Chapter 403: Chapter 402: The man with the white paper hat _1

“Are you two from out of town?” The bearded constable noticed Lu Yang was unfamiliar with Wild State and kindly inquired.

“Be careful if you encounter someone wearing a white paper hat in the future. This bastard commits crimes everywhere; he’s cunning as hell!”

“How so?” The two were puzzled.

The bearded constable angrily said: “We’ve been after this grandchild wearing a white paper hat for a long time now and have yet to catch him. We don’t know where he came from, but he has been active in Wild State for several years.”

“Pick any place in Wild State, and he’s committed crimes there. This time, he impersonated the owner of Qingming Inn. Last time, he incited his accomplices to steal, and then captured them for the reward when they were wanted. What’s even more hateful is that none of us noticed that it was him collecting the reward!”

“The time before last, he pretended to be a dead body, sold himself to a corpse-driver, and when the corpse-driver was about to process him, he realized the corpse was moving. He almost scared the corpse-driver sick.”

“Even after the man with the white paper hat had left, the corpse-driver was still in shock as he thought he’d encountered a reanimated corpse. He recited protective charms for several days before he finally realized he’d been deceived!”

“There was also a time when a Barbarian tribe reported that someone was smuggling at the edge of the wasteland. It was him too!”

“That jerk will do anything for money! If we could catch him, we could reduce our annual working days by five!”

The bearded constable got angrier as he spoke of the man in the white paper hat. If the perpetrator was standing in front of him right now, the constable would have swallowed him alive.

𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Catching the man in the white paper hat is not only his wish but the collective wish of all of Wild State.

“There’s something else unusual about him, though. Several times, he seemed to appear in two places at the same time. It was as if there were two of him. We don’t know if he has a twin or what.”

“And this time, we surrounded the inn, and you were at the entrance. Did anyone notice him leaving?”

Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou nodded. With their cultivation levels, they were able to sense the movements of ordinary cultivators. Even a habitual thief could not escape their detection.

The fact that the man in the white paper hat could escape under such circumstances suggested he had exceptional means or a cultivation level beyond everyone’s expectations.

“Fairy Eternity, did you notice when the man in the white paper hat fled?”

Fairy Eternity rolled her eyes, feeling that Lu Yang had underestimated her.

“He ran westward. But don’t expect the constables to catch him. Even if you two join, it would be a waste of your efforts. His escape technique is unusual.”

“Even if you do catch him, it would merely be a clone. Nothing important.”

Lu Yang was taken aback. If Fairy Eternity could make this kind of judgment, it meant that the man in the white paper hat was even more difficult to deal with than he thought.

The bearded constable directed his fellow constables to seal off the scene, hoping to find some clues.

“Don’t forget to put up the seal!” he shouted.

“Big Brother, does putting up the seal really help? He always tears it off,” a cautious, bearded underling asked.

Given the blatant disregard the man in the white paper hat showed towards authority, putting up a seal wouldn’t stop him from tearing it down and resuming business.

The bearded constable gave him a stern look: “Just put it up when I say so. If he tears the seal, it will only increase the severity of his crimes!”

“We must take our leave now.” Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou said goodbye to the bearded constable.

Before leaving, Lu Yang kindly suggested: “I sensed when the man in the white paper hat fled. He headed west.”

The bearded constable looked at Lu Yang in surprise but did not say anything.

“The people and land of the Wild State are extraordinary. Perhaps we really could find a way to break my curse here.” Meng Jingzhou sighed, feeling that he should get out more often. Just after entering Wild State, they had encountered such strange things.

“After all this commotion, we still haven’t found a place to stay.” Lu Yang reminded Meng Jingzhou to focus on the matter at hand.

Meng Jingzhou patted the back of his horse, “Old horse, can you find us a village to rest in?”

The old horse swished its tail, took a bite of the fresh grass by the roadside, and dutifully headed toward the nearest village.

In a short while, the old horse brought the two of them to the nearest village. There was a large stone at the entrance of the village inscribed with the words “Firmstone Village”.

“Why is it so quiet?”

They descended from the cart, intending to seek lodging for the night, and noticed that every household in the village had their doors closed, with their oil lamps lit, but silent. Naturally, there wasn’t a single person on the village road.

In Lu Yang’s memory, in the absence of any entertainment, people from the village should have their doors open at this time, chatting with their neighbors.

“It’s like they’re scared of something. Strange.” Lu Yang furrowed his brows.

Meng Jingzhou picked the house with the largest yard and knocked on the door: “Fellow villagers, we’d like to lodge for the night.”

Bang—Creak—

Two sounds echoed as an old man opened the door, revealing only half of his face, warily watching Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou.

“Who are you?”

Meng Jingzhou gave a down-to-earth smile he had practiced running his barbecue shop: “We are travelers passing through, and night has fallen. We were hoping to lodge for the night if possible. Of course, we are willing to pay.”

The old man impatiently waved them away: “Go away, Firmstone Village doesn’t welcome outsiders. You should leave now, or you might get eaten by corpses!”

“Eaten by corpses? Are there corpses here? We are cultivators. We can help you get rid of them.”

Upon hearing this, the old man grumbled even more: “We don’t need your help, just go away!”

Immediately after saying this, the old man slammed the door shut.

“Hey, this old man is unreasonable!” Meng Jingzhou felt the old man was neurotic. He offered to solve the problem out of kindness, only to be driven away.

“Or is it because they have women in the house, and you’re not allowed in?” Lu Yang teased with a naughty smile.

“Get lost.” Meng Jingzhou waved Lu Yang away like swatting a fly.

Undeterred, Meng Jingzhou knocked on several other doors, but the responses were either to chase them away or not to answer the door at all.

“Nobody seems hospitable at all.” Meng Jingzhou grumbled.

“So, what now? On to another village?”

Meng Jingzhou did not want to move again: “Too much trouble. I noticed a place by the village gate earlier, I’m not sure if it’s a temple or an ancestral hall, but it was quite clean. It might still be in use. We can make do there for the night.”

“Fine by me.” Lu Yang didn’t wish to travel back and forth either. They had just been refused by the Qingming Inn and now were also rejected in Firmstone Village. Who knows if the next village would refuse them too?

Rather than taking all this trouble, they thought it would be better to huddle down somewhere for the night and investigate the reason in the daytime.

They arrived at the ancestral hall, lit the oil lamps with the Three Flavored True Fire, and instantly brightened the place.

“It’s rather clean.”

They respectively bowed to the ancestral tablets: “Apologies to the ancestors, but we’ll be staying here for the night.”

At the tail-end of the village, the graveyard.

Stones wobbled, the ground of the graveyard slackened, as if something below was stirring.

A withered claw sprouted from the soil.

Then, like bamboo shoots sprouting after the rain, numerous dried claws broke through the earth, too many to count…