Wild cultivation begins with wielding the Taiyin talisman.

"Sir, there's a monster here!"

"My lord, my lord, you must save us!"

The villagers were making a commotion in a state of confusion, but Ning Che did not respond. Zhao He saw the opportunity and stepped forward to stop them.

Ning Che walked straight to the three corpses and lifted a corner of the straw mat with one hand.

The sight below made Zhao He gag on the spot.

The deceased's skin was extensively ulcerated, exposing the blackened muscle beneath. The ulceration was not uniform, but rather presented a strange, patchy distribution, as if something had been gnawing away at the skin piece by piece.

Ning Che covered himself with the straw mat and looked at a room next to him with its doors and windows tightly closed.

"Are all the patients inside?"

A middle-aged woman with a face covered in greasepaint, looking like a shaman, stepped forward and nodded, saying, "We've gathered them together to prevent infection. Oh, the earliest one started having a fever last night."

Ning Che walked to the door of that room and pushed it open.

The smell inside was stronger than outside. A dozen or so people lay on straw mats on the ground, men and women of varying ages. The youngest looked to be under twenty, while the oldest had a completely white beard. What they had in common was their flushed faces, chapped lips, and blisters on their bodies.

When the messenger came to tell me, there were still eight.

He couldn't help but frown. The illness was undoubtedly more troublesome for him than a ferocious demon beast. He dared to fight even a seventh-rank demon, but when it came to healing, there was little he could do.

Moreover, the rate at which this thing spreads seems rather alarming.

But if the infection is really that fast... there seem to be too few patients. If this disease could spread in less than a day, the whole village should have been wiped out by now.

Ning Che squatted down and carefully examined the blisters on one of the people's arms.

Beneath the blisters wasn't pus, but a layer of black stuff, resembling congealed blood or some kind of foreign object. A pungent, nauseating odor was noticeable even without getting close.

However, it is noticeable that the blisters are most concentrated on the forearms.

He searched carefully and finally found a tiny wound in the already swollen and festering skin.

In this situation, it is impossible to determine how the injury occurred.

But there were still other ways to deduce this. His expression changed, and he began to examine the areas where the patients had the most blisters.

Sure enough, wounds could be found in most of them.

I see. If it's a kind of poison, then it's not surprising.

He stood up, walked out of the room, and handed several packets of medicine to Zhao He: "These are the plague-repelling powders that Old Qian gave you. Go and light them in every room, especially the one for the sick."

Zhao He quickly took it and ran off to get it done.

Ning Che walked alone towards the granary at the east end of the village.

The granary was a semi-underground stone building, and several fist-sized holes had been gnawed into the door panels. Ning Che went inside; the floor was covered with rat droppings and gnawed grain scraps. The grain sacks were torn to shreds; at least half of the grain had been lost.

He squatted down and looked at the several holes in the ground.

The entrances weren't large, but their sheer number was astonishing, densely packed along the walls and floor of the granary. He pressed his ear close to the ground, using his "Six Ears Listening to the Moon" technique.

Soon, the sounds from underground reached my ears, as clear as reading the lines on my palm.

There were at least dozens of rats moving around underground, most of them ordinary rats, but a few were noticeably different. Their claws dug into the ground more loudly, their breathing was slower, and they occasionally made a low squeak, as if they were communicating with each other.

There are also special frequencies, unusual powers, and vigorous vitality.

Ning Che carefully examined the details, then stood up.

Four.

Four rat demons, leading a large swarm of ordinary rats, were entrenched beneath the village. The plague was most likely brought by them. Either it was a demonic poison they carried, or something they deliberately spread.

He walked out of the granary and looked at the sky.

The sun was still high, and there were at least two or three hours until nightfall. Rats are nocturnal creatures, and although they are no longer bound by these rules after becoming demons, their habits are still difficult to change.

Then let's wait until tonight.

In the eyes of an ordinary village, four rat demons would be considered a disaster. But for Ning Che, if they dared to come out, killing four of them might not even take four strikes.

Ning Che was just about to go back to the village to ask about the situation when Zhao He ran over: "They've already lit the plague-repelling powder. Brother Xing, what's going on?"

"It's still unclear." Ning Che thought for a moment, then said:

"Go back to the city and report the situation. Then go to the free clinic and see if you can... never mind, go ask the Zhong family. Just mention Zhong Hongyao's name and say you suspect there's demonic poison here. See if they have any doctors who can come. The price is negotiable."

Zhao He hesitated: "And what about you?"

"I'm here, why would you worry about me? Just be careful on your way back."

Zhao He responded and went outside.

On the other side, the shaman approached cautiously and asked, "Sir, can this illness... be cured?"

Ning Che was momentarily dazed. The shamans were once undoubtedly important figures in his eyes, but now, he was the important figure in the eyes of the shamans of these villages.

Then, he used his limited knowledge of pharmacology and pondered for a moment.

Naturally, it came to nothing, and he could only say what he knew.

"It's not a plague," Ning Che told the shaman. "It's poison."

The shaman paused, then asked, "Poison?"

"Bite." Ning Che pointed to the tiny wounds covered by blisters on the patient's arm. "Look closely, everyone has a wound where the blisters are most severe. It's not human-to-human transmission; it's poisoning from a rat bite."

The shaman leaned closer for a look, his expression shifting several times before a glimmer of hope appeared: "Then...those who weren't bitten, won't get it?"

"It's highly unlikely. But just to be on the safe side, everyone should stay home tonight, block up doors and windows, and seal any cracks in the ground with mud."

Upon hearing this, several villagers who had been listening intently breathed a sigh of relief. Some even burst into tears, not from sadness, but from the relief of surviving a disaster.

The shaman nodded repeatedly and turned to make the arrangements.

Ning Che returned to the patient's room and distributed the heat-clearing and hemostatic medicine that Old Qian had given him. He didn't understand deep medical theory, but he had been practicing free clinics for some time and had some basic judgment.

Since it's a demonic poison invading the body, before there's a suitable antidote, all we can do is suppress the symptoms and buy time.

He added another portion of the plague-repelling powder to the room, and the slightly pungent smoke filled the air, making the groans of several patients seem a little quieter.

After doing all this, Ning Che walked out of the house and sat down on a rock at the entrance of the village.

As the sun began to set, it cast a long shadow on him.

He closed his eyes and began to circulate his internal energy. The door in his dantian, which was barely visible, had opened a crack, as if it would reveal a whole new world behind it if he simply reached out and pushed it open.

But he resisted the urge to push the door open.

Now is not the time to break through the barrier. He is just using this time to recover his condition using the Moon Rabbit Breathing Technique.

When a lion hunts a rabbit, it uses its full strength.