor Copper Coin, bronze sword, and cinnabar Daoist robe.

Were all refurnished anew in this village.

But it was all under the excuse of needing to fully prepare for tonight’s ritual to worship the River God without any room for error.

Previously, they even made numerous requests for the ritual, requiring six women to sail the boat together to worship the divine.

And Shu Ci was the sixth choice.

In summary, Huang Daoist’s series of justifications bewildered the rural women farmers.

They only knew that this sixth person was not just anyone; they couldn’t be careless or indifferent.

Since the elder Immortal had named and designated this lady with the surname Shu, it could only be her, no one else could take her place.

Looking at the group of persistent people outside the door, a glint of killing intent appeared in Shu Ci’s eyes.

She had no interest in these mortal trivialities of mere common folk and had no patience to indulge in such mindless rituals worshipping the divine.

Just as she was about to explode, Mrs. Wu stepped out to criticize:

"What are you all doing, one by one? Sister Shu is not from our Qiaokou Village; what obligation does she have to be forced into doing such a dangerous thing in the river?"

Shu Ci cast a faint glance at Mrs. Wu, surprised that despite facing such an aggressive crowd, she, a mere woman, had the courage to stand up and speak in defense.

Though Shu Ci herself did not need any defense from others.

Mrs. Wu, though uneducated, was not as ignorant as these people.

She had a poor impression of Huang Daoist from the start. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Yesterday, she noticed the old Daoist obviously had intentions toward Sister Shu.

Today, she heard from the blacksmith that it seemed Sister Shu had some unpleasantness with the old Daoist in the blacksmith’s shop in the early morning.

The blacksmith, an honest man, clearly saw it was the old Daoist who attempted to inappropriately touch the lady first.

Yet now the old Daoist was at the height of his fame in the village, and the blacksmith didn’t want to stir up trouble, so he didn’t speak much about it.

But Mrs. Wu couldn’t bear it, clearly seeing it as revenge for denied advances.

It was early spring, cold and piercing, with continuous rain for several days making the creek’s waters swift and hazardous.

If an accident occurred during the night ritual, falling into the water, even if one didn’t drown, there was still the danger of freezing to death.

Human nature is intrinsically selfish; when faced with life and death situations, who can afford to think deeply about it, especially when human joy and sorrow difers.

Regarding Mrs. Wu’s accusations, they didn’t think anything of it and confidently said:

"Since she’s settled down and stayed in our village, she’s part of our village, eating our village’s food.

Her sickly husband’s daily medicine and the brazier’s fire were also from our village, weren’t they?

Now asking her to put some effort isn’t about her life. Why can’t she help out, why be vague?"

There were reasonable people in the village: "Aunt Li’s words aren’t right, Sister Shu’s food and fire were bought with silver.

Not to mention the few Luminous Pearls, worth several years of the village’s harvest, she owes no one anything.

But Sister Shu, don’t blame us. These strange happenings in our village.

Several girls have disappeared, if not worse, lives may have been lost.

We also want to end this matter soon, lest we attract something unclean.

The elder Immortal named you specifically, saying your destiny is strong and noble, capable of manifesting the Immortal’s spirit.