Translator: Cinder Translations
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The fatty pressed his lips tightly together, tilting his head to the side. "Who would ever pay for a burden?" Jiang Cheng heard him say.
"Fat brother." After hesitating for a moment, Chen Qiang finally spoke up, "I don't know what your relationship with that little beggar was, but she's already dead. Even if we took her back, she wouldn't come back to life."
"And you should have noticed, this whole thing is a trap. They want to force us into making a move, and they've already set up an ambush."
The fatty completely ignored Chen Qiang's words. His large body was trembling slightly, and due to the angle, Jiang Cheng couldn't see his face.
"Here, take this." Jiang Cheng said.
Hearing this, the fatty froze for a moment, then slowly turned his head back. His eyes were severely bloodshot, and as he turned, he avoided letting the doctor see his face.
"Here, take this." Jiang Cheng pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to the fatty. "It's something that fell off the child. I found it."
The fatty took it. In his palm was a pearl, one that seemed to have once been part of some piece of jewelry. There was a broken edge on one side, as if it had been forcibly torn off.
Holding the pearl, the fatty trembled, staring at the doctor as if trying to see through the calm expression on his face.
"Fatty." Jiang Cheng reached out as if to pat his head, but stopped halfway, then instead patted his shoulder. "This is real. I didn't lie to you." He looked into the fatty's eyes and said, "I promise."
Only then did the fatty look down at the pearl. A few seconds later, tears filled his eyes once again, dropping onto the pearl, onto his hands.
"Doctor." He clutched the pearl, choking up as he said, "Did you hear what they said? This child was beaten to death because she stole something from the mansion. How could it have been just food?"
"She died because she was trying to help us. She was helping us!" The fatty said, his voice full of emotion. "I killed her! I killed her!"
"She trusted me so much, and I couldn't even protect her body."
"If you keep crying like this, you might die too, and forget about avenging her." The suffocating tension remained until the door opened, and Xia Meng walked in.
The fatty froze, then shifted his gaze away from Xia Meng and looked at the doctor, as if asking for confirmation.
Jiang Cheng nodded. "When you were unconscious, An Xuan came back. He brought some very important information."
"If this information is true, then there might be a very intense conflict between us and Housekeeper Zhou's group." Jiang Cheng said, "Perhaps the only way for us to survive is to eliminate them."
At these words, the fatty suddenly jumped up from the bed. His bloodshot eyes and massive frame completely overturned Xia Meng's previous impression of him. "When?"
"Not sure yet." Jiang Cheng said, "But it's definitely soon."
It didn't take much thought; it was a logical deduction. After all, the mission was almost over. In the end, it would either be Housekeeper Zhou's group finishing their play, or their group getting wiped out.
"One more thing." Jiang Cheng looked at the fatty. "You Qi is dead."
"He?" The fatty frowned. "Dead?"
"Yeah." Jiang Cheng nodded. "Someone came to inform us that a body was found by the lake. I went to check, and it was You Qi."
To avoid further disturbing the fatty, Jiang Cheng didn't mention that it was the burly man with the club who had informed them, and that he had been provocatively mocking.
"How did he die?" The fatty asked.
He looked out the window as if to confirm something. It had just started to get dark, and based on his understanding of the ghosts in this setting, murders usually happened at night.
Unless, like Master Liao Zhi, someone ventured into dangerous areas and foolishly struck the drum.
It seemed he had thought of something. The fatty turned to Jiang Cheng and asked, "Did he go somewhere he shouldn't have?"
"What else?" Xia Meng replied indifferently.
Chen Qiang, looking at the fatty, explained, "He went to Young Master Huang's attic alone, and that's when something happened."
"How do you know?" The fatty asked, confused. After all, You Qi wouldn't have told anyone where he was going beforehand.
Did he suddenly get sharp-eyed? Was it Housekeeper Zhou's group who told them?
"It was An Xuan." Jiang Cheng said. "When You Qi snuck into the attic, An Xuan happened to run into him, and that's how we found out."
"He was the one who told us." Jiang Cheng added.
The fatty looked at the doctor's eyes as if suddenly understanding something.
An Xuan... The doctor's wording sounded odd, but when thinking of An Xuan and You Qi's identities, the whole situation became clearer.
You Qi was killed by An Xuan.
With the help of the ghost.
As if sensing the fatty's thoughts, Jiang Cheng casually said, "You Qi was luckier than the others. At least his skin is still intact."
At first, the fatty didn't think much of it, but then he noticed the changes in Xia Meng and Chen Qiang's expressions.
Especially the latter. He seemed to have heard something, yet he was pretending not to know anything.
Almost the next second, a glint of realization flashed in the fatty's eyes. He turned his head toward the doctor and found that Jiang Cheng was also staring at him.
You Qi's skin was still there.
Why?
Why was his skin still intact, while the others who were killed by ghosts had their skin stripped away? Tang Shirou, Qin Jian, Master Liao Zhi, and even the terrible screams from Zuo Jing last night—they all had their skin removed.
Their skins were gone, so why was You Qi different?
There was only one explanation.
You Qi wasn't killed by a ghost.
He was killed by a human.
A human killed him!
Although You Qi still had his skin, Chen Qiang couldn't shake the chilling feeling when he recalled seeing You Qi's body by the lake.
You Qi was face down, looking like someone who drowned and was washed ashore by the waves.
But when they turned the body over, what they saw froze Chen Qiang in fear. He almost lost his balance and fell to the ground.
You Qi's face was gone.
No, not just his face—his entire facial features, except for his ears, were missing. It seemed someone had used a small knife or something to dig them out.
His mouth was wide open, his tongue was gone, and even the two rows of teeth at the front had been knocked out.
His abdomen had been sliced open, with only part of his intestines remaining.
The wounds on the body were vicious and horrifying. Some seemed entirely meaningless, only there to add more pain to the dead.
And nobody wanted to investigate what exactly was missing from the body. After all, everyone already knew who the murderer was.
What terrified Chen Qiang even more was that An Xuan had been standing right next to them, silently observing You Qi's body. He even calmly suggested that You Qi's missing organs might not be lost, but were perhaps... inside his stomach.
In the end, that's exactly what they found.
They found his eyes, his nose, his lips, and even his teeth inside You Qi's stomach.
(End of the Chapter)
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