Chapter 38.
Walking on the countryside path, Wang Dust glanced back.
It was already some distance away from the Ethereal Ten Guards, but one could still see the column of obsidian light emanating a faint white aura above the watchtower, as if it was a lighthouse in the darkness, bringing warmth and hope to the people.
“Quickly follow.”
Guo Ping, the squad mate in the back, said, “Don’t fall behind.”
Tonight was the first patrol of the Fourth Night Watch Squad, and team leader Yao Mingjie led the way at the front, with the seven new Vigilantes, including Wang Duan, following closely behind.
Guo Ping, on the other hand, was in charge of the pressure at the end.
“Yes.”
Wang Dust withdrew his gaze and walked forward with unceasing steps.
If the Yunyang Faction was treated as a country, then the Battle Hall was considered the armed forces, and the Criminal Hall was the judiciary.
And the Hall of Guards belonged to the police organization, responsible for the safety and security within the mountain gate area.
As for the Guardhouse, it was similar to a police station.
The night watchmen attached to the guardhouse were equivalent to patrolmen.
All of these had an official establishment.
Wang Dust and the others, who were temporarily drafted, are barely counted as assistants.
The rookies are out on duty, and their moods are all different.
Some are excited, some are apprehensive, some are cautious ……
Yao Mingjie, the team leader, doesn’t care about the mood of the rookies.
He strided forward on his own and raised his hand to cast a light spell after walking out for some distance.
Spiritual light soared into the air, illuminating a large area around him.
Then Guo Ping accelerated his pace up to explain to everyone that this was to check for evil spirits and demons hidden in the darkness.
Compared to Yao Mingjie, who had a stern face and didn’t say a word, this team mate rambled a lot along the way.
He appeared to be somewhat talkative.
In fact, most of what he said was recorded in Vigil Talk.
Some of the team members were impatient to listen and went in the left ear and out the right.
But Wang Dust kept it firmly in his mind.
Think of it as a refresher.
There were two main categories of the greatest dangers a night watchman could encounter – bandits and evil spirits!
The first was bandits.
The barbaric wasteland of the outer regions was full of dangers, and most of the loose cultivators had a difficult and hard life, living a precarious life.
In order to survive, many loose cultivators became bandits, robbing homes and raiding the countryside.
These bandits didn’t dare to cause trouble in the heavily defended immortal city, so they sneaked into the fringe area of the mountain gate to rob the farmers.
Now that the summer harvest was approaching, it was the time when the robber cultivators became active.
Thief cultivators were often fierce and belligerent, and were quite cunning, making them very difficult enemies to deal with.
Although the fourth night patrol squad had nine members, other than Yao Mingjie and Guo Ping, the others were severely lacking in combat experience, and once they fought, the consequences were hard to predict.
Secondly, there was the evil spirits.
The evil spirits of the Mountain and Sea Realm were mainly categorized into the four levels of You, Grievance, Fierce, and Li.
The most common was the Tour level evil spirits, which were equivalent to Qi Practitioners.
However, evil spirits were strange and bizarre.
If not dealt with properly, it was not uncommon for an evil spirit to destroy an entire night patrol team.
There was no shortage of such examples in the past.
What was even more frightening was that evil spirits could raise their rank by devouring the cultivator’s mana, blood, and soul.
For cultivators, evil spirits were undoubtedly the most terrifying enemies!
And as this place was far away from Yunshan City, although the sound of the Fixed Sun Bell could still be heard, the deterrent effect was already very weak.
The Fixed Sun Bell was again only ringing every hour.
Certain evil spirits would take advantage of this and go in and out of the mountain gate to cause mischief and havoc!
All of these required the night patrol squad and night watchmen to focus on preventing them.
Yao Mingjie traveled at times and stopped at times, leading the squad for dozens of miles before finally arriving at the border of the mountain gate.
Yunyang Sect’s mountain gate was divided into two parts, inner and outer.
The inner gate belonged to the core of the mountain, protected by a huge mountain guard formation and a Jindan real person.
It could be said to be as solid as gold.
The outer mountain gate was extremely large, opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of spiritual fields and woodlands for the outer disciples to cultivate and farm.
The long border connecting to the outer domain basically relied on dozens of guardhouses to be in charge of guarding it.
So to completely eliminate the invasion of bandits and evil spirits, it was simply impossible.
As Wang Dust followed the crowd up the hillock.
The vast and boundless plains, forests and a rushing river in front of him were clearly presented before his eyes.
The stars hung over the plains, and the moon surged over the great river!
This scene made Wang Chen’s mind leap to Du Fu’s poem.
Guo Ping sighed, “Up ahead is the Outer Domain.”
Outer Domain!
This name was both familiar and unfamiliar to Wang Chen.
It was clearly near, as if it was distant.
The original owner had lived for seventeen years and had never left the mountain gate area since birth until Wang Chuan crossed over.
Nor had he ever seen the sights of the outer regions.
If he hadn’t been replaced by Wang Chen’s soul.
Then his future, as long as there were no unexpected twists and turns, would probably be to be a Spirit Plant Husband for the rest of his life.
Barely rushing to the sixth or seventh level of Qi Practicing, marrying a hardworking and simple wife and having another child, and living the rest of his life tightly.
“Back.”
Just as Wang Chen was a little lost in thought, Yao Mingjie suddenly spoke.
His eyes that looked towards the outer domain carried a deep scorn.
The team turned back the same way.
The sky had already dawned when they reentered the Ethereal Ten Guards.
The fourth night patrol squad had completed its first patrol mission, and the rookie night watchmen returned home.
A few young cultivators yawned and looked a bit displeased.
After running back and forth all night, they ended up not even seeing a rabbit, let alone fighting evil spirits and bandits.
They were still thinking about obtaining merit.
It was no fun!
Wang Dust rather hoped that it would be like this night after night, peace and quiet was better than anything else.
In the next few days, the fourth night patrol squad patrolled back and forth in the area under their jurisdiction and never encountered any situation.
Many of the new team members slacked off and relaxed, and could not raise their spirits when patrolling.
But Wang Dust did not let his guard down.
I don’t know if it’s an illusion or not, but several times when Wang Dust was patrolling at night, he felt that someone was staring at him in the dark.
When he was alert to make a probe, he ended up not finding anything.
Recently, the outer mountain gate of Yunyang Sect was very calm, so calm that it seemed as if it was rippling like a pool of stagnant water.
But his intuition told Wang Chen that underneath this calm surface, there was an undercurrent lurking that he could not perceive!
It was this intuition that made Wang Chen not only not slacken off, but instead seize the time to enhance his strength.
He resumed the cultivation of the Heavenly Dragon Vajra Orthodoxy, brushing his Vajra Fist and Spirit Light Shield Armor to their introductory limits.
He also studied the Fire Crow Technique, striving to be initiated in the shortest time possible.
On the tenth day after being drafted into the fourth night patrol squad, when the white jade rice in the spirit field was about to be harvested, Wang Dust followed the team out on patrol at night as usual.
In the dead of night, the squad moved forward in silence, and even Guo Ping, who usually liked to talk, closed his mouth.
The nightly patrols during this period of time had made many of the team members quite mentally exhausted.
Walking had become lazy.
However accidents often came just when people were most relaxed.
They suddenly appeared!
Snort!
As the squad was about to approach the border, a crossbow arrow with a cold glint suddenly broke through the air and shot out.
It instantly penetrated the neck of a young cultivator!
“Enemy attack!”