Welcome to the Bizarre Games

Chapter 286 Miscellaneous Thoughts
The next morning, Zhou You was drinking tea in the front hall of the inn.

Furthermore, he looked at the mother and daughter bustling about in the hall with an extremely strange gaze.

The two of them are now cleaning up the trash with angry expressions.

There was no joy of surviving a disaster on their faces, nor any hatred for their abusers—their expressions were more like the shame, anger, and resentment of a perfectly healthy person who had suddenly met with bad luck.

Of course, this is normal.

After all, these two had never experienced the violence that night. In their view, it was just that their back room had suddenly collapsed for some reason. Although the two of them barely escaped, their mother was hit hard by the roof beam and had not recovered yet.

And the reason for all of this...
Zhou You glanced at Tao Le'an beside him.

Perhaps because he didn't sleep well yesterday, he was even lazier than usual, lying on the table yawning repeatedly, and looked like he was about to fall asleep.

Wait, are all the demon-suppressing officers in this department Doraemon? They managed to clean up all the mess in just a few hours?
Zhou You swirled the teacup but didn't drink it. Instead, he poked Tao Le'an with his finger.

"I said, is this alright?"

"What?" Tao Le'an raised his head in a daze, staring at it for a while before finally focusing his gaze. "Ah, you mean this? Don't worry, our Zhenxie Division is top-notch at collecting corpses and cleaning up the ground, not to mention that we still have a few of our spies left in the city's defenses. We can't guarantee that we can keep it a secret forever, but we can fool them for seven or eight days without any problem."

After saying that, he yawned, but instead of taking a nap, he glanced outside.

"Master, the sunlight is so bright I can't see clearly. What time is it now?"

"Chenzheng, I'm not too sure, but I'd guess around that time."

Tao Le'an sighed, then picked up the teapot on the table, gulped down a mouthful, wiped his face, and walked outside.

"You're so tired, why are you still going outside?"

Tao Le'an simply waved his hand.

"Something has come up at the office, and I need to handle it myself. I'm sorry, Daoist Master, I'll have to take my leave for today."

Zhou You asked kindly.

"Do you need me to lend a hand?"

"No need. Anyway, we're practically non-existent now, so no one will bother us. As for you, Daoist Master..."

"How about we go out and have some fun while the weather is nice?"

Half an hour later.

Zhou You stood in front of the inn, looking at the sparse crowd in front of him, and sighed deeply.

Tao Le'an makes it sound so easy. Going out to play? But he's unfamiliar with the place, so how does he know where to find fun?
Not to mention what happened yesterday, the mysteries in the script are getting bigger and bigger, and he's not some brainless idiot who would go out to have fun at a time like this.
But lying back at the inn was really boring, not to mention that the mother and daughter were making a huge fuss over cleaning up the back room. Zhou You really didn't want to go back and get covered in dust, so...

Looking around, it all boils down to one sentence.

"Oh well, let's go eat first."

To be honest, although Zhongtai City was full of potholes, most of the shops were still open—although many of them were deserted—and there were quite a few food stalls.

Zhou You randomly chose a restaurant with many customers and sat down, ordering a bowl of food just like the people around him.

Before long, a steaming bowl of wontons was served. The white wontons floated in the soup like ingots, with bright green vegetable leaves floating on top. Although there were no chili peppers or similar ingredients in this day and age, the seasoning peppercorns were ground into powder and added to the soup, giving it a unique flavor.

Adding a small piece of dried fish bought from a nearby stall made it even more delicious. Zhou You hadn't eaten breakfast or dinner yet, so he scooped up some wontons and ate them with great relish. In no time, he finished a bowl, slurping them down. As he wiped his mouth, Zhou You was about to ask the shopkeeper for another bowl when he looked up and suddenly saw a familiar figure.

The man had a white cloth tied around his waist and was dressed in plain clothes. He looked to be around thirty or forty years old, but his face was terribly old. He was hanging his head and looking miserable, whispering something to the stall owner.

—How did this person get here? Oh, right.

The question had barely formed in his mind when Zhou You immediately shook his head.

Even if someone dies in the family, eating, drinking, and excretion are still normal occurrences and nothing to be surprised about.

Just as he was thinking this, suddenly, the man and the stall owner's words became heated, sounding like they were arguing about something. The stall owner pushed and shoved him to leave, and the man tried to plead, but the stall owner simply waved his hand, stopping all the words.

This is getting interesting.

Zhou You waved for the stall owner to come over and order another bowl of wontons, then asked as if casually.

"Hey old man, I saw you arguing so fiercely with that person just now, what exactly happened?"

"Noisy? No, no, sir, you've misunderstood."

The stall owner took a handful of wontons from the bamboo tray, poured them all into the hot soup pot, stirred them a few times, and then spoke.

"What argument was that? It's just that this house is haunted, and I happen to know a shaman, so I came here to ask for his help. But that shaman just died of illness a few days ago, so where am I supposed to find him? He didn't believe me, so we started arguing."

Zhou You raised an eyebrow and then laughed.

"No, old man, I saw their funeral procession yesterday, how could it be haunted today?"

The stall owner watched the wontons rise and fall as he casually remarked.

"Then you are unaware, sir. By the way, sir, you know about that thief who recently disregarded human life, don't you?"

"I have heard of it before."

"Then you should also know that this thief is cruel, and that he would cut off the skin from the back of every woman he raped and murdered, right?"

"I've heard about it before."

The owner served the wontons, skillfully sprinkled on some chopped green onions, and then said...

"The women killed by that thief came from both poor and rich families, but since they were all dead like this, to prevent their resentment from harming other families, they had to perform a ritual to send them to the afterlife, even if it meant borrowing money. But the strange thing is that no matter how many monks and Taoist priests were invited, the victims' homes would still be haunted. Every time it was quiet at night, a faceless woman would always be seen standing at the head of the bed."

Zhou You suddenly frowned.

"Faceless?"

"That's what the stall owner said."

"That's right, they have no shame at all—tell me, no one could stand seeing such a sight in the middle of the night, so they tried all sorts of ways to deal with it. This family listened to a fortune teller and moved their daughter's body out, but look at what's happened today."

The man sighed.

"Misfortune always finds its way to those with a hard life."

　Oops, I fell asleep while writing. Sorry, sorry. Thanks for the extra chapter, I'll write it when I get back, but I definitely won't skip it. I'll still update as usual today. I'll see if I have any extra time, and if I do, I'll continue to add more chapters.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)