"This place... this is where you 'play cards,' isn't it?" Li Ang, holding Lu Gui aloft, asked casually, "Looks quite upscale, huh."
Lu Gui's knees and shoulders were still dripping blood. He seed to realize his captor wouldn't let him go, so he remained silent.
Li Ang stood on the wooden floor, bouncing on the spot a few tis. With his Perception of 8, he could clearly feel that a section of the wooden floor in this room was hollow beneath.
Li Ang kicked open the mahjong table at the very back. The heavy mahjong table flew sideways, crashing to the ground. It revealed a square section of wooden flooring beneath, fitted with a copper ring handle.
So, this is it? Li Ang smiled, hooked his toe under the copper ring handle, and gently pulled, flipping open the wooden hatch.
The wooden hatch opened to reveal a wide staircase leading down. Li Ang descended the stairs into a spacious basent. He casually felt along the wall and pressed the light switch. The lights flickered on.
This was a large basent with pure white ceramic tiles on the floor and walls. Three of the walls were padded with thick mattresses. Near the ceiling on these walls, four thick iron spikes were driven in, each with an iron chain attached. At the end of each chain was a set of shackles: one pair of handcuffs and one pair of legcuffs. Beneath the shackles, several large mattresses were pushed together. It resembled a padded cell from a ntal asylum, used to confine patients prone to self-harm.
Li Ang used the lamppost to lift a set of shackles. Looking at the dried bloodstains on their inner surface, he smiled.
He walked to the center of the basent. A wooden TV stand sat there, holding a television set. Flanking the stand were nurous disc cases—all privately burned, without any labels.
The now ashen-faced Lu Gui watched as Li Ang's fingers skimd over the discs—one, two, three...
Li Ang silently straightened up, took a deep breath, turned, and left the basent, returning to ground level.
Inside the villa, the spider-like spectral figure remained prostrate. anwhile, the brothers Lu Maocai and Lu Maodian were sweating profusely, clutching the Wooden Long Stick and huddled in a corner of the second-floor living room.
Seeing Li Ang return, Lu Maodian shrieked, "Don't co any closer! Don't co any closer! Do you want money? I'll give you all my money! Just let
go! No, even if you hand
over to the authorities for trial, that's fine! Let
go, please..."
Li Ang shook his head. "When those won—kidnapped, sold, and locked in the basent—begged you, did you ever consider letting them go?"
Lu Maodian sobbed, "The law doesn't punish the masses! The law doesn't punish the masses! Everyone here had a part in it! You have no right..."
Li Ang blinked and said calmly, "If everyone who ca here to 'play cards' had a part in it, then they should all die."
He casually tossed Lu Gui out. The venerable old village chief traced an arc through the air, falling toward the prostrate spectral figure outside the villa door.
She leaped up suddenly, her mouth splitting wide like a massive jar, and deftly swallowed Lu Gui whole.
She landed on the ground. Her belly, unnaturally distended with a living person inside, was pale and semi-translucent, clearly showing the contours of Lu Gui's limbs.
"MMMPH! MMMPH! MMMPH! MMMPH!" Lu Gui struggled desperately inside the Ghost's belly, but his weak, powerless punches and kicks couldn't break him free.
SZZZZ— The Ghost's belly rapidly corroded Lu Gui's skin. Amidst screams of utter anguish, Lu Gui's body shrank at a visible rate, eventually withering into the shape of a deford infant, wailing miserably inside her stomach.
Inside the villa, the villagers were deathly pale with fright. Lu Maocai and Lu Maodian trembled uncontrollably, their pants completely soaked.
Li Ang stretched lazily, smiled at the Ghost, and said casually, "Do as you please."
The Ghost bowed her head to Li Ang in gratitude. When she looked up again, her form shot into the villa like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Screams, cries, pleas for rcy, and wails mingled with the sound of the wind and rain outside, creating an unbearable cacophony.
Li Ang watched calmly as the Ghost swallowed one adult male villager after another, dissolving them into a pile of ugly, deford infants. They were all squeezed together in her grotesquely swollen belly, continuously screaming, constantly suffering the intense pain of being lted and corroded, yet unable to die for a long, long ti.
This eternal punishnt might not bring back the won who had died so horribly in the basent, nor could it offer solace to their families. But at least it would make these inhuman monsters feel the pain their victims had once endured, every second of every day for the rest of their wretched lives.
Delayed justice demanded a harsher judgnt to compensate. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.
After the devouring frenzy, only a few oblivious won, children, and villagers who hadn't participated in the "card gas" remained in the villa. They stood in the devastated hall, looking at Li Ang, whose expression was as calm as still water, unsure how to face him.
Hate? They weren't worthy. Resentnt? They didn't dare.
In the end, the survivors could only watch helplessly as Li Ang and the Ghost—who now wriggled and crawled like a bloated caterpillar—left the villa together.
Outside the villa's main gate stood a man, his figure Broken and spectral, like a re shadow. This Ghost was none other than the sacrificed village teacher, ng Qixi.
Seeing Li Ang erge, the severely Broken ng Qixi said little, rely bowing deeply.
Li Ang nodded and asked casually, "Are you a player?" Li Ang didn't sense the profound resentnt most Ghosts possessed from ng Qixi. ng Qixi's consciousness was remarkably clear, and he was unnaturally calm for a typical Ghost.
"Yes." ng Qixi nodded, revealing his Lv. 3 player status. The l&a!te@st c#ha@p*ter#s- are a*l#w-ays av@a@ila-b le* fi-rst^ on *.@
"How long have you two been... aware?"
"I died six months ago and only beca a Ghost, and a player, two months ago." ng Qixi smiled bitterly and pointed to the naless female Ghost crawling on the ground. "She beca aware even earlier than I did, turning into a Ghost seven months ago. Perhaps her resentnt was heavier, so she couldn't gain player status."
Li Ang frowned. "No one else turned into a Ghost?"
"No." ng Qixi shook his head. "I only found out after I died, from the Lone Ghosts wandering the nearby mountains, that for the past twenty years or so, a group of villagers, including Lu Gui and Lu He, had been buying young won to satisfy their private desires. I don't know how many were confined in that basent, dying unmourned..."
He glanced at the female Ghost crawling on the ground and sighed sorrowfully. "For the past few months, she and I have been planning our revenge. But even now, I don't know her na, where she ca from, or even when she died. She's... just one of the many victims, I suppose."
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