"Please!"
"I'm not fucking blind. You're so obviously a woman dressed as a man—how could I not tell?"
Chen Fan grumbled to himself, but on the surface, he merely smiled faintly and said nothing.
"How boring."
"My name is Lu Xuenning. I'm the newly appointed ninth-rank Black-Robed Head Catcher of Ping'an County. I've only been in the post for half a month, but I grew up here, so I know the county fairly well."
The female head catcher spoke in a bold, carefree manner.
"I'm Chen Fan. Greetings, Head Constable Lu!"
Chen Fan clasped his hands and bowed as he introduced himself.
He was just an ordinary Jinyiwei member, with neither rank nor title—not even a Xiaoqi Officer. She, on the other hand, already held a ninth-rank official post. Though they belonged to different systems, Lu Xuenning was still his superior in a sense.
"Why were you following Old Huang? Do you have a personal grudge against him, or do you think something's wrong with him?"
Lu Xuenning asked.
"No comment!"
Chen Fan's heart tightened at her words. Then he answered coolly, his expression indifferent.
"Oh?"
"In that case, I'll tell Old Huang you were following him. You'll be in a real pickle then!"
Lu Xuenning looked at Chen Fan with a broad grin.
"What's there to be afraid of? So what if he finds out?"
"If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't fear ghosts knocking at your door."
"If he really tries to come after me, my blade won't be dull!"
Rather than losing his temper, Chen Fan answered calmly.
"Fine."
"So you're not going to give an inch, huh?"
"Actually, I already know even if you won't tell me. I've been watching you for days, and I've dug up every last detail about you."
"You suspect something was fishy about that incident a few days ago, when you went on patrol outside the city and ran into a great demon. The patrol order was probably issued by Old Huang, so you suspect he's colluding with Demonic Creatures to get you killed?"
Lu Xuenning said.
A glint flashed through Chen Fan's eyes. It seemed she hadn't just happened upon him; she'd come prepared.
"Go on."
"What do you want from me?"
Chen Fan asked, refusing to continue the topic Lu Xuenning had raised.
To be honest, he didn't trust Ping'an County's new female head catcher.
"I think you're pretty capable, so I want to form an alliance with you and clean up Ping'an County!"
"Ping'an County is filthy to the core these days!"
"And the rampant Demonic Creatures here have everything to do with your Jinyiwei."
"The Ten Year Inspection is coming up. I don't know whether your Baihu Master wants to put on a show of peace and fool the Inspection Envoy, and has made some kind of deal with the Demonic Creatures to make Ping'an County look calm and orderly."
"Or perhaps he was rotten from the start, secretly colluding with Demonic Creatures and using them to eliminate his rivals, all to tighten his grip on Ping'an County."
"Either way, he can't escape responsibility for the chaos here."
"And the deaths of several of your colleagues—even the attempt on your life—may have something to do with him too."
Lu Xuenning spoke with startling bluntness.
"The Baihu Master's surname is Cao!"
"The blood letter Brother Zhao left behind said that the one who killed me was 'fuck'—a character he never finished writing. It could have been Huang, but it could just as easily have been Cao!"
"Brother Zhao, what exactly did you discover?"
Chen Fan was shaken, but kept his expression perfectly calm. Whether the culprit was Cao or Huang, he would investigate on his own. He wasn't about to take Head Constable Lu's word for it.
"You say Ping'an County is filthy, but in the year I've served with the Jinyiwei, I've joined several hunts for Demonic Creatures, and every one was outside the city. What Demonic Creatures have been causing trouble inside the city?"
Drawing on the memories of his predecessor, Chen Fan raised his own question.
In his predecessor's memories, the county seat had been the one safe haven, a pure refuge. As far as he remembered, no Demonic Creatures had appeared inside the city in the past few years.
The last time any had appeared there was more than ten years ago, when he was still little and his memories were hazy. So how could Ping'an County be as overrun with Demonic Creatures as Lu Xuenning claimed?
"Heh, heh, heh."
"If even a Jinyiwei member like you thinks Ping'an County is perfectly safe, then ordinary folk certainly won't suspect a thing."
"But do you know this?"
"Over the past ten years, hundreds of children have disappeared from Ping'an County, along with hundreds of women. And there have been several massacres of entire households whose killers remain unknown to this day."
"Just think how many people in Ping'an County must die each year."
"The number is staggering. It's far from normal."
"But none of these cases ever spread widely, and they never caused any major panic. Tell me, who's been covering it all up?"
As a ninth-rank Black-Robed Head Catcher, Lu Xuenning had the authority to investigate Ping'an County's case records. Once she'd read them, she knew the county was in deep trouble.
At the Government Office, she trusted no one but herself. The Demonic Creatures might have infiltrated the office too, so she needed to seek out allies on her own.
Later, she happened to see Chen Fan following Huang Chengyue, the Jinyiwei Zongqi Officer, and grew curious about him. After investigating, she decided Chen Fan came from a clean family and had become a target of the Masterminds colluding with Demonic Creatures. That made him a fairly reliable ally.
At first, she'd only wanted to recruit Chen Fan as her eyes and ears within the Jinyiwei. But after sensing his strength up close, she'd already promoted him from informant to ally!
"Only the Government Office could cover all this up."
"You mean there are people in the Government Office colluding with Demonic Creatures."
Chen Fan said with keen interest.
He'd thought there were people in the Jinyiwei colluding with Demonic Creatures. He hadn't expected the Government Office to be involved too.
If those people knew one another and had woven themselves into a network, they really could keep everyone in the dark.
"Maybe there are plenty of people throughout the Government Office colluding with Demonic Creatures. The others may know, too, but they turn a blind eye and pretend not to notice."
"Those who dared to stand up for justice have probably all been killed."
"While investigating the case records, I found that more than fifty officials in Ping'an County had died in various accidents over the past ten years."
"Most of them hated evil and were people of principle. It's clear the conspirators have completely silenced every voice of resistance."
Lu Xuenning said through gritted teeth.
She was a ninth-rank Black-Robed Head Catcher sent to Longyuan Prefecture from elsewhere, and she'd come here on a mission.
But she'd never imagined the mission would be so difficult. She might have to stand against all of Ping'an County!
There was no victory waiting for her—only death.
Even though she'd Leap Five Passes and was a Martial Artist at the Spirit Concealment Realm Peak, she couldn't possibly fight every hidden Demonic Creature and official in the county.
That was why she needed allies—more and more allies. She also needed to gather evidence of their collusion with Demonic Creatures, so she could take them all down and clean up Ping'an County once and for all!
This was a grand game of chess. She had to make each move carefully. One careless move, and the whole game would be lost. Then not only would she die; the tens of thousands of people in Ping'an County would perish too.
"So you want to work with me and hope I'll help you?"
Chen Fan asked.
"Exactly."
Lu Xuenning answered without hesitation.
"How am I supposed to trust you?"
Chen Fan asked.
Before you continue