Chapter 329: A Farcical “Interrogation”

No wonder he wasn’t particularly powerful, yet managed to become the sole official authority in Eternal Slumber City.

So he was the Void Emperor’s brother-in-law…

It seems that connections and backdoor dealings work the same way everywhere.

After silently ridiculing this for a while, Gu Ning’an refocused his attention on the so-called “interrogation.”

Magistrate Wei closed his eyes in deep thought for a long while before clicking his tongue and saying, “We need physical evidence. Only with physical evidence can we convict.”

“Right, earlier you mentioned—what dish did the two deceased eat before they died?”

The witnesses immediately stepped forward to respond.

“Reporting to my lord, they both ate a dish of braised pig marrow!”

“Yes, and they were the only two who liked it. They even asked for multiple servings!”

“Exactly! Good thing we don’t like bone marrow—otherwise, it wouldn’t have just been the two of them who died today!”

After hearing the witnesses’ statements, Magistrate Wei suddenly had an idea. He turned to the inn staff and asked, “Who is the cook? I need to ask—does this braised pig marrow come with bones? Do the bones have any meat on them?”

A chubby young man stepped forward, squinting as he replied, “My lord, the preparation method for braised pig marrow requires extracting the marrow from pig leg bones, which is then cooked with a secret sauce to make the dish.”

“A small bowl, about the size of a palm, requires marrow from ten pig leg bones to prepare.”

“Oh?” Magistrate Wei’s expression shifted to one of confidence. “Then who was responsible for deboning the pig bones?”

The cook raised his hand. “Me!”

“And who washed the bones and prepared the ingredients?”

Another worker raised his hand. “That was me!”

“And who extracted the marrow?”

“That would be me!”

Magistrate Wei continued asking dozens of questions in this manner before finally stopping.

By now, it turned out that every single worker—except for the idle Huang Erniang—had been involved in preparing the dish!

“Excellent, excellent!”

Magistrate Wei stood up excitedly, pointing at each of the workers in turn. “All of you are suspects!”

At these words, the workers’ faces turned pale, their gazes instinctively turning toward their pillar of support—Innkeeper Hua.

Even Innkeeper Hua hadn’t expected that Magistrate Wei, who just moments ago had been fixated on accusing the young servant boy, would suddenly shift to implicating everyone else except her.

How did his mind even work?

Just as she was about to speak, a demon soldier suddenly rushed in and whispered something into Magistrate Wei’s ear.

After listening to his subordinate’s words, Magistrate Wei’s expression brightened with joy. He quickly stood up and declared casually, “This case is now resolved. The primary culprit is that little servant, and the accomplices are all of you.”

“However, since we lack physical evidence, I have decided to show leniency.”

“All of you will be sent to the Hunting Arena. If you survive, consider your crimes forgiven!”

With that, Magistrate Wei turned and walked out of the inn without looking back, ignoring Innkeeper Hua’s desperate calls for him to stop.

Meanwhile, squads of demon soldiers in black armor, armed with long spears, began rounding up the workers and escorting them away.

Innkeeper Hua clenched her teeth, suppressing the urge to fight back. Instead, she called out to the workers, telling them to stay strong—she would definitely go to the Hunting Arena to save them.

Once the demon soldiers were gone, the once-lively inn suddenly fell silent.

In the vast, empty main hall, only Gu Ning’an, Doubao, and the slightly dazed Innkeeper Hua remained.

Before long, a panicked couple stumbled into the inn, nearly falling over as they rushed toward Innkeeper Hua.

They were none other than the dark-skinned man and the middle-aged woman who had pleaded with Innkeeper Hua just that morning to take in their daughter.

“Innkeeper Hua! I heard something happened at the inn—all the workers were sentenced to the Hunting Arena. Is that true?”

The dark-skinned man’s face was pale, and he bit his tongue several times while speaking. By the time he managed to finish his sentence, blood was already trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Innkeeper Hua let out a long sigh. “Yes, they were taken away just moments ago.”

“Karma!” The man let out a furious wail, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and collapsed to the ground.

“Husband! Husband!”

The middle-aged woman caught him in her arms, crying out in despair. “We have to go after them! We have to bring our daughter back! There’s still time!”

At the mention of their daughter, the nearly unconscious man suddenly regained focus. He scrambled to his feet and dashed outside.

Seeing this, Innkeeper Hua quickly shouted, “If you rush into the Hunting Arena, you’ll be throwing your lives away! That place turns even demon cultivators into expendable puppets—what chance do you have?”

“Give me some time. I’ll think of a way to get them back.”

The crazed man seemed to regain a sliver of reason at her words. He turned around and, together with his wife, bowed deeply toward Innkeeper Hua. “Innkeeper Hua, you are kind, but that place is a den of death—we won’t trouble you with this.”

“I understand now. Our daughter being taken is just my punishment for being ungrateful…”

“If I want my daughter to live in peace, I have to atone for my own sins first…”

With that, the man and his wife turned and ran off into the vast darkness of the night.

Innkeeper Hua took a few steps after them but soon stopped, letting out a bitter chuckle before turning back.

Just as she fell into deep thought, staring blankly ahead, footsteps once again sounded at the inn’s entrance.

Thinking the couple had come to their senses and given up on rushing to their deaths, she quickly turned around, a small smile forming as she began to say, “You finally—”

But the words caught in her throat when she saw that the newcomers were not the couple. The smile that had just started to lift her lips quickly faded.

“Lady Hua, am I really that unbearable to look at? The moment you saw me, your smile disappeared,” a warm voice said.

Accompanied by steady footsteps, the speaker stepped into the inn’s main hall.

As he glanced around and noticed that there were still customers drinking tea inside, he hesitated slightly.

At the same time, his gaze met Gu Ning’an’s, and Gu Ning’an looked back at him.

The newcomer wore a fitted black outfit, his long hair tied high in a sleek ponytail, its jet-black strands glossy like lacquer.

In his hand, he carried a longsword, its heavy, unadorned scabbard exuding a faint sword aura.

This black-clad swordsman, whether in stature or appearance, was the very picture of a “template protagonist.” His aura naturally evoked the image of a dashing, free-spirited swordsman roaming the martial world…