The night was a little cold.
Wind slipped through a hole in the window, carrying with it a strange rustling sound from outside, yet the overall feeling was one of eerie silence.
Inside the room, it was pitch-black, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
Yang An lay prone on the bed, his body completely hidden beneath a thin blanket.
He slowly reached out, trying not to make a sound, and his hand found a soft lump under the pillow. Only then did he feel a little more secure.
Under the pillow was a fist-sized red cloth bundle. Inside was a small pinch of incense ash, which still carried the faint scent of pine resin.
Over the past few days, many commoners in town had been promoting this method, which was said to ward off the Demon Fiends that had recently been appearing at night.
All you had to do was go to the White Buddha Temple on the north side of town to burn incense, ask for a pinch of the resulting ash to take home, and place it under your pillow wrapped in red cloth.
Even if a Demon Fiend entered your house, it would supposedly keep you safe and hidden.
But getting that small pinch of incense ash wasn't easy.
The Monks at the White Buddha Temple were price-gouging. The Incense Money started at a minimum of thirty copper plates just to get a thumb-sized pinch of ash.
The cost had pained Yang An deeply.
He had just transmigrated into this world not long ago. The original owner of this body had been quite poor. While his home wasn't completely bare, he could only just manage to scrape by. For him, thirty cents was no small sum.
But when he compared it to his own life, money was ultimately just an external possession. He didn't want to kick the bucket just a few days after arriving in this world, so he had no choice but to begrudgingly pay up.
He could only hope the incense ash was as effective as the townsfolk claimed.
When he first arrived in this world, Yang An had been very skeptical of the talk about Demon Fiends, thinking it was probably just fabricated rumors.
But as the days went by, he gradually absorbed the memories of this body's original owner and finally understood just how terrifying this world was.
First, dynasties had collapsed, leaving war and strife everywhere. The people couldn't live in peace.
Then, Demon Fiends plagued the land, appearing one after another to prey on humans.
The poor, who were already suffering terribly, were pushed to the brink by an endless string of disastrous years.
In this environment, even in a small, remote place like Jiunan Town, far from the flames of war, a thick shadow of despair hung over people's faces.
More recently, rumors spread that a man-eating Demon Fiend had appeared in Jiunan Town. Then, one morning ten days ago, several corpses, all mangled in exceptionally gruesome ways, were discovered in town for no apparent reason.
One of the dead was found less than a hundred paces from Yang An's house.
Yang An went with the others to take a look and nearly threw up on the spot. He couldn't eat for two days afterward.
In the days that followed, he would occasionally hear street gossip about which family had gone missing or who had died, but Yang An never went to watch the spectacle again.
Seeing a scene like that, everyone knew Demon Fiends were at work. It couldn't be faked.
In such a chaotic era, you might be safe for a moment, but not forever. Even Jiunan Town had Demon Fiends, to say nothing of other places. There was no running away.
Because of this, the wealthy merchants in town spent a fortune hiring Monks from the White Buddha Temple to guard their homes.
The poor, with no money, could only look for other ways to survive. In the end, their gazes also fell upon the White Buddha Temple, hoping to exchange their money for some incense ash and a moment of protection.
Yang An had no other choice. He could only follow the crowd and buy some incense ash, all the while praying that whatever Demon Fiend was out there wouldn't come for him.
He'd lived a mundane life in his previous world, and now heaven had finally given him a second chance.
He really didn't want to waste this hard-won second life so quickly.
However, speaking of Demon Fiends, Yang An was reminded of something from his predecessor's memories.
It was a tattered page from a Scripture Scroll passed down by his ancestors. According to his father, it recorded a type of Immortal Magic and was buried in the earth beneath the water vat.
But his father, on his deathbed, had warned him never to retrieve it unless it was a matter of life and death, or it would bring disaster.
His predecessor had always believed his father's final words without question and thus had never been curious about it.
But now Yang An was here, and he was different.
Based on his knowledge from his past life, in a terrifying world like this, if Demon Fiends existed, then immortals and gods must exist too. At the very least, there had to be figures with immense martial power.
He just didn't understand why his predecessor's father, even on his deathbed, would warn him not to touch such a treasure when they had it right in their home.
'That's Immortal Magic we're talking about.'
Yang An had never seen what the legendary Immortal Magic was actually like.
'Just why is that?'
Just as Yang An was pondering this question, a blood-curdling scream suddenly pierced the air from the street outside.
It sounded like a woman's voice, screaming desperately, and it was exceptionally loud in the silent night.
But the sound lasted for less than a breath before it was abruptly cut off, and an eerie silence fell once more.
Hiding under the covers, Yang An shuddered and instinctively pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
'A Demon Fiend is here!'
In that instant, his breathing grew ragged, and his heart began to pound with tension.
The sound had come from somewhere very close, making him fear for his own safety and sending his mind into a panic.
'What if the Demon Fiend comes for me?'
'Is this incense ash from the White Buddha Temple even useful?'
'What am I going to do if it doesn't work?'
Countless thoughts flashed through Yang An's mind, making him incredibly tense. Even the air under the blanket seemed to become sweltering.
After a good while, the outside remained silent, as if nothing had happened.
Following those blood-curdling screams, everything seemed to have become calm again.
But Yang An didn't dare to lower his guard. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He was getting unbearably hot, and his consciousness began to feel hazy.
A while longer passed.
As Yang An's mind grew fuzzy, a very light footstep seemed to sound inside the room, slowly drawing closer.
'Something's gotten into my room!'
But by now, Yang An was completely unable to focus. His head grew heavier and heavier, his body felt weak, and he couldn't even move a finger.
He could only sense that something had approached and was now standing by his bed.
And then.
He lost consciousness completely.
...
An unknown amount of time passed.
When Yang An opened his eyes and gently pushed the blanket away, he discovered it was already bright daylight outside.
White light shone through the door, windows, and cracks, brightly illuminating the room. Tiny dust motes could be seen clearly floating in the air.
"I... fell asleep last night?"
He rubbed his eyes, threw off the blanket, and checked his body.
It was completely unharmed.
Yang An let out a sigh of relief, but for some reason, he still felt a little unsettled.
He recalled the feeling from last night, just before he lost consciousness, of something walking up to his bedside.
'Was it a hallucination?'
'Hiding under the blanket, with no air circulating... did I hallucinate from lack of oxygen?'
'That seems plausible.'
'As long as I'm okay, that's all that matters.'
There was nothing Yang An could do about it, so he could only try not to think about what happened last night.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling much more awake now. Yang An turned and folded his blanket, then lifted his pillow. The red cloth bundle with the incense ash was still there.
He decided to keep it on his person. Both for its value and for peace of mind, he couldn't just leave it lying around.
But just as he reached out and grabbed the red cloth bundle, preparing to pick it up...
before he had even applied any force,
the red cloth wrapping the incense ash, along with the ash itself, visibly disintegrated into black soot that sifted through his fingers and scattered across the bed.
Yang An was dumbfounded.