"Ye Chu!" Pei Yanchuan ran up to Ye Chu and immediately spotted the redness on the back of his hand. "What happened? Who hit you? I'll hit them back for you!"
Ye Chu blinked, barely pulling himself together, and withdrew his hand from Pei Yanchuan's grasp. "I bumped it by accident."
Noticing that Ye Chu's expression seemed off, Pei Yanchuan asked worriedly, "What happened just now?"
Ye Chu knew he had made Pei Yanchuan worry again. He took a deep breath, pushed everything that had just happened out of his mind, and regained his usual calm. "Nothing. Have you found any clues these past two days?"
Since he didn't want to talk about it, Pei Yanchuan didn't press him. "No. I found a little pavilion and made do there last night. I only ran into you this morning. What about you?"
Ye Chu left out how the beggar A-Ze had tricked him and told Pei Yanchuan about the Ghost Opera Singer and the village's general situation.
"From the sound of it, that mayor is really suspicious. Why would he suddenly bring up this Ghost Opera Singer?"
"I think so too," Ye Chu said. "Shall we go together to..."
"Sure." Before he had even finished speaking, Pei Yanchuan had already nodded in agreement. He didn't care where they went at all, only that he would be with Ye Chu.
"...take a look around town?"
The two walked side by side down the street. Whether on the village paths or the roads in town, there was hardly anyone in sight.
Ever since entering this Instance, the largest crowd Ye Chu had seen had been at the temple, when everyone had been shouting for him to be beaten and killed.
Several braziers stood by the roadside, their contents almost entirely burned away. Ye