Unaware until one looks, startled upon seeing.

Ye Lingyue increasingly felt, allying with Ye Lingyue was the right decision.

"It's incredible, my lord, your cauldron must be a treasure. You are only in the Elixir Realm, but this cauldron already possesses such divine abilities. If you break through to the Reincarnation Realm, won't this Little Cauldron be defying heaven?" Jin Wu Old Monster spoke with a blend of shame and envy on his aged face.

It was his underestimation; had Ye Lingyue's Little Cauldron not lent a hand, he would have truly capsized in the gutter this time, and perhaps his Lifebound Pill Fire would have been contaminated by the tadpole's black qi.

Thinking of this, Jin Wu Old Monster's heart trembled with fear, and he hastily checked his internal Golden Crow Elixir Fire.

He discovered that his Elixir Fire had dimmed considerably compared to earlier and had even shrunk a little in size.

Upon seeing this, the old monster's face showed worry. Truly a trap, what kind of ghostly thing is this, to be so powerful?

Even his Elixir Fire had ended up in such a state; no wonder the villagers, devoid of Primordial Power and spiritual power, had turned into such unrecognizable ghostly figures.

"Jin Wu Old Monster, there's no need for distress. You've contributed to the castle wall construction, and I've already asked Manager Mei from Xia Capital to refine some Reincarnation Elixirs for me. In time, I will reward you with a few as compensation." Ye Lingyue employed people with a mix of kindness and authority.

Although Jin Wu Old Monster was an enemy, now that he was under her command, she naturally planned to make good use of him. The higher Jin Wu Old Monster's strength, the higher her future strength would be.

"Thank you, my lord." Jin Wu Old Monster was overjoyed.

Following Cauldron Master Ye, there was meat to eat.

After the Qian Cauldron swallowed the tadpole's black qi, the beast-like symptoms on the village chief began to fade. Ye Lingyue gave him an Elixir Pill to replenish his strength, and the village chief finally woke up.

"What on earth happened to me?" The village chief, now back to normal, was a naively honest-faced dark-skinned man who couldn't remember anything about the past few days.

"Hubby (Daddy)," the village chief's wife, who rushed upon hearing the news, saw her man and hurriedly explained the situation. The family embraced in a painful reunion.

Seeing such a scene, Ye Lingyue was filled with emotions and quietly stepped out with Jin Wu Old Monster, momentarily leaving the family of three to reunite.

Seeing that after saving a life, Ye Lingyue showed little joy, but instead looked worriedly at the three in the house.

"Princess Ye, are you thinking of your own parents?" Jin Wu Old Monster heard that Ye Lingyue, from the distant Xia Capital, was sent by the court to Dan City.

At fourteen, she should be at home enjoying the pampering of her parents, waited on hand and foot.

"I'm just missing my mother." Ye Lingyue thought of Ye Huangyu, whose whereabouts remained unknown, and felt waves of distress in her heart.

"What about your father…" Jin Wu Old Monster wondered.

"He's dead." Even if not dead now, he would eventually die.

Hong Fang, someday, you will pay the price for everything you've done to my mother and me all these years.

Ye Lingyue swept her sleeve and wished to speak no more.

The Jin Wu Old Monster behind her felt a chill run down his spine when he heard Ye Cauldron Master speak about her father as if her voice was cold enough to kill.

But forget it, that was Ye Cauldron Master's own private business, and Jin Wu Old Monster dared not to ask more. He followed Ye Lingyue to check on the other villagers who were ill.

Upon learning that Ye Lingyue had actually cured the ailing village chief, Hong Fang and Xia Houhong were shocked and quite embarrassed.

The soldiers who had, earlier on, almost set fire to the villagers by their command, slipped away without a word, leaving the village quietly.

The soldiers of the Tiger Wolf Army remained in the village to help organize things for the villagers.

After being together for a short while, the village chief came with his wife to thank Ye Lingyue.

"Ye Cauldron Master, I really owe you a lot this time; otherwise, I don't know what terrible things I would have done." After learning from his wife about the near mass burning of the whole village by the Great General, the village chief was more grateful to Ye Lingyue and the others after overcoming his fear.

"Village chief, the military and civilians are one family; this is nothing much. I heard that you had previously taken a tally of the number of ill villagers and also provided some simple treatments. Do you know how many people in the village are sick and who was the first to get ill?"

Ye Lingyue and the soldiers, although they had taken control of the entire Pastoral Village, were not as familiar with the village's situation as the village chief was.

The village chief told Ye Lingyue that there were about forty or fifty people in the village who had caught the mysterious illness.

A few villagers had already been killed by the soldiers from Qi City for becoming violent earlier on.

The others, like the village chief himself earlier on, became ill and were locked in their houses.

"As for who was the first to fall ill, it was Uncle Huang, just over sixty years old in our village. He... was badly injured last night after stabbing a Deputy General of the Tiger Wolf Army, and he is still lying in the ancestral hall now." The village chief had learned about this from his wife after he had regained consciousness.

Worried that the Tiger Wolf Army soldiers would kill Uncle Huang for injuring their Deputy General, the village chief's wife had previously not dared to hand Uncle Huang over to Ye Lingyue.

"Quick, take me to see him." Hearing that it was the villager who had injured her mother, Ye Lingyue couldn't help but feel agitated.

The soldier who witnessed Ye Huangyu and Nie Fengxing's incident last night did not know where the double-headed python had gone due to darkness and chaos at the scene.

At that time, Uncle Huang was the one closest to Ye Huangyu.

If he could be awakened, perhaps they could find the whereabouts of the double-headed python.

After arriving at the ancestral hall, Ye Lingyue treated Uncle Huang in the same way as the other villagers.

As expected by Ye Lingyue, there was a tadpole-like dark energy inside Old Uncle Huang, and compared to the other villagers, the quantity of this dark energy was the highest within him, likely the source of the other villagers' dark energy.

However, even if his dark energy was the highest, it was still much less than what was inside Feng Xun.

This was what Ye Lingyue couldn't understand the most: why did the same sinister dark energy not affect Feng Xun's actions and speech, but caused the villagers to drastically change in temperament and lose rationality?

Uncle Huang was elderly and had been injured; after Ye Lingyue used Cauldron Breath to absorb the dark energy inside him and took great care of him, he finally woke up around dusk.

"Uncle Huang, you finally woke up. This is Cauldron Master Ye from Dan City; she saved all our lives in the village. She has some questions for you. Tell her whatever you know. She is the great benefactor of our entire village." The village chief hurriedly stepped forward to help Uncle Huang up.