Why did you provoke me?

Hua Shulang looked at the small city marked on the map. They would never have encountered this small city if they hadn't come from the country road.

The car slowly entered the city. Logically speaking, the outskirts of the city should be bustling in the morning, with many people coming and going.

But now Hua Shulang only saw a few scattered people, and each of them looked sorrowful.

Hua Shulang stopped the car, jumped out, and walked up to a man. "Brother, can I ask you something?" he said, stuffing the eggs in his hand into the man's pocket.

The man raised his head, glanced at Hua Shulang with his cloudy eyes, and then touched his pocket. "Is it cooked?" Hua Shulang heard him ask this.

"It's cooked. It's not cold yet." Hua Shulang heard himself answer like this.

"Go ahead and ask." The man pressed his hand against his pocket, but didn't take anything out.

"Oh, is that so? I'd like to know what happened here?" Hua Shulang pointed around. "It wasn't like this last time I walked through here."

The man looked around numbly. "It's karma!"

"Oh, what do you mean? Everything was fine before."

"What else could it be but divine retribution when God sends down punishment?"

Hua Shulang patiently negotiated with him, "There has to be a target, right? It won't punish even the common people, will it?" As she spoke, she subtly pointed to the sky with her finger.

"Overnight, everyone went mad. Children don't recognize their parents and are even hitting people. This is a complete rebellion against the Heavenly Guard!" the man said angrily.

Hua Shulang nodded. "This is outrageous! A son beating his father, what a beast!"

"You think so too, right? Then it's only right that I hit him, isn't it? But I only hit him once, how come he's so weak? Just one hit!"

Hua Shulang was starting to regret it. This guy wasn't normal. From what he said, it was clear that he had hit the wrong hand.

"And then?"

"Later, the old woman tried to fight me, so I just gave her a quick push, and she lay on the ground and wouldn't get up."

"Where are you going now?" Hua Shulang asked cautiously.

"Go to the hospital, they won't get up, I need to find a doctor to take a look at them." After saying that, the man walked forward again.

Hua Shulang followed him, "Is this how it is where you live?"

"No, that's not true. We used to be on good terms. No matter what we did, no one dared to fight back. But it's not like that now. They have no conscience. I'm the only one thinking about finding a doctor."

Hua Shulang pointed to his pocket, "Who are you planning to give this egg to?"

The man clutched his pocket. "I've told you everything you asked, so you can't go back on your word."

"Men, we keep our word, but you haven't said yet whether all the places you live in are like this."

"Pretty much. I was in a hurry to get to the city, so I only went to a few places, and they were all pretty much the same."

"Then go quickly. I've finished asking."

Hua Shulang stood there watching the person jog away.

Erlong leaned closer. "Captain, what did you find out?"

"That man," Hua Shulang gestured with his chin towards the person in front of him, "accidentally killed his wife and children. He's going to see a doctor."

"Huh?" Erlong swallowed subconsciously. "He killed someone, how can he still be so calm?"

"Because he's gone mad too; subconsciously he thinks they're sick because they're lying on the ground."

"It's much worse here than where we are," Erlong patted his chest. "At least we're still normal people."

"Let's go into town and find a place to resupply." Hua Shulang turned and got into the car.

After traveling through most of the city, they arrived at a wholesale market.

"Boss, what happened? Why are there so few people?" Hua Shulang stood in front of a middle-aged man.

"Sigh, who knows what happened? Everything changed overnight. Some people are going crazy, some are insane, they can't even take care of themselves. It's all chaos. Where are you all going?"

"I'd like to travel further south; I've heard there are plenty of supplies there?"

"The best thing to do now is to stay at home with your wife and kids," the boss advised. "The little boss next door went crazy the other day. He insisted that the moon was beautiful and wanted to pluck it down for his kids to play with. Who knew he would climb onto the roof, fall off, and never get up again."

The shopkeeper carried the items out one by one and placed them on the ground, then continued, "The intercom isn't working anymore, so his wife and kids don't know about this yet. It's pitiful!" As for who's pitiful, no one knows.

"Has the city government not issued any statement?"

"There should be, right? Anyway, the market is pretty normal, and no one's causing any trouble."

"And what about this one?" Hua Shulang pointed to the shop next to him. "Doesn't anyone secretly do anything here?"

The shop owner rolled his eyes at him. "Who would know?"

Hua Shulang put her hand to her mouth and whispered, "I just wanted to know if things were in chaos, nothing else."

"Do you see anyone going in or out now? A few of us spotted it immediately and reported it to the market management office. It's been two days and only now has someone come to handle it. We don't know what will happen next. If you dare to go in now, it could be a matter of life and death."

Hua Shulang quickly shook his head, "How dare we, an outsider group, get involved in this? As long as someone takes charge, that's fine!"

"Sigh, everyone's struggling to make ends meet right now, who knows what will happen in the future? How could something so good suddenly turn into madness?"

Hua Shulang chimed in with a few more words, and the shopkeeper reached for the calculator on the counter. "Is that all? My stuff is the cheapest. Don't worry, since you're buying a lot, I'll round it down for you without you even asking."

Hua Shulang noticed with her sharp eyes that he was wearing a bracelet made of oddly shaped dough beads on his wrist.

"Thank you so much, boss. We'll definitely come back here to resupply when we return." Hua Shulang tried to be friendly. "Um, boss, I see that beaded bracelet on your wrist is quite unique. Where did you buy it?"

"Ah, you mean this? It's that Yan abacus guy, he said it was so good and insisted we all buy one. The price wasn't too high, so we kept it. Later, we had someone look at it, and they said it was a high-quality piece." The shopkeeper chuckled as he finished speaking. "You know, when we first took it out, we were really disgusted by it, the color was so ugly. But after wearing it for a while, the color brightened up quite a bit."

"Have all the owners in your market bought them?"

"No way, only a few of us who were on good terms with him bought it. He even said at the time that buying this wouldn't be a loss. Now it seems he really didn't rip us off."

Hua Shulang gave a thumbs up, "Your taste is truly excellent. That friend you mentioned is also a good friend."

Hua Shulang rolled up his sleeves, revealing a nearly identical bracelet.

He lowered his body and said in a low voice, "I've been to quite a few places. In the north, these are called lucky beads. Almost everyone there has one. Even the worst ones have one bead. This time, the places there are much better than this."

No businessperson is stupid, the boss said, touching the beads on his wrist. "Really?"

Hua Shulang pointed behind him, "We rested and reorganized over there this time, and there were no casualties."

The boss grabbed Hua Shulang. "Brother, shall we go inside and talk?"

Hua Shulang shook his head, "I just chose a name because it sounded auspicious. I never expected it to be like this here."

"Really no discussion?" the boss persisted.

"There's no reason not to make money when it's available, there really isn't!" Hua Shulang was also very discouraged. It really was like money slipping through their fingers.

Back then, Secretary Wu specifically asked him if there was anything he wanted, but he only asked for some weapons. Seeing the distressed look in Secretary Wu's eyes, he was quite pleased with himself for a long time. Now it seems that the cunning secretary was secretly laughing at his foolishness.