Who Let Him Cultivate?! (WX)-Chapter 402: White Paper-Hatted Man

“You two are outsiders, right?” The bearded constable noticed Lu Yang’s unfamiliarity with the Wilderness Province and was kind enough to remind him. “If you run into that bastard in the white paper hat again, you must be careful! He’s been committing crimes everywhere, sly and slippery as an eel!” ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

“How so?” Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou were puzzled.

The bearded constable fumed. “We’ve been searching for that scoundrel for ages, but to no avail. We have no idea where he came from, but he’s been active here for several years.

“Pick any place in the Wilderness Province—chances are, he’s committed a crime there. This time, it’s impersonating an innkeeper to run a shady establishment. Last time, it was instigating his accomplice into theft, and when his accomplice got wanted, he turned them in for the bounty. What made things worse was that the bastard collected the reward right under our noses, and none of us recognized that it was him!

“Before that, he pretended to be a corpse and sold himself to a Corpse Driver. When they tried refining him, they realized that the ‘corpse’ moved! It nearly gave them a heart attack. Even after that bastard left, they were still so shaken that they thought the corpse had come back to life. They chanted incantations for several days before finally realizing they had been duped!

“There was another time when the Barbarian Tribe reported someone smuggling people across the border. It was him again!

“This bastard of a grandson would stoop to anything for money! If we could catch him, it’d shave five working days off our annual schedule!”

The bearded constable grew increasingly furious as he spoke about the white-hatted man. Had the man appeared at that moment, the constable might have swallowed him whole.

Capturing this white paper-hatted man is not just my wish but the wish of the entire Wilderness Province.

“There’s something strange about this scoundrel. On several occasions, he appeared in two different locations simultaneously, as if there were two of him. I’m not sure whether they’re twins or if something else is at play.

“And just now, we surrounded the inn, and you two were at the entrance, but who actually detected him leaving?”

Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou nodded. Given their cultivation, the actions of ordinary cultivators couldn’t have slipped past their scope of detection, not even master thieves and recidivists.

For someone to have escaped under such circumstances suggested that the white paper-hatted man either possessed extraordinary methods or cultivation far beyond people’s expectations.

“Immortal Fairy, did you notice the white paper-hatted man escaping?”

The Everlasting Immortal Fairy rolled her eyes, thinking Lu Yang was seriously underestimating her. “He fled westward. But don’t waste your energy. Even if you two help, don’t count on the constables catching up to him. His escape techniques are unconventional.

“Besides, even if you catch him, it’d likely just be a clone and won’t affect him at all.”

Lu Yang was stunned. For the Everlasting Immortal Fairy to make such an assessment means that this white paper-hatted man is even more troublesome to deal with than I’d imagined.

The bearded constable directed the other constables to secure the scene and scour for clues. “Don’t forget to paste the seal strips!” he barked.

“Big Boss, are seal strips effective? He always tears them off anyway,” a subordinate gingerly asked. With the white paper-hatted man’s blatant disregard for the law, he would simply tear the seal strips off and ‘reopen’ the inn as usual.

The bearded constable glared at him. “Just do it! If he tears them off, that’s on him! He’ll face an extra charge!”

“We’ll take our leave then.” Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou bid goodbye to the bearded constable. Before departing, Lu Yang added helpfully, “I sensed him fleeing westward when he escaped.”

The bearded constable gave Lu Yang a surprised look but said nothing.

“Wilderness Province truly breeds talents. Who knows? We might actually find a solution to my curse here,” Meng Jingzhou remarked. I should really go out and travel around more. I mean, we’ve barely entered this place and already encountered such extraordinary people and events.

“After wasting half a day, we still haven’t secured lodging,” Lu Yang reminded Meng Jingzhou of their priorities.

Meng Jingzhou patted their horse’s back. “Old Horse, can you find us a village to rest in?”

The old horse swished its tail and nibbled some roadside grass before considerately pulling the carriage to the nearest village.

Before long, they arrived at a village. At the entrance was a boulder engraved with the characters “Jianshi Village.”[1]

“Why’s it so quiet?”

The two alighted, hoping to seek lodging for the night. However, they soon realized that every household had its doors tightly shut, with only the faint glow of oil lamps. Silence blanketed the entire place. Naturally, there was not a single soul walking the paths in the village.

In Lu Yang’s impression, with no entertainment available, this time of day was when villagers would have their doors open, visiting and chatting with neighbors. “It’s almost as if they’re scared of something. Strange.” Lu Yang’s brow furrowed.

Meng Jingzhou approached the largest homestead and knocked. “Fellow villager, we’d like to seek lodging for the night.”

Clank. Creak. An old man opened the door, revealing only half of his face as he peered at his two visitors warily. “Who are you?”

Meng Jingzhou flashed his amiable smile he had honed at the barbeque shop. “We are travelers passing by. It’s already late, and we were hoping to stay over for the night. Would that be possible? We will pay, of course.”

The old man impatiently chased them away. “Shoo shoo shoo! Jianshi Village doesn’t welcome outsiders. Leave now! If you don’t, be careful of getting eaten by the corpses!”

“Eaten by corpses? You have corpses here? We brothers are cultivators; we can help you get rid of the corpses.”

His words only seemed to incense the old man further. “No need! Begone!” With that, he slammed the door shut.

“Hey, old man, you’re being unreasonable!” Meng Jingzhou felt that the old man was a bit unhinged. I kindly offered to solve his problem, yet he chased me away.

“Perhaps there are females in the family, so you’re unable to go in?” Lu Yang teased mischievously.

“Buzz off.” Meng Jingzhou chased Lu Yang away as if he was swatting at a fly.

Unwilling to give up, Meng Jingzhou tried several other households, but they would either chase the two away or not open their doors at all.

Meng Jingzhou pouted. “Not friendly at all.”

“What do we do then? Try another village?”

Meng Jingzhou didn’t want to go somewhere else again. “That’s too troublesome. I noticed what looked like a shrine or an ancestral hall near the village entrance just now. It looked quite clean. We could make do there for the night.”

“Fine by me.” Lu Yang was also weary of moving back and forth again. We were turned away by the Qingming Inn earlier, and now we’re rejected again at Jianshi Village. Who knows if it’ll be the same at the next village? Instead of running around like this, we might as well find a place to make do for the night and investigate things in the morning.

~~~

Upon arriving at the ancestral hall, they used Three Flavor True Fire to light the oil lamps, illuminating the ancestral hall.

“Quite clean.”

The two bowed to the ancestral tablets. “Sorry, seniors. We’ll just be staying here for one night.”

~~~

Meanwhile, at the village’s cemetery, stones shook, and the ground loosened, as though something was stirring below.

A dessicated claw burrowed out of the soil.

In the next instant, claws burst out of the soil like bamboo shoots after a rain, too numerous to count...

1. “Jianshi” translates literally to “tough/firm rock.” ☜

New novel chapters are published on fr(e)ew𝒆bnov(e)l.com