85: Chapter 85 The Mysterious Police

The elderly, women, and children had all come, densely packing the dock and stretching their necks to look out at the sea.

After all, this was the first voyage out to sea since Zhou Family Village began worshipping Lord Qinling.

The fishing boats appeared on the sea, sailing toward the dock, and Zhou Hu and the crew waved at the villagers of Zhou Family Village on the dock.

Seeing that the crew had all returned safely, the villagers of Zhou Family Village on the dock breathed a sigh of relief.

When the boats approached the dock, the crew members were drenched all over with salt stains still clinging to their faces, but their eyes were exceptionally bright.

They unloaded the fish from the boats, basket by basket, barrel by barrel.

The fish piled up on the dock, growing higher and higher like a small hill.

Silver ones, cyan ones, and even a few golden ones gleamed in the sunlight.

Children ran around the pile of fish, their shoe soles stepping on the slippery fish bodies; they took falls, but got right back up and kept running.

Women squatted beside the fish pile, reaching their hands in to touch a large one, holding it up to look at it against the sunlight, smiling while tears fell.

In this day and age, the pressure for a woman to support her children was self-evident.

And now, under the protection of Lord Qinling, they saw the hope of raising their own children.

Standing among the villagers, Zhou Ping, the village chief of Zhou Family Village, looked at that mountain of fish and the crew members still unloading fish from the boats, and smiled.

As the promoter of changing the deity worshipped to Lord Qinling, he naturally bore the corresponding pressure.

However, upon seeing this piled-up mountain of fish, Zhou Ping's pressure vanished into thin air.

He did not speak, but merely turned around and bowed deeply toward the small deity statue at the entrance of the cabin.

His waist was bent very low, his forehead almost touching his knees.

Behind him, the villagers who were moving fish stopped, turned around as well, and bowed toward the deity statue.

At the entrance of the cabin, that small deity statue sat quietly in the shrine, with drooping eyelids and calm corners of its mouth.

Green smoke drifted out from the small incense burner in front of the shrine, rising gracefully, swirling in the sunlight, and dispersing into the sky.

The villagers were bustling with excitement as they moved the fish into the village.

The men carried baskets, the women held basins, and the children hugged fish larger than their own heads, stumbling along behind.

The fishy smell mixed with the scent of sweat, fermenting in the afternoon sunlight, so thick it could not be dispersed.

A young villager carried a full basket of herring, humming an out-of-tune little ditty as he walked from the dock toward the village.

He did not walk fast; the basket was too heavy, pressing painfully on his shoulders, but he felt wonderful inside.

He lowered his head, looking at his feet, stepping footprint by footprint onto the dirt road he had walked for over twenty years.

Then he suddenly saw the three figures ahead.

He raised his head and saw the three figures in the middle of the road.

They were three figures wearing constable official uniforms, standing rigidly in the middle of the road, motionless.

Sunlight fell on them; the color of their official uniforms had faded, looking grayish and stained with quite a bit of dust.

The young villager was stunned for a moment, thinking they were constables from the county, so he split his mouth open and called out enthusiastically.

"Several officers! Is there something you need coming to our village? Our village had a bountiful harvest today, and we have more fish than we can finish eating. You gentlemen should take a few back to try!"

While shouting, he lowered the basket on his shoulder, preparing to pick out a few of the largest ones to hand over.

Those three figures turned their heads at the same time.

The young villager's hand froze in mid-air.

His smile solidified on his face.

He saw those three faces.

Grayish-white, like dead people soaked in water for a long time, their skin wrinkled and clinging tightly to their bones.

On their necks, faces, and exposed backs of hands, there were wounds everywhere.

And not the kind of fresh wounds, but old wounds that had been rotting for a long time.

Inside those wounds, something was writhing.

Dense plant roots and stems were constantly writhing within the wounds.

At the tips of those roots and stems bloomed a black flower exuding black qi.

"Clang—"

The fish basket slipped from the young villager's hands and smashed onto the ground, and the herrings bounced out of the basket, jumping around on the dirt road.

He opened his mouth, and a "Heh, heh" sound came from his throat.

Then he screamed, his voice unbelievably shrill.

"Ghosts—!!! There are ghosts—!!!"

His scream exploded in the village, frightening several villagers in the distance who were moving fish so badly that the fish in their hands dropped.

The nearby villagers quickly rushed over, arriving at the road where the young villager was.

And saw those three figures wearing official uniforms, covered all over with roots and black flowers.

The villagers who saw these three bizarre figures were also stunned.

Clearly, this scene was simply too unimaginable for them.

Zhou Ping was carrying a giant grouper and walking toward the village; hearing the scream, he threw away the fish in his hand and bolted toward the entrance of the village.

Zhou Hu followed behind him, still clutching a fish-killing knife in his hand, stained with scales and blood, flashing a red light in the sunlight.

When they ran to the village entrance, they saw that those three figures had already started moving.

The three bizarre human figures wearing constable official uniforms charged straight toward the terrified villagers.

Zhou Ping picked up a carrying pole by the door, placed it horizontally across his chest, and blocked in front of the villagers.

Zhou Hu gripped the fish-killing knife, standing beside him, pointing the tip of the knife at the three getting-closer shadows.

After sensing the abnormality, Qin Ling's avatar instantly vanished from the shrine inside the cabin and then appeared high in the air above Zhou Family Village.

Qin Ling's avatar looked down at the three figures on the road below.

His brow twitched slightly.

Although these three figures no longer looked human, he still immediately recognized that these were the three constables who had previously come to Qin Family Village with Constable Meng Yu.

At that time, they stood right behind Constable Meng Yu, watching Constable Meng Yu erupt into a conflict with the sister and brother duo, Qin Yin and Qin Mo.

And now, these three constables were wearing those official uniforms, their entire bodies covered in roots and black flowers, with the black flowers exuding black qi.

Currently, Constable Meng Yu was still recovering from injuries in Qin Family Village, and Constable Meng Yu had also communicated with Qin Yin and Qin Mo regarding the situation of the two Demon Tigers.

Qin Ling naturally had heard everything Constable Meng Yu recounted.

In Constable Meng Yu's own words, these three constables had also been killed by those two Demon Tigers.

And now, these three constables had just appeared like this in Zhou Family Village, and in such a bizarre form.

Qin Ling infused his divine power into his eyes, staring at the figures of these three constables.

He could see the fine filaments beneath the black flower writhing within the roots and stems; it was the black flower controlling the people.

And this black flower obviously did not come out of thin air; could it be that something had planted seeds inside them?

The only one capable of doing this was probably that evil entity itself.

But where was that evil entity's main body right now?

Too many questions popped into Qin Ling's mind.

However, now was clearly not the time for him to ponder questions, because those three constables were already about to pounce in front of Zhou Hu and Zhou Ping.

Zhou Hu and Zhou Ping were definitely not matches for these three bizarre constables.