Chapter 121: Lu Xing and Lu Jin

Carrying the dripping head, Lu Xing walked through the narrow, gloomy corridor and entered the adjacent room.

This room had a similar layout to the one next door, except here, a woman was tied to the wire-frame bed.

Her filthy coat couldn't hide her fair skin. Her face was pure and lovely, the kind that was impossible to forget after a single glance.

Thud! Lu Xing casually tossed the old man's head into the room. He sat down next to the woman, a twisted affection in his eyes. "I finally found the killer of the Death God. This old thing kept his mouth shut tight."

The woman turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut, seemingly unwilling to look at him.

"Aren't you curious who killed the Death God?" Lu Xing pulled out a bloody piece of fishing line and gently dragged it across the woman's cheek. "You have to be. After all, you know him. He probably provoked me just for you."

At this, the woman opened her eyes.

"Starting to get curious?" The fishing line in Lu Xing's hand trailed over her nose, lips, and chin before finally pressing against her neck. "The human body is such an exquisite toy. With just a gentle press like this, you can experience the ultimate pleasure."

The woman's hands and feet were bound. She couldn't resist, no matter what Lu Xing did to her. "Who is it?"

"I thought you were never going to talk to me again, my lovely little sister." Lu Xing toyed with the woman's hair with one hand. "Xiaofeng, tell me, if I hadn't shown up, would you be living happily with that man right now? You'd cook every day and wait for him to come home, you'd watch TV and chat together, and when night fell, you could do the most delightful things with your favorite person. What a desirable life!"

Lu Xing let out a sick laugh. He wrapped the fishing line around Xiaofeng's neck, loop by loop, pulling it tighter and tighter until blood trickled out.

"Unfortunately, that was all a fantasy. I'm back, and you are destined to be a puppet in my hands. I will lead you by this fishing line, and you can only follow me. You are my toy, and I won't allow anyone else to lay a finger on you!"

After he finished speaking, Lu Xing picked up the old man's head and placed it on Xiaofeng's bed. "Everyone who tries to steal you away from me, everyone who tries to stop me—they will all share the exact same fate."

He smiled and patted the old man's head, then stood up. "The person who killed the Death God is named Gao Jian. The very same Gao Jian you yearn for day and night. Don't worry, I'll bring him back. I just don't know if you'd prefer his head, his hands, or some other organ."

Xiaofeng wanted to speak, but the fishing line had already cut into her flesh; even breathing was painful.

"Don't be in such a rush. It seems you aren't sure either. Then I'll just take him apart and bring all the pieces back for you to choose yourself!" Lu Xing's expression was terrifying. Half of his face was flawless and handsome, calm and perfectly still, while the scar-covered half twisted into a hideous sneer.

After Lu Xing had walked far enough away, a six-inch-long centipede crawled out from beneath Xiaofeng's filthy coat. The centipede was quite intelligent; it didn't harm Xiaofeng, but merely spat a liquid onto the bed that only a Gu master could smell.

Lu Xing left the room where Xiaofeng was imprisoned, changed out of his bloodstained clothes, and walked out of the basement.

From the outside, it was just an ordinary commercial building, with nothing strange about it at all.

"Did you find out who killed the Death God?" a pair of twins asked in unison. The older brother had a large birthmark on his face, while the younger brother was handsome.

"You don't need to worry about this. I'll take care of him myself."

"Lu Xing, don't be careless. Jiangcheng hasn't been peaceful lately. Four of the eight array cores left by the Buddha have been destroyed. We need to release all the Eight Characters Divine Fiends before the other four are destroyed."

"What? Do you two want to interfere with my business?" Lu Xing took a baseball cap and pulled it over his head, hiding most of his face.

His tone was hostile, and the twins clearly grew nervous. "We didn't mean that. We just wanted to warn you. It seems a faction in Jiangcheng has noticed us and is secretly working against us."

"I'll handle all of that." Lu Xing walked to the deepest part of the shop, where a statue of Lord Guan was enshrined. He lit three sticks of incense and stuck them into the burner, then turned the statue around. Carved starkly into the back of the idol were two completely opposite Buddha faces.

Opening the statue, Lu Xing took out a pure black eyeball from inside.

"A Soul-Reaping Fate Ghost! Lu Xing, this ghost has already come into its full power. It will commit boundless slaughter!" The twins' teeth chattered when they saw the eyeball in Lu Xing's hand, as if they were looking at something absolutely terrifying.

"Mind your own business. If you still haven't found the Blank Scroll the Buddha lost twenty years ago by the time I get back, there will probably be two identical corpses buried beneath this little shop."

"Rest assured, we've already figured it out. That scroll is with Huang Boyuan's second daughter."

The two spread a map of Jiangcheng out on the table. Eight locations were marked on it, four of which were written in red: Anxin Hotel Corpse Suppression Well, Xinhu High School Incineration Trench, Bridge No. 3 Crematorium, and Henshan Psychiatric Hospital.

As for the fifth location, it was marked in black ink: "Tongsang Tomb!"

"Very well. Go ahead and do it. The winds in Jiangcheng are about to change." Lu Xing put the pure black eyeball into his pocket and took out two pictures from a drawer. One was a newspaper clipping about Tie Ningxiang, and the other was a screenshot from a surveillance video.

"Gao Jian, you stole my sister's heart, so I will kill the person you love the most. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—that is what you call fair!"

...

Flowers bloom with two faces; life treads between Buddha and demon.

Wei Ling and Zhong Jiu—whose neck was wrapped in bandages—stood against the wall inside a five-star hotel in Jiangcheng. The two men wore sharp suits and leather shoes, their heads bowed. They didn't dare meet the gaze of the person in front of them.

"What did Master instruct you to do before he left? He told you two to guard me, and what was the result?" Lu Jin, now dressed in a brand-new Daoist robe, sat in a recliner by the window, gently blowing on the expensive tea leaves in his cup.

"Uncle-Master Ziqiu, we truly did our best. We just never expected that he could break the Draw the Ground as a Prison Curse and let that dog loose. We were caught off guard, so..."

"So you are blaming my shallow Daoist methods?"

Lu Jin's face darkened, and the two men hurriedly waved their hands. "No, no, no, we were just careless."

"Trash!" He slammed his teacup onto the table. His fingers lightly traced his neck. It was unknown what miraculous medicine Lu Jin had used, but at this moment, there wasn't a single strangulation mark visible on his throat.

"I am the direct successor of the Profound Truth Dao, yet I nearly died in this tiny Jiangcheng, and at the hands of a mere mortal no less." His tone was gloomy, and his complexion grew uglier by the second. "Do you have the results of the matter I asked you to investigate?"

"Yes, we've investigated everything clearly. That Gao Jian is just a third-rate detective who runs an adult goods store on Ting Tang Road. In his early years, he learned basic grappling and combat at the police academy, but was later expelled due to his suspected involvement in a serial murder case."

"Is that it? He's just a thug who got expelled from the police academy?"

"We interviewed a lot of people, including his former classmates. The man is completely useless—basically just a piece of trash waiting to die."

Lu Jin laughed out of extreme anger at Wei Ling and Zhong Jiu's words. "I really don't know if he's the trash, or if you two are just incompetent. A mere piece of trash waiting to die could break my Profound Truth Dao Method? Could know about Xinhu High School? And dare to snatch the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman from me?!"

Taking a sip of tea, Lu Jin steadied his tone. "Keep digging. Screen everyone who has come into contact with him recently. There must be an unspeakable secret hidden on this man!"

At this point, Zhong Jiu suddenly remembered something. "Uncle-Master Ziqiu, there's one thing I should tell you. When we sought help from the local public security, that captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade seemed to be deliberately hiding Gao Jian's files. Her relationship with Gao Jian is definitely not ordinary."

"Captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade?"

"I think her name is Tie Ningxiang. You should have seen her when I drove you to Pine Forest Cemetery to dispel the fog."

"I've seen her too?" Lu Jin pondered for a moment before his furrowed brows suddenly relaxed. "So that female officer with the outstanding temperament and natural body fragrance is named Tie Ningxiang. Wonderful. Since she's protecting Gao Jian, their relationship must not be ordinary. I've finally thought of a way to make Gao Jian suffer in regret for the rest of his life."

Lu Jin took out his phone. "Is this Officer Chen Jianguo? I heard you have a very good relationship with the retired Deputy Bureau Chief Tie. I'll have to trouble you to invite him out; there are some matters I need to discuss with him in detail. Right, remember to have him bring his daughter along—yes, Tie Ningxiang."