After Liu Ergou left, the widow walked out from behind the stall, picked up the rolling pin on the ground, wiped the dust off it with a cloth, then whispered a thank you to the man next to her, and returned to her stall to continue her small business.
She has to survive after all. She can't close her business just because a gangster makes trouble. If she does that, she and her children will have nothing to eat.
"Shopkeeper, how much is this cake?" Precia asked, pointing at the cake on the stall.
The widow touched her son's head. The child had not yet recovered from the shock. "One penny each, how many do you want?"
"Give me one." Precia took the pancake handed over by the widow, took out two cents from her pocket and put them on the table.
"You gave me too much, one cent..." The widow wanted to return the extra money to Precia, but found that the customer had disappeared at some point.
After hesitating for a few seconds, the widow put the extra penny into her pocket, thinking that she would return it to Precia if she came back later or came to buy again.
With a crunch, Precia took a big bite of a piece and started chewing.
There were only a few wild vegetables in the pancake, and not much salt. It was definitely not delicious, but it was just food that could fill the stomach.
But no matter how the pancake tastes, it does not affect Precia's plan. She follows Liu Ergou from a distance, waiting for the right opportunity to take action.
"Ha~" Liu Ergou finished the pancake in his hand, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the slowly rising sun.
"You nosy old bachelor, why are you bothering me to get my money back? It's just a few pie in the sky, it's not yours, why are you pretending to be such a good person?"
"Forget it, I'll go back and have a good sleep. Come back in the evening and see how I make ten taels of silver with my two cents!"
Liu Ergou threw the two cents he had just got back and walked towards his home with a step that showed he didn't care about his relatives.
As a low-level gangster who has no formal job and spends his days eating and waiting to die, Liu Ergou's home is just a small house that can barely shelter him from the wind and rain.
Originally, his parents who died early left him a large yard, but how could a gambler keep money? In other words, no one wanted the current house, otherwise he would have sold it long ago to use as gambling money.
With a bang, Liu Ergou kicked open the door, which was not locked tightly. There was nothing in the room except a tattered quilt he picked up, so he had never locked the door. If a thief really managed to steal from him, he would probably cry because of his poverty.
After stuffing the two cents into his trouser pocket, Liu Ergou fell headfirst onto the earthen kang and fell asleep in a few minutes.
A few minutes later, the door was carefully pushed open. Although the force was very light, the old and dilapidated door still made a harsh sound.
"Huh~Hu~" Liu Ergou's snoring sounds very rhythmic.
Bang! A low gunshot rang out, and the snoring sound disappeared in an instant, and the room fell into silence.
After eliminating the target, Precia walked out of the room. This place was so remote that it didn't even need to be concealed. Few people had passed by for such a long time.
Back at the inn, Precia turned on the detector and took a look at herself. It was green 0.1. This should be considered as proof of punishing evil.
The person was not killed by mistake, but the balance did not change at all. It seems that the influence of a small gangster on the tilt is basically negligible.
In the afternoon, there was a sudden commotion on the street.
"Someone's dead! Someone's dead! Liu Ergou is dead."
There wasn't much fear in the voice, but rather a feeling of not fearing trouble and joining in the fun.
The waiter put the rag on his shoulder, ran out of the inn with curiosity on his face, as if to find out what happened.
After all, no matter big or small, as long as there is a little movement, the guests in the inn like to ask him. How can he get the reward without paying attention
After the body was discovered, Precia had been observing her own numbers in the detector to see if there would be any fluctuations. This would also allow her to find out whether Tiandao had considered possible subsequent impacts when making its judgment.
I watched it like this for almost an hour, and the numbers didn't change at all. No one outside was discussing Liu Ergou's death anymore. The waves caused by Liu Ergou had gradually subsided. He was just a small gangster, and few people were in the mood to keep discussing him.
Time flies. In a blink of an eye, three days passed by and it was the agreed time between Precia and the owner of the cloth shop.
During these three days, Precia eliminated a total of five people based on Tiandao's detectors. All of them were recommended targets for elimination with numbers less than 2, but the balance still did not change significantly.
However, Precia has changed from the original colorless 0 to the current green 1.2.
"Boss, are my clothes ready?" Precia walked into the shop carelessly and asked loudly.
"It's done. Please keep your voice down. The town has been a bit uneasy lately." The shopkeeper said mysteriously to Priscilla.
Precia paused, "Not peaceful? How can you say that? I heard from the waiter that it was just a gangster who died. Maybe he was killed by the gambling den to collect debts."
"You don't know this. In the past three days, eight murders have occurred in the town. According to the investigation of Captain Ma, these cases were all committed by one person..."
"Wait, wait, eight?!" Precia interrupted the shopkeeper. Didn't she just kill five people? How come there were eight murders inexplicably? This blame came unexpectedly.
"Yes, but, according to my eldest sister-in-law's nephew, the killer was not a human, but a monster!" The shopkeeper spoke in a very low voice, as if he was telling some earth-shattering secret, "The monster likes to eat human heads. When killing people, it makes a fist-sized hole in the head and then sucks out all the brain matter."
"Eating human brains? Making holes in them?" Priscilla was a little speechless. If she hadn't committed most of the cases, she would have almost believed what the shopkeeper said.
"Yes, yes, I'm telling you this, but you mustn't tell anyone else." While the shopkeeper was speaking, the servant had already brought the finished clothes over.
"I understand. I won't tell anyone else." Precia forced a smile and said, what the hell is going on? It feels like the turn of events has exceeded her expectations.
"Well, to be honest, this monster has been causing a lot of harm to people. Every merchant in our town has to pay silver, and each family has to pay several taels of silver. It's really a sin. How much silver can they earn this month?" The shopkeeper shook his head and said while fiddling with the abacus on the counter.
"So much money? What for?" Precia paused as she was leaving with the clothes in her arms and asked.
"Captain Ma said that he has invited a master to catch the monster. The master's appearance fee is fifty taels of silver. What a sin, what a sin..." The shopkeeper sighed deeply.
Precia lowered her head and left the cloth shop. When she arrived at the inn, she found the boss, the accountant and the waiter gathered together. She didn't know what they were whispering about, but she guessed it was about catching monsters.
After returning to the room, Precia threw her clothes on the bed, her face darkened. My goodness, her action of punishing evildoers had been completely taken advantage of by others.
I think the three extra murders were probably just excuses that Captain Ma put on her. That would have been fine, but he even made up a rumor about a monster to reap the profits from the merchants.
Originally, Precia was preparing to leave after killing five people in a row, because if she continued to kill, even if the dead were not good people, everyone in the town would be in danger and the order would be greatly affected.
However, what the cloth shop owner said today made Precia plan to stay for another day or two. She wanted to see how this master planned to catch the monster!
Two days later, people from all directions gathered in the town’s largest square despite the threat of the “monster”.
In the center of the crowd stood a bright red platform, on which were placed a number of incense sticks, millet, and talismans. There were also several bamboo poles inserted around the platform, with rags with random words written on them tied to the tops of the poles.
The overall look does seem a little bit like that.
"The Master is coming, the Master is coming..."
The crowd became noisy and a path was formed in the middle. A master with an immortal look walked step by step from the back of the crowd to the middle. Captain Ma followed beside him like a protective guard.
"Dear fellow villagers, this is the founder of Kunlun Sect, the head of Kunlun Sect. He came to us by chance this time because he heard that there was a demon doing evil in our town, so he humbled himself and came to us to help everyone get rid of the demon..."
Captain Ma shouted loudly to the crowd around him, as if it were really happening.
Precia was watching from afar on the other side of the street. The leader of the Kunlun sect? That's it
"People who practice Taoism cannot stand by and watch someone die. This monster is dead because I am here!" Master Yiyuan pinched his beard and looked at the townspeople below majestically.
Then he grabbed the wooden sword beside the table, and his long sleeves swept across the table. With a bang, all the candles burst into flames three feet high.
“Wow!”
"The Taoist priest is so awesome!"
"Haven't you heard that he's the head of the sect? How can he not be powerful?"
There was a heated discussion in the crowd. Captain Ma suppressed his smile and exchanged glances with the One Yuan Patriarch who was spinning around, indicating that the climax could begin.
Buzz buzz buzz, the sound of mosquitoes flapping their wings was heard, and a mosquito as big as a human flew out from the house next door. Its long mouthparts could pierce a person's brain directly.
When the monster appeared, all the townspeople became agitated and kept retreating. If it weren't for the "One Yuan Patriarch" who gave them some confidence, these people would not have dared to stand here any longer.
"Monster, I'm going to take you in today!" Master Yiyuan raised the wooden sword, stabbed at the giant mosquito, and made a whooshing sound from his mouth.
A beam of light hit the big mosquito, and then disappeared into the sky together with the mosquito. Master Yiyuan slowly put down the wooden sword in his hand, and extremely warm applause broke out from the audience.
Precia leaned against the wall, speechless. What kind of Master Yiyuan was he? He was just a liar who knew some low-quality illusions. He could only bully these townspeople who knew nothing.
Turning on a detector, the number on the "One Yuan Patriarch" rose from red 6 before the ceremony began to red 7.
"Everyone, today's demon exorcism was very successful. You can all go home now." Captain Ma walked onto the stage and said loudly, "In addition, if you are still worried about possible dangers, Master Yiyuan has left a batch of amulets with me. You can get them for just one or two taels of silver..."
As soon as Captain Ma finished his words, the crowd began to surge towards the stage, rushing to buy the amulet.
"Mom, are we going to buy it too?" a little boy's voice rang out.
Precia turned around and saw the widow and her son whom she had seen the other day.
The widow lowered her head and rubbed her hands in her arms for a while, "Buy one, so that if there are any more monsters, you can have a response..."
She was also reluctant to give it up. It would take a long time for a pancake seller like her to save up one or two taels of silver. She originally wanted to save more money and send her son to be an apprentice so that he could learn some skills and not have to sell pancakes like her in the future.
Precia took a deep breath. She couldn't let this go on any longer. Not only was she taking the blame, but she was also being used as a proxy to take advantage of others. Precia couldn't accept this.
He reached out to stop the widow, "Ma'am, don't be anxious, it's not over yet."
The widow looked up and saw Precia. She thought for a second, then took out a penny from her pocket and said, "Well, sir, you must have come to my stall to buy cakes that time. You gave me an extra penny last time."
Precia was stunned for a moment, took the penny handed over by the widow and put it away.
"Um... Madam, could you please move aside for a moment? We still need to buy some amulets..." the widow asked cautiously. The clothes on Precia were all made of good materials, and she didn't want to cause a conflict. But if she didn't move, the amulets would be sold out.
"Sorry, wait a few seconds." Precia smiled, turned around and faced the old man who was twirling his beard with a smile.
Mental power surged out of the body, stirring up the thin magic power in the air, and formed a large magic circle right above the square. During the entire process of the formation of the magic circle, "One Yuan Patriarch" did not react at all, which made Precia even more certain that he was a liar!
Buzz buzz buzz~buzz buzz buzz~
The sound of mosquitoes rang out again, this time the sound started small and gradually grew louder. The surging crowd slowly stopped after the sound rang out.
The little boy beside the widow looked at Precia with her eyes closed, as if he understood something.
In the square, Captain Ma turned around and looked at "Master Yiyuan", "What are you doing?! The show is over!"
"It's not me!" Master Yiyuan's eyes were slightly horrified.
Buzz buzz buzz ~ the sound of mosquitoes reached the loudest, and a huge shadow appeared on the house next to it. People in the square clenched the amulets in their hands, and those who had not bought any yet looked up at the "Master Yiyuan".