Inside the stone house's inner chamber, a single lamp burned like a bean.
The old village chief, who had just brought Wang Chen food and wine, suddenly dropped to his knees before him with a thud!
Without changing expression, Wang Chen asked, "Old Village Chief, why are you paying me such a grand salute?"
The old village chief knocked his head against the floor three times in rapid succession. His forehead was bruised and split open, blood seeping out.
"Spare my life, my lord! This wretch deserves ten thousand deaths!"
"Get up and speak."
Wang Chen said calmly, "Explain yourself first. Only then will I know whether you truly deserve ten thousand deaths."
The old village chief climbed to his feet with a bitter expression and tremblingly recounted the whole matter.
It turned out that several years ago, he had noticed that Zhang Shitou, one of the village hunters, was acting very strangely.
He suspected that the hunter had been corrupted by an evil demon.
Yet the old village chief had neither spread word of it nor reported it to the authorities in the county town.
First, he had no direct evidence to prove it. Second, he had his concerns.
If Zhang Shitou was not a demon, reporting him and bringing the Blood-Clad Guard in to investigate would not only deeply offend the violent-tempered hunter, but also force him to spend his coffin savings to settle the matter.
Falsely reporting demonic activity was no trivial crime. Could one really pretend nothing had happened after making the lords of the Blood-Clad Guard waste a trip?
But if Zhang Shitou truly had fallen to demonhood, never mind how much credit the old village chief might earn—the entire Kaoshan Village would be purged from beginning to end to ensure that no one else