I can push my cultivation progress to the end

Boom!

It was as if a thunderbolt had struck the top of their heads.

All the people on the lake shore were immediately shaken and staggered, collapsing to the ground in a faint.

The two men pushing the boat were no exception, their eyes rolling back as they slumped onto the muddy bank.

A moment later, a terrifying figure descended from the sky with gusts of wind.

Upon arriving, his body trembled slightly, forcibly dispersing the swirling, turbulent wind around him.

Then, with a casual wave towards the small boat, he stirred up a gust of wind, blowing all the salt grains into the lake, revealing the two children buried beneath.

Seeing the children's chests rising and falling with normal breathing, Li Hai was slightly relieved.

Immediately, he turned his cold gaze towards the foolish men and women on the lake shore, and with a slight lift of his foot, he stomped heavily on the ground.

Bang—

Instantly, a ripple of earth-shaking waves spread out rapidly, awakening the unconscious villagers one by one.

The old man who had led the villagers in the human sacrifice woke up and, seeing that the coarse salt that had covered the small boat had disappeared without a trace, immediately screamed at the top of his lungs:

"The salt is gone? Is... is the Salt God angry? The Salt God is angry!"

His cry immediately frightened the villagers on the shore, leaving them trembling and at a loss.

"What nonsense about a Salt God!"

Seeing the old man still spreading rumors, Li Hai snorted coldly, raised his hand, and slapped his old face from a distance of a dozen feet.

Smack!

A strange wind swept past, and the old man was immediately slapped into a rolling ball, tumbling seven or eight feet away, half of his face swollen.

Seeing Li Hai display such 'divine power,' the villagers were immediately frightened into silence, no one daring to utter another word.

Seeing that no one was making trouble, Li Hai then asked:

"What were you sacrificing? How long has this been going on? Who led you to do this?"

Hearing the question, the villagers looked at each other, but no one answered.

Finally, the swollen-faced old man got up and answered the questions.

"Reporting, sir."

The old man said, covering his face and slurring his words, "We are sacrificing to the Salt God of this Li Lake. We must sacrifice every spring, summer, autumn, and winter. If we miss a single sacrifice, the Salt God will be angry, causing fish monsters to crawl out of the lake, livestock in the village to die of illness, and the salt in the salt fields to become poisonous."

"Fish monsters? Salt fields?"

Li Hai looked into the distance, scanning the lake shore, and indeed found a small salt field about half a mile away.

As for fish monsters, he looked around but didn't find any.

This saltwater lake was not large, and the depth was unknown, but its area was at most a few miles, so Li Hai could see it all at a glance.

Then he turned to the old man and asked, "How long has this custom of worshiping the Salt God been in your village?"

The old man replied, "Sir, it has been over a hundred years."

"Over a hundred years?" Li Hai said coldly, "Doesn't that mean you've killed thousands of children?"

"This... this..." The old man stammered, "This is a rule passed down from our ancestors. We can't change it easily."

"You can't change it? Then I will."

Li Hai took out his centurion token and said in a deep voice, "I am a Wood Rank Centurion of the Great Jing Demon Slaying Division, responsible for managing all illegal and unsanctioned sacrifices in the folk. According to my preliminary investigation, this so-called Salt God in your village actually requires human sacrifices. It must be a lewd and evil god and must be banned from today onwards!"

He wasn't deliberately bluffing. The Demon Slaying Division did have this responsibility, but the essence of most lewd sacrifices in the folk was actually for the local gentry to collect money, so such cases were usually handled by constables and yamen runners.

Even so, the Demon Slaying Division still retained the power to manage lewd sacrifices in the folk from beginning to end.

Li Hai learned all of this from the warehouse materials at the Ox Horn Town outpost of the Demon Slaying Division.

"Great Jing Demon Slaying Division?" The old man looked somewhat blank, because he had never heard of the name.

He knew of the Jing Dynasty, but he really didn't know what the Demon Slaying Division was.

In fact, this situation was the current state of knowledge for many common people in the Coiling Dragon Mountain area.

This area, thousands of miles in size, nominally belonged to the Jing Dynasty, but in reality, it was a lawless land.

No force dared to say that they completely controlled it. To put it bluntly, they were just carving out territories for self-governance.

And the Jing Dynasty, although it had the qualifications and the ability to say this, was too lazy to say it because it looked down on it.

For example, this Yu Family Village, not to mention the Jing Dynasty, even the fortress forces were too lazy to come here to carve out territory and declare authority.

Simply because this place was too desolate and too barren, with neither resources nor good farmland.

There was only a simple salt field that could produce some barely usable coarse salt, and a dozen acres of poor land, almost like saline-alkali land, that could produce some coarse grain just enough to feed Yu Family Village itself.

Li Hai said, "Although it's hard to leave one's homeland, the environment here is so difficult, and there's an evil thing like the Salt God entrenched here. Why don't you leave here and live somewhere else?"

"This..." The old man hesitated, "Official, you don't know, the people of Yu Family Village... cannot leave here."

"Why?" Li Hai frowned in confusion, "Is someone stopping you? Could it be that Salt God?!"

"Alas ~"

The old man sighed, "Sir, this place of ours... has a curse. Anyone who stays here for too long can no longer leave. Once they leave this place, the curse will take effect."

"What kind of curse?" Li Hai asked.

"This curse is called the Upside-Down God."

The old man replied, "As long as someone leaves this area, in less than a moment, their hands and feet will be reversed, their hands turning into feet, and their feet turning into hands.

At this time, this person must go to the Salt God Temple in the village, kneel down backwards, and pray to the Salt God to forgive their sins.

Otherwise, after a while, their nostrils and earholes will be reversed, and even..."

The old man hesitated, a look of fear on his face, "Their mouth and buttocks will also be reversed."

"Huh?" Li Hai was startled, "How will they be reversed?"

"Alas ~" The old man sighed, "That tongue... will turn to between the buttocks."

"A tongue coming out of the anus?!"

Li Hai said with a look of disgust, "Wouldn't that mean... every time you go to the outhouse, your tongue would taste it first?!"

The old man nodded in silence.

Li Hai couldn't help but shout immediately: "This Salt God... is so vicious!"

"Cough cough, cough cough ~"

Just then, the boy and girl suddenly coughed and climbed up from the small boat.

Then, when they wiped their eyes and saw the old man kneeling on the ground, they actually asked innocently:

"Grandpa Village Chief, weren't we going to see the Salt God? Why did you come too?

Could it be that the Salt God has changed his taste and doesn't want to eat children anymore, and has switched to eating old people?"