The evil god collects debts
The lingering impact of Ling Zhan's "too ugly" comment still reverberated in the air.
Shen Yan stared at the flattened pheasant feathers on the ground, as if she could hear the sound of her last bit of dignity as the peacock of Xicheng shattering.
Just as he was about to stubbornly try to regain his composure, Ling Zhan's icy eyes had already locked onto Officer Wang.
"Where is Zhao Kui?"
Her voice remained calm, without questioning, only with a cold, hard tone as if confirming coordinates.
Wang Tou'er felt a chill run down his spine from the stare and blurted out instinctively, "At this hour... he's probably still lying dead in his gambling den 'Fugui Lou' in the south of the city!"
Realizing her words were inappropriate, she added, her tone sharp but her voice weak, "Ling Zhan! You just escaped with your life, don't go causing trouble again! The marriage certificate is in effect, you're now a married person, behave yourself..."
Before he could finish speaking, Ling Zhan turned around and walked straight towards his dilapidated thatched hut.
"Hey? Where are you going?" Li Tou'er's fat face darkened.
Ling Zhan didn't stop, only uttering a cold, iron-like command, the target of which was Shen Yan:
"Keep an eye on them. I'll be back."
Shen Yan: "???"
Who? Who are you looking at? By what right?!
Is this woman out of her mind?
Before he could even unleash his fire, Ling Zhan's figure had already disappeared behind the breached door.
A rustling sound came from inside the room, and after a moment, Ling Zhan came out.
In her hand was a bolt as thick as a baby's arm, stained with dried, dark brown blood and mud...?
It was one of the murder weapons used by Zhao Kui's men when the original owner was beaten to death!
The simple wooden stick seemed to come alive in her hand, carrying a heavy, menacing aura. Just holding it made the surrounding air seem to freeze.
"What...what are you going to do with this?!"
Shen Yan's eyelids twitched wildly, and an extremely ominous premonition coiled around his spine like a cold, venomous snake.
Ling Zhan weighed the bolt in his hand, seemingly not entirely satisfied, but it was barely usable.
She raised her eyes, her gaze sweeping over Chen Yan and the group of terrified children behind him, finally settling on the official, and stated in a matter-of-fact, unquestionable tone:
"Zhao Kui owes me a life."
"Owe a life, repay a life."
"It's only natural."
Having said that, she picked up the bloodstained door bolt, ignoring the horrified gazes of everyone present, and strode towards the Fugui Building in the south of the city. Her thin, blood-stained figure moved through the dilapidated slums, each step unusually steady. The heavy door bolt dragged on the muddy ground, carving a shallow furrow and making a low, continuous "shh...shh..." sound, like death dragging its scythe, closing in step by step.
"She's gone mad! This woman has completely gone mad!" Li Tou'er's fat face turned ashen.
Wang's face was ashen. He looked at Ling Zhan's resolute back, then at Shen Yan and his gang of brats, and gritted his teeth: "Follow her! Don't let her really kill someone! This marriage was personally decided by the county magistrate. If the person dies right after the marriage... we won't be able to explain it!"
The two of them, no longer caring about being disgusted, hurriedly chased after him.
Shen Yan stared at the now empty doorway, then looked down at the children clinging to his legs, their big eyes filled with fear and confusion. A surge of rage shot through him. What kind of mess was this?!
He scratched his head in frustration, his gaze inadvertently sweeping over the flattened pheasant feather on the ground. A sudden pang of guilt struck him, and he instinctively bent down to pick it up, stuffing it haphazardly into his pocket as if it were the last shred of dignity he had left.
He cursed under his breath: "Damn it! What are you looking at! You little brats, get back inside and stay there! Nobody's allowed to come out! Waiting...waiting for that living devil to come back and serve dinner?!"
He shoved and pushed the children into his equally dilapidated shack, which could barely fit everyone, and slammed the broken door shut with a bang. It was no better than Ling Zhan's house. He leaned against the door and let out a long sigh of stale air.
My heart was in my throat, and my ears involuntarily perked up, listening for any sounds that might come from the south of the city.
The suppressed sobs and whispers coming from the shack only added to the unease.
He couldn't help but peek through the crack in the door, only to see an empty alley and a glaring drag mark on the ground left by the door latch. His ominous premonition grew stronger. This woman…could she really have gone and slaughtered Zhao Kui?!
In the back alley of Fugui Building in the south of Cangwu City, there is Zhao Kui's private courtyard for resting.
Later.
Wang and Li hurried as fast as they could, but they were still a step too late. When they turned into the alley behind the Fugui Building, panting and sweating profusely, filled with the pungent smell of urine and rotting garbage, an intensely nauseating stench of fresh blood assaulted their senses, choking them to their very breath!
The gate to Zhao Kui's courtyard, which was usually tightly closed and no one dared to approach, was now as if it had been hit hard by a battering ram. The two thick wooden doors were twisted and deformed, and one of them was hanging diagonally on the hinge, swaying precariously and emitting a tooth-grinding "creaking" groan.
Inside the door, there was an eerie silence.
Not even a painful groan could be heard, only a chilling silence.
The two officers exchanged a glance, both seeing a deep-seated fear in each other's eyes.
Wang Tou'er swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. He steeled himself, pulled out the iron ruler from his waist, and cautiously peered inside.
Ling Zhan's street brawls are fine, but this is Zhao Kui, the leader of the Black Tiger Gang!
She just nearly lost her life! How could this be...?
The scene inside the courtyard made the two seasoned veterans, who were used to street brawls and had even handled many murder scenes, feel their stomachs churning instantly!
A chill ran from the soles of my feet straight up to the top of my head, and my limbs and bones froze!
The courtyard wasn't large, and five or six burly men lay sprawled on the ground. They were all core henchmen of Zhao Kui, ruthless figures whose mere stomp could shake the ground in the south of the city. Now, their postures were contorted and bizarre, their limbs unnaturally bent, like rag dolls carelessly discarded by immense force. Their faces were frozen in extreme terror and pain, their eyes wide open as if they had witnessed the most horrific sight in the world before their deaths.
Without exception, all the injuries were caused by unimaginable force to the head or chest and abdomen. The skulls were collapsed like shattered eggshells, and the sternums were so deep that the outlines of the internal organs were visible. The flesh was mangled and the ground was stained with a large area of viscous blood and suspicious fluid.
What's chilling is that no one died on the spot!
They convulsed in agony or let out faint groans, as if they had fallen into the deepest hell.
The "murder weapon" that caused all this—the bloodstained door latch, its tip now stained with a mixture of red and white, looking particularly menacing—was casually held in Ling Zhan's hand. She stood in the center of the courtyard, her back to the doorway, with a person beneath her feet.
It was Zhao Kui, the leader of the Black Tiger Gang!
This tyrant, who usually ran rampant and arrogantly dominated the slums and even the entire southern part of the city, now lay sprawled in a pool of blood like a pile of rotten flesh with its bones removed, his limbs at bizarre angles, clearly all broken.
His obese body trembled violently, his throat emitting a hissing sound like a broken bellows, his fleshy face contorted beyond recognition by pain and fear, tears and snot streaming down his face, and a dark stain spreading from his crotch, emitting a pungent stench.
His gaze toward Ling Zhan was filled with utter despair and pleading, as if he were looking at Yama, the King of Hell, who held the power of life and death.
"Spare...spare my life...female bodhisattva...spare...spare my dog's life..."
Zhao Kui's voice was broken and fragmented, each word filled with blood and desperate sobs.
Ling Zhan looked down at him, her eyes devoid of anger or pleasure, only displaying a detached indifference, as if dealing with a nuisance. She slowly raised her foot, not to stomp him to death, but… precisely stepping on Zhao Kui's only remaining intact arm!
"Snap—!!!"
The chilling sound of bones cracking, accompanied by a pig-like scream, rang out again. Zhao Kui's arm visibly deformed and collapsed!
“The original Ling Zhan,” Ling Zhan began, his voice calm and even, as if he were reading a pre-prepared verdict, “was broken three of his ribs and struck on the head seven times with this door bolt, causing his internal organs to rupture and bleed. He struggled in agony for an hour before finally dying.”
With each sentence she spoke, she slightly stomped her feet.
Zhao Kui's screams were no longer human voices, only the dying, beast-like whimpers and hisses remained.
He died of exhaustion?!
Looking at Ling Zhan, who had begun to "talk nonsense," the constables were even more convinced that her brain must have been severely damaged in the mass grave!
“According to the law of conservation of energy and causality,” Ling Zhan continued in his cold, emotionless tone, “the pain you inflicted must be returned in kind.”
[Zero, activate pain nerve simulation conduction, synchronize with the original body's death process perception, output intensity: limit threshold.]
[Command confirmed.] Zero's electronic voice rang in Ling Zhan's mind, cold and efficient.
The next moment, Zhao Kui's heart-wrenching screams came to an abrupt halt! His eyes bulged out suddenly, his pupils dilated to their maximum size, almost filling his entire eye sockets, and the whites of his eyes were instantly covered with spiderweb-like blood vessels!
His body convulsed violently and uncontrollably, arching back as if repeatedly struck by an invisible giant hammer! The muscles in his face contorted to the limits of human facial expression; his mouth was wide open but no sound came out, only a strange, teeth-grinding "gurgling" sound emanating from his throat—
It was all the pain that Ling Zhan, the original owner of the body, had endured before his death that was precisely, without any attenuation, directly injected into his nervous system by Star Core Zero! This crushing pain, which came from the depths of his soul and was 100% replicated, far surpassed the physical torture and instantly destroyed all his will and perception.
Zhao Kui's body jerked violently a few times like a fish out of water, then suddenly stiffened and went completely limp.
The breath of life vanished quickly, like a candle flame being extinguished.
White foam mixed with blood overflowed from his mouth and nose, and the stench of incontinence became even stronger.
In just a few breaths, he was tortured to death by this pure mental torture that exceeded the limits of human endurance! Or rather, his mental consciousness was completely destroyed, causing his vital signs to end instantly.
Ling Zhan coldly stared at the lifeless body at her feet, confirming the message from Zero: "Target's life signal has disappeared." Only then did she move her foot, casually flicking away the blood and brain matter mixture stained with the door latch, a few drops of dark red liquid splashing onto the wall beside her.
She turned around and looked at the two officials at the door, their faces pale, their legs trembling like leaves, almost collapsing to the ground.
The first light of dawn perfectly outlined her thin, blood-stained profile.
The scene at her feet, resembling a battlefield, created a suffocating and terrifying contrast.
“He’s dead.” Ling Zhan stated the fact calmly, as if to say, “The sun is shining.”
“The murder weapon,” she said, waving the blood-stained door bolt in her hand—one of the weapons Zhao Kui’s men used to kill the original owner of this body. “It’s this door bolt. It’s a tool of legitimate self-defense.”
“The traces at the scene,” she pointed to the twisted gate and the thugs on the ground, looking as if they had been swept away by a hurricane, “prov that they violently broke in and intended to commit violence first.”
“Zhao Kui,” she glanced one last time at the mangled mess on the ground, “died suddenly from extreme fear and a relapse of old injuries.”
She presented a "perfect" conclusion, perfectly aligned with the definitions of "self-defense" and "accidental death" under the Great Yin Law, with clear logic and meticulous reasoning. Every word struck Wang Tou'er and Li Tou'er's hearts like a heavy hammer.
The two officers stared at the horrifying scene of chaos that filled the courtyard—
Twisted corpses, dark red stains soaking the ground, an overwhelming stench of blood in the air…
Then look at the woman in front of me, her murderous aura still lingering, carrying a weapon yet with a calm expression, as if she had just gone out to buy some vegetables! There wasn't even much blood on her body, only the door latch and the ground beneath her feet proved what she had just done.
I felt a chill seeping from my very bones; my hands and feet were icy cold, and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably.
This woman... is no longer human!
She is a ferocious beast in human skin! She is a demon who crawled out of hell!
Wang's throat went dry. He wanted to say something polite, but his lips trembled for a long time and he couldn't utter a single word. All that was left was heavy breathing.
Li Tou'er even vomited with a loud "waa," leaning against the wall, having almost vomited up all his bile.
"Case closed?"
Ling Zhan looked at them, using a question, but his eyes held an undeniable certainty.
That gaze was calm, yet it carried an invisible pressure that froze one's soul.
"Case closed... closed!!"
Wang Tou'er shouted almost in a heart-wrenching voice, his tone shrill and distorted: "Zhao Kui... Zhao Kui led a group to commit violence and forcibly broke into a private residence! Ling... Ling fought back in self-defense, and in the chaos, she... she was so frightened that her old illness relapsed and she died suddenly! The evidence is conclusive! This case... this case is closed! The murder weapon... the door bolt, was used in self-defense and does not need to be confiscated!"
He was rambling incoherently, only wanting to give this scourge a satisfactory answer as soon as possible and escape this hell!
As for the truth? Screw the truth!
Trying to reason with this monster? Do you think you have too much life ahead of you?
Anyway, scum like Zhao Kui deserves to die; the higher-ups are just hoping to avoid trouble! This case must be closed like this!
Ling Zhan nodded, expressing his satisfaction with the "verdict".
She casually tossed the door bolt that had rendered such a "great service" next to Zhao Kui's body, as if discarding a used, insignificant tool.
"Let's go."
She glanced at the two dazed officials, speaking as naturally as if instructing a guide, and strode out, her steps steady, as if she had just done a trivial task. "To Kaoshan Village. The marriage certificate."
Wang and Li were overjoyed, how could they dare utter a single word of dissent? They nodded and bowed repeatedly, practically scrambling to keep up: "Yes, yes, yes! Madam Ling, this way please! The carriage... the carriage is waiting at the alley entrance! Shen Yan... Shen Yan and his bunch of bastards are already... already waiting at home!"
The two of them rushed to lead the way.
He wished he could sprout wings and fly away from this bloody place immediately, as far away from that demon behind him as possible!
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