Chapter 110 – Dead People

“Who’s there!” Wuhe came running over with members of the militia. One look at her and his eyes filled with shock and suspicion. “The Yi family girl? You’re not dead?!”

“Hm?” Zhan Changfeng casually placed the booklet into her herb basket. “Did you need something from me?”

Wuhe’s shocked gaze turned guarded, and the others all tightened their grips on their weapons.

One of them demanded, “Where have you been these past ten days?”

Zhan Changfeng noticed the shift in their expressions. Suspicion stirred in her heart, though she didn’t take issue with his tone. “I’ve been at the Community School the whole time. Where else would I be?”

Wuhe’s eyes sharpened abruptly. “Nonsense. The Community School had no record of you at all. We searched every inch of Green White Mountain and never found you.”

“How is that possible? I took the archery examination just this morning.”

The militia members exchanged bewildered glances. Wuhe’s lips moved. “…Say that again?”

“I took the archery examination this morning. My instructor and classmates can all vouch for me.” Zhan Changfeng said impatiently, “What exactly happened? Just say it plainly.”

“But the archery examination was ten days ago,” Wuhe said in a low voice. “You’ve been missing for ten days.”

Zhan Changfeng was startled. She had already prepared herself for the possibility of time skipping forward, but she hadn’t expected it to bypass the day-night pattern entirely and jump straight ahead by ten days.

She knew perfectly well it was the thin mist in the mountains playing tricks, but how could she possibly make these people believe something so bizarre and supernatural? There was simply no way to explain it.

Sure enough, no one in the militia believed her. Wuhe suppressed the alarm and dread in his heart. “Come back with us first.”

Their eyes didn’t hold the bewilderment of people who’d heard something incredible—it was fear. This put Zhan Changfeng on guard. “Go where?”

“To the Assembly Hall.”

The Assembly Hall was the militia’s headquarters, essentially Green White Mountain’s law enforcement center—interrogation rooms and holding cells, it had them all. She had only been missing for ten days. Surely that didn’t warrant being put on trial.

Wuhe offered reassurance. “Something terrible has happened in the village. You’re in danger right now. It’s best if you stay at the Assembly Hall. We’ll protect you.”

Zhan Changfeng couldn’t imagine what kind of danger she could attract. “What happened?”

“People are dead,” Wuhe said as they walked. “We originally thought you were the first victim—we just couldn’t find the body.”

Wuhe started from the beginning. The day after the archery examination, someone had fished a skeleton out of the river. The entire frame had been gnawed clean, making it impossible to identify who the person had been in life.

Two days later, another skeleton was discovered—this time found inside the victim’s own home.

The man’s name was Wang Huan, a student at the Community School.

Another day passed, and another person died in the same manner. When the militia compared the cases, they discovered all three victims had been from the Community School.

“So what does this have to do with me?” Even if someone was targeting the Community School, it had nothing to do with her.

Wuhe’s expression darkened, and he said nothing.

A thin man spat on the ground. “You were there that night when the wolf pack attacked, weren’t you?”

“Zheng Bai!” Wuhe barked. “I’ve told you already, that’s absurd nonsense.”

The man called Zheng Bai shot back heatedly, “Bullshit! It wasn’t your son who died—of course you’d call it nonsense! Look—every single person killed was someone who took part in the attack on the wolves. This is obviously those beasts’ revenge!”

After saying this, he stole a covert glance at Zhan Changfeng.

Wuhe seemed unable to find a rebuttal and merely snapped, “Shut your mouth.”

Zhan Changfeng watched from the sidelines without a word, and in the end followed them back to the Assembly Hall.

They claimed it was for her protection, and indeed arranged a private room—with a neat row of about ten people standing guard at the door.

There was a place to sleep, so Zhan Changfeng went along with it.

“Stay here for the time being.”

Wuhe finished speaking and turned to leave, when the person behind him suddenly asked, “How many have died?”

A slight chill ran through him. He answered without turning back, “Don’t ask what you shouldn’t ask.”

The militia leader vanished with hurried steps, his retreating figure radiating urgency.

Zhan Changfeng squeezed her little finger. Was it the dead he feared—or her?

The moment Wuhe stepped into the duty room, Zheng Bai rushed up to him. “The demoness—it has to be that demoness! Why else would she have disappeared?”

“Well now, this time we’ve caught her.” Zheng Bai smiled through gritted teeth, his face twisted with ferocity.

“Absurd nonsense!” Wuhe nearly threw the water from the desk into his face. “I understand your grief over losing your son, but how can you blindly believe the rumors out there!”

“You call them rumors?!” Zheng Bai challenged. “Do you truly understand this person?”

“She’s clearly just a child—so how does she come and go freely through Bijia Mountain and Medicine Mountain, places fraught with danger?”

“She’s supposed to be young and tender—so where does that deeply ingrained aura of authority come from?”

“Fine, if none of that counts, then how do you explain what she did on Bijia Mountain, controlling the wolf pack?”

Zheng Bai had done his research thoroughly. The more he investigated Zhan Changfeng, the more wrong things felt. Combined with the rumors circulating outside, he had already convinced himself she was a wolf demon from the mountains in human guise.

Wuhe rebuked him, “And you believe that? There are plenty of extraordinary people in this world. She understands beast speech—is that your business?”

“Besides, if she were a wolf demon in disguise, why would she have saved people in the first place?”

“You think that was saving people?” Zheng Bai shook his head and said with paranoid conviction, “It was a scheme—a plot to infiltrate the village and earn our trust.”

A person blinded by hatred was dangerous. A person blinded by hatred who also had an active imagination was dangerously stupid.

Zheng Bai had already settled on what he believed to be fact. Or perhaps more accurately, he couldn’t find the unknown killer, but he had found someone he’d never liked the look of anyway. The rage that had surged from his grief over losing his son had finally found its outlet, and he no longer needed to believe anything else.

Under such resolute conviction from Zheng Bai, even Wuhe’s own certainty wavered. He didn’t believe the claim about one moment in the mountains equaling ten days down below, and at the same time felt that rumors couldn’t simply arise from nothing—there had to be some basis in fact.

So while he righteously chastised Zheng Bai to his face, in practice he had placed Zhan Changfeng under house arrest. He secretly consoled himself: with her under strict watch, if someone else turned up dead—though such a hypothesis wasn’t exactly moral—it would at least clear her of suspicion.

In another courtyard of the Assembly Hall, several people were indeed being protected—Cheng Zhigao among them.

The Leng family—Leng Yi’an and Leng Yuzi—had Prenatal realm experts in their household and didn’t need to take shelter here. Xiao Shaobai refused to leave his sister’s side, and he didn’t believe the wolf pack revenge theory either, so he hadn’t moved in.

Of the original thirteen people, including Zhan Changfeng, only six remained.

Seven people had died silently within ten days. Green White Mountain, long accustomed to peace, was now gripped by panic. When people saw Zhan Changfeng being escorted back to the Assembly Hall by the militia, they were shocked and suspicious.

Rumors erupted anew.

What had been a vague connection between her and the wolf pack was now being spread as an outright arrest.

All manner of claims, true and false, sprang up at once.

“I always said there was something wrong with that house by the lake. Every time I got near it, I’d feel uncomfortable.”

“Once I walked past her place and heard the sound of gnawing on bones. I thought it was a dog. Now that I think about it, it gives me goosebumps.”

“How terrifying. How could such a monster appear in our village?”

“Maybe she’s been possessed by something unclean. Poor thing, really.”

“Who started this?” Yu Sheng rubbed her brow and closed the book in her hands. The bright candlelight illuminated a solemnity quite different from her public demeanor.

“Xiao Shaobai.”

“Xiao Shaobai?” Yu Sheng sighed. “It would be him. The hunting trip created a rift between them, then He Guangzhi and the others were taught a lesson by her—and perhaps my involvement played a part as well. A person that petty and vindictive would never let things go.”

There were things she didn’t know, but if she wanted to know, she could find out every last detail.

Only she couldn’t act now. The true culprit had yet to show any trace.

“Go and suppress the rumors.”