Wild cultivation begins with wielding the Taiyin talisman.

After reconciling with Mancang, Ning Che returned home and slept fully clothed.

He dreamt of enormous, winged rats flying over desolate city walls, from which millions of luminous insects emerged and chased after them. They flew all the way to the heavens, where the bright moon hung overhead.

Ning Che woke up, rubbed his eyes, and saw that the morning light had already illuminated the window paper, casting a warm, mottled yellow glow.

Ning Che had no heart to appreciate this rather heartwarming scene. He sat up with a jolt, casually straightened his clothes, ate two pieces of hardened jerky, and went out.

On the way, he removed the bandages from his hands. The wounds, though numerous, were shallow and had already scabbed over.

He gave the knife to Mancang last night, and he had to go to Shi Yong today to ask for another one. He thought to himself as he walked, and along the way he could see that some villagers were already up early and repairing the fortifications.

Continuing forward, he saw Xiao Hu standing by the roadside. Ning Che was about to go over and say hello when a discordant voice suddenly reached his ears.

"What kind of hero saves the village? Just because of the stars?" A teenager with a topknot stood with his hands on his hips and sneered.

Xiao Hu's neck turned red with anger, seemingly even angrier than if he himself had been questioned. He retorted at the top of his lungs, "What do you know? Brother Xingxing is a great hero! I've heard it all; he killed those two demons in the wasteland!"

"It was just luck," the child retorted. "I heard it all; he himself said he was able to kill those two demons with the help of others. What kind of hero is that!"

Xiao Hu was speechless for a moment, which only fueled the boy's arrogance. He held his head high, like a victorious rooster, and said, "My father said that if he hadn't used two Rejuvenation Talismans, how could the village's grain have been left unsaved? Now that the beast tide is coming, it's all his fault! He's a big bad guy!"

"You're talking nonsense!" Little Tiger roared angrily, clenching his little fists, ready to rush up and hit someone.

Ning Che rushed forward, grabbed Xiao Hu by the back of his collar, and gently pulled him back.

The two children were both stunned for a moment. The boy with the topknot turned pale instantly when he saw Ning Che, and shrank back. Little Tiger complained, feeling wronged, "Brother Xingxing! Daqi is talking bad about you!"

"People can say whatever they want," Ning Che said calmly, ruffling Xiao Hu's hair. "The beast tide is coming soon. We can't fight among ourselves, understand? Don't run around these next few days, and don't cause trouble for the people protecting the village, okay?"

"Okay, but, Brother Xingxing, aren't you angry at all?" Xiaohu asked, clutching his clothes and puffing out his cheeks.

Ning Che bent down, looked into his eyes, and said earnestly, "Of course I'm not angry. Because whether someone is a great hero or not is useless if they just talk the talk. Whoever protects the village and drives away the monsters is the great hero of the village."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Hu's eyes lit up, and he immediately stopped feeling aggrieved. He volunteered, "Then I want to be a hero too, fight monsters, and protect the village with you all!"

"Shouldn't a great hero also act according to his own abilities? If you rashly fight an opponent you can't match and you fail, everyone will have to be distracted to save you, which would be counterproductive." Ning Che did not directly dampen his enthusiasm, but instead coaxed him gently.

Xiao Hu thought for a moment and nodded: "Yes, even a great hero should act according to his ability."

"So you can help the villagers out now, but you can't go fight monsters yet. You have to wait until you're as skilled as the older brothers and uncles in the hunting team before you can go fight monsters, right?"

"Yes!" Little Tiger agreed readily.

Ning Che patted him on the shoulder, straightened up, and continued walking towards the hunting party's camp. The child, however, had already run off.

He didn't take the child's words to heart, but he knew that children mostly heard things from adults. Although the crisis in the village had been temporarily averted, the seeds of instigation by the mountain guardian had already sprouted in the hearts of some villagers.

Or perhaps, they are easily instigated precisely because they already harbor resentment. Only by demonstrating concrete actions can this resentment be reversed.

Soon, he arrived at the hunting party's camp and saw a girl wearing a coarse cloth jacket, with dark and rough skin, standing at the door, carrying a coarse cloth bundle in her hand, and constantly looking inside.

Upon seeing Ning Che approach, she excitedly ran over, bent her knees, and was about to kneel down, crying out, "Hero Xing, thank you for saving my father! Thank you!"

Ning Che quickly helped her up, asking, "No, no! Miss, please get up first, let's talk slowly. Did I save your father?"

"Yes, my father, Erzhu, is the one you rescued from the jaws of a hyena in the wasteland yesterday. I'm his eldest daughter, you can just call me Daya!" she said, stuffing the bundle she had brought into Ning Che's hands.

Ning Che instinctively caught the bundle, his fingertips touching the hard, strip-like objects inside. He realized they were probably dried meat, so he pushed it back, saying, "Hunting teams are supposed to support each other, and saving him is the right thing to do. I can't accept these things."

"You absolutely have to keep this!" Daya said anxiously, her face flushed and her voice rising a few decibels. "My father has been lying here ever since, and he keeps saying he wants to thank you! If it weren't for you, he would have died in the wilderness that day, and our family would have been devastated!"

On the way here, I heard people saying you used up your Rejuvenation Talisman to harm the village—that's all heartless nonsense! If you hadn't killed the bear demon, the whole village wouldn't even have meat to eat right now, let alone have the energy to gossip like this!

She spoke urgently and loudly, and the hunters waiting for training at the camp all poked their heads out and echoed her, "Da Ya is right! If it weren't for Xing Xiao Zi that day, none of us would have made it back!"

"Those rumors were stirred up by the mountain guards; do they really think we can't see through them!"

Looking into the girl's sincere eyes and then at the approving expressions of the hunters around him, Ning Che felt a warmth in his heart and didn't refuse anymore. He picked up the bundle and said in a deep voice, "I'll take the things. Don't worry, when the beast tide comes, I will definitely do everything in my power to protect the village and everyone."

"Okay, sure!" Da Ya nodded vigorously, wiped her eyes, and quickly added, "I won't keep you from your work any longer, I'll go deliver water to the defense line!"

After saying that, she turned around and ran away quickly.

Ning Che carried the bundle into the camp, opened it, and sure enough, it contained dried meat. It weighed about ten pounds, which wouldn't be considered a small gift even under normal circumstances. But now, with the disaster, the value of the food had increased more than tenfold, and this dried meat was enough to show the sincerity of his gratitude.

"Erzhu, Daya..." Ning Che silently memorized the names, retied his bundle, placed it on the stone table beside him, and began warming up in preparation for training.

Before long, Shi Yong and Fu Gui arrived together and led the hunters, who were now much sparser, to practice their formation. However, with six seriously wounded men missing, including one with a broken leg, and several others with minor injuries, getting the formation in place was an almost impossible task.

But if their formation has any weaknesses, the beast tide will not be lenient with them.

Shi Yong stood to the side, his brows furrowed, repeatedly calling out commands to adjust the formation, but he still couldn't achieve the desired effect.

Ning Che thought of many commonly used formations and raised his hand to suggest, "I have an idea; perhaps we can change our formation."