"Boss, why don't you just tell us where Old John lives?"
Tang Luo cut the boss off. "We just want to ask him a few questions. There's no need to be nervous."
"..."
The boss was clearly reluctant.
Who knew what these outsiders would do while asking their questions? What if they caused trouble?
"If you won't cooperate, we'll go to Scotland Yard," Tang Luo said. "We'll tell them we have a lead, but some people refuse to cooperate and are highly suspicious of being Jack the Ripper."
"No, no, no!"
The boss's face changed dramatically.
People had spent the past few days eating, sleeping, and cursing Scotland Yard.
But things were tense lately, and everyone knew Scotland Yard was "on the warpath."
If they really got on the wrong side of them, they could be hauled in and given a brutal beating. Even if they were eventually released, there'd be nowhere to appeal.
So the boss had no choice but to sacrifice someone else to save himself.
He gave them Old John's address, then repeatedly insisted that even if Old John had done anything wrong, it had nothing to do with him or the inn.
He'd only felt sorry for Old John and given him a job to help out an impoverished old man with no family.
Old John wasn't even an inn employee.
Right, he was just a temporary worker.
You know what a temp is, don't you?
After Tang Luo and the others said they understood perfectly, the boss finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Morning.
Tang Luo, Zhou Zhenguo, and Xiao Chu headed straight for Old John's home.
Li Liang and the other two moved to another inn to rest.
Until they confirmed this inn was safe, they wouldn't stay there again.
Tang Luo didn't mind that Li Liang and the others had no intention of helping. As long as they didn't get in the way, that was good enough.
As Zhou Zhenguo put it, God and Demon Walkers who played it safe when in doubt weren't really troublesome.
The troublesome ones were those who had no real strength but charged ahead whenever they were unsure, blundered around, and ruined everything.
Most God and Demon Walkers were cautious, but there were also arrogant ones.
Come to think of it, this would be the last mission where Zhou Zhenguo might encounter newcomers.
According to the information he'd obtained,
after five missions, they wouldn't encounter newcomers again.
Of course, that didn't mean it was absolutely impossible for them to meet any more.
The God and Demon Game wasn't like some Main God Space, with a big glowing orb they could ask questions now and then.
"God and Demon" was just what everyone called it.
All the rules had been deduced bit by bit by God and Demon Walkers through trial and error. There was no guarantee they were absolutely correct.
What's more, some God and Demon Walkers might hold back information or deliberately spread false details.
Old John's home was about a half-hour walk from the inn.
It was in the city's slums, a shantytown.
After arriving, the three of them asked around several times before finding Old John's shabby, low little house—or rather, room.
A fence surrounded it, only a little better than a hedge.
The house inside was only slightly larger than a room at the inn.
When Tang Luo and the others arrived,
Old John was in the yard chopping firewood.
His job at the inn was to clean once at noon, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening.
Morning was Old John's personal time off.
Noticing someone outside, Old John looked up in surprise at Tang Luo and the others.
He quickly stood up and came out of the yard, hunching over as he asked, "Gentlemen, have you come to see me?"
As the inn's "only" guests these past few days,
Old John recognized Tang Luo and the others.
"Mm."
Tang Luo didn't immediately start threatening him or throwing accusations around. He was quite the gentleman. "We're detectives. We'd like to ask you a few questions about the situation."
As he spoke, he took out a document and showed it to him.
Old John couldn't read, but he recognized the Scotland Yard seal at the bottom of the document.
He panicked so badly that he didn't even know what to do with his hands.
"So it really was you!" Xiao Chu blurted out.
"Huh?"
Old John looked genuinely bewildered.
"Take it easy."
Tang Luo stopped Xiao Chu from jumping to conclusions, and they all walked into the yard.
"Mr. John, I'd like to know what you were doing at the inn last night," Zhou Zhenguo asked.
Old John didn't seem like a member of whatever Jack the Ripper's group was, as everyone had suspected.
Or was he simply that good an actor?
"Just my usual cleaning." Old John looked miserable.
"What about the toilet at the end of the second-floor hallway? Did you clean that last night, too?"
Zhou Zhenguo suddenly stepped forward, looming over Old John as he demanded the answer.
Old John jumped and replied instinctively, "N-no, I didn't."
"You didn't?" Zhou Zhenguo's tone softened.
"We've got it wrong!"
Before Old John could say anything else, Xiao Chu's expression changed and she spoke up loudly.
"What's wrong?"
Tang Luo remained as calm as ever.
"Could we have made a mistake?" Xiao Chu asked solemnly. "Sister Xiao Bi heard Chengcheng say from outside, 'Someone's in the toilet. No need to clean it.' She and the rest of us assumed it was him right away. To be honest, we never actually paid attention to who was cleaning the inn. We didn't even remember what the person looked like."
"Chengcheng must have made the same assumption."
"The cleaner was the person who did the cleaning, but the person who showed up outside the toilet last night, ready to clean, wasn't necessarily the cleaner!"
After saying all that in one breath, Xiao Chu paused for breath and stared intently at Old John.
"Did you really not clean the second-floor toilet last night?" Zhou Zhenguo asked.
Old John shook his head. "No. I checked it at dusk, and it was very clean, so I tidied it up a little. I wasn't at the inn at all last night."
"Then where were you?" Zhou Zhenguo asked. "Don't tell me you were at home. That won't clear your suspicion."
"What happened, exactly?"
Old John looked uneasy. "I happened to be drinking at a pub last night. I stayed there for most of the night and didn't get home until very late. The pub owner can vouch for me."
"One of our companions has gone missing. We suspect Jack the Ripper is responsible," Tang Luo said. "We're investigating, so I hope you'll cooperate. Otherwise, people may suspect you're an accomplice of Jack the Ripper—or even Jack the Ripper himself."
Old John shuddered, nearly on the verge of tears.
Jack the Ripper?
A poor man like him couldn't afford to have an accusation like that pinned on him.
Xiao Chu glanced at Tang Luo.
The master really was ruthless.
He'd slap anyone with the huge accusation of being Jack the Ripper.
Was the master secretly a Wang, the King of Accusations?
"I'm not! I swear, I'm not!" Old John swore to heaven and earth.
"We'll find out when we go to the pub," Tang Luo said.
The pub Old John drank at wasn't open to the public in the morning, but people were there. The owner and his wife were cleaning.
They were getting ready for business in the afternoon and evening, as well as clearing away the rubbish left by the customers who'd stayed all night.
A few drinkers hadn't left yet, either.
Jack the Ripper's appearance
had hurt business at the inn but boosted it at the pub.
Some bachelors were afraid they'd become targets, so they simply spent the night at the pub.
With so many people around, they felt safer.
They could just order a few watered-down drinks so weak they tasted like nothing, or some cheap liquor that was practically industrial alcohol.
Old John, meanwhile, had little money. He'd planned to have a quick drink and leave.
But he'd accidentally drunk too much and fallen asleep. By the time he woke up, he still wasn't quite sober.
With alcohol giving him courage, he'd made a snap decision and gone home.
The pub owner and his wife remembered him clearly, as did several of the drinkers.
They were regulars and lived nearby, so they were willing to vouch for Old John.
Old John had actually left the pub before the incident happened.
But not by more than half an hour.
It took Tang Luo and the others about half an hour to get from the inn to Old John's home at their brisk pace.
The pub was even farther away. Getting from Old John's home to the pub had taken him some time, too.
Old John was a cripple with a limp and couldn't walk fast.
When he'd come to the pub with Tang Luo and the others just now, he'd already been walking as fast as he could.
Even so, it had taken him more than ten minutes.
For Old John, getting from the pub to the inn would take at least an hour.
He couldn't have committed the crime in time.
Unless Old John had some kind of special ability.
"Gentlemen, I told you that whatever happened, it had nothing to do with me." Old John's voice had grown much lighter.
"Let's go." They left the pub.
Old John hesitated, then asked, "Sir, who went missing?"
He'd asked Xiao Chu.
"None of your business. Don't ask too many questions," Xiao Chu said coldly.
Her guess had been confirmed.
With Old John cleared of suspicion, the suspect pool had expanded to include everyone at the inn.
Unfortunately, that was bad news.
"Oh, right." Old John nodded repeatedly.
Just then, Zhou Zhenguo, who had been walking behind them, suddenly stepped forward, grabbed Old John by the neck, and shoved him forward.
Old John hadn't been prepared at all.
He lost his balance and was knocked to the ground by Zhou Zhenguo. Before he could react, a knee slammed into his back.
Old John's face was pressed to the side, and he let out a muffled groan of pain.
Zhou Zhenguo pinned him down with one hand and one leg. His face twisted into a menacing expression as he shouted, "You may have fooled them, but did you think you could fool me?!"
As he spoke, he raised a hand that somehow already held a dagger.
In the corner of Old John's terrified eye, the blade plunged toward him.
That kindly, easygoing uncle was a real wolf in sheep's clothing.
Xiao Chu let out a startled cry.
She hadn't expected Zhou Zhenguo to attack out of nowhere, either.
It was just like the way he'd treated Li Liang that day.
The dagger stopped less than three centimeters from Old John's eye.
Tang Luo withdrew his hand. Zhou Zhenguo lowered his own, then stood up and shook his head. "Not him."
"What do you mean, 'not him'?"
Xiao Chu froze for a moment, then understood. "You were testing him?"
"That's right." Zhou Zhenguo helped Old John to his feet as he recovered from the scare.
The test had clearly yielded a result.
Old John was just an ordinary cripple. He wasn't hiding any special abilities, or he would have used them when his life was in danger.
"Are you crazy?!"
Old John finally reacted and cursed at them.
Afterward, afraid Tang Luo and the others would retaliate, he hurried off, limping along. He really wasn't very fast.
"When did you two plan that?" Xiao Chu asked.
Without Tang Luo's cooperation, they couldn't have pulled off the test.
"We didn't plan it," Tang Luo said. "Layman Zhou took out the dagger and gave this humble monk a look. This humble monk understood."
"...Heh."
Xiao Chu laughed dryly.
What a bunch of treacherous "adults"!
I'm tired today, so I won't ask for recommendation votes. But I know you'll all vote for me without being asked.
Thanks to One Hundred Years of Solitude 2, Chuuni World-Destroying Demon King, Li Family Speechless, ybq4zhu, Meat is Hungry, and Mist of Stigma for the tips!
There'll be another update tonight.
Before you continue