"Although you all are from the Golden Fortune Escort Agency, this must be your convoy's first time coming to our Chen Family Fort. I am Chen Yongde, the village chief of Chen Family Fort and an elder of the Chen clan. I have known many of your agency's Dart Heads for a long time... Just follow me."

Under the old man's guidance, the escort team entered the interior of Chen Family Fort.

Lin Yu had Sanyang find a place to hide in advance—after all, even though Yue Zhenqiao and his group had witnessed how he subdued this demonic creature, bringing it into a human settlement would be troublesome to explain.

It was better to avoid unnecessary trouble, so Lin Yu simply had it find a cave or a shaded spot in Twin Saw Mountain to stay in, avoiding the hottest part of the midday.

Sanyang's combat power was very high anyway; the local demonic creatures of Twin Saw Mountain likely couldn't do anything to it. Moreover, although he might encounter danger inside Chen Family Fort, there wasn't really a necessity to have this demonic creature as extra combat strength.

After all, when Lin Yu subdued Sanyang, his main consideration was finding a completely trustworthy "local native" to question.

Now, he naturally didn't need Sanyang for the time being—although Lin Yu was also full of questions about Chen Family Fort, Sanyang, as a demonic creature from Fuyuan Mountain and the leader of the Mountain Demons, where would it understand matters of human settlements!

Bringing Sanyang along was less useful than Lin Yu making inquiries and observations himself.

And after entering Chen Family Fort, Lin Yu indeed observed and learned quite a bit of useful basic information.

Although Chen Family Fort was a relatively closed, single-surname clan fort where everyone living here was related by blood, they also had skilled methods for receiving visiting merchant caravans and escort teams.

After all, in the Prison Mountain Realm, a human settlement couldn't survive without any external communication—merchant caravans and escort teams were essential, mobile components for every settlement.

Entering through the main gate and following the central descending main road of Chen Family Fort, the convoy's carts quickly arrived at a partially sunken plaza. There were sheds for carts and livestock made of stone and dry grass, as well as naturally formed caves that had been excavated and regularized.

Inside the caves, the sound of gurgling water could be heard—there was actually flowing underground water passing through. In the territory of the Fire Hell, this kind of structure was truly rare.

Although the temperature inside the cave still couldn't be considered cool, it was much better than outside.

After parking the escort carts and tethering the livestock, Yue Zhenqiao instructed the Deputy Head Escort and two other dart masters to stand guard inside this cave first, and that someone would come to relieve them later.

Then, Yue Zhenqiao handed over several strings of large coins as payment to the old man Chen Yongde.

Chen Yongde accepted the payment and led the remaining thirty-plus dart masters further into the interior of Chen Family Fort.

It was approaching midday, and there weren't any Chen clan villagers active outside Chen Family Fort. However, when passing by those small earthen forts, they could still see villagers tidying up inside through the small windows—some young children were even secretly leaning by the windows, curiously watching the escort team.

From the perspective of the [Mind-Peeping Eyepiece], these Chen Family Fort villagers all had abundant emotions, even seeming to have souls.

However, Lin Yu was very clear...

These people, like the "village chief" Chen Yongde beside them, were all not... living beings.

One only needed to use spiritual sense perception to probe their spirits and souls to know. These villagers had vitality, emotions, and thoughts, but they were simply not alive.

They were empty shells that seemed to be alive—this was precisely the opposite of the incomplete, broken body being escorted by the Golden Fortune Escort Agency.

That seemingly corpse-like, incomplete, tattered body was alive.

And these complete, lively, and active villagers were instead dead.

"It's just like the psychiatric hospital you set up on the Misty Islands..."

Lin Yu complained to Old Zheng.

Old Zheng spoke helplessly: "To be honest, what I did wasn't as good as this—I was just manipulating corpses. Anyone who took a glance would know that the 'medical staff' in my place were basically dead people. But here, it's different..."

"If one's perception isn't strong enough, they'd simply think they're proper villagers—at least, those dart masters over there clearly don't know this."

"Although the Chen Family Fort people are 'dead,' which is ultimately a bit strange, in the eyes of these dart masters... they definitely wouldn't imagine that Chen Family Fort is a group of 'dead people'!"

As Old Zheng spoke, Lin Yu nodded.

If Yue Zhenqiao knew that all the seemingly alive people in Chen Family Fort were "dead," then he probably wouldn't be "hesitant" at all—that Yue Zhenqiao would definitely rather die than lead his team here.

The fact that he could still come meant he had only heard or knew that Chen Family Fort was "not right," but didn't know exactly what was wrong.

Under Chen Yongde's lead, they soon arrived before a relatively large stone fort.

"This here is the guest lodging place of our Chen Family Fort. You can rest here—you can stay until all three suns have completely set before departing."

After saying this, Chen Yongde used a key to unlock the latch on the stone fort's door and opened that stone door.

"It's almost midday. This old man will also go back to avoid the heat and sun now. Guests, please make yourselves at home."

Then, Chen Yongde left.

Yue Zhenqiao led the group of dart masters inside and closed the stone door.

Although it was somewhat stuffy inside, it was much better than outside—especially since the inner walls of the stone fort even had several yellow paper talismans pasted on them for avoiding heat and generating coolness.

Although these talismans seemed somewhat aged and their effectiveness was extremely weak, the occasional cool breezes blowing through were enough to make everyone, who had been traveling under the scorching sun, enduring high temperatures outdoors, and even fighting demonic creatures, feel incredibly comfortable.

The injured and those who had fallen unconscious were settled one by one, lying near the talismans. [Flying Knife] was also mixed among them, slowly recovering his physical strength and spirit.

Seeing this scene, Dart Head Yue finally let out a long sigh of relief: "We've finally made it through safely and peacefully. We really are quite lucky."

Hearing him say this, Lin Yu and Li Nian, who had been holding back their questions all along, finally found an opening to ask.

"What do you mean 'made it through safely and peacefully,' and what do you mean 'quite lucky'," Lin Yu pretended to have just noticed something odd, asking with some curiosity, "Is there some danger in this Chen Family Fort?"

Li Nian also nodded: "Yeah, I thought that old man just now was quite amiable, and the facilities in this Chen Family Fort seem quite good. What is there to worry about?"

Seeing their questions, Yue Zhenqiao's expression instead showed some surprise.

"The two Female Warriors actually don't know?"

But considering their formidable strength, even if the two didn't know, Yue Zhenqiao didn't question it too much. Instead, he immediately explained to them himself.

"It seems the two Female Warriors are usually extremely strong and rarely need to stop in the wilderness past midday. It's normal for you to be unfamiliar with these small village forts."

"This Chen Family Fort, in this surrounding area, is the rest stop with the highest rates of 'disappearances' and 'incidents'!"