The Surging Undercurrents of Ping An County

"Please!"

"Am I blind? Your cross-dressing is so obvious, how could I not see it?"

Chen Fan mentally retorted, but on the surface, he just smiled faintly, offering no response.

"How boring."

"I'm Lu Xuening, the newly appointed Ninth-Rank Black-Robed Constable of Ping An County. Although I've only been in office for half a month, I grew up in Ping An County, so I'm quite familiar with it."

The female constable spoke in a forthright manner.

"Chen Fan, at your service, Constable Lu!"

Chen Fan cupped his fist in salute.

He was just a small, ordinary member of the Brocade Guard, without rank or grade, not even a Squad Leader. She was already an official of the Ninth Rank. Although they didn't belong to the same system, Lu Xuening could be considered his superior.

"Why were you following Old Huang? Do you have a personal grudge against him, or do you think there's something wrong with him?"

Lu Xuening inquired.

"No comment!"

Chen Fan's heart tightened upon hearing this, and he replied with a cold expression.

"Oh, okay."

"In that case, I'll tell him you were following him. You'll be in trouble then!"

Lu Xuening looked at Chen Fan with a smile.

"What trouble could I be in? What if he finds out?"

"A clear conscience fears no knocking."

"If he really makes a move against me, my blade isn't dull either!"

Chen Fan didn't fly into a rage but spoke calmly.

"Alright."

"You're not giving me anything, are you!"

"Actually, you don't have to tell me. I've been observing you for days, and I've thoroughly investigated your background."

"You suspect that the incident a few days ago when you encountered a great demon during your patrol outside the city was suspicious, and the patrol order was most likely issued by Old Huang, so you suspect he colluded with demons to harm you?"

Lu Xuening said.

A glint flashed in Chen Fan's eyes. It seemed she hadn't just run into him by chance but had come prepared!

"Speak your mind."

"What do you want from me?"

Chen Fan asked, not continuing the topic Lu Xuening had brought up.

To be honest, he didn't trust this new female constable of Ping An County.

"I just think you have decent strength, so I want to form an alliance with you to cleanse Ping An County!"

"Ping An County is too filthy right now!"

"And the rampant demons in Ping An County are inseparable from your Brocade Guard."

"The ten-year inspection is approaching. I don't know if your Centurion wants to gloss things over and fool the inspecting envoys, so he reached some kind of agreement with the demons to make Ping An County seem relatively peaceful."

"Or perhaps he's not a good person at all, colluding with demons behind the scenes, using demons to eliminate dissidents and consolidate his rule in Ping An County."

"But no matter what, the chaos in Ping An County is definitely inseparable from him."

"And the deaths of your colleagues, even the assassination attempt on you, may also be inseparable from him."

Lu Xuening said, dropping a bombshell.

"The Centurion's surname is Cao!"

"Brother Zhao's blood letter said, 'The one who killed me is C...' This unfinished word could be Huang, but it might also be Cao!"

"Brother Zhao, what did you discover?"

Chen Fan was shocked, but he remained calm on the surface because whether it was Cao or Huang, he would investigate them himself and would never trust Lu Xuening's one-sided words.

"You say Ping An County is too filthy, but in my year of service in the Brocade Guard, although I've participated in several demon extermination operations, they were all outside the city. There are no demons causing trouble inside the city, are there?"

Chen Fan also raised a question based on the original owner's memories.

In the original owner's memory, the county town was the only safe haven, a pure land. In his impression, no demons had appeared in the county town in recent years.

The last time a demon appeared in the county town was more than ten years ago, when he was still young, and his memory was vague. How could Ping An County be as demon-infested as Lu Xuening said?

"Heh heh heh."

"Even you, a member of the Brocade Guard, think Ping An County is extremely safe, so ordinary people naturally won't notice anything."

"But do you know?"

"In the past decade, a full hundreds of children have gone missing in Ping An County, and hundreds of women have disappeared. In addition, there are some family annihilation cases where the culprit remains a mystery."

"So, if we calculate it that way, how many people die in Ping An County every year?"

"That number is too large, and too abnormal."

"But these things haven't spread widely, nor have they caused any major panic. Who do you think is covering all this up?"

As the Ninth-Rank Black-Robed Constable of Ping An County, Lu Xuening naturally has the right to investigate the county's files. After reading them, she knew that Ping An County was in serious trouble.

In the yamen now, she doesn't trust anyone but herself, because it's very likely that the yamen has also been infiltrated by demons, so she needs to find allies herself.

Later, she inadvertently saw Chen Fan following Huang Chengyue, the Brocade Guard Chief Squad Leader, and couldn't help but become interested in him. After some investigation, she felt that Chen Fan was a man with a clean family background and had also become a target of those behind-the-scenes figures colluding with demons, so he could be considered a relatively reliable ally.

Of course, at first, she just wanted to win Chen Fan over and have him act as her eyes and ears in the Brocade Guard, but now that she has felt Chen Fan's strength up close, she has elevated him from the position of informant to the level of ally!

"The only one who can cover all this up is the yamen."

"Are you saying that someone in the yamen is colluding with demons?"

Chen Fan said with great interest.

He originally thought that someone in the Brocade Guard was colluding with demons, but he didn't expect that someone in the yamen was also colluding with demons.

If these people knew each other and formed a network of relationships, it would really be possible to deceive everyone.

"Maybe many people in the yamen, from top to bottom, are colluding with demons. Others may also know, but they all turn a blind eye and pretend not to know."

"Those who dare to uphold justice are probably all dead."

"Because I found out while investigating the files that more than fifty officials in Ping An County have also died in various accidents in the past ten years."

"And most of these people are those who hate evil and are full of justice, which shows that they have completely wiped out the voices of resistance."

Lu Xuening said through gritted teeth.

She is a Ninth-Rank Black-Robed Constable parachuted down from Dragon Abyss Prefecture, and she came to Dragon Abyss Prefecture with a mission.

But she never expected that this mission would be so arduous. She might have to be against the entire Ping An County!

Then what awaits her will not be victory, but only death.

Because even if she is a Divine Treasury Realm peak martial artist who has overcome five levels, it is impossible for her to be an enemy of all the demons and officials hidden in the dark in the entire county.

So she now needs allies, more and more allies, and incidentally, she needs to investigate the evidence of these people colluding with demons, and finally wipe them out in one fell swoop and completely purge Ping An County!

This is a big game of chess, and she needs to play it step by step. One wrong move and the whole game will be lost. At that time, not only will she die, but tens of thousands of people in Ping An County will not survive.

"So you want to cooperate with me, hoping that I can help you?"

Chen Fan said.

"That's right."

Lu Xuening replied very simply.

"How can I trust you?"

Chen Fan said again.