Quick Transmigration: Saving The Crazy Villainess

But if Jiang Li were to let Fan Zheng"s group leave tonight and follow them into the city, would he be reconciled to let the male locals off that easily after they blatantly looked at Zhan Rong with evil desire? 

The subject was his future wife. The d.a.m.nable father of the female lead already talked with the prospective buyers about tomorrow"s show. He heard the only reason it was delayed was to give time for some families that had exhausted their money in the previous auctions to gather funds.

In other words, Zhan Rong and the other ladies were already commodities in their eyes. 

Which sane man would not be angry if somebody disrespected their beloved? Even if he was currently not a man, just a ghost, the answer to both questions was still obvious. No, he would not tolerate them!

The problem was that he also planned to leave them alive for Gu Mochou. 

Is revenge really a dish best served cold? Which person invented this d.a.m.n quote?

He scowled, then secretly went out while Fan Zheng and the rest were discussing their escape route. 

He checked on the female lead who had escaped back into her house and then locked herself in her room.

Because the girl was so preoccupied with her thoughts as she sat in her bed, she didn"t notice something weird with the shadows around her, especially the one in front of her palm-size mirror hanging on a nail by the wall. 

Jiang Li briefly appreciated the face reflected in the mirror and thought to himself that the face was as handsome as his original one. He was quite happy that he could now materialize in full, his strength increased greatly after frightening the stupid bunch with his illusions and low-level spells. 

Actually, even he had no idea the fear his small games would instill deep fear in those students. The despair in their hearts was still feeding him with the much-needed energy to recover. 

Now he felt like he would get addicted to scaring people. 

Sadly, for now, he was limited to Fan Zheng"s bunch. The local villagers were out of the question as any ghost or beast that tried to harm them would receive harsh retaliation from the statue in the temple. 

Like now, although he was in the same room as Zhao Ai, he had to be careful to not scare her, which greatly annoyed him. He only popped out after ensuring she wouldn"t turn her head to his direction. Anyways, the fact that he could project his facial features clearly without making his presence known was making his mood great. It was a testimony that he had become stronger. Or perhaps the better phrase to use was that he was regaining his original strength. 

How did his Original, an autistic child, become this strong though?

It was a puzzle as it was not in the memory… There was only a long period of darkness from the time of his death to the seance ritual of Fan Zheng"s friends. 

Zhao Ai moved so Jiang Li temporarily shelved the question. 

The village head was not around. The girl seemed to have come to a decision and took advantage of this to sneak into the biggest room in the house. 

"It should be here," Zhao Ai muttered anxiously as she rummaged carefully through the items in the large wooden box pulled out under the bed. 

"Where is it? Where is it?" 

The girl scattered the clothes on the floor… Not. Like the usual gentle village protagonist girl, her manners was still superb. She was too careful not to mess up the carefully folded pants and s.h.i.+rts. Yet her speed was still very fast. It was magic.

Her actions confirmed one thing to Jiang Li, however. While she planned to help the foreigners, she also wanted to escape on her own. 

As expected, when the female lead found a red booklet with a large print "Household Register" on it, she cheered and then hurriedly placed the items back to their place.

Zhao Ai sighed in relief after confirming that n.o.body saw her exiting from her father"s room. She touched the booklet in her pocket and then felt a bit at a loss. It seemed before the escape formally happened, she would be in a state of confusion and indecisiveness, wondering if what she would do was correct or not. 

On one side was the guilt for her father and the people she grew up with. 

On the other was the guilt for the victims and future victims of the villagers. 

Between morality and kins.h.i.+p, she was having a hard time to choose. 

In Jiang Li"s eyes though, the girl was truly a match with Fan Zheng. 

It was not that she finally realized her method was not bearing results and thus planned to directly help at least some people escape. It was that she herself wanted to leave the people here behind. Why else would she steal the household register and the money her father stashed secretly? To satisfy her desire to show her goodness to others was one thing. To escape from h.e.l.l was another. 

Although she seemed to not yet understand this.

He said she was a match with the male lead because although she treated the group horribly, she was still thinking they would allow her to join them in the run, and even take care of her once they arrived at the capital. Her source of confidence was because she would help them get away from the village safely. It was a beautiful and naive thinking, one that did not consider the possible future reactions or att.i.tudes of the other party to her who was not just a simple villager, but the daughter of the shady village head.

"At least she"s not that bad," Jiang Li only told himself, nodding.

"A bit smarter than Fan Zheng to know she should not a.s.sociate with the folks in this place anymore."

Zhao Ai began to pack some of her belongings in a huge backpack. At this point, she had fully made up her mind.

The ghost then floated back to the adjacent house. The darkness of the night allowed him to no longer rely on shadows to move around.

As to what he had decided upon about the dilemma he was mulling about earlier… well, it was for another time later. But as an old ghost, if he had to say, it should be quite reasonable for him to be vengeful. 

…

It was a good thing that none from the batch of "goods" auctioned by the traffickers yesterday were women. All were kids, which meant there would be no new person adding to the violated list of the beastly villagers. With that said though, it didn"t mean the kids and babies being stolen from the cities and towns was a good thing. 

Since the group was determined to run away, Jiang Li issued them a mission to take those kids with them. While they were on it, he also made them deliver letters to those fairly young mothers. Fan Zheng and his friends didn"t show their faces as ordered so even if some of the women turned out to be deeply brainwashed, they should not be able to rat out the foreigners. Chances are the message he sent to them would prove problematic for them if shared it with their husband or in-laws.

"If you still love yourself or your kids, escape through the forbidden side of the forest. 

Take advantage of the cover of the night. 

They won"t harm outsiders."

That was what he wrote on those pieces of paper. "They" naturally referred to the ghosts.

If those mothers truly longed for freedom and had some affection for their children, once they read it, they would heed it, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

Escaping would not be hard since, in every villager"s mind, no sane person would use that path or even go near there due to the dirty things guarding it. 

"The only problem is not if those pitiful women still have the courage to live… But if they still have affection for their kids who are essentially proofs of violence to them."

"There"s a chance they would go crazy and escape without their child..."

There was a frown on Jiang Li"s face but as a ghost, one restricted by the blessing of the temple, there was only so little that he could do.

The pieces of paper were delivered. After careful deliberation, he set it up so the message would only reveal themselves once the students had escaped. 

The plan to make the other escaping people the distraction was abandoned. 

In the end, he had reflected that it was wrong to take advantage of people who already went through a lot. Also, even if the mothers didn"t dare to show their husbands or in-laws the message, they could still make them raise their vigilance through a few words of suspicion directed toward the students. 

The choice was in those women"s hands. Unfortunately, while he could give them suggestions and help, it was under the condition that the male lead"s group would not be compromised.

After all, even without anybody"s interference, the escape plan of the students was already pretty dangerous. 

...

When the students went out of the house, they found out even at midnight, some able-bodied hunters were patrolling. 

"We can"t use this route too..." Fan Zheng said in a low tone as he peeked from the tree behind the temple.

His friends were hiding behind a tall rock, trying hard to merge themselves into the shadows. All looked like they had swallowed a fly upon hearing his words.

"d.a.m.n. We will be trekking the woods at this unholy hour without a source of light and I"m already scared. Why are these people adding themselves to our problems?"

Gritting her teeth, Guo Hanying tensely complained. The girl wanted to cry, but because she received many glares urging her to shut up, she forced back the tears and the sobs.

When the local people manning the area distanced themselves from their locations a bit, Fan Lan finally managed to roll her eyes in annoyance and whispered, "Adding to our problems, you say? No. From the beginning, they are our problem. Stop speaking any more nonsense, Ying-Ying."

Fan Zheng crouched and inched towards them to join their side. 

"What do we do now?" somebody quietly asked in anxiousness.

He shook his head, clueless. 

Zhan Rong was silent, only looking down contemplating. She spoke ever so softly after half a minute. 

"I know this already, but yeah, everyone in this place is odd. The high security is definitely not because of the ghosts, the temple seems very effective about it. Also not because of beasts... The fire from the lamps and the bonfire from all directions are enough to ward them off." 

The male lead felt helpless, then glanced at the sleeping kids at the back of their six companions. "It"s really due to people like us."

The others nodded then looked down too, sighing. 

The children who all looked lovely and beautiful had tear-stained cheeks even before they "stole" them. When they convened, Zhan Rong told everyone, she had not seen these kids yesterday, something they had no choice but acknowledge since they too had no impression of them. 

What made them grateful, yet at the same time, scared, was the fact that the kids had not cried or woken up once as they ran around.

The kids had been drugged to sleep. One of the students, in the middle of his quest, overheard from an old couple that they did so they wouldn"t make noise to annoy the other villagers. When this friend of them came back to the group, he told them how angry and frightened he was. 

They felt the same actually as they listened to the details. 

Each of them became more determined to run away with the kids since then. 

Unfortunately, they still couldn"t think of any way to bypa.s.s the tall walls made of bound logs without using the pa.s.sages guarded by the scary male locals.

How to do that when the radiant glow from the fire would them visible? They could also foresee their extra pieces of "baggage" would slow them down significantly.

"How to proceed when we"re stuck here?" Fan Zheng absent-mindedly murmured. 

Zhan Rong raised a crazy idea. "Brave that single unpatrolled way?" It was the one facing the haunted side of the forest.

Of course, apart from the male lead, everyone else protested. They had no courage to storm through a battalion of malevolent spirits. As for Fan Zheng, he had unknowingly begun to consider whether to steal the statue or not and bring it with them as a mean of protection, although the idea made him feel despicable.

When everyone was wearing bitter expressions on their faces, busy racking their brains on how to cross the first barrier, Zhao Ai finally revealed herself to them...