At night, a few dark clouds quietly drifted across the sky, and sparse threads of rain slashed through the darkness.
Knock, knock, knock!
"Chief Clerk Zhong! Something's wrong!"
Amid a burst of frantic pounding, an anxious shout rang into the room.
Zhong Wuwei, the chief clerk of Qingshan County, groggily opened his eyes.
He pulled his hand out from beneath the concubine beside him, put on his clothes, and got out of bed.
"What are you making such a racket for? In the middle of the damn night..."
Zhong Wuwei grumbled as he opened the door.
Outside the room, a drenched young constable hurriedly saluted. "My lord Chief Clerk!"
"Shoo, shoo, shoo! What's got you in such a panic?"
Zhong Wuwei's expression darkened.
The previous night, he had spent a fortune bringing the courtesan of Qingshan County's largest—and only—brothel to his home. After tossing and turning all night, he had barely closed his eyes before being woken up. His mood was naturally terrible.
"My lord Chief Clerk! The people who went to White Cloud Temple are back..."
"So what if they're back? Did they solve the case? Where's Li Xiang?"
Terror filled the young constable's face as he stammered, "Captain Li... didn't come back..."
Zhong Wuwei yawned, tightened his clothes around himself, and shivered. "Then the case must be very troublesome?"
"Only one person came back..."
The young constable swallowed and continued:
"He said... Captain Li and the others are all... dead!"
"What?"
Zhong Wuwei jolted and nearly jumped straight up.
"More than twenty people went there. How could that be? Where's the man who came back?"
The young constable spoke through sobs. "He's dead too. He only managed to say two sentences before dying."
"What did he say?"
"The first sentence was, 'Dead, they're all dead! Captain Li died horribly!'"
"And the other?"
"The corpses... moved!"
Rumble, rumble!
Thunder rumbled in the sky, and the rain came down even harder.
Early that morning, Old Master Qian was woken by a commotion.
Rain poured outside the window, while thunderclaps echoed across the sky.
He liked quietly sitting and watching the rain in this kind of weather, so naturally, it wasn't the downpour that had woken him.
Since morning, Qian Zhenghao's wails had repeatedly pierced through the curtain of rain and reached his ears.
His grandson's return from the provincial capital was something that had made him happy.
What displeased him was that the boy had studied in the provincial capital for a year without making the slightest progress.
After returning, he hadn't even come to see his grandfather before going out to bully men and dominate women.
That alone would have been fine, but he had run into that inflexible Constable Kong.
The Qian Family's physician said that although the injury to Qian Zhenghao's leg looked frightening, it wasn't actually serious. After setting the bones, a few months of rest would be enough for him to recover.
Even so, Old Master Qian still brimmed with hatred for Kong Wu.
Or rather, that hatred had never vanished since Kong Wu became a constable.
Kong Wu enforced the law impartially and showed favoritism toward no one, turning Qingshan County into a place where lost articles lay untouched in the streets and doors were left unlocked at night. The common people's lives had improved considerably.
But that made powerful gentry families like the Qian Family suffer greatly.
In the past, they had acquired large amounts of farmland every year through cunning seizure and brute expropriation. This year, however, their business had taken a heavy blow, and their income was far lower than in previous years.
"Alas."
Old Master Qian sighed and asked the person beside him, "Master Zhou, even you can't deal with that reckless brute?"
Beside him, a middle-aged man in a blue-green long robe, with an extraordinary bearing, opened his eyes and answered succinctly, "I can't kill him."
Throughout all of Qingshan County, only the Qian Family had enough strength to hire a cultivator to protect their household.
Old Master Qian had witnessed Master Zhou's methods. With one talisman flung out, more than a dozen bandits blocking the road had been burned to ashes in the blink of an eye.
Yet even such a formidable figure had no absolute confidence in killing Kong Wu.
If they acted rashly and let him escape, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The Qian Family had only one cultivator. It was impossible for him to protect everyone's safety at every moment.
"Then we can only wait and see what happens."
Old Master Qian had lived through many years and naturally understood the wisdom of avoiding the enemy's sharp edge.
Just then, a servant ran in, flustered. "Master, Chief Clerk Zhong is here."
"This early in the morning, with rain coming down like this, why isn't he in his room sleeping with a woman? What does he want with me?"
Old Master Qian was briefly puzzled, then said, "Invite him to the main hall first and serve the finest tea and refreshments. I'll change and be there shortly."
After changing his clothes and entering, he saw Chief Clerk Zhong pacing back and forth, his forehead covered in sweat.
"Chief Clerk Zhong, what has you so restless?"
The moment Zhong Wuwei saw Old Master Qian, he hurried over and said urgently, "Disaster! Old Master Qian, there's been a disaster!"
"Oh?"
Old Master Qian had weathered countless storms in his life. Seeing Zhong Wuwei's behavior, he remained completely calm and soothed him, "Chief Clerk Zhong, sit down first. Have some tea, then tell me slowly."
Zhong Wuwei nodded. He sat down, took only a sip of tea, and immediately said, "Something happened at White Cloud Temple on East Mountain. Li Xiang took men there to investigate, but everyone who went died."
"From what we've heard, it may have been... an evil spirit at work."
Old Master Qian furrowed his brows. After thinking for a while, he said, "You want to... ask the Attendant from my household, Master Zhou, to make the trip?"
Zhong Wuwei nodded mournfully. "The imperial court has regulations. Whenever an incident like this occurs, it must be reported to the Demon Suppression Division in the nearest jurisdiction..."
"But once those people from the Demon Suppression Division come... it's easy to invite a god, but hard to send one away."
The Demon Suppression Division was an institution established specifically by the Great Jing Dynasty to suppress evil spirits.
However, when founding the Demon Suppression Division, the founding emperor had once said, "The harm caused by corrupt officials is worse than that caused by demons."
Therefore, the Demon Suppression Division also had the duty of investigating the moral conduct of officials.
Given the greed of Zhong Wuwei and the county magistrate, no one knew how much they had embezzled over the years.
If this matter could not be resolved properly and people from the Demon Suppression Division came to Qingshan County...
Whenever Zhong Wuwei thought of the consequences, he couldn't help shivering. He hurriedly said, "If you could lend a hand this time, Old Master Qian, I believe the county magistrate will remember this favor when he returns."
Old Master Qian pondered for a while. He felt that if people from the Demon Suppression Division truly came to Qingshan County, the dirty deeds he had committed in the past might also be dug up. He then called over a servant and said, "Go invite Master Zhou."
Before long, the middle-aged man from earlier walked in.
Forgetting his status as an official, Zhong Wuwei hurriedly rose and saluted. "I've long heard that Master Zhou possesses unfathomable Divine Abilities. Seeing you today, I find your bearing truly extraordinary."
Faced with the flattery of a county chief clerk, the middle-aged man merely nodded casually in response.
Neither Old Master Qian nor Chief Clerk Zhong had any objection to this.
Cultivators were supposed to possess a certain streak of arrogance.
After he sat down, Old Master Qian recounted the entire matter.
Master Zhou nodded. After pondering for a moment, he asked Zhong Wuwei, "You said the man who returned kept shouting that the corpses had moved?"
Zhong Wuwei nodded.
Master Zhou considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "There's nothing I can do about this."
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