Chapter 402

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The carriage walked slowly on the official road. The official road had been in disrepair for a long time and was full of potholes. The old horse walked on the potholed official road as if it were on flat ground, and the two people in the carriage did not feel any bumps at all.

"We've arrived at the Huangzhou." Lu Yang spread out the map. There was a light spot on the map representing them. This is a magic treasure that can roughly show their location and is a must-have magic treasure for going out.

"It's getting late, let's find a place nearby to rest." Meng Jingzhou saw that it was almost dark and they had arrived at the Huangzhou, so there was no need to rush.

"Hey, look, there's an inn here, we can stay there!" Meng Jingzhou saw an inn not far away. The plaque was crumbling, and even the name of the shop could not be seen clearly. The quality of the inn was worrying.

Lu Yang looked at the inn suspiciously. It was gloomy, as if a gust of wind could blow the inn down.

"Make do with it, it's better than spending the night in the carriage." Lu Yang comforted himself.

The two people and one horse came to the front of the inn. The storefront was wide open, and it was pitch black inside, empty, as if it had been abandoned for a long time.

The two finally saw the name of the inn—Qingming Inn.

"This name is not very auspicious. Is this place closed or still in business?" Meng Jingzhou muttered, strode in, and shouted loudly, "Is anyone here? We're here to stay!"

No one responded.

Meng Jingzhou shouted again: "Is anyone here? We're here to stay!"

Then he heard a thud on the counter, like the sound of a corpse falling to the ground, unusually dull.

"Who's shouting? Don't even know the rules of staying at an inn!" cursed a man wearing a white paper hat.

He climbed out from the counter, staring at Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou with unkind expressions.

"Staying at the inn, give us the two best rooms!" Meng Jingzhou had always only stayed in the best places.

"You two, staying at the inn?" The man in the white paper hat looked at the two in surprise, then stretched his neck to look back, finding that no one was following them.

"Go, go, go, what kind of trouble are you making? This is not a place you should come to, find somewhere else to stay." The man in the white paper hat drove the two away impatiently.

Meng Jingzhou was puzzled. He had stayed at so many inns, this was the first time he had encountered one that wouldn't let him stay.

【Text garbled】

"Is your inn full?"

"There are still half the rooms empty."

"Then why won't you let us stay?"

Seeing that these two really didn't know the rules, the man in the white paper hat was about to explain when he heard movement upstairs.

Step—step—step—

Uniform footsteps came from the top floor, so uniform that it was unsettling.

A cultivator wearing a Daoist robe came down from the second floor, followed by a group of people wrapped in black cloth, silent, looking particularly terrifying in the dark night.

The number of people wrapped in black cloth made Lu Yang and his companion doubt whether there were so many rooms upstairs to accommodate so many people, especially since the man in the white paper hat said there were half the rooms empty.

Could it be that more than a dozen people lived in the same room?

How could they live like this? Could it be that they were standing against the wall to sleep?

"Little brother, checking out. You are the worst Qingming Inn I have ever stayed at." The Daoist cultivator threw a string of copper coins to the man in the white paper hat. The style of the copper coins was something the two had never seen before, and there were faint fluctuations of magic power on them, which seemed to have special functions.

The man in the white paper hat smiled, not responding. As long as there was money to be made.

Lu Yang was puzzled. Now that it was dark, why check out now?

After Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou saw the appearance of the people wrapped in black cloth clearly, they were both shocked.

The people wrapped in black cloth had dull eyes, some had mud and grass on their noses and mouths, some were disfigured, as if they had been hit by something, and some looked old and thin, with only a layer of skin left.

"Drowned, smashed to death, died of old age... these are all dead people!"

"Corpse-driving art?!"

No wonder they checked out as soon as it was night, rested during the day, and drove corpses at night. That's what the books said.

The two didn't expect that as soon as they entered the Huangzhou, they would encounter the long-heard-of corpse-driving art.

The man in the white paper hat put away the copper coins and rolled his eyes at the two: "This is a corpse inn, providing a place for corpse-drivers to rest. The rooms are all for dead people. If you don't mind, you can stay here."

The corners of the two people's eyes twitched. Staying in a room for dead people was a bit hard to adapt to.

"The person just now knew how to cast the corpse-driving art. Is he from the Corpse-Driving Sect?" Lu Yang asked again. If he was from the Corpse-Driving Sect, they could just chat with the other party.

The man in the white paper hat shook his head: "You two are from out of town, right? I was just saying, our Qingming Inn is a chain in the Huangzhou, how could any living person know the name of our shop and come to stay?"

"We are from Yunzhou."

The man in the white paper hat suddenly realized: "A major province in the Central Plains, no wonder. I heard that there is the Congwendao Sect, one of the five great immortal sects, and the entire Yunzhou is extremely prosperous, with convenient transportation, developed economy, and strong people like clouds."

He corrected the misunderstanding of the two: "The corpse-driving art is not only known by the Corpse-Driving Sect. Many loose cultivators in the folk know the corpse-driving art, but it is far from being as solemn as the Corpse-Driving Sect."

"In our Huangzhou, whether it is a loose corpse-driver or a disciple of the Corpse-Driving Sect, they are collectively called corpse-drivers. The transaction between them is not spirit stones, but large copper magic money."

The man in the white paper hat shook the string of copper coins in his hand: "It's this."

The two thanked the man in the white paper hat and decided to look for another inn.

Leaving the Qingming Inn, Lu Yang saw a sign lying on the ground at the entrance of the inn. Out of kindness, he helped the shopkeeper pick it up.

I saw it written on the sign: Due to business strategy adjustments, this shop has now moved to twenty miles east of Baiquan Town. Please understand.

The date was five years ago.

"What!"

The two looked up suddenly, looking at the Qingming Inn in front of them in astonishment, a chill rising from the bottom of their hearts.

The real Qingming Inn had already moved away, so who did they see just now?

They rushed into the shop, and it was empty inside. Where was the man in the white paper hat?

"Was that person or a ghost just now?"

The two were horrified. They hadn't noticed anything unusual about the man in the white paper hat from beginning to end. The man in the white paper hat didn't react even when he saw Meng Jingzhou, who had a pure yang body. How high must his cultivation be? A ghost king?

A decisive voice gave an order, and a group of cultivators wearing constable uniforms poured out from all around and rushed into the inn.

"Damn it, let him run away!"

The leader had a full beard and was very unhappy when he saw that there was no man in the white paper hat in the inn.

"Big brother, may I ask what is going on?" Lu Yang asked politely.

Seeing that Lu Yang and his companion had just come out of the inn, the bearded constable knew they were not suspicious people and explained:

"This Qingming Inn has been abandoned for five years, but in these five years, there have always been people saying they have stayed at this inn, thinking it was haunted, and coming to us to report the case. After our secret verification and checking the testimonies, we finally figured out the reason."

"A man wearing a white paper hat pretended to be the shopkeeper, pretending to open a shop here, letting corpse-drivers stay in, and making money from it."

"Because corpses don't pick places to stay, it's understandable that the environment is poor. Later, some corpse-drivers really couldn't stand it, feeling that the environment of this Qingming Inn was too poor, so they went to the headquarters of Qingming Inn to complain. The headquarters of Qingming Inn was even more surprised, saying that this shop had closed long ago. That's when the case broke."

"After we found out the truth, we thought about waiting for the rabbit to catch the man in the white paper hat, but we didn't expect him to run away!"

Lu Yang: "...."

Can you guys in the Huangzhou do this kind of thing just to make money?