（Notes: As the author's native language is not English, the expression of some scenes in the article may be different. If you can read more chapters to get familiar with the world and characters in the story, I believe it will be a good story. I hope you will like it. Thank you!）

Don't go out when it's dark.

This saying had been passed down in the Crippled Elderly Village for many years. Exactly when it started to be passed down could no longer be verified. However, this saying was the truth and there was no need to doubt it.

Granny Si of the Crippled Elderly Village watched as the setting sun gradually hid behind the mountain, and her heart became nervous again. As the sun set and the last ray of sunlight disappeared, the world suddenly became deathly silent, without any sound. Darknes slowly flooded in from the west, devouring mountains, rivers, roads, and trees along the way. Then it came to the Crippled Elderly Village and engulfed the village.

At the four corners of the Crippled Elderly Village stood four ancient stone statues. The statues were weathered and had a long history. Even Granny Si didn't know who had carved these stone statues or when they were erected here.

When the darkness fell, the four stone statues emitted a faint glow in the dark. The statues were still shining, which made Granny Si and the elders in the village heave a sigh of relief.

The darkness outside the village grew thicker, but with the light of the stone statues, the Crippled Elderly Village was still relatively safe.

Suddenly, Granny Si's ears twitched. She was stunned for a moment and exclaimed, "Listen, there's a child crying outside!"Elder Ma beside her shook his head and said, "Impossible. You must have heard wrong... Eh, there really is a baby crying!"

The cry of a baby came from the darkness outside the village. Most of the other elders in the village, except those who were deaf, heard the cry. The elders looked at each other in surprise. The Crippled Elderly Village was remote and desolate. How could there be a baby nearby?

"I'll go and take a look!"

Granny Si became excited and tiptoed over to one of the stone statues in the village. Elder Ma quickly rushed over and said, "Old woman Si, are you crazy? It's dark. Going out of the village means death!"

"Carry this stone statue out of the village. The things in the dark are afraid of the stone statue. I won't die so easily for a while!"

Granny Si bent over and tried to carry the stone statue on her back, but she was hunchbacked and couldn't lift it. Elder Ma shook his head and said, "Let me do it. I'll carry the stone statue and go with you!"

Another elder nearby limped over and said, "Grandpa Ma, you only have one arm. You won't be able to carry the stone statue for long. I have two complete hands. Let me carry it."

Elder Ma glared at him and said, "You lame fellow, you've lost a leg. Can you even walk? Although I only have one arm, this arm is extremely strong!"

He picked up the stone statue with his single arm, steadied himself. The stone statue was incredibly heavy: "Old woman Si, let's go!"

"Don't call me an old hag! Lame fellow, mute, all of you be careful. With one stone statue gone from the village, make sure nothing from the dark sneaks in!"

......

Elder Ma and Granny Si walked out of the Crippled Elderly Village. In the dark, there were some strange things wandering around the two of them, but when illuminated by the light of the stone statue, they let out strange squeals and retreated back into the darkness.

The two followed the crying sound. After walking a hundred steps or so, they came to the edge of a big river. The cry of the baby was coming from the riverside. The stone statue emitted a faint glow, which didn't reach far. The two carefully identified the direction of the sound and walked upstream along the river. After walking dozens of steps, the crying sound was nearby. Elder Ma's single arm was already having a hard time holding the stone statue. Granny Si's eyes lit up when she saw a tiny bit of fluorescence. It was a basket standing on the riverbank. The fluorescence was coming from the basket, and the crying sound was also coming from it.

"There really is a child!"

Granny Si stepped forward and tried to lift the basket, but she was slightly stunned and couldn't lift it. Under the basket was an arm that had been soaked white by the river water. It was this arm that had held up the basket and the child in it all the way to the riverbank.

"Don't worry, the child is safe now." Granny Si said in a low voice to the woman underwater.

The female corpse seemed to have heard her words. Her palm loosened, and she was washed away by the river water, disappearing into the darkness.

Granny Si lifted the basket. Inside the basket was a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. On top of the swaddling clothes was a jade pendant, which was emitting a faint fluorescence. The light of this jade pendant was quite similar to the light of the stone statue, but it was much weaker. It was the jade pendant that protected the child in the basket from the things in the dark.

However, the light of the jade pendant was very weak. It could only protect the child but not the woman.

"It's a boy."

When they returned to the Crippled Elderly Village, the villagers all gathered around. They were all the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled. Granny Si lifted the swaddling clothes and took a look. She grinned, revealing her missing teeth: "Finally, there is a healthy person in our Crippled Elderly Village!"

The lame man with only one leg exclaimed in surprise, "Old woman Si, do you plan to raise him? We can barely feed ourselves! I think we should send him away..."

Granny Si flew into a rage: "I found this child with my own ability. Why should I give him away?"

The villagers all cowered and didn't dare to refute her. The village chief came on a stretcher. He was in a more pitiful state than the others. At least the others had hands and feet, just fewer than normal people, while he had no hands and no feet. But everyone respected him very much, and even the fierce Granny Si didn't dare to be presumptuous.

"Since we're going to raise him, we should give him a name, right?"

The village chief said, "Old woman, is there anything else in the basket?"

Granny Si rummaged through it and shook her head: "There's only this jade pendant. There are no other notes or anything. There are characters on the jade pendant. It's the character 'Qin'. This jade pendant has no impurities, and there is a strange power inside. It's not an ordinary item. It should be from a wealthy family, right?"

"Is his given name Qin, or is his surname Qin?"

The village chief thought for a moment and said, "Let his surname be Qin. His given name will be Mu, Qin Mu. When he grows up, let him go herding. At least he can make a living that way."

"Qin Mu." Granny Si looked at the baby in the swaddling clothes. The baby wasn't afraid of her and actually giggled babblingly.

......

By the riverside, the sound of a flute came. A shepherd boy sat on the back of a female cow and played the flute. The sound of the flute was clear and melodious. The shepherd boy was eleven or twelve years old, with delicate features, red lips and white teeth. His clothes were half open, and a jade pendant hung around his chest.

This young boy was exactly the baby that Granny Si had picked up by the riverside eleven years ago. Over the years, the elders in the village had painstakingly raised this child. Granny Si somehow got a female cow and let Qin Mu, who was still a baby, drink milk every day, helping him survive the period when it was easy to die young.

Although the villagers of the Crippled Elderly Village all looked fierce, they were very kind to him. Granny Si was a tailor. On weekdays, Qin Mu learned how to tailor clothes from Granny Si, learned how to gather herbs and make medicine from the herbalist, learned leg skills from Grandpa Lame, learned how to distinguish positions by listening from Grandpa Blind, and learned how to breathe and regulate qi from the village chief who had no hands and feet. The days passed quickly.

This female cow was his wet nurse when he was a child. Granny Si originally planned to sell it, but Qin Mu was reluctant to part with it, so the task of herding the cow was also given to him.

He often herded the cow by the riverside. The green mountains were like dark blue eyebrows, and the blue waves, white clouds, and the scenery were very pleasant.

"Qin Mu, Qin Mu, save me!"

Suddenly, the female cow under him spoke. Qin Mu was so startled that he quickly jumped off the cow's back. He saw that there were tears in the cow's eyes, and it spoke human words to him: "Qin Mu, you grew up drinking my milk. I'm half your mother. You have to save me!"

Qin Mu blinked his eyes and tentatively asked, "How can I save you?"

The cow said, "You have a sickle at your waist. Skin me, and you can save me from this predicament."

Qin Mu hesitated. The cow said, "Have you forgotten the kindness of my nursing you?"

Qin Mu raised the sickle and carefully cut open the cowhide. Strangely enough, when the cowhide was peeled open, there was not a single drop of blood flowing out, and it was actually empty inside the cowhide, without any flesh, blood, or skeleton.

When the cowhide was halfway peeled off, a woman in her twenties or thirties rolled out from inside. Her two legs were still wrapped in the cow's legs, and the flesh and skin were connected to the cowhide, but her upper body had already broken free from the cowhide.

The woman had disheveled hair. She snatched the sickle from the stunned Qin Mu's hand, and in two or three strokes, she cut open the cowhide on her legs and feet. Looking at Qin Mu, her eyes turned fierce. She put the sickle on Qin Mu's neck and sneered, "Little villain, it's because of you that I was turned into a cow. For eleven years, I could only eat grass and even had to feed you milk! Poor me. I had just given birth to a child before I was turned into a cow, and then I was plotted against by that witch and turned into a cow to nurse you! Now that I'm finally free, I'll kill you first and then massacre all the villains in this village!"

Qin Mu's mind went blank. He didn't know what this woman who had crawled out of the cowhide was talking about.

Just as the woman was about to kill him with a single slash, suddenly she felt a chill in her back. She looked down and saw a knife piercing through her chest.

"Mu'er, your Grandpa Herbalist wants you to go back and take your medicine." The woman's body fell to the ground. Standing behind her was Grandpa Lame from the village. With a kind face and a simple and honest expression, he was holding a bloody knife in his hand and smiling at Qin Mu.

"Grandpa Lame..." Qin Mu's body went weak. He looked at the cowhide and the woman's body on the ground and still hadn't come to his senses.

"Go back, go back." Grandpa Lame patted his shoulder and chuckled.

Qin Mu staggered back to the village. When he looked back, he saw Grandpa Lame throwing the woman's body into the river.

This scene had such a huge impact on him that he didn't even know when he got back to the village.

"Qin Mu! You brat, what did I tell you? Don't go out when it's dark!"

As night fell, the stone statues at the four corners of the Crippled Elderly Village automatically lit up again. Granny Si stopped Qin Mu, who was planning to sneak out of the village to the riverside to check on the cowhide, and dragged him back.

"Grandma, why can't we go out when it's dark?" Qin Mu looked up and asked.

"When it's dark, there are some terrifying things moving around in the dark. Going out means death."

Granny Si said solemnly, "The stone statues in the village will protect us. The things in the dark don't dare to enter the village."

"Do other villages also have such stone statues?" Qin Mu asked curiously.

Granny Si nodded, but her face showed some worry. She kept looking outside the village and said in a low voice, "Grandpa Lame should be back... I really shouldn't have let Grandpa Lame go out. This guy only has one leg..."

"Grandma, something strange happened today..."

Qin Mu hesitated for a moment and told Granny Si about the woman who had crawled out of the cow's belly. Granny Si said casually, "You mean that woman? Grandpa Lame told me about it. He handled it well. I said I would sell the cow when you were weaned at the age of four. It's just that you were reluctant to part with it, so I let you take care of it. Look, something has happened now, right? I said that if you were weaned at the age of four, you would develop feelings for the cow."

Qin Mu blushed. Being weaned at the age of four was indeed a bit too late, but it seemed that the key point wasn't about being weaned at the age of four, right?

"Grandma, that woman was killed by Grandpa Lame..."

"Good riddance."

Granny Si smiled and said, "She got off easy. She should have died eleven years ago. If it wasn't for the need to nurse you, could she have lived until now?"

Qin Mu was confused.

Granny Si glanced at him and said, "This woman was the wife of the city lord of Xianglong City, which is thousands of miles away from here. The city lord of Xianglong City is lecherous, and she is jealous. The city lord of Xianglong City likes to flirt with women outside and forcefully abduct women from good families. Every time the city lord of Xianglong City defiled a woman, this city lord's wife would send people to beat that woman to death. I sneaked into Xianglong City and originally planned to kill her. When I saw that she had just given birth to a child, and the child was only three months old, and I also thought that you didn't have any milk to drink and she had milk, so I turned her into a dairy cow and brought her back to nurse you. I just didn't expect that this woman would break free from the seal, be able to speak, and almost hurt you."

Qin Mu was stunned and exclaimed, "Grandma, how can a person be turned into a cow?"

Granny Si grinned, revealing half of her missing teeth: "Do you want to learn? I'll teach you... Grandpa Lame is back!"

Qin Mu looked over and saw Grandpa Lame, holding a walking stick in one hand and a prey in his other hand, limping over. The darkness rushed towards the village like a tide. Granny Si hurriedly shouted, "You lame fellow, hurry up, hurry up!"

"What's the rush?"

Grandpa Lame still walked towards the village unhurriedly. At the moment he entered the village, the thick darkness just engulfed the village. The prey on his back was a colorful tiger, which wasn't dead yet. Its tail was swept by the darkness. Suddenly, the tiger let out a mournful roar. Qin Mu quickly looked over and saw that the tiger's tail was only left with a few bones. The fur, flesh, and blood on the tail were all gone, as if they had been gnawed off by something.

He looked curiously at the darkness outside the village. It was pitch black, and he couldn't see anything.

"What on earth is in the dark?" He wondered in his heart.