Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
“Hey, attention! Did you hear me? I’m talking to you!”
Little Chu shook his hand hard in front of Little Zhou.
The chained-up high school student did not respond at all. The same blank, dull expression was on his face.
Little Chu looked towards Tang Luo. “He seems to have gone dumb.”
Tang Luo walked over, reached out, pressed his hand on Little Zhou’s head, and a faint golden glow came out of it.
“Eh?” Little Chu froze for a moment. That glow was exactly the same as the glow that had come out of his body the previous night!
“Master, last night, it was you, not a new ability of mine?” asked Little Chu loudly.
‘I don’t believe it, it’s not true!’
“It was me.” Tang Luo withdrew his hand and admitted it. “Just a little skill, it’s not worth speaking about.”
“…”
Little Chu wanted to disappear in shame.
He had actually told Zhou Zhenguo about some skill he had acquired and thought he was some unique, special Employee of Gods and Demons.
‘Master Xuanzang must have secretly laughed in his mind. Master, you actually have a dark heart, don’t you?’
Little Chu continued inquiring. “Then just now, I suddenly being able to move again…”
“It was me as well.” Tang Luo smiled and nodded.
He had no intention of showing off that he had saved someone’s life to make people be grateful to him. After all, he would benefit from the power of virtuous merits.
The Victorious Fighting Buddha didn’t save people to receive anything in return—such was his state of mind!
But since Little Chu had sincerely inquired, of course, Tang Luo answered generously, “Yes, I have saved you many times, Benefactor Chu.”
“Thank you so much, Master.” Little Chu scratched his head, not knowing what to say, and then pointed to Little Zhou and asked, “Master, what’s wrong with him?”
He could only change the subject a little bit. The identity of a life-saving benefactor was too big a deal. He couldn’t possibly really kneel down and lick his feet, right?
‘I, Chu Chongtian, still have some dignity!’
“Evil aura has entered his body, breaking his organs into thousands of pieces,” said Tang Luo. “Even the gods can’t save him.”
Though the power of virtuous merits had many amazing uses, it was not omnipotent.
By consuming the power of virtuous merits to save people, one would also gain the power of virtuous merits. But there was no link between the consumption and the gain. It was not like the more consumed, the more gained.
Little Zhou’s situation was really beyond the ability of even gods. Thousands of holes was not rhetoric, but a simple description. He looked intact because an external strand of aura supported him, keeping the surface appearance. And that strand of aura was also the ultimate culprit to Little Zhou’s situation now.
The evil aura that entered the body, as Tang Luo said. Even if he turned the power of virtuous merits into healing methods, it would be a high-risk operation that would kill him more than save him.
The consumption was also not low. If Little Zhou had pretty good strength himself, and Tang Luo had massive amounts of power of virtuous merits, he might be able to give it a try.
But right now, forget it.
Tang Luo was not a Goddess of Mercy or a savior of the condemned.
Back then, Maitreya1’s description of him was the following:
“Reincarnation of Golden Cicada, his nature similar to a demon.”
In layman’s terms, it meant, “You f*cking look like a demonic monk!”
“He isn’t in danger, right?” Zhou Zhenguo’s voice came from the stairs.
“There’s no cure, he can’t be saved, not in danger.” Tang Luo gave three continuous statements.
At the moment, Little Zhou was an empty shell. Li Liang was definitely able to beat him right now because Little Zhou wouldn’t resist at all.
Zhou Zhenguo released the chain as he walked over. He had used his skill twice, buy it was a pity that neither of those was greatly helpful.
Little Zhou was still sitting on the chair, neither happy nor sad.
“It’s Old John. He was also crippled,” said Zhou Zhenguo. “We’ve all been duped. What’s the matter with him?”
Little Chu relayed what Tang Luo had just said to Zhou Zhenguo. He also told him about Tang Luo saving them along the way.
“Thank you so much,” said Zhou Zhenguo.
He had to be a veteran, no mistake. He didn’t linger on this issue too much.
“Where are the other two?”
“I’ll go and take a look,” said Little Chu, before running towards the stairs.
After a while, Li Liang yelled out loudly. With his face still much swollen, he walked down behind Little Chu.
Little Chu was calm.
‘It’s just a corpse cut into two, no? There isn’t even any blood, what’s to be afraid of?’ He, Chu Chongtian, had seen much gorier scenes than this.
Zhou Zhenguo looked at Li Liang, who was brought over by Little Chu and asked, “What’s up with your face? What happened?”
Li Liang started speaking with his face twisting in pain.
…
After a few minutes, Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Zhongtian both looked at Li Liang strangely.
Internal disagreement and a fight?
Lost the fight with head beaten into a pig’s head?
Then fell asleep like fainting?
And knew nothing about what happened?
In the end, he was woken up by Chu Chongtian.
Out of Li Liang’s original two companions, one was missing, and the other had an evil aura inside him that caused him to become so demented that even the gods could not save him.
Li Liang was surprisingly okay. With such an experience, he could pretty much be the lucky star of the group now.
“I didn’t do it. I really don’t know what happened.” Li Liang repeatedly emphasized.
Zhou Zhenguo didn’t know what kind of facial expression to make.
Chu Chongtian looked at Tang Luo and said, “Master, Old John is already dead, why hasn’t our mission changed at all. Is he not the Ripper?”
“Maybe your guess is right,” said Zhou Zhenguo.
“Huh?”
“Jack the Ripper might be an organization,” said Zhou Zhenguo. “But not the organization that we found.”
“That’s possible.” Chu Chongtian was already not as confident as he was at the beginning.
“Possession.” Tang Luo spoke.
“Possession?” All three were stunned for a moment, including the new lucky star, Li Liang.
“Jack the Ripper has a special ability to possess others’ bodies,” said Tang Luo.
“Yes!” Chu Chongtian clapped his hands forcefully. “The reason that Old John didn’t leave any clues was that he really wasn’t the murderer, he was possessed by Jack the Ripper!
“Jack the Ripper has committed multiple crimes, coming and going stealthily, never leaving any real clue, because he’s not a person at all.”
“That’s trouble.” Zhou Zhenguo nodded. This speculation was more reliable than Jack the Ripper being an organization.
But it also meant that it is harder to find him. After all, an organization was a group, and with many people, there would inevitably be flaws.
However, Jack the Ripper was just a person. He intended to hide, and he had the ability to possess others. How could they find him then?
It would be very difficult to ask for help from Cotland Yard.
Jack the Ripper had a possessive ability, and he had always been possessing others to commit crimes.
If they spoke of this, the detectives of Cotland Yard might take Tang Luo’s group as lunatics and arrest them directly.
At least, on the surface, there was no supernatural power in the world for their mission, in this small city.
If it had to be categorized as a film, it should be a ghostly kind of horror movie. Ghosts were strong, humans were weak, and they had almost no means for resistance.
Here, Jack the Ripper was a ghost. As for the Employees of Gods and Demons, they were the likes of priests, exorcists, monks, etc. They were roles that had the ability to fight against ghosts.
It was impossible to count on local forces for assistance.
Well, maybe not entirely impossible.
The Resurrected, a product of the organization’s research, was also arguably a supernatural existence, and under certain circumstances, it might aid them in the resistance against Jack the Ripper.
A wise man might use it himself to fight against his enemy, and then sit and reap profits.
Unfortunately, Tang Luo had blasted it apart.
Chu Chongtian suddenly thought of a question. “Since Jack the Ripper can possess bodies, then can it be that they didn’t die?”
Bi Wanhui and Cheng Cheng were both missing. Could they have been taken away by the Ripper as containers for possession? Could this be the reason for corpse disappearances?
But what was the matter with what Zhou Zhenguo had seen the first night? Could Jack the Ripper have more than one special ability?
The more he thought about it, the more confused he felt. Chu Chongtian realized he was not a wise man at all. Maybe, in the future, he should learn from Master Xuanzang and fight scheming with sheer force.
Without any need for thinking, the problem could be solved by merely knocking over a table. If it couldn’t, that’s because the table knocked over was not big and heavy enough.
“It doesn’t matter whether they died. More importantly, we’ve lost all our clues now,” said Zhou Zhenguo.
“Well, not all.”
Li Liang had been listening from the side and had understood what happened. He suddenly said, “On the first night, you saw me dead. Then, the Ripper shouldn’t have been on that John or something, right? Could it have been on a priest or a nun—”
Li Liang didn’t finish his sentence because Chu Chongtian and Zhou Zhenguo were staring at him.
“Why are you guys staring at me?”
“I’m thinking. On the first night, could it actually have been you who was possessed? This would explain your death-like state.” Chu Chongtian kept analyzing. “This way, all the questions can be explained. Jack the Ripper possessed your body and pretended to be a corpse, planning to kill the others. In the end, he met Uncle Zhou. Uncle Zhou is a veteran, he was sure to have some means to stay alive, and Jack the Ripper left after seeing that the deed could not be done.
“Consequently, because of what happened on the first night, we were wary of companions, and Jack the Ripper couldn’t easily possess one of us anymore. As such, on the second night, the Ripper chose to possess Old John, kill Cheng Cheng, take away her body, and cause panic.
“And tonight, he used Old John again to kill Bi Wanhui, take away the corpse, and strike Little Zhou dumb. If not for Uncle Zhou being alert and greeting with the chains first before meeting, it might not have been Old John who attacked us, but ‘Little Zhou’.
“Little Zhou was locked, so the Ripper changed to Old John, who was eventually killed by Master Xuanzang. But it was merely Old John who died, and the Ripper himself actually escaped. His possession must not be a simple possession, either. The target of the possession must have combat powers far beyond ordinary people.”
After analyzing all this in one breath, Chu Chongtian said to himself, ‘So nice.’
Maybe he needed time to evolve into a wise man, after all?
“Well said!” Zhou Zhenguo clapped a few times, agreeing to Chu Chongtian’s analysis.
‘The mind of the young work faster, after all.’
“Oh, is that so…” Li Liang felt that he should continue to slack.
“But, what’s the use of that? We still have no clue.” Chu Chongtian gave a bitter laugh.
The analysis was indeed impressive, but how did it help with the situation at hand? They still had no clues and couldn’t even slowly explore to figure things out.