Food stalls

Since they refused the dinner on the house but still got to eat, the couple decided to tour the village in search of food stalls where they could grab some grub and at the same time ask around for more rumors as well as ways to earn some money.
They had quickly burned through their budget and while they secured a place to sleep and had enough to last another night, the day after tomorrow they'd be homeless and penniless if they didn't do anything about it.
Moreover... forget about the day after tomorrow, would they even have enough coins to fill their stomach tomorrow?

They didn't want to rely on the food offered by the inn, and therefore findings ways to secure funds was imperative.

Walking out the inn they asked around and were pointed to a road where many cheap food stalls would gather along others kind of peddlers to form a sort of night market, and the couple thought it'd be the best place to get both food and info.
After all where there's a market there's people, and where there's people there's gossiping!
Apparently the night market sort of formed by itself as people noticed about the murims coming often returning late from their punitive excursions against the demons in the mountain and thought it'd be a good idea to make a place for them to rest.

The idea was a success, and the night market survived even now that only wandering murims and thugs were left to defend town.

Mei and Ren were able to get a few cheap skewers of grilled meat for just 2 coins, and then mingled with the crowd in order to learn more about what they wanted to know.
There were many wandering murims and they made a living hunting around town so much of the talk was around some of the targets around Peach Village...

If Peach Village was to be taken as the center and BaiLong Peak located northwest from there, then according to the rumors there was a large outbreak of demons affiliated to the Thousand Demons Cult in the west and south whereas the mountains to the north were bandit territory.
As for the east, it was apparently contested territory where pretty much anyone fought anyone.

A common target for wandering murims and strong common people were the Jaki, a kind of small and lustful demon whose threat laid in their number rather than their strenght.

They were small, looking like ugly hairless monkeys whose fat went all to their heads and bellies, though their movements would be more akin to spiders.
They were armed with one horn, fangs and claws. However, individually they were weak enough that even people without energy could beat them as long as they were fit and knew how to throw good punches.
Their strenght was insignificant when compared to other demons, but usually there'd be large amounts of them and as long as they could snag a female then their number would spike up at an alarming speed... if the mother was a cultivator, there was an high chance of birthing a larger and stronger variant capable of using energy and whose power would be a nightmare even for stronger cultivators.

That was why it was ill-advised to bring about female companions when hunting them, though such advice was true for pretty much all other demons too.
For example...

The Sperm Lizards.
Humanoid Lizards with a large sex drive and homongous sperm production, it was said that there were many semen swamps in their territories and any woman going there would come back pregnant regardless of being dicked or not.
Rumors or not, fact was that those lizardmen's average strenght could rival or even surpass common murims and their higher species required either large teams ready to suffer equally large casualities to subdue them.

Another common threat and target for hunting would be the Babooches.
Horny humanoid monkeys with a penchant for frenching any female they'd come across.
Pretty much sentient baboons with an anteater-like face and tongue. Weaker than the common murim and generally stupid, can however show various degrees of slyness when females and breeding are involved.

Those three kind of demons were the most common in the areas around the south and west, though there were also other minor tribes that settled here and there was the occasional official member of the Thousand Demons Cult roaming around... talking about them, the only minor thing about those minor tribe would be their numbers whereas their fighting prowess could often be considered higher than the more common demons, whereas the cultivator of the Thousand Demon Cult were considered walking calamities because only the strongest demons were allowed to join the cult instead of living with their kin in the affilied tribes.

Once again, the usual advice and practically unsaid rule was to never bring along females in demon territory regardless of their strength.
Demons were always searching for new females to breed and they could get very cunning when it came to dealing with women, and that wasn't even considering how each of them had their own tricks to subdue females and they held the homeground advantage...

In comparison, hunting bandits in the north could be considered relatively safer for females... as long as they didn't mind becoming a bandit camp's cumdump upon loss, or being sold into slavery...

This wasn't a kind world for women, and while men didn't have it easy either considering the high chance of being killed upon defeat... women still got worse, defeat not being their only way to go down and some of those ways could be considered worse than **** for some.

Overall they found out that hunting demons was much more profitable than hunting bandits, but it would also be more troublesome to bring Mei along since it'd rile up the demons.
They also found out about the Soft Silk Thieves organizing expeditions into demon's territories and recruiting murims to bolster their forces... that would be a safer way for Ren to hunt without Mei risking herself, or a way to increase her safety if she came along though they'd have to deal with a team of strangers.

Overall they learned much about the situation of the town's surrounding and with one of Mei's objectives for this trip being exterminating the elements causing chaos in the world... well, even if she did overlook the gang's actions in town, she still had plenty of targets outside of town!
Though now it was time to go back to the inn and rest in view of tomorrow... well, first double cultivate and then rest...

[Ren Qi increase by 1]

[Mei Qi increase by 10]