9 Just in time for rain

The villagers bore at him with dark and haunted eyes like soldiers that suffered from bloodlust. Most of them seemed either very old or very young.

"You're making a mistake," An elderly man croaked, leaning in on the shovel he brought. Zhang Wang had a feeling that she hadn't brought her shovel to be used as a walking stick.

The whole atmosphere was thick with tension. Yu Yanlin's eyes were icy and sharp and reminiscent of a stern demon king that the Immortal of a Thousand Blossoms had glimmered from afar in the midst of the battlefield.

He was no happier to be in the situation than anyone else, but Zhang Wang was not a fighter and kept his temperament measured. "Mistake? What mistake am I making?" He asked calmly.

"Put that thing down. Don't poke your nose in our village's affairs!"

Zhang Wang took his time to answer, making sure that his voice was both steady and clear, "Oh? But I have no intention of causing any trouble. I don't see why everyone is so angry. Why can't we all be peaceful?"

"You're helping the demon!" A child no older than twelve years old yelled, spit projecting between every word, "That's not peaceful! Demons are not peaceful, they are evil!"

The child's yells were crass and rude but no adult chided him or disagreed with his words.

Zhang Wang's smile was stiff, "Evil huh? Sometimes I truly wonder what evil is? Tell me, has this child in my arms ever harmed any one of you?"

He was not surprised at the silence that answered him. It took a moment before one of the older aunties responded, "That child's mother was driven insane by her!" A few voices chorused in agreement and Zhang Wang wanted to spit in their faces.

Instead, he only kept his smile, "I see, so this child has never caused you any harm. And yet you want to kill a harmless child merely for existing, is that right?" He didn't allow them the chance to answer before continuing, "I don't see how you idiots are any better than those demons that you claim to hate!"

A few people shrank at his words. But not all. A teenager snarled at him and rushed at them with a forward-pointing pitchfork, "Fucking demon sympathizers deserve to die! My father was killed by demons!"

But Yu Yanlin simply stepped up, grabbed the pitchfork's shaft, and twisted it out of the teen's grasps. For a moment, Zhang Wang feared that the demon king was going to kill the brat but luckily no such thing happened.

Instead, a rock was thrown at them instead. Yu Yanlin dropped the pitchfork and simply caught it with his palm. The offender was just another kid, who trembled as they reached down to pick up another stone.

"My Daddy was killed by demons!" She cried at them, eyes teary, "All demons deserve to die!"

A chorus of agreement followed her and soon it wasn't just one stone but many that rained down toward them.

Yu Yanlin acted quickly. He twirled, shrugging off his outer robe at the same time. With a wide, swift movement, he used the long garment to catch and beat down all the stones thrown at them, not letting a single one through.

And there Zhang Wang was, with a hand raised about to call forth a barrier. Never fucking mind. Someone else was there to be cooler and more OP than him even without any spiritual energy. That was totally fine. (No it wasn't! What the heck, was there any fairness in the world?)

"Zhang Wang," Yu Yanlin said, snapping Zhang Wang out of his thoughts, "they will not listen. We should leave."

He hated to admit that the demon king was right. There really wasn't any other choice at this point. But Zhang Wang was a petty person and had a need to have the last words. As Yu Yanlin was about to turn tail and make a break for it, Zhang Wang erected a barrier instead, not only blocking any oncoming rocks but also anyone foolish enough to rush at them with their makeshift weapons.

The villagers froze, clearly taken aback by Zhang Wang's display of power. "Y-You're a cultivator?"

Someone else screamed, "Devil cultivator! Demon conspirator!"

Argh! Zhang Wang's veins were seriously about to pop, he had just returned from attempting to assassinate the demon king and now these stupid accusations were being thrown at him for stupid reasons? Ugh, he couldn't take it anymore.

"My name is Zhang Wang of the Virtuous Phoenix Sect. I am also known as the Immortal of a Thousand Blossoms! If you have any problems with me and my conduct, go take it up to my sect!"

His bold declaration fanned dumb, frozen stupor among the villagers and Zhang Wang felt suitably satisfied when he finally turned around.

"Let's take you somewhere better than this shithole," he quietly promised the girl curled up in his arms.

…

Of course, after going through the ruckus, it was impossible to reach Mount Hannu quickly anymore.

Zhang Wang wanted to take care of the girl first and foremost and decided that his odd predicament with the damned demon king could wait. But he had decided to travel through the woods and there were no more cliff sides with caverns to provide shelter. And after his little dispute with the villagers, he was thoroughly disenchanted with the idea of trying to seek refuge in another settlement.

The wilderness will have to do for the night.

That was not a problem if he was traveling alone or even when he was only in the company of one useless demon king.

But now that there was a child in question, Zhang Wang decided it was proper to set up a more proper shelter than just a few haphazard barriers thrown about.

And so he enlisted Yu Yanlin's help and in the end…

Well, let's just say that Zhang Wang wasn't exactly expecting an entire little shack to be built in a blink of an eye.

But he supposed there were worse absurdities he'd experienced in his last twenty years of life. After all, wasn't xianxia all about ridiculous powers and stuff? With overpowered main characters that had ten thousand sacred swords and could move mountains or whatever. In comparison, something like building an entire shack with scattered pieces of scavenged wood wasn't nearly as impressive as summoning lightning or commanding ocean torrents on a whim.

Shrugging off the ridiculousness of the situation, Zhang Wang created a makeshift bed for the child by using dead leaves and his own outer robes as a blanket. She was awfully dirty still so Zhang Wang decided to make good use of his power. With his hand held in front of a hand seal, he drew out the moisture from the surrounding air, forming a floating bubble of water.

It wasn't much but he could clean the dirt out of her skin and hair and dress the wounds with hemp he left somewhere in the corner of his interspatial ring.

The entire time, Zhang Wang felt an awkward tension coming from Yu Yanlin who only watched him silently without saying a single word.

The demon king had taken it upon himself to gather firewood and dead leaves. He constructed a little hearth within their makeshift shelter.

Just in time as well, for rain had begun to pour outside not long after as night fell upon them.

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