Chapter 304: Chapter 302: Blocked Outside the Village

Su Miaoyi and the others found a partial answer to why someone was using the Sheep Horn God’s name when they reached the village entrance.

Many villagers were standing there.

They were blocked from entering the village.

"It’s because you came that the village has become like this! Get out! Leave!" an old man who looked to be in his eighties shouted.

The others chimed in.

Su Miaoyi glanced around.

There were twenty to thirty of them, and none of them looked young.

Lu Zhishen furrowed his brow as he listened. "How is it our fault? Did the case at Tian De’s house and the one with Tian Dajiang and Wu An happen after we arrived?"

"Their cases had nothing to do with the Sheep Horn God! It was only after you arrived that the Sheep Horn God began to mete out his punishment! You must have brought this misfortune upon us!"

"Everything was fine before you came! The Sheep Horn God’s rhyme appeared on the very night you arrived!"

"That’s right! You brought this misfortune! The village hasn’t had a moment’s peace since you arrived. There are patrols day and night, and the police are all over the village. It’s making me so anxious I can’t eat or sleep! Aren’t you just trying to be the death of this old woman?"

"You definitely brought this misfortune. It’s the Sheep Horn God’s divine will to punish whomever he chooses. Your interference will only bring a greater catastrophe upon our village. Today it was Tian Ming; who knows whose turn it will be tomorrow."

"For a hundred years, the Sheep Horn God has protected us. He’s never delivered a divine punishment before. Why did it start the moment you arrived? It’s because the Sheep Horn God doesn’t welcome you! Once you leave, our lives will go back to normal!"

"That’s right! Leave! Get out of here! Leave right now!"

"This is clearly the work of a person! Someone wants to commit murder and is using the Sheep Horn God to spread panic! Don’t be deceived!" Chu Xingrou shouted at the top of her lungs.

But there were too many of them, and she couldn’t make herself heard over their shouting.

"What does a little slip of a girl like you know! The Sheep Horn God is a god, and He informs us of His will in all sorts of ways. This is His way of informing us! We’ve worshiped the Sheep Horn God for generations. Who would dare to use His name! Do they have a death wish?!"

"That’s right. We’ve worshiped the Sheep Horn God for generations; no one would ever use His name to do something like this. This is the Sheep Horn God, using a loudspeaker to teach us to be good and not do evil."

"Our god is teaching us a lesson. What’s it got to do with you! Go on! Get out!"

"If Tian Dajiang’s family dared to kill and eat a sheep, why is it so impossible that someone would use the Sheep Horn God’s name to do evil?" Su Miaoyi asked them.

"You... you! How dare you say something so blasphemous!" the old man shouted, pointing his cane at Su Miaoyi.

"That’s why Tian Dajiang died! It was the Sheep Horn God’s punishment!" an old woman yelled.

Su Miaoyi turned to her. "See? You said it yourself. Tian Dajiang’s death was a punishment from the Sheep Horn God, and he died three years ago. By your own logic, the Sheep Horn God’s punishments began three years ago, and we weren’t here then!"

"You weren’t! But that Duan person was! You’re all in it together! It’s because of you people that the Sheep Horn God brought down his divine punishment!"

Upon hearing their words, a wild array of emotions played across Su Miaoyi’s face.

It was a mixture of disbelief and confusion, a look that screamed, ’How is this possible? What are you even talking about?’

Lu Zhishen had already given up on talking.

He couldn’t stand scenes like this, with a dozen or two people all talking at once. It felt like bees were buzzing in his ears.

He lost all desire to speak, especially when faced with people who refused to listen to reason.

He stood to one side and called Zhao Yongliang.

"We’re here to help with the case, and the police are here to protect you all," Chu Xingrou tried to explain. "Please, trust us! Don’t be deceived by the culprit!"

"’Help with the case?’ What help have you been? Is the case solved? Far from it—people are still dying! What kind of ’help’ is that? And you have the nerve to say it to our faces!"

"You just wander around the village all day. ’Solving a case?’ What case! We know your kind. It’s just like when they promised to pave our road. People came every day to ’take a look.’ They’d look around, then leave. They’ve been ’looking’ for almost ten years now. So where’s our road? Huh?! Where did it get paved? In your own cities?"

"You’re just here to wander around and go through the motions! You can’t get anything done, and in a few days, you’ll just leave! You think because we’re old and from the countryside we don’t know your games? I may be old, but I’m not stupid! I saw plenty of rackets like this when I was young!"

Chu Xingrou immediately shut up.

The emergence of Tian Ming’s case...

Although none of the three had mentioned it, they all felt terrible.

They had come to investigate, but not only had they found nothing, a new case had cropped up.

The villagers blocked them from entering the village.

A little while later, officers from the local police station arrived.

If the crowd had been younger, the police would have just taken them away.

But they were all so old that the officers didn’t dare raise their voices.

If they frightened one of them into getting sick or worse, they couldn’t bear that responsibility.

All they could do was try to persuade them patiently.

But the seniors were all worked up and refused to let Su Miaoyi’s team enter the village, no matter what.

The local police were completely unable to de-escalate the situation.

When they couldn’t resolve the situation, they looked over at Su Miaoyi and the others.

"Let’s go back to town for now," Su Miaoyi said.

"Ah, right, right. I’ll drive the three of you," an officer from the local station said.

On the drive back, the officer kept telling them, "They’re just old, and a bit set in their ways. Don’t take anything they said to heart. We’ll be sure to have a word with them."

’Will you really?’ Su Miaoyi recalled how they’d tried to de-escalate the situation earlier.

The officer sighed. "We can’t. They’re too old. We can’t detain them unless it’s for something very serious. If anything went wrong, we couldn’t take the heat. Sorry to have troubled you three."

"It’s alright," Su Miaoyi said. "We’re in the same line of work; we get it. And we understand them, too. With something this major happening in the village, it’s natural for people to be on edge and uneasy."

She was just making conversation with the officer.

She felt terrible, too. Anxious that they hadn’t solved the case in time, she was just talking to distract herself.

Chu Xingrou was silent the whole way.

This was the first time since she started her career that she had faced such open hostility from such a large group. The words of the elders had gotten to her, and she was miserable.

Lu Zhishen was usually good at taking things in stride, but he was suffering from a bit of sensory overload and didn’t feel like saying a word...

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