"Please!"
"I'm not fucking blind. Your disguise as a man is so obvious—how could I not see through it?"
Chen Fan grumbled inwardly when he heard that, but he only gave a faint smile on the surface and did not respond.
"How boring."
"My name is Lu Xuening, the newly appointed Ninth-Rank Black-Robed Constable of Ping An County. Though I have only been in office for half a month, I grew up in Ping An County, so I know the place fairly well."
The female constable spoke in a forthright manner.
"I am Chen Fan. Greetings, Captain Lu!"
Chen Fan clasped his fists and bowed as he spoke.
He was now merely an ordinary member of the Brocade Guard, without rank or grade—not even a Squad Leader. She, meanwhile, already held ninth-rank office. Though they did not belong to the same system, Lu Xuening still counted as Chen Fan's superior.
"Why were you following Old Huang? Do you have a personal grudge against him, or do you think there is something suspicious about him?"
Lu Xuening asked.
"No comment!"
Chen Fan's heart tightened at her words, but he then answered with a cold expression.
"Oh, oh."
"If that is the case, then I'll tell Old Huang that you were following him. You'll be in trouble then!"
Lu Xuening smiled sweetly at Chen Fan as she spoke.
"What trouble could I possibly be in? So what if he finds out?"
"If you have done nothing shameful, you need not fear ghosts knocking at your door."
"If he truly dares lay a hand on me, my blade is no less sharp!"
Rather than flying into a rage, Chen Fan remained extremely calm as he answered.
"Fine."
"So you won't budge no matter what, huh?"
"Actually, even if you do not tell me, I already know. I have been watching you for several days and investigated your background from top to bottom."
"You think there was something fishy about your patrol outside the city a few days ago, when you unexpectedly encountered that great demon. And since Old Huang was most likely the one who issued that patrol order, you suspect that he colluded with demons to harm you?"
Lu Xuening said.
A glint flashed through Chen Fan's eyes. It seemed she had not run into him by chance at all—she had come prepared!
"Speak."
"What do you want from me?"
Chen Fan asked, refusing to continue the topic Lu Xuening had raised.
To be honest, he did not trust this newly arrived female constable of Ping An County.
"I think you are quite capable, so I want to form an alliance with you and cleanse Ping An County!"
"Ping An County is far too filthy now!"
"Moreover, the rampant demons in Ping An County are inseparable from your Brocade Guard."
"The ten-year inspection is about to arrive. I do not know whether your Centurion wants to whitewash everything and deceive the inspection envoy, which is why he reached some sort of agreement with the demons to make Ping An County appear relatively peaceful."
"Or perhaps he was never any good to begin with—secretly colluding with demons, using them to eliminate dissidents and consolidate his rule over Ping An County."
"But no matter what, the chaos in Ping An County absolutely cannot be separated from him."
"The deaths of your colleagues, and even the assassination attempt against you, may also be connected to him."
Lu Xuening spoke with words shocking enough to never let the matter rest.
"The Centurion's surname is Cao!"
"Brother Zhao's blood-written letter said that the one who wanted to kill me was 'cao.' That unfinished character could mean Huang, but it might also mean Cao!"
"Brother Zhao, what exactly did you discover?"
Chen Fan was inwardly horrified, but his outward expression remained incomparably composed. Whether it was Cao or Huang, he would investigate them secretly himself. He would never take Captain Lu's one-sided words at face value.
"You say Ping An County is filthy, but during my year serving in the Brocade Guard, although I took part in several demon-suppression operations, they were all outside the city. What demons have ever caused trouble within the city?"
Drawing on the original owner's memories, Chen Fan raised his own question.
In the original owner's memories, the county city had been the only harbor from the storm, a patch of pure land. As far as he remembered, no demons had ever appeared in the county city these past few years.
The last time demons had appeared in the county city was more than ten years ago. He had still been young then, and his memories were rather hazy. From this, it was clear that Ping An County was nowhere near as overrun by demons as Lu Xuening claimed.
"Hehehe."
"Even you, a member of the Brocade Guard, think Ping An County city is completely safe. Naturally, ordinary commoners would not notice anything."
"But do you know?"
"In the past ten years, several hundred children have disappeared from Ping An County city. Several hundred women have also gone missing, and there have been entire-family massacres whose culprits remain a mystery to this day."
"Then by that calculation, how many people die in Ping An County every year?"
"The number is far too large, and far too abnormal."
"Yet none of these incidents spread widely, nor did they cause any major panic. Tell me, who do you think has been covering all this up?"
As the Ninth-Rank Black-Robed Constable of Ping An County, Lu Xuening naturally had the authority to investigate Ping An County's case files. Once she had read through them, she knew that something enormous had gone wrong in Ping An County.
In the current yamen, she trusted no one but herself, because the yamen might very well have been infiltrated by demons as well. That was why she needed to find allies personally.
Later, she happened to see Chen Fan following Huang Chengyue, the Chief Squad Leader of the Brocade Guard, and became interested in him as well. After investigating him, she concluded that Chen Fan came from an impeccable family background. Furthermore, he had become a target for liquidation by those hidden masterminds colluding with demons, making him a relatively reliable ally.
Of course, at first, she had merely wanted to recruit Chen Fan and make him her informant within the Brocade Guard. But after sensing Chen Fan's strength at close range, she had elevated him from the role of informant to that of an ally!
"Only the yamen could conceal all of this."
"You mean that someone in the yamen is colluding with demons."
Chen Fan said with great interest.
He had originally believed that someone within the Brocade Guard was colluding with demons. He had not expected that someone in the yamen would be doing the same.
If these people knew one another and had woven themselves into a web of connections, they truly could deceive everyone.
"Perhaps many people throughout the yamen are colluding with demons. Others may know as well, but they turn a blind eye and pretend not to know."
"Those who dared uphold justice have probably all died."
"While investigating the case files, I discovered that over the past ten years, more than fifty officials of Ping An County have died in various accidents."
"Most of them hated evil as if it were an enemy and possessed righteous hearts. It is clear that they have completely erased every voice of resistance."
Lu Xuening spoke through gritted teeth.
She was a Ninth-Rank Black-Robed Constable parachuted in from Dragon Abyss Prefecture. She had come to Dragon Abyss Prefecture carrying out a mission.
But she had never imagined that this mission would be so arduous. She might have to become the enemy of all Ping An County!
What awaited her, then, would not be victory, but only death.
For even if she were a martial artist who had passed the five trials and stood at the peak Divine Treasury Realm, she could not possibly make enemies of every demon and official hidden in the shadows throughout the entire county.
That was why she needed allies now—more and more allies. At the same time, she needed to investigate the evidence of these people's collusion with demons, then finally catch them all in one sweep and thoroughly cleanse Ping An County!
This was a vast game of chess. She had to play it one move at a time. One careless move, and the entire board would be lost. When that happened, not only would she die, but the tens of thousands of commoners in Ping An County city would not survive either.
"So you want to work with me and hope that I can help you?"
Chen Fan said.
"That's right."
Lu Xuening answered without hesitation.
"How am I supposed to trust you?"
Chen Fan asked again.
Before you continue