I become a god in another world

Chapter 280 Entering the Village
Chapter 279

Zhao Fusheng handed the petition filed by Wang Hun and written by County Magistrate Pang to Liu Yizhen:
"You can also take a look, and then remember the objects that Wang Hun touched."

She had a premonition that there might be some twists and turns on this trip, so she made preparations in advance.

Liu Yizhen nodded and took the file.

Wang Hun had already said what was on the file, but it was not as detailed as this.

Liu Yizhen read it twice and quickly memorized everything that Wang Hun had touched. Then he handed the file to Fan Bisi.

While a few people were flipping through the pages, they suddenly heard the sound of chaotic footsteps coming from the entrance of a village in the distance.

A group of villagers arrived armed with hoes and pickaxes.

"Where are you from? What are you doing in our village?"

The old man in the lead shouted loudly.

Several villagers from Liutu Village surrounded him, watching the Demon Suppression Division group with vigilance.

Zhao Fusheng was still talking to Liu Yizhen with his head tilted. When he heard the noise, he turned around and his eyes fell on the villagers.

Although Zhao Fusheng had guessed from what Fan Bisi had said before that the people of Liutu Village were extremely poor, she was still surprised when she actually saw these villagers.

It is already winter.

There had been a sudden downpour earlier and the ground was slippery. After getting off the car, the people felt the biting cold wind, but most of the villagers were barefoot and their feet were covered in mud.

The trousers they wore were patched over and over again, and it was almost impossible to tell their original color. The trouser legs were brush-shaped at the ankles and could not cover their calves at all.

These people are so skinny that the strong Fan Wujiu alone could probably knock them all down.

But they seemed to be quite united and were very wary of outsiders, especially when they saw Liu Yizhen carrying a huge black coffin, many of them showed expressions of fear.

"Someone from the Demon Suppression Department in the county." Fan Bisi glanced at Zhao Fusheng, and seeing that she did not object to what he said, he said:
"I heard from the officer Wang Hun who returned to the city that there was a case in your Liutu Village, and it was suspected to be related to ghosts, so I came to take a look."

When the villagers heard the words "Demon Suppression Division", they immediately panicked.

Several people were whispering to each other uneasily.

"grown ups--"

Seeing this, Fan Bisi turned around and looked at Zhao Fusheng:
"Why don't we just force our way into the village."

Some sharpened bamboo poles were temporarily inserted in front of the village entrance.

But these bamboo poles can't protect people at all.

Although the villagers had things in their hands, they were just some farm tools. Not to mention that the Fan brothers were strong, at least there were ghost riders among them.

The news that Kuai Manzhou had gone to Fengmen Village to kill the bandits had already spread throughout the Demon Suppression Division.

The Ghost Rider has overwhelming power over ordinary people.

"There's no rush yet."

Zhao Fusheng shook his head.

Liutu Village did not trust the imperial court, and Wang Hun's sudden arrival had made the villagers defensive.

Coupled with the death of the Yang family, the subsequent arrival of the Demon Suppression Bureau made it even easier for the villagers to panic.

Although the Demon Suppression Division can use brute force to force its way into the village, Zhao Fusheng's ultimate goal is to get the villagers to cooperate willingly and extract useful information from them, rather than to intimidate them and end up talking nonsense and interfering with the investigation.

While the villagers of Liutu Village were discussing in low voices, Zhao Fusheng said to Liu Yizhen and his companions:

"We are a little late."

Wang Hun and Li Si went their separate ways last night and something went wrong.

He was eager to return to the city to report the case, which gave the villagers an opportunity to take advantage of it. Zhao Fusheng said:

"I think the Yang family has probably been cleaned up and the bodies have probably been dealt with. I'm afraid these people won't admit that a crime has occurred in the village."

"This is a ghost case, aren't they afraid of death?!"

Fan Wujiu was still waiting to enter the village to investigate the case, and was somewhat surprised when he heard this.

Zhao Fusheng smiled and said nothing.

At this time, the villagers of Liutu Village in the distance also finished their discussion, and the old man in the lead shouted:

"Sir, you may have taken the wrong road. No cases have ever happened here. Please go somewhere else to check."

"What?" Fan Wujiu yelled:
“Wrong way?!”

He rolled up his sleeves twice:
"My Lord, I will go and reason with them."

"Need not."

Zhao Fusheng shook his head and continued shouting:

"Liutu Village is only a few miles away from the county. Wang Hun, the county official, wouldn't be so foolish."

As she spoke, she moved closer to the villagers.

As she walked forward, Kuai Manzhou held her hand and walked beside her.

Liu Yizhen, Fan Wujiu and others, who were carrying coffins, also followed forward. Fan Bisi sat in the front of the carriage and wanted to drive it forward, but the path ahead was too narrow for vehicles to pass.

He hesitated for a moment, then jumped out of the car and followed the others.

As Zhao Fusheng walked forward, the villagers were immediately frightened.

"Don't come over here!" the old man in the lead shouted.

As soon as he finished shouting, all the villagers raised their hoes, ready to fight if there was any disagreement.

"Wang Hun said that when checking the household registration, he found that a family of nine in the village had died. We want to go into the village to take a look." Zhao Fusheng spoke in a gentle tone but a firm attitude. He did not stop because of the villagers' resistance.

“No one really died.”

The old man was obviously a little panicked after he saw that his initial scolding didn't work. He led the villagers back a few steps and begged:
"Sir, maybe that officer took the wrong road. There really is no one dead in our village."

After saying that, he gritted his teeth:

"Why don't you ask that officer to tell me which family is in trouble? I'll check it out and get back to you -"

Zhao Fusheng heard the evasiveness in his words, but said:
"It's Yang Tiehan's family."

"Yang Tiehan?" The old man breathed a sigh of relief and forced a smile:

"They're not dead. It could be a misunderstanding. The tough guy is right here."

After saying that, he reached out and pulled out a skinny old man:
"Yang Tiehan is right here. If you don't believe me, just take a look."

"..."

Fan Wujiu was originally a little annoyed because he was blocked from entering the village, but he was amused when he heard this:
"Do you think we are fools?"

"Of course not—"

The old man looked a little uncomfortable and shook his head quickly:
"How dare I deceive the officials?"

"Whether it is true or not, we have to go into the village to take a look." Zhao Fusheng walked to the bamboo poles on the temporary fence, stretched out his hand, pulled up a sharpened bamboo pole and threw it aside:
"Don't get in the way. If you delay official business, the entire Liutu Village will be held accountable."

She handled her business impartially and neither shouted nor forced her way forward, but she was determined to enter the village.

The Fan brothers stood behind her and looked difficult to deal with.

There was also Liu Yizhen carrying a strange black coffin on the side, which put great pressure on the villagers.

"Please wait a moment, adults."

The old man from Liutu Village hesitated for a while, took a few steps back, and whispered a few words with the people around him. Then he turned around helplessly and said:

"Your Excellency may go into the village to have a look, but nothing has really happened to the Yang family."

After saying this, he asked the people around him to pull out the bamboos that were blocking the road and let Zhao Fusheng and his companions enter the village.

Liutu Village is not big, with a total of 20 to 30 households. The houses are connected to each other. It is more like a large village than a village.

The villagers were well prepared for the arrival of government officials.

When Zhao Fusheng and his party entered the village, they found that the doors of every household in the village were closed, but there seemed to be eyes behind these doors staring at people entering the village.

Kuai Manzhou hooked his fingers on Zhao Fusheng's palm, reminding her that someone was secretly spying on her.

Zhao Fusheng held her hand tightly and turned to look at the old man who was leading the way:
"Are you the head of Liutu Village?" The old man was in a state of anxiety and did not react at first until the person next to him gently bumped his elbow and shouted:
"Uncle, the official is asking you a question—"

"W-what? Sir--" The old man suddenly realized, and quickly clenched his fist and looked at the people in the Demon Suppression Division with a pitiful look on his face:
"My Lords——"

"My lord, are you the village chief of Liutu Village?" Fan Bisi repeated Zhao Fusheng's question. At the same time, he was afraid that the old man had recognized the wrong person, so he pointed at Zhao Fusheng with his other hand.

Now the old man knew who was the leader of the group.

He calmed down and nodded:

"Yes, yes, my name is Cai Datou, and I'm the village chief of Liutu Village."

When Cai Datou heard Zhao Fusheng's question, he suddenly became much more cautious.

Zhao Fusheng looked at him deeply and asked:

“How many households are there in your village?”

Cai Datou was originally prepared for her to ask about Yang Tiehan's family as soon as she arrived. He was feeling panicked and at a loss, but he did not expect Zhao Fusheng to ask a topic that seemed to have nothing to do with Yang Tiehan.

'call--'

He breathed a sigh of relief, and his whole body was visibly relaxed.

"Sir." He grinned, revealing a few sparse teeth covered with tartar:

"Our village is small and sparsely populated, with only 29 households in total, and a total of just over 200 people in the village."

His words surprised Zhao Fusheng:

“That’s a lot of people.”

"It's not much." Cai Datou saw that Zhao Fusheng seemed to be just chatting with him, so he let down his guard a little and said with a smile:
"There were few people when we first came here, but later on, the population gradually increased. Unfortunately, the harvests were poor in recent years, and some people died. Now—"

He sighed and almost let the cat out of the bag, but fortunately he came to his senses in time and quickly shut his mouth.

Cai Datou secretly glanced at Zhao Fusheng out of the corner of his eye, but saw that Zhao Fusheng turned his head and looked around, as if he had not heard his previous slip of the tongue. He couldn't help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief.

Fan Bisi and Liu Yizhen looked at each other and smiled.

This was the first time that Liu Yizhen accompanied Zhao Fusheng on a case. When he heard this, he knew that she was quite good at manipulating people's hearts, so he kept silent and just listened to the conversation between the two.

"The weather has been bad in recent years." Zhao Fusheng echoed casually.

Cai Datou said:
"Who says it's not true? There was a disaster the year before last, and the harvest was very poor."

Zhao Fusheng glanced at him.

His face was dry, dark and thin, with only a layer of skin covering the bones. His jaw, cheekbones and eye sockets were particularly prominent, and his back had long been bent.

The bones of the spine pushed up the thin clothes, and one could even see the imprint of the bones under the cloth.

She paused and changed the subject:

"Are all the houses in your village built together? Is the place we just came in the entrance to the village?"

"Yes."

Cai Datou nodded and said:

"In fact, our village was not like this at the beginning, but people often came to steal. In order to prevent outsiders from coming in, when we built houses in the early years, we built them in one place, right at the entrance and exit over there."

He pointed in the direction from which the group came:

"But there are more than one entrance and exit. Some houses have doors at the back, which is convenient for going out."

Zhao Fusheng responded and then asked directly:

"Where does Yang Tiehan's family live?"

"Yang, Yang——"

Just when Cai Datou had relaxed his guard, he suddenly heard her asking about Yang Tiehan. His tongue became tied, his body trembled, and he instinctively turned his head to look somewhere.

Before he finished speaking, the people around him reacted first:

"Uncle Big Head, Yang Tiehan's house is over there——"

After saying that, he pointed in a completely opposite direction.

Zhao Fusheng sneered and glanced at him:
"Have you remembered it? I will remember you. If you find anything wrong later, I will arrest you and take you to the county government office."

Fan Bisi added:
"If you interfere with the Demon Suppression Division's investigation, you will be beheaded."

He deliberately mentioned the word "beheading", which frightened the villagers.

The man who was speaking felt his hands go limp when Zhao Fusheng stared at him, and he quickly put his hands behind his back.

Zhao Fusheng ignored him and strode in the direction where Cai Datou had been looking.

Cai Datou finally reacted and quickly chased after him:

"My lord, my lord, the Iron Man family is not here, but on the other side—"

"do not worry."

Zhao Fusheng kept walking, "Since you said that all the houses in Liutu Village are here, I will search every house today, and I will definitely find Yang Tiehan's house!"

"..." Her words immediately disrupted the plans of Cai Datou and others, and all the villagers panicked.

There is a large earth dam inside Liutu Village, and most of the villagers' houses are built around the dam.

At the end of the earth dam, there is a deep alley. Cai Datou’s eyes were looking towards this alley before.

Zhao Fusheng walked straight into the alley, where there were three households.

This place is not as spacious and ventilated as the outside room, and it exudes a smell caused by years of mold and dampness, mixed with the stench of feces and other excrement.

Zhao Fusheng went inside and asked Cai Datou:

"Which household is Yang Tiehan's?"

Things had come to this point. These people had already entered the village and did not look easy to deal with. Zhao Fusheng also lost the relaxed look he had had when chatting with him earlier, and his expression and demeanor became much more intimidating.

There was a ghost case in the village, and Cai Datou was already under a lot of pressure. He finally couldn't hold it anymore and pointed to the room in the farthest corner:
"There."

The others didn't dare to say a word and kept their heads down.

There is a small courtyard outside the innermost room.

But most of the built walls have fallen off, revealing the bamboo weaving inside.

It looked like the door had been damaged before, and there were some marks left on it.

Before the people from the Demon Suppression Division arrived, the door must have been cleaned, but it was not thoroughly cleaned and yellow mud marks could still be seen.

At this moment, a thin layer of red fog gathered behind the Yang family's gate. A ghost thread as thin as a hair emerged from the fog, stuck to the newly repaired courtyard gate, and pulled it inward with force.

'Clang. '

The gate of the courtyard opened in response, and then shattered again under the influence of this strange force.

Cai Datou originally wanted to bite the bullet and push the door, but before he touched the door, he saw the broken door open automatically, and he was immediately frightened.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me—"

He fell to his knees with a thump, clasped his hands together, and bowed his head desperately.

Other villagers also knelt down one after another, their faces filled with panic.

"Who wants to kill you?"

Zhao Fusheng walked into the courtyard and asked casually.

All the people from the Demon Suppression Division entered the courtyard. Cai Datou knelt for a long time, and when he saw that nothing strange happened, he paused and hurriedly got up.

Hearing Zhao Fusheng's question, he looked nervous, but after hesitating for a while, he still shook his head:
"No, no one killed me, I was just scared."

"Who scared you?"

Zhao Fusheng asked again.

As she spoke, her eyes swept across the courtyard.

Wang Hun clearly mentioned that the Yang family's courtyard was not big, with a main house facing the gate and three side rooms at the back, where Yang Tiehan and his wife and their two sons lived.