Chapter 60

Chapter 60

The blink of an eye was all it took for more than half the time to slip away; the festival in West Window Town was drawing to a close.

There hadn’t been many tourists to begin with, and by this hour, the number of street stalls had decreased sharply.

Vendors who had previously remained silent now called out to passing Players, desperately trying to drum up business. Those who hadn’t made a single sale throughout the entire festival were especially anxious.

As the three of them walked down the street, they became the center of attention. However, they saw no sign of any other Players.

Chu Yue led Shen Yubi and Guan Doujin back to the house of the woman who had died the day before.

Another reason for the dwindling crowds at the festival was this sudden funeral. Almost everyone with any connection to the family had packed up their stalls to help out. Compared to yesterday, the courtyard was now swarming with people.

Tables and benches filled the entire yard. On the other side, in the kitchen, several women were busy preparing meals for the men who had come to help.

After scanning the crowd, Chu Yue didn’t see Zhou Chun among them. Recalling how the man had emerged from that small shack on the east side yesterday, he beckoned to the other two, and they headed toward the inconspicuous little building together.

Since they had planned to investigate the situation here today, the three of them had swapped their flashy outfits for more low-key attire. Although they still looked out of place among the locals, few people noticed them in the midst of the chaos.

The three of them crept over. Chu Yue pushed the door open and slipped inside quickly. Guan Doujin, bringing up the rear, closed the door softly the moment he entered.

The room was situated on the east side, yet the light inside was dim. The reason was simple: the room had no windows.

Unhurriedly, Chu Yue pulled the light stick he had purchased yesterday from his backpack. When Guan Doujin had mentioned it was a single-use item, Chu Yue hadn’t thought much of it. He truly hadn’t expected this thing to be like those lotus candles on birthday cakes from over a decade ago-once it started glowing, it couldn’t be turned off until its energy was depleted.

Fortunately, he had a backpack in his System; otherwise, he really wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

Adjusting the light stick to a slightly brighter setting, Chu Yue surveyed the room. It was clear the owner held this place in high regard. Every nook and cranny was scrubbed clean. What he had assumed was a woodshed turned out to be something else entirely.

The room contained no tables, chairs, or beds for human use. Instead, several wooden chests were stacked in the corner.

Chu Yue narrowed his eyes as he looked around, then slowly walked toward another corner of the room. That corner appeared quite empty, but there was a hollowed-out, vacant shrine built into the wall. It was a square niche carved directly into the interior stone. Beneath the niche sat the only table in the room.

On the table sat a small incense burner and several plates of fruits and vegetables. The incense burner was filled with ash, and the produce had begun to wilt since it hadn’t been replaced since yesterday.

There was no doubt that what had originally been enshrined there was the pitch-black statuette Zhou Chun had taken yesterday.

Judging by this room alone, the woman’s method of worshipping the evil god was no different from how ordinary families prayed to gods or Buddhas. The offerings were the same, and the incense used was ordinary. It was unclear whether a special ritual was required.

Chu Yue poked through the incense burner with his fingertip and discovered several brownish-red clumps in the ash. They looked like marks left by blood that had dripped into the burner and dried.

Making a deal with an evil god certainly couldn’t be as simple as offering these mundane items.

“Come look at this,” Guan Doujin called out to the two of them.
Chu Yue turned around and saw that Guan Doujin had already opened the chests in the corner.

He had opened an entire row of them, and the contents inside were packed to the brim.

Chu Yue looked over and was nearly blinded by the glare.

The chests on the left were filled entirely with gold and silver bars, each one neatly arranged. Even if he didn’t understand the price of goods in this era, the sheer amount was definitely enough to buy every single paper-cut in the entire town.

Guan Doujin picked up two bars and clapped them together. They made a crisp sound-the sound of money.

Chu Yue shifted his gaze slightly, letting it fall on the remaining chests.

Those chests were filled entirely with jewelry.

There were hairpins and jade bracelets for women, as well as jade pendants and hair crowns for men. All sorts of items were scattered haphazardly, perhaps because the woman didn’t actually know which items were of equal value.

Chu Yue picked up a hairpin and a jade pendant to examine them, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit more admiration for the woman.

Facing such a vast fortune yet choosing only that inconspicuous hairpin-it must have been quite difficult for her.

Fortunately, Shen Yubi had been sharp-eyed at the time; otherwise, they never would have discovered that everything was connected to her.

Chu Yue tossed the items back. Possessing a massive treasure but unable to use it, burdened with thousands in gold yet still forced to eat husks and wild greens while wearing coarse hemp clothes-what was the point of hoarding all this?

Wouldn’t just looking at it be a form of torture?

After inspecting these items, they found no other clues in the room. Since the woman was dead, there was nothing else to search for in their home.

Tossing the light stick back into his backpack, the three of them quietly exited the woman’s house just as they had entered.

With Chu Yue leading the way, they headed toward Zhou Chun’s house.

They hadn’t seen Zhou Chun at the festival earlier, and he wasn’t at the woman’s house either. At this moment, the only possibility was that he was at his own home.

He had just invited that evil god back from the woman’s place yesterday. Today, he would surely be busy tidying up his home to properly enshrine the thing.

Perhaps if they went over now, they could catch him red-handed.

The path to the man’s house was somewhat winding. Fortunately, Chu Yue had a good memory; otherwise, they would have gotten lost in the maze of twisting alleys.

Compared to the woman’s house, Zhou Chun’s home was much more dilapidated.

The courtyard walls were low, the tiled roof was crumbling, and only a wooden door served to maintain any semblance of a facade.

Without being overly polite, the three of them burst through his door like bandits.

Zhou Chun’s house wasn’t large, consisting of only two rooms. Two of them went in to search one room each, while the third stood in the courtyard waiting.

After a short while, Guan Doujin walked out of one of the rooms, hauling a man by the collar.

Zhou Chun was still clutching a small statuette in his arms.

A look of terror crossed his face, which turned into a flash of anger once he recognized the three of them.

He thrashed his body about.

“Put me down! What are you doing? I’m telling you, this isn’t right! This is my house, you’re trespassing! Do you hear me? Believe it or not, if I just shout once, all the neighbors will come to help!”

“Oh?” Guan Doujin let out a disdainful sneer. “You people actually have a concept of trespassing here? If you want to shout, go ahead and shout. But if no one comes, don’t blame me if I kill you today!”

As he spoke, he drew the sword from his backpack and held it across the man’s chest.

The gleaming blade immediately gave Zhou Chun a fright.

“Don’t-don’t-”

Seeing his bandit-like behavior, Chu Yue couldn’t help but marvel. Sometimes, brute force really was the most efficient way to save time and effort.