The ultimate master in the city

The small mountain village, the smoke from cooking fires, and the snowflakes falling like goose feathers—the scenery is like a painting.

Zhou Fengchen stood outside the village and opened his Heavenly Eye to look at the house. He saw wisps of blue smoke rising from the roof, a sign of an evil spirit, but he couldn't tell what it was.

A "swamp forbidden woman" is worshipped. She has a neck several meters long, eats human brains, disguises herself as a Taoist priest, lives in the village, and seems to have done nothing to harm the villagers. What kind of monster is this?

He thought for a moment and said, "Alright! I'll go in first and see what's going on. Once I get my bag back, I'll lure him out and kill him."

I crunched through the snow until I reached the door of that house. I breathed a sigh of relief and peeked inside. What I saw made me pause in surprise.

The house had only one outer room and one inner room. The conditions were very simple, but the old furniture was arranged neatly. At this moment, an old woman with white hair was cooking rice porridge and chopping pickled vegetables in the outer room. From time to time, a woman's cough could be heard from the inner room. However, there was no sign of Master Mo Wei.

The old woman looked up and saw him. Speaking in a trembling voice in her barely understandable local dialect, she asked, "Who are you looking for?"

Who should I contact?

Zhou Fengchen peered into the inner room, but due to the angle, he couldn't see clearly whether Daoist Mo Wei was inside. However, he was certain that his bag was inside. He said, "I'm here to find... a friend."

The old lady blinked: "Who's your friend?"

"His name is Mo Wei!" Zhou Fengchen said.

"Look for him, but he's not here!" The old lady's tone suddenly became a little impatient as she lowered her head and continued chopping the pickled vegetables.

"Not here?" Zhou Fengchen was taken aback. He subconsciously looked back at the outside and then at the inner room. He thought to himself, "Never mind that." He stepped into the room and looked inside. Sure enough, Mo Wei was not there. There was a large wooden bed inside, and a woman in her thirties was lying on it. She was wearing a woolen hat and her face was a little pale. She coughed and looked up curiously. Her bag was on the table next to her.

"Hey, hey!" The old lady picked up the rolling pin with ease; despite her age, she was quite nimble. "Why are you like this? I told you he wasn't home, why did you still sneak into the house?"

"It's like this." Zhou Fengchen smiled and pointed to the bag on the table in the inner room, "That bag is mine. Mo Wei took it, and I'd like to take it with me. Is that alright?"

"Is that bag yours?" The old lady looked at him suspiciously, thought for a moment, put down the rolling pin, and said, "Wait here, I'll get it for you!"

She staggered into the inner room, but as soon as she reached the table, the woman lying on the bed reacted as if her hair had been blown off. She shoved the purse into the blankets, shouting, "Mother! What are you doing? This is Mo Wei's stuff! How can you just give it to someone else like that?"

The old lady sighed, "Xiuying! Didn't you hear what the young man outside was saying? The things belong to someone else."

The woman on the bed stopped coughing and stared wide-eyed. "He says it's his, so it's his? I looked inside, there was a lot of money and some other things. It's probably money Mo Wei earned doing religious ceremonies for people!"

The old lady shook her head, walked out, and closed the door to the inner room behind her.

Zhou Fengchen was extremely annoyed and asked, "What do you mean, Auntie?"

The old lady said, "My daughter doesn't want to give it to me, so... you should wait for Mo Wei to come back!"

Zhou Fengchen was a little confused about the relationship between Daoist Mo Wei and the old woman and her daughter. They seemed to be a family of three, but the mother and daughter were perfectly normal human beings. He asked, "When is Mo Wei coming back?"

The old lady said, "That's hard to say. He usually leaves at seven or eight in the morning and doesn't come back until it's dark at night. He just put down his bag and left. I don't know where he went."

Zhou Fengchen said, "You mean... I won't get the bag until tonight?"

"Almost there." The old lady continued chopping the pickled vegetables.

Zhou Fengchen thought for a moment and said, "I'd like to ask, what is the relationship between Mo Wei and your family?"

The old lady's face changed, and she said fiercely, "What the hell is going to happen to you? To marry such a poor, half-baked live-in son-in-law! Go away, go away! His friends aren't any better!"

As he spoke, he pushed Zhou Fengchen toward the door.

Zhou Fengchen was both amused and exasperated. He went outside and looked at the snowflakes, thinking to himself, "Mo Wei is such a monster! He actually became someone's live-in son-in-law!"

Getting the bag from the mother and daughter would be too easy; any trick would suffice. However, Mo Wei couldn't let this go, or he wouldn't be able to quell his anger.

Fine! I'll wait until tonight. Anyway, Yuanzhi and the landlady are going to die anyway, so there's no rush for them to live for another day or two.

He wandered aimlessly through the village for a while when he bumped into a young man in his thirties. The young man had messy, disheveled hair and was picking at his eyes. He seemed puzzled to see this stranger.

Zhou Fengchen thought for a moment, then took out the hundred-odd yuan in change he had in his pocket and neatly handed it over, saying, "Hey buddy, I need to ask you something!"

This village is nothing like Old Xu's or Zhang Feng's place; it's too poor! The young man's eyes lit up when he saw the money. He swallowed hard, reached out and snatched it. His Mandarin was passable, "You talk, you talk! We can chat all day."

Zhou Fengchen smiled. "Shall we find a place to shelter from the snow?"

"Okay, okay." The young man led him to a house full of hay on the edge of the village and sat down on the hay.

Zhou Fengchen asked, "Do you know Mo Wei?"

The young man slapped his thigh and said, "Of course I know. You've come to the right person. I know every hair on Mo Wei's body. He's the second son-in-law of the Li family."

"A second son-in-law who married into the family? Is that even a concept?" Zhou Fengchen asked again, "Then how did he come to be one?"

"This is a bit strange," the young man said in a low, cryptic voice. "I suspect he's an alien! Because his wife, Xiuying, gave birth to a baby alien a while ago, but it couldn't adapt to Earth and died!"

"Whoa—"

Zhou Fengchen was startled. "What do you mean? You're bringing aliens into this?"

The young man said with absolute certainty, "Absolutely! Let me explain."

Zhou Fengchen waved his hand: "Keep talking!"

The old man in the Li family died early, leaving only the mother and daughter to live together. The woman lying in bed is named Xiuying. In terms of appearance, she is one of the most beautiful women in the surrounding villages. Ten years ago, she took in a son-in-law who moved in with her family. The young man is quite reliable and capable, and the family of three lives a decent life.

This first son-in-law was not only skilled at farming and planting trees, but also adept at making tofu. He would make the tofu the night before and carry it to the town more than 30 miles away to sell at around 2 a.m., arriving at the market just as dawn broke.

One day, he got up very early again and went to the market town to pick up some tofu. However, he hadn't returned by noon, so Xiuying and her mother went to the village entrance to wait. They waited until the afternoon before they saw a middle-aged man in tattered clothes helping his son-in-law back.

However, this son-in-law was a dead son-in-law; his skull was opened, and not a single drop of his brain matter remained.

When Xiuying and her mother saw it, they almost fainted.

The ragged man was Mo Wei. He claimed to be a Taoist priest who had met his son-in-law on the way and died for some unknown reason.

Mo Wei didn't leave afterward. He busied himself helping with the funeral arrangements. When everything was done, he said he had nowhere to go, so he stayed at Old Li's house.

Unexpectedly, he ended up getting involved with Xiuying.

I like the novel "The Strongest Master in the City".