Pei Ye interrupted the youth’s vivid imitation.
“A newly deceased ghost is useless even for scaring the living.
How could she possibly have the ability to kill so many people?”
When she chatted with Zhu Chun’an yesterday, she gathered that the Heavenly Master Alliance’s Special Investigation Department had a decent number of Heavenly Masters, and Zhu Chun’an’s strength ranked fairly high among them.
If even Zhu Chun’an couldn’t subdue Lan Ying, it was impossible for there not to be something fishy going on.
The youth said, “I had the same doubt, so I caught a few more wandering ghosts near the hair salon and interrogated them.”
Lan Ying’s resentment before death was indeed heavy, but her strength as a fierce ghost wasn’t that great—she didn’t even have the ability to make herself visible to the living.
During the first two days after her death, she followed the hair salon boss around every day, but to no avail.
A wandering ghost—the subsequent Eyewitness Ghost Wu—advised Lan Ying to save her breath and stop wasting her energy.
Eyewitness Ghost Wu had shivered and said, “Who knows what that girl ate!
She devoured any person or ghost she laid eyes on!”
Pei Ye frowned deeply, guessing exactly what kind of people Eyewitness Ghost Wu meant when it said Lan Ying devoured them.
The hair salon was a black-market front where a human trafficking syndicate temporarily stashed their “goods” to lie low.
There was no telling how many “goods” they had hoarded on the day of the incident.
These victims were likely trafficked from all over, so they naturally wouldn’t be listed among the city’s local missing persons.
“What exactly did Lan Ying eat?
Whatever gave her the ability to kill couldn’t have been ordinary.” Pei Ye couldn’t figure it out.
“There’s another strange thing.
If she only gained this ability after eating some mysterious object, why didn’t she just devour the people who harmed her?
Why go cause trouble at the Five Crossroads?”
Zhu Chun’an, who had hurried back to the department, harbored the exact same doubt.
A colleague in charge of the case, wearing special gloves, held up a transparent ziplock bag containing a segment of a finger bone.
“It’s a provocation.
Someone is deliberately provoking the Heavenly Masters of the Special Investigation Department.”
Deliberately choosing to strike at the crossroads near University X, right where Zhu Chun’an was stationed—what was that if not a provocation?
What Lan Ying had eaten had also been thoroughly investigated.
“This is what Lan Ying ate.
When the yin messengers questioned her last night for clues about this thing, she couldn’t remember.
Even using the Soul Searching Technique revealed that this part of her memory was completely missing.”
The moment the yin messengers extracted this object from her body, Lan Ying’s yin energy plummeted drastically.
Previously comparable to a Four-direction Ghost King, she had now reverted to the level of an ordinary little ghost.
Zhu Chun’an stared at the finger bone for a long time.
“Such dense Evil Qi.”
Although it was Evil Qi, it didn’t feel tainted or foul.
“Take a look at this too.”
His colleague pulled up a few photos and turned her laptop screen toward Zhu Chun’an.
“This is?”
“Photos of an artifact unearthed twenty-two years ago.”
Zhu Chun’an was puzzled.
“What’s the connection between the two?”
Twenty-two years ago, he had only just been born, right?
His colleague was named Chai Sitian.
Her name sounded very cute and sweet, but in reality, she was a glamorous, mature woman who wore bright red lipstick every day—a rare female Heavenly Master in the department.
“Twenty-two years ago, an ancient emperor’s tomb complex was discovered on Ma Mountain.
It was perfectly preserved.
When the news spread, it shocked the archaeological world, and many experts and scholars rushed over.
However, that tomb was extremely cursed.
Within just a few days of excavation, a series of murders occurred.
The person overseeing that case back then was your master, Master Qingxuan.
The arm in this photo was the main culprit behind the murders at the time.
I heard it even alarmed Emperor Fengdu enough to visit in person, and it took a gathering of a hundred powerful Heavenly Masters to barely suppress it.”
Zhu Chun’an gasped sharply upon hearing this.
A single arm was this evil?
Just what kind of ruthless character could the owner of that arm have been while alive?
“Sister Sitian, do you mean…
this finger bone came from that arm?”
Chai Sitian nodded, her expression grave.
“This object isn’t suitable to remain in the mortal realm.
After the arm was suppressed, it was kept by Emperor Fengdu.
By all accounts, we should have been able to rest easy.
However, a rebellion broke out in Fengdu that year.
The fierce ghosts of the Eighteen Layers of Hell were incited by a traitor to riot; they broke out of the Ghost Gate and wreaked havoc on the human world.
The sealed arm was stolen during that time.
The mortal realm and Fengdu spent a long time catching the escaped fierce ghosts and locking them back in the Eighteen Layers of Hell.
Even now, there are still quite a few old ghosts hiding who knows where…
Because of this, the matter of the arm was delayed.
It’s been peaceful all these years, so I never expected a finger bone from that arm to appear now…”
Zhu Chun’an felt a chill run down the back of his neck.
He suddenly realized his luck last night had been off the charts.
If an entire arm required the combined efforts of Emperor Fengdu and a hundred powerful Heavenly Masters to suppress, how much power would a single finger bone from that arm possess?
Zhu Chun’an was talented, but he wouldn’t dare compare himself to the powerful Heavenly Masters of the previous generation.
“The fact that I survived last night really is thanks to the blessing of the ancestral masters!”
Chai Sitian said, “Indeed.
Master Qingxuan asked me to tell you to remember to buy some fresh fruit for the ancestral masters when you get back.”
“According to the laws of novels, I get the feeling that the other parts of the arm will appear one after another, setting off a bloody storm across the Divine Land!”
No sooner had Zhu Chun’an spoken than he was smacked by a furry tail.
“Sister Sitian, why did you hit me?!”
Chai Sitian gritted her teeth.
“I’m hitting you for being a jinx!”
The incident twenty-two years ago hadn’t just thrown mortals and the underworld into turmoil; the spirit monsters had suffered as well.
Tens of thousands of fierce ghosts had broken out of the Eighteen Layers of Hell.
Even though Chai Sitian’s parents were spirit monsters—fox spirits who had cultivated Six-tailed forms—they still couldn’t withstand the siege of those fierce ghosts.
That was when Chai Sitian lost her parents.
Fleeing from place to place, she left the deep mountains where she had lived in seclusion, and later met Master Qingxuan.
With such a heavy history, how did Zhu Chun’an have the nerve to joke around?
“This matter has not only drawn the attention of our superiors, but it has also alarmed Fengdu.
You’ve made a great contribution this time, so I applied for quite a few good things for you from the higher-ups.”
The rewards were generous, but Zhu Chun’an couldn’t bring himself to smile.
This matter was far too troubling.
With the previous generation of Heavenly Masters either retiring or entering seclusion, and the mortal realm’s Spiritual Energy thinning out several times over the past twenty-plus years, Cultivation had become increasingly difficult for the new generation of Heavenly Masters.
Caught in this awkward transitional period where the old had stepped down but the young had yet to fully take their place, there was a faint sense of an impending storm.
Naturally, Zhu Chun’an was worried.
“Sister Sitian, there’s no rush for those things.
Just apply for a bit more bonus money for your little brother, and a new phone.”
Zhu Chun’an flashed his good looks, attempting to bribe Chai Sitian with his charm.
“Are you short on money?”
Although Heavenly Masters were generally strapped for cash, a guy like Zhu Chun’an had great talent, completed many missions, and occasionally took on side jobs.
Money shouldn’t have been tight for him.
Zhu Chun’an said, “My narrow escape last night was entirely thanks to Senior Pei Ye.”
He wouldn’t hog the bonus subsidy from this mission all to himself; he didn’t have the face to do so anyway.
Chai Sitian asked, “Senior Pei Ye?
The expert you mentioned before, the one who made Lan Ying surrender without a fight using just a single cigarette?”
Zhu Chun’an nodded.
Chai Sitian flipped through the Heavenly Master registry, which recorded the rosters of Heavenly Masters from various sects, as well as some people who weren’t Heavenly Masters but had connections to them.
There was no one named Pei Ye.
This meant that the Senior Pei Ye whom Zhu Chun’an spoke of was an unregistered rogue cultivator.