Night had fallen.
In a corner of the Shack District.
This place was remote, pitch-black, and utterly silent.
Du En quietly arrived there and silently concealed himself to observe.
He had already killed four people in succession. Everyone had gotten their share of the rain, so to speak—the hall masters of all three gangs, old and new, had been killed.
After witnessing this, quite a few gang members scattered in terror, spreading the news. The other hall masters were already anxious and uneasy, so upon hearing the rumors, they naturally fled at once.
Since it would no longer be suitable to continue killing, Du En had come here to observe.
The idea behind this operation was actually very simple: find a few bigger, suitably prominent targets who still carried some weight in the Shack District, butcher them, and see whether he could frame the Evil Cultivator, thereby provoking and spurring the stewards into action.
As for the secondary benefit, naturally, it was to intimidate the Green Robe Gang and curb their vile habit of charging protection fees indiscriminately, lest it spread to his side and disrupt his cultivation environment.
However, this operation carried risks.
The stewards might have been relaxed on the surface but tense underneath, secretly fishing for prey.
For that reason, at the beginning of the operation, he had wandered around openly for a while without covering his face.
Because Corpse Affairs Steward He Bo would inevitably get dragged into this matter!
Given how much this fellow detested him, if he really was secretly fishing, he certainly would not be able to resist jumping out to target Du En, whose movements were somewhat furtive.
But he had not.
Even if this fellow was actually quite calculating and had other plans in mind, now that Du En had finished acting yet was standing here without moving, he should have shown himself.
"But he still hasn't."
Du En thought silently.
He had stood here for quite some time. Within the area covered by the three gangs in the Shack District, the uproar had grown increasingly intense, yet he still had not seen a trace of the stewards.
"These fellows really don't manage anything."
"From the looks of it, even if I put on this whole show, they probably still won't take action to dig out and hunt down the Evil Cultivator hiding in the shadows."
To be honest, this could not be considered unexpected.
The commotion reached its peak, then quickly faded.
When Du En quietly returned to the small courtyard in the early hours of the morning, everything had already returned to calm.
After the sun rose, everything actually seemed to follow its usual routine.
Of course, not everything remained as usual.
The three gangs—or rather, the Green Robe Gang—were now in a state of panic. No matter how the gang leader urged them on, the people below chose to keep their tails between their legs.
The large number who had directly witnessed the events last night and had been scared witless were even more determined to withdraw from the gangs, hoping that this way they could avoid disaster.
All at once, the Green Robe Gang, which should have been flourishing, had its momentum temporarily cut short.
Liu Qixiang's side naturally did not dare to go against the prevailing winds either, and he did not come to collect protection fees this morning.
"That fellow was still so aggressive yesterday. After you scared him away, Boss, I thought he'd come back to block our door again this morning!"
Wei Ming did not know what had happened, and he said this while they were riding in the cart on the road.
The old hand Ning Caize, however, had already noticed something unusual. He was somewhat worried, afraid that when they reached the Corpse Burial Wasteland, they would run into another gang leader who had died some bizarre and tragic death.
As for the others, they fell somewhere between the two. They instinctively felt that something was wrong but had not really thought it through. At the same time, they were also somewhat concerned about why Liu Qixiang had not appeared.
Flicking the whip, Du En merely said, "If he didn't come, isn't that for the best?"
That was true. One less trouble was one less trouble.
They were only afraid that those arrogant, overbearing fellows would change their ways and target the six of them with some sinister plot.
Fortunately, last night they had secretly moved their spirit stones to another hiding place.
We're really clever!
They thought this with optimism.
The cart was pulled by two Grey Jackals. Passersby found the sight inauspicious and were also somewhat afraid of the vicious beasts, so they all consciously moved aside. Thus, the journey was largely unobstructed, and they reached the wasteland much faster than before.
Because of this, they encountered the corpse transporters just as they were leaving the path.
Already in an odd mood, the corpse transporters all shuddered when they saw the Grey Jackal-drawn cart.
"Du En, this is quite an innovative idea."
Xu Ran, this hardworking wretch, was naturally among them as well. He could not help saying this, his tone somewhat strange and making people unwilling to respond.
"Judging by your expressions, was there something wrong with today's corpses again?" Du En asked directly.
At his words, the corpse transporters came back to themselves, all looking depressed.
"Sigh~!"
Xu Ran let out a long sigh and nodded. "It's a troubled spring. Last night, people died again. I don't know whether that Evil Cultivator went on another killing spree. Still, there was nothing obviously sinister about it—just brutal and violent."
Hearing this, the corpse buriers finally understood where their vague unease had come from. Ning Caize even felt as though a stone had dropped to the ground, leaving him strangely reassured.
Although the thought had only just occurred to him, he could not help giving a bitter laugh.
Du En merely nodded slightly and asked, as though he cared, "Speaking of which, have the stewards really not taken any action at all?"
"Who knows? At least on our side, after the foreman came back yesterday, aside from showing himself for brief moments, he's been hiding—"
"Mm, you and we can't afford to linger here. Let's stop here for today."
Du En cut him off.
Because he had already said too much.
Xu Ran also came back to his senses and secretly bared his teeth, thinking, That was close. I almost directly revealed that the foreman had been hiding behind closed doors.
He had been unsettled, and when he encountered Du En's group, he subconsciously thought they were alone together. His words had consequently become casual, and he had actually dared to speak about the foreman like that.
If the foreman found out, he would probably be punished!
Fortunately, Du En had promptly interrupted him before he could finish the word "hiding."
For some reason, Xu Ran felt as though someone's gaze held the slightest trace of regret.
After bidding Du En farewell, Xu Ran glanced at the others on his side and decided that it had not been his imagination.
Someone's definitely holding back something nasty!
Sigh~ Why aren't we corpse transporters united as one, like the corpse buriers?
The two groups passed each other, each carrying different thoughts.
The two Grey Jackals pulling the cart had eaten their fill of the leftover innards from the Strange Owl Du En's group had stewed. As they walked along the path now and saw their fellow creatures and other beasts fighting over food, the carrion-eating beasts could not help raising their heads and puffing out their chests, looking down on everything around them.
This left the beasts, which now fled at the sight of Du En's group, completely bewildered. The Grey Jackals in particular could not understand how these two kin of theirs had undergone such a change in temperament after only one night.
This man is truly terrifying!
The beasts became even more afraid of Du En, the corpse burier, and ran even farther away.
The road was unobstructed here as well, so they quickly reached the Corpse Burial Wasteland.
Since they had arrived far faster than usual, Ning Caize and the others had not yet mentally prepared themselves. Without realizing it, they all followed close behind Du En like newly hatched chicks.
He first tossed two Strange Owl skeletons to the Grey Jackals to gnaw on, then straightened his clothes and bundle, picked up his shovel, and calmly stepped onto the wasteland.
Dozens of corpses lay arranged there.
The four headless corpses were the most eye-catching.
They were the four hall masters Du En had killed. None of them had gone missing, but none had remained in the state they had been in when they first died, either.
Simply put, the corpses had all been searched. Their clothes were in disarray!
"These don't look very sinister. You people are pretty bold. Aren't you afraid they were really killed by the Evil Cultivator?"
Du En muttered to himself.
Actually, he had still killed too few. Even if he wanted to pin the blame on the Evil Cultivator, it was not enough to frighten people.
But since someone had already set the precedent, it was perfectly natural for him to take over now.
He walked over to examine them, prodding them with his iron shovel.
His cultivation technique had now been thoroughly mastered, and his body had grown solid and robust through eating and training. Although his cultivation was still at the Early Qi Refining stage, he could still give it a try with these corpses, whose origins he knew so well because he himself had killed them.
Dig out the stomach, pull out the intestines!
Before you continue