So it turns out I'm the demon!

Filled with suspicion, Jiang Mu continued her search in the village.

As expected, they soon discovered some bloodstains that had not yet dried.

He followed the trail of blood and soon found several corpses behind an earthen wall; they were members of the Demon Slayer Division.

These people were covered in knife wounds.

The wound was narrow and deep, indicating that the attacker had suddenly attacked from close range.

Among these corpses, Jiang Mu did not see the figures of Zhu Chang and the other two hall masters.

"Snap!"

Just as Jiang Mu was deep in thought, a sound of tiles breaking suddenly came from the roof of a farmhouse next to him.

Swish!

Jiang Mu's eyes turned cold as he leaped onto the rooftop.

The moment his feet touched the roof tiles, a sharp blade of light, accompanied by an angry shout, suddenly slashed towards him.

Faced with the sudden attack, Jiang Mu stood still.

clang!

The blade struck the protective aura in front of him as if it had hit an anvil. The man wielding the blade was sent flying backward by the powerful rebound, crashing heavily onto the roof tiles, scattering shards of tile.

Jiang Mu stared intently at the scene.

The man was clutching his abdomen with one hand, blood seeping from between his fingers, his face deathly pale.

He is Meng Zhen, the head of the second hall of the Demon Slaying Division in Yunzhou City.

"Master Meng."

Jiang Mu spoke.

When Meng Zhen saw who it was, he was first stunned, then his bloodshot eyes flashed with wild joy:

"Lord Jiang, what brings you here!"

Jiang Mu glanced at the wounds on his body and asked calmly, "What happened? Weren't you here to investigate the water demon? Why are you in such a sorry state?"

Panting heavily, Meng Zhen struggled to sit up, supporting himself with one hand on a roof tile, and said with a mixture of grief and indignation:

"Sir, we received a report yesterday that a monster had abducted children in Guanjia Village, so we immediately led a team to investigate. Who would have thought that we would encounter a villager on the way who claimed to be from this village, but it turned out to be a stone monster in disguise."

It tricked us into a formation, and by the time we realized what was happening, we were already trapped in this deserted village where there wasn't a soul in sight.

Then we were ambushed.

"We've already lost many of our brothers; that stone demon is definitely still lurking in the shadows, watching us."

Jiang Mu stared into his eyes for a long while before saying, "The stone demon is dead."

"What?"

Meng was taken aback for a moment, but then quickly understood and said...

"Indeed. Since you've already arrived here, you must have already killed that stone demon."

Jiang Mu took in his reaction without showing any emotion and continued:

"The stone golem did not intend to harm you. It is true that it led you into the illusion, but it was attacked afterward as well."

It told me that members of the Red Umbrella Cult have infiltrated your ranks. Has Hall Master Meng noticed this?

"A mole within the Red Umbrella Cult?"

Meng Zhen remained stunned for a long while before he came to his senses, shaking his head repeatedly.

"Impossible! I don't know anything about this. My lord, could it be that the stone demon is deliberately provoking you and deceiving you?"

Jiang Mu remained noncommittal, pointing instead to the corpses:

"So, you lost so many brothers, and you didn't even see who did it, whether it was a human or a demon?"

Meng Zhen lowered his head in shame and gritted his teeth, saying:

"The murderer is not only highly skilled, but also very cunning. He always attacks from the shadows, and given the limited spiritual sense in this place, I... I really didn't see his true face."

Jiang Mu examined the location and depth of the knife wounds on his body, then secretly compared them with the wounds on the corpses from earlier. After a moment's thought, she asked:

"Where are Zhu Chang and Li Yao?"

Meng Zhen pointed to the west side of the village and said breathlessly:

"I think I saw Zhu Chang leading a few brothers retreating westward, but I haven't seen Li Yao at all..."

At this point, Meng Zhen hesitated for a moment, then looked up tentatively and said:

"My lord, if what the stone demon said is true, and there really is a traitor within our Red Umbrella Sect, then... could it be Li Yao?"

Jiang Mu countered, "Why not suspect Zhu Chang?"

Meng Zhen was taken aback, then shook his head vigorously:

"It's absolutely impossible for him. As you know, sir, Zhu Chang and Ming Cuicui were both confidants of Tang Tang, and you were the first to know about them. Moreover, the Water Master trusts them very much."

Everyone in our company is a suspect, but those two are the only ones who are impossible.

"You saw it with your own eyes when the demon army besieged the city. Zhu Chang and the others were willing to risk their lives to defend it. How could they possibly be scum from the Red Umbrella Sect?"

Jiang Mu thought for a moment, then took out a healing pill from her bosom and casually tossed it to Meng Zhen:

"Take your medicine first, then come with me to find the other people."

"Thank you, sir!"

Meng Zhen took the pill and swallowed it in one gulp. After a short while of recuperating, he forced himself to follow behind Jiang Mu.

Along the way, Jiang Mu discovered several more corpses.

Among them were Zhu Chang's subordinates and Li Yao's subordinates. Without exception, they all died from knife wounds.

While examining the wound, Jiang Mu casually asked:

"When you entered the village, besides the stone demon that tricked you, did you see anyone else? Or did anything particularly unusual happen?"

Meng Zhen thought about it carefully for a moment and said:

"Apart from the stone goblin who led the way, we haven't seen anyone else."

When we first entered the village, we saw that although the houses were still there, there wasn't a soul in sight, and that's when we realized something was wrong.

The stone demon revealed its true form and said we could leave tomorrow, then it disappeared.

After discussing it with Master Zhu and the others, we realized this place was too eerie and we couldn't just sit and wait to die, so we decided to split up and lead our men to find an exit...

At this point, Meng Zhen suddenly slapped his thigh:

"I remember now! When I was leading a few brothers to look for an exit to the north, the clouds in the sky were very red. I thought it was just the sunset, so I didn't pay much attention to it."

"And then?" Jiang Mu pressed.

Meng Zhen said, "Later, as darkness fell, we were attacked not long after. At the time, I thought it was the stone demon returning, but now that I think about it... it seems like someone took advantage of the darkness to attack us."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Mu seemed to be deep in thought.

Red clouds?

Could it be that this village illusion contains some sacred artifact of the Red Umbrella Cult?

As a result, the traitor resonated with the sacred object after entering the area, thus triggering a natural phenomenon.

Fearing his identity would be exposed, the mole began to ruthlessly kill him to silence him.

With this guess in mind, Jiang Mu and Meng Zhen arrived at the west side of the village.

However, after searching the area, they found no trace of Zhu Chang or the others, nor any corpses or signs of a struggle.

It was as if they had never come this way.

Jiang Mu, along with Meng Zhen, continued to expand the search area in the surrounding area.

Finally, they found four bodies in an inconspicuous farmhouse courtyard. All of them had died from stab wounds, and the wounds were exactly the same as those they had seen before.

Meng Zhen stepped forward and examined them closely. His face turned ashen as he said, "Sir, these are all brothers under Hall Master Zhu."

Just as Jiang Mu was about to say something, her ears suddenly twitched slightly.

He turned his head to look at the cellar in the corner of the courtyard.

He walked over and leaned down to look into the cellar.

A red mist swirled at the bottom of the cellar, like a pot of boiling blood, slowly churning within.

With a slight thought, Jiang Mu summoned his flying sword and carefully probed into the mist.

However, the moment the flying sword touched the red mist, it was as if it were being pulled into it by an invisible hand, and the divine sense connection transmitted through the sword was severed in an instant, making it impossible to sense anything anymore.

Jiang Mu's heart skipped a beat, and she turned to Meng Zhen and instructed him:

"You stay up there and keep watch, don't wander off. I'm going down to check."

After saying that, he leaped into the cellar. Before jumping down, he released a demonic shadow outside.

Passing through the thick red fog, Jiang Mu landed on her feet.

Looking up, Jiang Mu's face immediately showed a look of astonishment.

The cellar was covered with tiny, red mushrooms, so densely packed that they were enough to make anyone with trypophobia shudder.

These red mushrooms have round caps and a very red color.

Its surface was covered with a layer of mucus, which emitted a faint glow in the dark.

The flying sword he had just released was now wandering aimlessly like a headless fly.

After sensing its master's presence, it flew back into Jiang Mu's hand.

"What the hell is this thing?"

Curious, Jiang Mu once again swung her flying sword and cut down several red mushrooms at her feet.

An amazing scene unfolded.

The severed red mushroom floated up, swaying and transforming in mid-air, eventually turning into a delicate little red umbrella.

Jiang Mu's pupils contracted.

These small umbrellas, transformed from mushrooms, were exactly the same as the red umbrella artifacts used by the high-ranking members of the Red Umbrella Cult that he had seen before, both in terms of shape, color, and the aura they emitted.

"Could it be... that all those Red Umbrella Cult weapons were conjured from the red mushrooms in these cellars?"

Jiang Mu was surprised.

He tentatively reached out and grabbed one of the small, floating red umbrellas.

The moment they made contact, the small umbrella turned into a red light, entered Jiang Mu's body through his palm, and disappeared.

At the same time, he felt an extra breath flowing through his meridians.

Jiang Mu seemed to be deep in thought, and tried to circulate his star power.

A flash of light appeared in his palm, and a small red umbrella, exactly the same as the one from before, materialized out of thin air and slowly rotated in his palm.

Jiang Mu flicked her wrist.

The red umbrella shot out and crashed into the earthen wall opposite, exploding with a loud bang and sending up a cloud of rubble and dust.

"The power is pretty good, but something doesn't feel right..."

Jiang Mu frowned.

When he was using the umbrella, it felt like he was firing bullets from a musket.

Straightforward and unchanging.

This is nothing compared to the tricks that the red-umbrella enchantress used to manipulate the red umbrella back in Yancheng.

"It seems that the Red Umbrella Cult must have a set of core techniques and secret manuals. I just used brute force to forcibly activate the explosive energy contained within it, using it as a one-time-use projectile launcher."

Jiang Mu secretly speculated.

He circulated his star power again, but the energy within him had been completely depleted by the explosion.

It can only absorb one and emit one.

Without hesitation, Jiang Mu picked every single red mushroom in the cellar.

A rough count reveals that there are nearly a thousand.

"Why do I feel like Super Mario...?"

Jiang Mu muttered to herself.

After thoroughly cleaning up all the mushrooms in the cellar, Jiang Mu searched the walls, knocking and tapping, but found nothing hidden, so he left the cellar.

"Lord Jiang, have you found anything down there?"

Meng Zhen, who had been keeping watch upstairs, couldn't wait to greet Jiang Mu as she came up and asked her questions.

Jiang Mu said with a calm expression:

"This place does indeed have some connection with the Red Umbrella Cult. Let's go check out other places."

For the next period of time.

Jiang Mu began searching the village house by house.

Sure enough, almost every farmhouse had a cellar dug in its yard. And without exception, every cellar was filled with those red mushrooms that could transform into red umbrellas.

However, some of the red mushrooms in the cellars had already been picked clean, while some cellars still had a few scattered ones left.

Adhering to the principle of "every grain counts," Jiang Mu frantically collected grains along the way.

In the end, they accumulated more than 20,000.

Unfortunately, the Red Umbrella Sect's martial arts manuals were not found.

The presence of these mushrooms proves that the Red Umbrella Cult did indeed use this place as some kind of stronghold, but its core traditions are clearly not here.

"Sir, look!"

Meng Zhen suddenly exclaimed and pointed to the sky.

Jiang Mu looked up.

A giant red mushroom phantom appeared in the sky, blotting out the sun.

The mushroom slowly rotated.

Thin streaks of light hung down from the edge of the umbrella, like red dandelion seeds, scattering down one after another.

Then, it fell into the cellars of every household.

"Is this planting?"

Jiang Mu was startled and turned back to the nearest cellar to check.

But when he came to the cellar again, the entrance was sealed by a barrier, and no matter how he tried, it wouldn't budge.

"It seems that these cellars are sealed off by a barrier until this batch of new mushrooms has fully matured, making it impossible to break in."

Jiang Mu thought to himself.

As the seeds were sown, the red mushroom phantoms in the sky gradually faded and eventually disappeared.

Meanwhile.

In the village's threshing ground, space suddenly distorted.

Then a halo appeared.

"Exit! It's the exit of the formation!" Meng Zhen exclaimed excitedly.

Jiang Mu looked at the halo and nodded: "The stone demon was right. Once the twelve hours are up, the illusion's gate will automatically open."

Meng Zhen asked, "Sir, now that the exit is open, shall we go out first, or...?"

"Wait a minute."

Jiang Mu raised her hand to stop him, standing beside the array gate, "If there are any other people alive, they will definitely come this way."

Before he finished speaking, two figures ran out from the other side of the threshing ground.

They were two demon slayers.

They were covered in wounds, their clothes stained with blood, and they looked utterly disheveled.

"Master Jiang!"

The two rushed over with delight when they saw Jiang Mu standing in front of the light.

But when they got closer and saw Meng Zhen standing next to Jiang Mu, one of them's expressions changed drastically.

He was so frightened that he took two steps back and shouted:

"Lord Jiang, be careful! Get away from him! Hall Master Meng is a member of the Red Umbrella Sect. He's killed many of his own brothers!"

Upon hearing this, Meng Zhen was stunned:

"What the hell are you talking about? When did I ever kill my own brothers?"

Seeing Jiang Mu's gaze fall upon him, he broke out in a cold sweat and hurriedly waved his hands in explanation:

"Lord Jiang, you are wise to judge! I, Meng Zhen, am utterly loyal to Daqing and the Demon Slayer Division. How could I possibly be a heretic of the Red Umbrella Sect?"

The demon slayer who had pointed out Meng Zhen was trembling with rage, pointing at him and cursing loudly:

"You beast in human skin, how dare you deny it? I saw you lay a hand on him! Lord Jiang, he's the mole within the Red Umbrella Sect, don't be fooled by him!"

Just as the situation was at a stalemate, another group of people hurriedly arrived from the other end of the village.

The one leading them was Zhu Chang.

He was followed by three surviving subordinates.

All of them had injuries of varying degrees, indicating that they had been through a fierce battle.

"Master Jiang!"

Zhu Chang spotted Jiang Mu in the crowd at a glance. His face lit up with excitement, and he quickly stepped forward, saying, "Lord Jiang, what brings you here?"

Jiang Mu glanced at him and said calmly:

"I heard from Cui Cui that you had gone missing, and I was worried that something had happened to you, so I came to check on you. But there's a big problem right now: there's a traitor from the Red Umbrella Cult among you."

The two brothers claimed to have witnessed Master Meng kill his colleague and identified him as a mole within the Red Umbrella Sect.

"Master Zhu, what clues did you see?"

Unexpectedly, Zhu Chang shook his head after hearing this and said, "It wasn't Hall Master Meng. The person we saw was Hall Master Li; he's the mole within the Red Umbrella Sect."

Upon hearing this, the two demon slayers who had identified Meng Zhen immediately became agitated:

"How could it be our leader! Leader Zhu, you must be mistaken. We saw it with our own eyes; it was Leader Meng who committed the murder."

Zhu Chang said, "But I saw it with my own eyes, there's no mistake."

Jiang Mu narrowed his eyes and asked the two demon-slaying envoys, "Where is your hall master now?"

The two men looked at each other, and one of them shook his head and said, "We got separated from the hall master and don't know where he went."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a series of footsteps sounded.

Then they saw a man covered in blood, staggering as he ran towards them.

It was Li Yao.

When Li Yao saw Zhu Chang, his eyes widened in fury, and he roared as he drew his sword and charged towards Zhu Chang.

"Zhu Chang, you beast! Even if it costs me my life, I'll drag you down to hell with me!"

Jiang Mu stopped Li Yao and said coldly:

"Calm down, everyone. What's going on?"

Li Yao trembled all over, pointed at Zhu Chang, and roared with grief and indignation:

"Lord Jiang, Zhu Chang is a member of the Red Umbrella Cult! He killed several of my brothers; I saw it with my own eyes, there's no doubt about it!"

These words left everyone present speechless.

Jiang Mu raised an eyebrow and smiled:

"Wow, this is really interesting."

Zhu Chang said that you, Li Yao, are a traitor to the Red Umbrella Sect, and your subordinates are certain that Meng Zhen is the traitor. And now, you're pointing your finger at Zhu Chang and calling him a traitor.

"You three hall masters, along with these witnesses, are pointing fingers at each other. The question then becomes: who is lying?"

"What? I'm the mole?"

Li Yao was initially taken aback, then flew into a rage, pointing at Zhu Chang and roaring, "How could I be a mole? I saw with my own eyes that a red umbrella was floating above this scoundrel's head!"

Li Yao's two subordinates also looked completely bewildered.

"Master, but we saw Master Meng. We're not lying to you, we really saw Master Meng take the initiative."

Zhu Chang's subordinates also stepped forward, pointing at Li Yao: "We saw it with our own eyes, it was you, Hall Master Li!"

For a time, the three parties argued vehemently, each sticking to their own version of events.

"Shut up, all of you!"

Jiang Mu stopped them from continuing their noise and simply took them aside to question them one by one individually.

But none of these people could produce conclusive evidence, yet they were convinced that what they saw was true.

The situation suddenly reached a dead end.

Meng Zhen looked at Jiang Mu, who was deep in thought, hesitated for a moment, and then quietly suggested a possibility:

"Lord Jiang, I'm wondering if some kind of demon is deliberately transforming into our appearance to sow discord between us?"

Upon hearing this, everyone else present was stunned, their eyes flashing with suspicion.

After all, demons and monsters have all sorts of strange and wonderful methods, and such illusions that sow discord are not impossible.

Jiang Mu pondered for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the group, then carefully recalling the stone demon's words. A glint flashed in his eyes, and he said calmly:

"Let's go out first."

In his judgment, there was no other monster in the village besides the stone demon.

Therefore, the mole is 100% likely hidden among these three people.

This person clearly lacked the ability to kill everyone at once, and fearing that surviving alone would arouse suspicion, he deliberately muddied the waters.

Jiang Mu also had a guess in her heart.