Wen Wen shook his head and muttered, "It should be fine. If the person who came wasn't him, I would have performed better."
He knew very well that Yang Sheng's arrival, while ostensibly to bring him things, was likely a test.
After all, in the eyes of the Hunter Association, if a third party intervened at the opportune moment in this encirclement, the source of that third party's information would most likely be Wen Wen.
"Two hundred thousand Hunter Coins are enough for me to buy many things, but I already have the 'Buddha's Gatling' I wanted most, so I'll decide what to buy later. The most important thing now is to leave this troublesome place."
The Sinful Blood had just been encircled, and many of its members should still be hiding in this city. Yanling City would not be peaceful for some time.
Therefore, Wen Wen called Chu Wei and drove away from Yanling City that night, leaving further matters to others.
After hanging up the phone, Chu Wei packed his belongings and prepared to leave for the hunter assessment.
Following this incident, the Yanling City Demon Hunter Squad was disbanded. Problematic members had been taken away by the special operations team, and the rest would be assigned to other cities.
Chu Wei's superior, the captain of the Yanling City Demon Hunter Squad, was directly dismissed and sent to headquarters for investigation.
These few days felt as long as several months for Chu Wei.
The thought that the Sinful Blood had been lurking here all along, and they hadn't discovered it, made Chu Wei feel worse than death.
Well...
For him, death wasn't a particularly painful matter.
So, Chu Wei decided to leave Yanling City to adjust his mood, and the hunter assessment was a good choice...
...
The sky was overcast, and thick dark clouds covered it like a lid. A cold wind rustled the leaves of the trees lining the road.
On the highway, a sports car was driving steadily. On the car's roof, Wen Wen, dressed in a black trench coat, was reading a novel.
The novel was titled "The Detective and the Cuckold," telling the legendary story of a detective who wore a green hat.
A tiny insect, the size of a mung bean, was being swept along by the strong wind, unable to control its direction of flight.
As it flew, it flew directly into Wen Wen's nostril.
"Ah... Achoo!"
Wen Wen sat up, pulled out the small insect, and flicked it away with a flick of his finger.
"Hmm, it looks like it's going to rain heavily. I saw on the news that there's a typhoon coming."
Wen Wen closed his book, got into the car, and instructed San Zai'er, "Stop at a hotel in the next town. Don't drive in the heavy rain; it'll cost money to repair if it scratches my car."
Then, Wen Wen went back to reading his novel. He was at a plot point related to hats and couldn't miss it.
After about ten minutes of driving, the car turned into a small town. Wen Wen looked up and saw that the town's name was Spectrum Town.
At the entrance of the town stood a church of the Creation Church. On the church's roof was a statue of an angel carved from white stone, with a stone ring behind it symbolizing sunlight.
"Spectrum Town... a town where light shines everywhere..."
Wen Wen only glanced at it and didn't pay much attention.
The car stopped at a hotel. Wen Wen got out and looked around, his eyes lighting up.
The streets were clean and tidy, and the pedestrians were all dressed neatly and behaved properly. No one was disheveled, nor was anyone sitting in front of their doors chatting.
Everything seemed like a scene from a movie.
Yet, despite its apparent prosperity, Wen Wen felt a sense of disharmony and a subtle sense of oppression.
"It looks too orderly, which makes me feel a bit uneasy."
Wen Wen shook his head and walked into the hotel.
The hotel was also rigidly orderly. Everything was strictly according to standard, with no oversights.
The bedsheets and pillowcases were newly changed, the floor was wiped clean without a single footprint, and the white walls were free of even a speck of dirt.
This aspect pleased Wen Wen greatly. He had traveled extensively and had stayed in many places where the hotels were truly... indescribable.
He lay down on the bed and continued reading his novel, muttering, "Why don't I have a room in the containment facility? If I did, I wouldn't need to stay in hotels; I could just return to the facility whenever I wanted to rest."
...
At this moment, beside Wen Wen's car parked outside the hotel, two suspicious men stood. One was tall and stout, the other short and thin.
The short, thin man complained, "His Excellency the Bishop is truly something. Just because of a little suspicion, he sent us to rob something from a demon hunter."
The tall, stout man patted his shoulder and said, "According to intelligence, this person works in the same city as Yan Xiu. Now that he's specifically come to Qianhe City, he might be delivering something important to Old Dog, and His Excellency the Bishop doesn't want those things to fall into Old Dog's hands."
"Father Liu... Sigh, but he's a demon hunter. How can just the two of us be his match?"
The short, thin man was still hesitant. He thought the Bishop had become a bit fanatical lately, or perhaps morbidly devout, but as the Bishop's subordinates, they could only obey orders unconditionally.
The tall, stout man thought for a moment and said to the short, thin man with a sinister grin, "Heh heh, he's a demon hunter. If he discovers an abnormal event, he'll definitely investigate it, right? As long as we lure him over there, whether he's flattened or rounded is up to us to decide!"
"Then let's do as you say..."
The short, thin man sighed, not knowing if this was fortune or misfortune.
...
You... are guilty...
Yuan Zhi was bound to a cross. Before him floated an angel with infinite light behind its back.
The angel ignored his wails, thrust its long sword into his chest, and his body was then scorched by a massive amount of light.
In the instant of death, Yuan Zhi suddenly woke up, his forehead covered in cold sweat, his eyes bloodshot.
"Dear, what's wrong?"
His wife turned on the light and looked at Yuan Zhi with concern.
"It's nothing, I had that dream again," Yuan Zhi said, shaking his head.
"That's not a nightmare; it's a warning. You must not be devout enough."
His wife mocked him lightly before turning over and going back to sleep.
Yuan Zhi sighed. If it were in the past, his wife would never have said that.
He lay down, clutching an ancient pendant on his chest, unable to sleep.
He was in his fifties. In his youth, he had left his hometown to strive for a living. Now that he was older, he had returned to his hometown to enjoy his twilight years.
At first, he was relieved to see his hometown become so beautiful and everything so orderly.
But after living there for a few days, he felt something was wrong.
Everyone here seemed so rigid, as if imprinted from a template.
When he went out to shop wearing beach shorts, everyone looked at him as if he were a degenerate. Only after he started wearing formal attire when he went out did the situation ease.
He discovered that if he did anything different from the other people in town, he would be met with resistance from them. Therefore, he was forced to do everything perfectly to live normally in this town.
In just over ten days, he found his hometown to be more devoid of human warmth and more oppressive than the city.
At first, he could tolerate it because, at least at home, he didn't have to endure strange looks from others.
But what gradually made him fearful was that his wife was also becoming like those people outside.
Everything had to be perfect, making Yuan Zhi feel that the rules at home were stricter than in prison!