Chapter 10 Solidarity

The tall, sturdy man had a resolute expression, his large frame almost completely shielding the village chief behind him.

In a normal fight, even three or five ordinary people wouldn't be a match for him, but unfortunately, this time his opponent was a ghost.

A bizarre existence he couldn't comprehend at all.

The ghost seemed to be pondering as well, not making a move right away.

"Village chief," the tall, sturdy man stared intently at the distorted figure's every move, his voice low and hoarse, "How are you?"

The hand gripping the wooden stick trembled slightly, indicating that the tall, sturdy man wasn't as calm as he appeared. He had actually been stunned when the ghost suddenly appeared.

It wasn't until the ghost was about to attack the village chief that he came back to his senses.

Having had a brief respite, the village chief seemed to have regained some composure, a faint light returning to his eyes. "A-Su Mu!" he gasped, "What are you doing here? Run!"

The tall, sturdy man called A-Su Mu didn't move, gripping the wooden stick even tighter.

"You're not like us!" the village chief said urgently, "You don't have blood on your hands, you need to leave!"

"I told you to leave!!"

Despite the village chief raising his weak arm and hitting him a few times, he still didn't move. Instead, he pressed his back against the village chief, pushing him towards the stairs.

"A-Su Mu!" the village chief roared, "If you do this, neither of us will escape. She won't let me go. Your mother was right before she died, Changsheng Tian (Eternal Heaven) remembers every debt, and sooner or later someone will have to pay them all!"

A pair of blood-red eyes coldly stared at the two of them. The ghost surprisingly didn't attack, but instead watched as A-Su Mu led the village chief to the stairs.

Until the next moment.

The calm was shattered. The distorted figure instantly rushed over. In that instant, A-Su Mu forcefully shoved the village chief, pushing him down the stairs, then swung the wooden stick and charged head-on towards the figure.

"Run!" A-Su Mu roared.

One was a blurry, emaciated figure about 1.5 meters tall, and the other was a 2-meter-tall strongman wielding a wooden stick. The village chief stumbled and fell down the stairs.

The outcome was decided in an instant.

A-Su Mu saw a flash of light and shadows before his eyes. Then he saw a headless corpse clutching a wooden stick collapse with a "thud."

His vision began to blur.

"Drip!"

"Drip!"

The distorted figure stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at the old man slumped at the bottom.

The old man's silver hair was messy and tangled, the last trace of light gone from his eyes. He stared at the figure's hand, muttering, "A-Su Mu..."

The distorted figure released its grip, and a large head rolled down the stairs, finally hitting the wall at the corner with a "thump."

It finally stopped.

A pair of resolute eyes were wide open, turned to look at the village chief, mouth agape as if trying to finish the words he hadn't been able to say.

The old man reached out a trembling hand, struggling to pull the head into his arms, hugging it tightly as if protecting a treasure. "A-Su Mu..." the old man wept.

In his eyes, this taciturn, sturdy man was like his fourth son, even closer than his other three biological sons.

Those three sons were more about currying favor, secretly wishing for their old man to die soon so they could inherit the position of village chief.

Only this fool followed him around all day, never saying anything, content with just a mouthful of food, and with the strength of a draft animal.

During the late autumn soybean grinding, he single-handedly spun the large millstone at a rapid pace, saving them the trouble of borrowing a donkey from the neighboring village.

Never lazy, never complaining.

He had watched him grow up before his eyes. Like his mother, they weren't from the village, but came from the distant grasslands, said to be refugees.

Begging for food along the way, his mother accidentally stepped on an animal trap set by the mountain people, and wasn't discovered by the village's old hunter until the next day.

Beside the unconscious woman, besides A-Su Mu, the squatting child, was the corpse of a wolf.

The wolf had been drawn by the scent of blood.

They were highly intelligent, knowing where the traps were. When hunters checked their traps, they often only found an animal's severed foot or leg.

The old hunter could only judge by the surrounding footprints that the prey had probably been intercepted by wolves again.

But this time, the wolf had miscalculated. It had underestimated the fighting power of this ten-year-old child, and was finally strangled to death.

Looking at this child with clear eyes, the village chief was rarely moved by compassion and took him in.

A-Su Mu's mother died of illness a few years later. According to the village's barefoot doctor, she had suffered too much on the way, and her body was already ruined.

Watching A-Su Mu grow up day by day, the villagers couldn't help but sigh that the men of the grasslands were stronger and more robust than the mountain people. He was already 1.9 meters tall before he even came of age.

Three or five of the village's best fighters couldn't even get close to him.

The village chief's eldest son, usually the most combative, became increasingly displeased with A-Mu Su after one drinking session. Coincidentally, a few village ruffians egged him on, so he took advantage of his drunken state to teach him a lesson.

A-Su Mu only focused on dodging, and if he couldn't dodge, he would just take the hits, never fighting back or cursing.

When the village chief returned from the town and saw the injuries on A-Su Mu's body, he was heartbroken to the point of tears, so he told A-Su Mu not to indulge his eldest son.

As a result, A-Su Mu was a man of his word. He single-handedly picked up the village chief's eldest son and threw him into the pigsty.

Well, that was that, the village chief was heartbroken for several more days.

The eldest son stayed in bed for four months before he dared to get out, and from then on, he developed a phobia of A-Su Mu that made his legs cramp whenever he saw him, and it never fully healed even after he had children.

But A-Su Mu didn't hold grudges. He treated everyone the same, but he treated the village chief the best.

The village men secretly grumbled that A-Su Mu was definitely an important factor in why the village chief was able to hold his position.

His good-for-nothing sons thought it was because they were so great.

"A-Su Mu," the village chief often pulled A-Su Mu aside for heart-to-heart talks while drunk, asking him with a smile what kind of woman he liked, so he could get some ideas and be more targeted when he went out to deceive people into coming to the village next time.

Kill the men, keep some of the women - they were already skilled at this.

But A-Su Mu always shook his head, and after a few drinks, he would advise the village chief not to do such things anymore, which led to every drinking session between the two being unpleasant.

In the end, the village chief would always say he'd had enough, put on his clothes, and go back to sleep.

Logically speaking, A-Su Mu was strong and good-looking, so there must have been girls who liked him, but the problem was that they were in Little Stone Creek Village, and because of their past record, no one within dozens of miles of the surrounding villages and towns was willing to marry their daughter to him.

Not even a daughter, not even a widow would come.

Business was fine, but marriage was out of the question.

Over time, he had been delayed until now. The village chief stroked A-Su Mu's face, looking completely possessed.