First-Year Internship—And You Went to Site 749 to Contain Monsters?!

Lu Ding’s puzzled look made Mottian’s eyes brighten.

“You’ve heard of the Demon Continent!?”

He hadn’t expected anyone so far away to have even heard of it.

It wasn’t the first time he’d told someone he came from the Demon Continent.

But nobody ever knew of that place, it was too distant.

He never imagined Lu Ding would know.

In that moment, Mottian became even more convinced that seeking Lu Ding out to communicate had been the right choice.

Lu Ding couldn’t help but glance at Mottian a few more times.

“I know of it, but I didn’t expect you to have escaped from there. Isn’t that place supposed to be chaotic and terrifying, more like a hell than the mortal world?”Mottian nodded, “That’s true. There, people are worse than pigs and dogs. Demonic creatures are everywhere, and everyone lives with extreme caution.”

“Not only must you beware the monsters, you must also be wary of other beings who are still human.”

“They are more ferocious and treacherous than monsters, and their human identities make them even more deceptive.”

“My parents died because of that kind of deception. Pitifully, their last wishes were only for me to become a good person.”

Lu Ding wanted to ask about Lü Mountain’s situation, “Isn’t Lü Mountain in the Demon Continent? Don’t they do anything about it?”

Mottian was even more surprised.

Lu Ding not only knew the Demon Continent, he even knew of Lü Mountain!

At those words, Mottian’s eyes filled with nostalgia and even gratitude.

“They do manage it, but Lü Mountain has its own code of conduct. In our region, many secretly disparage Lü Mountain, saying that although Lü Mountain has decisive power, it never eradicates the Demon Continent completely.”

“They say Lü Mountain only carries out a large-scale demon purge once every hundred years, claiming it’s a purge when in fact it’s more like captive breeding.”

“But I don’t think that. I believe Lü Mountain’s governance should be met with gratitude, because even if they do little, it’s still what they ought to do. They shouldn’t be insulted or blamed.”

“When I escaped the Demon Continent, I owed my thanks to a master from Lü Mountain.”

“They gave me a secret manual and told me I had a fate with Lü Mountain, which granted me the means to escape.”

“But I practiced it incorrectly and disappointed them. Their warning proved true: I was fated to Lü Mountain but not qualified to join.”

“If I had been able to join Lü Mountain, maybe my life would have turned out differently. Perhaps many things I did wouldn’t be called mistakes.”

Mottian sighed heavily.

If he could have joined Lü Mountain, he would have marched with them to kill demons, feed on demons, and walk his path proudly across the Demon Continent.

Instead, he fled the Demon Continent, and life’s pressure forced him into recklessness. He practiced improperly in a hurry, slipped into a crooked path, transformed from man to ghost, and became a living ghost. From taking demons by Lü Mountain’s righteous methods, he became a consumer of humans.

Both are forms of consumption—a single word’s difference—but the outcomes are worlds apart.

Mottian looked up at the boundless clouds of ghastly qi, “I wonder what kind of prodigy, what sort of peerless talent, can truly become a member of Lü Mountain.”

“If I had a choice, I would never crave the outside world or nurture the idea of escape from the Demon Continent.”

A faint curve appeared at Lu Ding’s mouth, “Do you think someone like me could join Lü Mountain?”

Mottian laughed without thinking it over, “Ha ha ha ha... you must be joking. Lü Mountain never recruits disciples from outside.”

“But if you were born in the Demon Continent, then you might qualify to join Lü Mountain, though that’s only being eligible.”

He did not deny Lu Ding’s excellence.

Still, having never joined, Mottian felt like a fox that couldn’t reach the grapes.

Although he wouldn’t slander Lü Mountain, in his heart he had already raised Lü Mountain’s standards to the heavens.

No matter how astonishingly gifted someone was, Mottian doubted they could enter Lü Mountain—because he himself hadn’t been able to.

To him, Lü Mountain was sacred.

What he didn’t know was that at this very moment Lü Mountain’s people were already on their way to fetch Lu Ding.

Mottian’s connection to Lü Mountain and the Demon Continent opened Lu Ding’s mouth.

On their way to the neighboring province, they talked about interests, hobbies, and life experiences.

Lu Ding said that when he first began cultivating he met Elder Deng who treated him well, and Crooked-Mouth Old Man who never let him worry yet always cared, and now Elder Shui who stood behind him.

Mottian thought of the Lü Mountain elder who had helped him and of the old man who had altered his fate.

When Mottian escaped the Demon Continent, the Lü Mountain technique he practiced had strong regional traits and Demon Continent characteristics—it required devouring demonic creatures as part of the cultivation.

But outside, such monsters were impossible to find, and hunger left him dizzy. It wasn’t anyone’s fault; who would have imagined he could flee the Demon Continent?

With no other choice and unwilling to return to the Demon Continent, the gifted Mottian chose to cut himself, to transform his foundation from innate to acquired, to rebuild his realm, and to adapt the technique’s required demonic intake into using the spiritual energy of heaven and earth or rare natural treasures.

Although the technique’s power was somewhat reduced, without change he couldn’t continue practicing. Also, the technique had defined his body type; without altering it, he couldn’t switch to non-Demon-Continent techniques.

This led to his realm and body rapidly regressing, and local enemies he had made earlier tracked him down.

They gravely wounded Mottian, and with the technique’s backlash, although he did not die, he regressed into an infantile state.

It was at that time he met the old man who sold sugar figurines on the streets.

Because he sold sugar treats, everyone called him Old Tang. He had a real name, but nobody ever cared.

Mottian’s battle with his enemies had wrecked the city, like a natural disaster, and ordinary people only fled for their lives.

Old Tang was among them, shouldering his small sugar-making pole, and he picked up the gravely wounded, unconscious, regressed and bare Mottian from the roadside.

From then on, Old Tang gained a third treasure in his life.

The first was his sugar pole, adapted from a discarded tofu vendor’s pole.

The second was the scrappy little dog that followed him—once scalded and nearly dead outside a slaughterhouse while trying to scavenge food, rescued and nursed back to health by Old Tang.

The third was the foundling Mottian. Childless Old Tang said he had a grandson.

After that, Old Tang’s pole carried extra weight, bending him further with age. Whenever he walked the streets and met families with babies’ diapers hanging outside, he would go up, bow, help with chores, and use the sugar figurines he planned to sell, or the meager earnings he had, to buy a mouthful of milk for Mottian.

When asked, he proudly said, “This is my grandson.”

In truth, he wanted to say, “This is my son.”

But he feared people would mock the child’s father as so old and ugly, so he said grandson instead.

Old Tang’s shoulders were narrow—narrow from carrying that pole for many years—and they often shook.

Old Tang’s shoulders were also broad—broad enough to hold up a fragile sky for the badly wounded, recovering Mottian.

Old Tang was strong—so strong that when he was doing pig fodder chopping to earn milk for Mottian and accidentally chopped off a finger, he waved it off and bore the pain, saying it was nothing.

Old Tang was also fragile—so fragile that each time he couldn’t get milk and saw Mottian hungry in the pole, he would secretly wipe his eyes.

Those days continued until two years after Old Tang found Mottian. By then, Mottian had recovered much, and he thought he could quickly rebuild his cultivation and take Old Tang to a better life.

One night, while Mottian lay sleeping in the pole, he heard quarreling for the first time and fell out of the pole to the ground.

He didn’t know what was happening.

He only saw Old Tang collapsed on the ground curled up, and the little scrappy dog lying motionless in a corner.

In his ears came Old Tang’s pleading: “Lord Ba, Lord Ba, please have mercy... I’ll hand over the vendor’s tax, please don’t beat me. I’m too old, I have a grandson to raise. I’m injured; I can’t survive the winter. My grandson isn’t grown yet.”

“Without me he can’t live...”

“Please, I beg you, please...”

Each plea was met by more punches and kicks.

Until the assailant was satisfied.

Mottian watched Old Tang lie on the cold ground for a very long time before he managed to rise, pick up the broken little pole, clutch the dog and Mottian, and stagger along familiar streets.

Going door to door to kowtow.

“Please, please take this child in. He doesn’t know anything yet. If you raise him, you’ll be his parents. He will be filial to you...”

They were neighbors; who didn’t know Old Tang’s pole carried a sickly child?

With winter coming, anyone who took Mottian would be taking a hot potato, adding to the hardship of the harsh season.

Old Tang died.

He died before winter, while begging others to take Mottian.

“At that time, the house still had piles of firewood. I remember the day before, Old Tang who had gathered driftwood from the river told me we would be warm through the winter. Next spring, if we had money, he would make me a new set of clothes.”

“He even explained that it wasn’t because of the New Year that he couldn’t make them, but because if they made them for the New Year and we had no food, with my extra mouth he couldn’t afford the vendor’s tax.”

Lu Ding fell silent for a long time as he listened, staring toward the nearby city that Mottian had earlier called the site of the Ghost Tribulation Eight.

Lu Ding asked, “Did you take revenge?”

Mottian was silent. That night he felt Old Tang’s warmth gradually fade, froze to death in Old Tang’s embrace. Resentment, unwillingness, and obsession caused his technique to go completely astray and transformed Mottian into a ghost. Apart from the families who had once fed him milk, he slaughtered an entire city.