Chapter 232: Man-Made Disaster

After the woman sincerely offered incense to the Universal Immortal, she finally recounted the full story.

She lived in South Corner Village, located in the southern part of Four Corners Town, with her husband and two children—a son and a daughter.

Yesterday, her husband took their daughter to a small hill over ten miles from town to dig for bamboo shoots. While they were digging, they unexpectedly encountered a black bear demon.

The demon stood up, towering like a mountain, and with a casual swipe of its paw, it knocked her husband unconscious.

By the time her husband regained consciousness, night had already fallen, and their daughter was nowhere to be found.

He searched everywhere but couldn’t find her, so he had no choice but to return home.

After hearing her account, everyone exchanged uncertain looks.

In addition to Gu Ning’an’s group, there were two other men in their team, each wielding a half-armored iron shield.

They were tall, broad-shouldered, and built like solid walls—essentially the frontline defenders of the team.

One of them, who had a mole at the corner of his mouth, was named Liu Feng. The other was called Guo Teng.

Both had experience fighting large demons, and something about the woman’s story didn’t sit right with them.

“Did your husband have any injuries when he came back?” Liu Feng stepped forward and asked.

The woman replied, “Yes! His whole body was covered in scrapes and bruises, not a single unscathed spot!”

“Scrapes?” Guo Teng picked up on the detail, frowning. “Did he see a doctor? Was the bleeding stopped?”

“No, he didn’t,” the woman answered. “He said it was nothing serious, that he’d just tough it out to save money.”

Liu Feng immediately followed up, “Then your husband—”

But before he could finish, the woman, growing impatient, interrupted, “Officers, if you can find my daughter, then please do so. Why do you keep talking about my husband?”

The two burly men fell silent. Their meaning had already been quite clear.

If her husband had truly been struck by a giant demon’s paw, even if the attack had been light, an ordinary person wouldn’t have escaped with just scrapes. At the very least, he should have had a few broken bones.

This left two possibilities: either the woman was lying, or her husband had deceived her… But considering how desperate she was—going so far as to burn incense and pray—it seemed less likely that she was the one fabricating the story.

At this moment, Gu Ning’an spoke up. “Since that’s the case, why don’t we go ask your husband? He experienced it firsthand, so he might remember more details. That way, we can gather more clues to help find your daughter.”

Among the five people present, for some reason, aside from Feng Wei, the woman found herself most comfortable with the white-robed gentleman speaking now. Strangely, he even looked familiar, though she couldn’t recall where she had seen him before.

“Alright, I’ll do as you suggest and ask my husband.” With that, she stood up with Feng Wei’s help and walked out of the temple.

Just as Gu Ning’an was about to follow, Zhou Zhongtian grabbed his arm and whispered, “Mr. Gu, this might not be a demon attack but a man-made scheme.”

Gu Ning’an nodded. “I noticed. But since a demon was mentioned, doesn’t that give us the right to investigate?”

“If the woman reports this to the authorities, it’ll end up in our hands anyway, won’t it?”

“True.” Zhou Zhongtian hesitated for a moment before adding, “We should find a way to make him slip up later.”

…

“Golden Guard?”

“Oh! I remember now! You came here before, right? You’re the officials sent by the court to exterminate demons?”

On a bed, a middle-aged man dressed in a white undergarment, his face covered in scrapes, leaned against the headboard as he spoke.

As the leader, Zhou Zhongtian naturally stepped forward to introduce himself before questioning the man about the incident.

Perhaps because he had “experienced it firsthand,” the man spoke quickly, and his account largely matched his wife’s.

To confirm the extent of his injuries, Zhou Zhongtian enthusiastically examined him.

At first, the middle-aged man was reluctant, but he couldn’t resist Zhou Zhongtian’s enthusiasm and was eventually subjected to a thorough inspection.

After checking the man from head to toe, Zhou Zhongtian discreetly shook his head at the others, signaling that there were no fractures or broken bones anywhere on his body.

Seeing this, the group was now certain—the man was lying…

“Brother, let me ask you, how big was this black bear demon?” Zhou Zhongtian sat by the bedside and inquired.

The middle-aged man looked at the ceiling beams, thought for a moment, and replied, “Very big. When it stood up, it was like a small hill!”

Zhou Zhongtian pressed further, “So, did the black bear demon stand up to hit you?”

The middle-aged man shook his head. “No, it just swung at me casually as it charged forward, and I blacked out.”

Zhou Zhongtian continued, “Oh? When it charged at you, do you remember where your daughter was?”

The man paused briefly before answering, “Behind me. I was protecting her.”

Zhou Zhongtian gestured with his hand. “Was she this close?”

The man nodded. “Yes, about three fists’ distance.”

Pfft—

At that moment, the two burly men nearby couldn’t help but laugh.

Realizing something was off, the middle-aged man’s expression changed instantly. “Officers! My daughter is missing, and you all have the nerve to laugh?”

“If you had any conscience, you’d be out there hunting down that black bear demon right now, bringing my daughter back home! At least then, you’d be earning your wages from the court!”

Seeing the man fuming, the group became even more certain—he was the one who had made his own daughter disappear.

Zhou Zhongtian raised his hand, signaling for calm. He was about to speak when the supposedly weak and bedridden man suddenly leapt out of bed, yanked open the inner room’s door, and started shouting:

“Fellow villagers! Help me—help me!”

“These officers are bullying an innocent man in the dead of night!”

“Save me! Save me!”

At this hour—roughly the hour of the Pig (9–11 PM)—most households had already gone to bed. But after the man’s powerful cries, lights flickered on in several homes, and some people even opened their windows to look outside.

“You two—just look at what you’ve done. I hadn’t even finished questioning him, and you started laughing…” Zhou Zhongtian grumbled, then hurried over to calm the hysterical man down.

However, seeing that his tactic was working, the man doubled down—wailing louder than ever.

“Our family is suffering!”

“My daughter was taken by a demon, her fate unknown, and now the officers have come to bully us!”

“How are we supposed to live like this?!”