Chapter 406: Mr. Paper

Li Changgui did not mention his family fortune in his second letter. Instead, he left behind three tasks his descendants had to complete before his burial.

First, build two Buddhist halls at the foot of Henshan. One had to face the sun, the other away from it. The eight Buddhist treasures were to be arranged inside, and the Buddha statue could not have any carved facial features—meaning they were to enshrine a faceless Buddha.

Second, strictly guard the Li Group's commercial secrets. If a man named Lu Xing ever came looking for them, they were to help him with everything they had.

Third, go to Suolong Village in the Depths of Henshan, bring out the Clay Figurine from the ancestral hall, and bury it alongside him.

Li Changgui had explained these three points incredibly clearly in the letter, but his descendants hadn't taken them to heart. Not a single one had been fulfilled.

The end of the letter stated that he would not rest in peace unless these three tasks were completed. He had underestimated the shameless depravity of his adopted son, Li Chunqiang, who completely ignored his words and forged a fake will to swallow the fortune for himself.

“Knowing a person's face does not mean knowing their heart. Li Changgui dominated the Xinhu business world for so many years; to think he'd fall by his adopted son's hand in his old age. Fate plays tricks on people.” The moment I saw the line in the letter—telling them to help Lu Xing with everything they had—I was certain that a connection existed between Li Changgui and the Two-Faced Buddha. It was actually a good thing his sudden death gave Li Chunqiang the chance to swap the wills. Otherwise, I would likely be facing combined suppression from the Xinhu Li Group and the Jiang family.

The final demand in the will was to go to Suolong Village. This abandoned little village was located in the Depths of Henshan. When Tie Ningxiang was hunting Lu Xing for the first time, police officers had gone there, and it hadn't ended well. One officer went mad after being trapped in a dry well, and another vanished entirely in the vast mountains, still missing to this day.

'The Suolong Village ancestral hall? Could that place be related to the Two-Faced Buddha too? Why did Li Changgui want the Clay Figurine buried with him? Is there some special significance to it?' My mind raced, only now realizing that I barely knew anything about Li Changgui. All my information on him was fuzzy, and Li Jingyu hadn't revealed much about her father to me, either.

It felt as though someone in the room was staring right back at me. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and I couldn't quite tell if it was the Double-Faced Buddha Statue looking at me, or Li Changgui's black-and-white photo.

“Death is like the snuffing of a lamp. Stop worrying about matters in the Yang Realm. I'll get justice for you.” I reached out and laid Li Changgui's black-and-white photo face down, then picked up the Double-Faced Buddha Statue and headed back to the study.

The woman was standing in the corner of the room, occasionally sneaking glances at Wang Yuchun, who was sitting on top of the safe.

I placed the Double-Faced Buddha Statue down in front of her and cut straight to the chase. "Tell me everything you know about Li Changgui and Shuangfo District. I want the truth. If you dare to hide anything or lie..."

I flicked my fingers. Wang Yuchun and Tian Teng boxed the woman in from both sides, their Yin energy chilling to the bone.

“I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!”

During the ensuing conversation, I learned that this woman was Li Changgui's private secretary. Aside from taking care of his daily life, she was also responsible for relaying some of his orders to the company.

She had originally been a university student sponsored by Li Changgui. Sweet, obedient, and sensible, she had won his great affection. However, that was just an act she put on for him. In reality, she had been sleeping with Li Chunqiang for a long time. They had started plotting together five years ago, right after Li Chunqiang first eavesdropped on the contents of the will. They had been hoping for Li Changgui to die ever since.

Li Changgui was rigid and conservative. In his youth, he had fought tooth and nail in Xinhu to build his current foundation. In his middle age, he began practicing Buddhism. He became passionate about charity and frequently did things that baffled everyone else.

Yet, time and time again, those baffling actions were proven right in hindsight.

For example, during the peak of his company's power, everyone hoped he would expand into other provinces. Instead, he dove headfirst into the real estate industry, buying up massive tracts of land from the government and actively taking on the heavy burden of developing Shuangfo District. It was no exaggeration to say that without the Li Group, Shuangfo District wouldn't exist.

The current location of the Xinhu Double Buddha District was a bit awkward, but during the height of the real estate boom, Li Changgui's move had breathed life into Xinhu City's entire economy. Following Shuangfo District, industrial zones like Haixing District gradually began to emerge one after another.

According to the secretary's recollections, Li Changgui hadn't originally planned to invest in Shuangfo District. He only changed his mind after meeting a certain person. That person currently held a position in the Li Group and owned seven percent of its shares, making him the largest shareholder besides Li Chunqiang.

Li Changgui called this person Mr. Paper. His real name was unknown, and he dressed incredibly bizarrely. No matter when he was seen, he was always wearing the same white overcoat.

I had no idea if the surname "Paper" even existed, but I patiently listened to the rest of what she had to say.

As her understanding deepened, the secretary slowly discovered that many of Li Changgui's bizarre actions had actually been instructed by Mr. Paper. Take the design blueprints for Shuangfo District, for instance. Li Changgui had originally hired out-of-province experts to design it, determined to turn Shuangfo District into the most prosperous area in Xinhu. Unfortunately, before the experts could even provide a draft, Mr. Paper presented a set of architectural maps and demanded that Li Changgui develop the district strictly according to its layout.

The secretary had taken a peek at those blueprints. The road planning was a mess, and buildings with entirely different functions were jumbled together. Developing the area like that was pure nonsense; it would never attract any businesses.

Yet Li Changgui had treated this utterly incomprehensible design like an imperial decree. Defying all opposition, he poured funds into its construction.

It took several years to finish building Shuangfo District. Ever since its completion, strange things would happen inside the district every so often. Fast-forward to today, and you wouldn't just struggle to find a living person on the streets at night—even stray cats and dogs were a rare sight.

What was even more bizarre was that, at some unknown point, the number of disabled people living in the district began to increase. It was as if all the disabled residents of Xinhu and the surrounding counties had converged there.

The secretary had once eavesdropped on a conversation between Mr. Paper and Li Changgui from outside the door. The gist of it was that the Buddha wanted to establish Shuangfo District as a Buddhist Pure Land. Emulating Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, he was going to make a great vow and accumulate merit.

In Daoist philosophy, the Way of Heaven diminishes excess to make up for deficiency. The Buddha wanted to merge Buddhism and Daoism. Using a disabled congregation, he would cross the sea of suffering and cultivate a path to perfect completion.

According to the secretary's speculations, Li Changgui might have been a disciple of this Buddha himself, because Li Changgui also had a bodily deficiency. He was infertile. This was a medical fact diagnosed in his early years. But the strange thing was that Wang Yuchun had later gotten pregnant with his child. This was very likely a manifestation of the Buddha's power—karmic fruit for everything Li Changgui had done for the Buddha.

The secretary was just parroting what she had heard, recalling things in bits and pieces and occasionally dropping a crucial sentence or two.

After piecing together a rough summary, I retrieved the fake will that she and Li Chunqiang had forged from the safe and took it with me. Then, I turned on my phone's voice recorder and asked her a few things about her relationship with Li Chunqiang, making her clearly explain the exact process of how they had forged the will and bribed the notary office staff.

She had only gotten halfway through when a faint light flashed outside the window. I used my Judging Eye and spotted several sedans driving toward the villa.

It was highly likely that Li Chunqiang had returned. I didn't dare stick around. I knocked the secretary unconscious, recalled the Seductive Ghost and the Filthy Ghost, and quickly fled.

After leaving the villa, I rushed out of Shuangfo District without stopping. It wasn't until I made it back to Haixing District around 11 PM that I finally relaxed.

I gave Li Jingyu a call. To save time and avoid making another trip tomorrow, I headed straight for her rented apartment without even waiting to see if she agreed.

I waited a few minutes before the door opened. The displeasure and vigilance in Li Jingyu's eyes began to shift the moment I pulled out my phone and the forged will. By the time she finished listening to the recording, she was gnashing her teeth, completely speechless for a good long while.

“These should be enough to help you. I hope you'll fulfill your end of the promise as soon as possible, too.” I didn't leave the evidence with Li Jingyu. Right now, she didn't have the power to protect it.

“Thank you. I never expected you to uncover so much in a single day.” Li Jingyu dropped her previous coldness. Her voice was tinged with excitement, and she didn't even notice the shoulder strap of her long dress slipping down.