Chapter Forty: Chaos Everywhere (Please add to favorites and vote~~)

Outside the courtyard gate, the unending toll of bells filled the air, while flares flickered ceaselessly atop the distant city walls, their light reflecting off one another. The cries for help echoing from neighboring courtyards and streets were equally chilling.

Song Mu set Uncle Lin Bo down and hurriedly opened the gate. The calls for help became even clearer. Song Liangda had already caught up, his face full of unease. Seeing that Song Mu was about to head out, he quickly reached out and grabbed him.

“Mu, what are you doing?” he asked anxiously.

“Uncle, the neighbors are crying for help. They must be facing the same trouble!” Song Mu replied, worry evident in his voice. But this time Song Liangda would not relent. He held Song Mu back, his expression resolute as he shook his head.

“You stay here with your aunt. I’ll go see what’s happening.”

As he spoke, his grip on Song Mu’s sleeve tightened.

Song Mu exhaled, glancing away. Just then, someone came running down the street, saw people standing by the open gate, and rushed over.

“Uncle Song, please help! My mother’s gone mad with a knife—my father’s barely hanging on!”

The boy, bloodied from head to toe, pleaded desperately at the gate.

Song Liangda was startled. “What? Where? I’ll come!”

The boy scrambled to his feet in panic, and Song Mu immediately followed.

“I’m the one who can help. I can use the Poem of Clarity to subdue her—she won’t be a problem for now!” Song Mu declared firmly. The city was in chaos, and many families faced this same madness. Waiting for the authorities to arrive could cost countless lives. And with warning signals on the city walls, it was clear trouble brewed outside as well. Whether help could even arrive was uncertain.

Song Liangda tried again to stop him, but Song Mu had already dashed off. He shouted after him, then quickly turned to have Madam Zhu tie Uncle Lin Bo more securely and hide with Aunt Lotus and the others in their own courtyard.

“There! Under the tree—my father’s been cut twice! That’s my mother!” the young man pointed urgently.

Song Mu looked up to see someone clinging to a jujube tree inside the courtyard, with another figure below, screaming wildly. Sensing someone approach, the woman beneath the tree turned her head, her face twisted and eyes vacant.

As soon as she spotted Song Mu and the others, she brandished her kitchen knife and charged. Song Mu steeled himself, released his spiritual power, and began to recite the Poem of Clarity.

Immediately, the woman collapsed onto the grass. Song Mu quickly called for his uncle to help, tying her tightly with hemp rope. Only then did the man in the tree dare to climb down.

“She’s never been like this before. She just went out shopping this afternoon, came back complaining of feeling unwell, and then suddenly turned like this,” the man said, clutching his wounded hand. Fortunately, the cuts weren’t deep. Song Mu urged them to bind the wounds with strips of cloth.

From another corner of the street, more cries for help rang out.

The entire northern quarter of the city seemed to be engulfed in turmoil. Gritting his teeth, Song Mu rushed out again.

Song Liangda shouted and followed, while Song Mu called out loudly as he ran.

“Neighbors! It’s Song Mu! Come out and help! I can subdue them—I can use the Poem of Clarity!”

He shouted twice, then leapt over a courtyard wall, subduing a man about to slaughter his wife and child. Seeing Song Mu and Song Liangda binding the man, a few men finally mustered the courage to emerge from their homes.

“It really is Song Mu! And Uncle Song! Mu, can you really stop these people? They’ve been possessed!”

An old man asked, voice trembling with fear. Song Mu nodded quickly.

“Uncle Chen, gather together with me. Once I knock them down, you tie them up—move fast, and find as much rope as you can!”

With this, he led several men armed with farm tools to the next courtyard.

After passing through several more homes, Song Mu and seven or eight men subdued four or five more crazed victims. At last, the alleys fell silent.

Everyone gasped for breath, Song Mu bending at the waist against a wall, sweat streaming from his brow. Forcing his spiritual power to unleash the poem had drained him, and after so many times, his head was spinning.

“Mu, are you alright? We owe you everything tonight!” one man said, panting with lingering fear. Another wiped his brow and nodded.

“Thank goodness we have a scholar like Mu among us—we’re lucky to benefit from the Song family’s fortune. Otherwise, tonight would have been a massacre.”

Someone else pointed toward the brilliantly lit city wall, puzzled.

“What in the world is going on? Are demons really attacking the city tonight?”

“It’s serious. There must be more people possessed. Will nothing happen to Shiyang County?”

“Who knows? But there’s sure to be a calamity tonight. Heaven help us.”

The men exchanged anxious, uneasy whispers.

Having finally caught his breath, Song Mu straightened and looked toward the distant, radiant Lantern Pavilion atop the north wall. The myriad sounds drifting from afar set his heart ablaze.

“Mu, where are you going?” someone called as Song Mu suddenly broke into a run toward another part of the city.

“Don’t tell my uncle—I’m going to the county academy!” he called back, disappearing around the corner in a flash.

By the time Song Liangda, busy sending the bound madmen to the authorities, heard the news, Song Mu had already arrived at the academy.

Given the chaos in the city, aside from worrying about his uncle, the first group Song Mu thought of was the academy residents. Many student scholars stayed there, and in such a crisis, the more experienced ones might cope, but the younger students had no way to defend themselves.

Unlike Song Mu, none of them possessed such mysterious spiritual abilities.

He arrived at the academy to find the main gates tightly shut, but the sounds inside were chaotic and lights flickered within. Song Mu knocked hurriedly.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Song Mu!” he shouted. The tension within eased, and the doors opened to reveal Shao Le, who waved him inside.

“Brother Song, why are you here? Is your family alright?” Shao Le asked as several more academy students gathered around, all familiar faces.

“We’re fine. Where’s the teacher? Is everyone safe here?” Song Mu asked, scanning the courtyard.

“When trouble broke out on the city wall, the teacher led several senior scholars outside to help. Just now, a student went mad in the yard—we managed to restrain him and tied him to the old pine tree,” Shao Le explained, pointing nearby.

There, a boy of thirteen or fourteen was bound tightly to the thick trunk, still howling and struggling so violently that he had carved two deep trenches in the grass with his heels.

“What happened to him?” Song Mu asked.

“We’re not sure,” another student replied. “He went out this evening to eat noodles at a shop in the west of town. He came back complaining of chest pains, and then suddenly went mad—like he’d been possessed.”

As he spoke, those nearby shuddered visibly, clearly frightened by the ordeal.

But Song Mu’s keen mind had already seized upon a crucial detail.

…