sakura petals ; mo dao zu shi **HIATUS**

018. secrets are spilled +alcohol

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Suddenly, a villager walked over with a bow on his back. He seemed rather annoyed. "Why are you burning these here? It's in front of my house. How ominous!" 

These boys hadn't done anything like this before and didn't know that it was ominous to burn paper money in front of someone's house. All of them apologized. Lan Sizhui hurried to wipe his face. "Is that your house over there?" He asked. 

The villager looked really annoyed. "Hey, brat, look at what you're saying. My family's been here for three generations. How can it possibly be anything but my house?"

Hearing his tone, Jin Ling grew unhappy at once and was about to stand up. "How dare you talk to us like this?" 

Wei Wuxian pressed his head and held him down again. Lan Sizhui continued, "I understand now. Sorry, I did not mean anything else with the question I asked. It was just that, the last time we passed this house, we saw another hunter, which was why we were confused."

Jiang Yīnghuā and Lan Liang had made their way over to the others. Lan Liang was looking at them confused. 

The villager was puzzled. "Another hunter? What do you mean another hunter?"

He made a "three" with his fingers. "This house was passed straight down through the three generations. There's only me, no other brothers! My dad passed away long ago and I haven't even married much less had a child. Where on Earth would there be another hunter?"

"There really was!" Lan Jingyi spat. 

He stood up as well. "He wore a lot of clothes and had a big cap on, sitting right in your yard repairing his bow and arrows, as though he was going to hunt soon. When we arrived, we even asked him for the directions. He was the one who pointed us to Yi City!" 

The villager spat, "Nonsense! You really saw him in my yard? Nobody like him exists in my household! Even ghosts could beat up humans in a place like Yi City. He directed you there? More like he wanted to kill you! The thing you saw was definitely a ghost!"

He spat a couple of times, venting his anger, then shook his head and turned around to leave. The boys were left staring at one another. Lan Jingyi was still protesting. "But he really was sitting in this yard. I remember really clearly that..." 

Wei Wuxian said a few things to Lan Wangji. He then turned around. "You understand now? Somebody led you to Yi City. The hunter who directed you there wasn't a villager here at all. He was disguised by someone with ill intentions." 

"I never ran into a hunter. I saw some women talking and I asked them where Yi City was. They told me and warned me not to go. I never met or saw a hunter." Lan Liang furrowed his brow. Jiang Yīnghuā sighed. At least her son was fine. 

"Was it that somebody had been leading us here ever since the corpses of the cats? Was the fake hunter the one who did all those things?" Jin Ling asked.