Wrong Answer Again

Behind me, Cheng Keyan’s angry curses rang out again, "Li Xi, you bastard, remember this, you are never coming back. Get lost!"

Cheng Keyan’s shouting caused heads to pop out from the hospital rooms on both sides of the corridor, while I quickened my pace and left rapidly.

In one breath, I reached the address given by Jin Yuan, an abandoned building slated for demolition. Soon, I met Jin Yuan and the person I was looking for whom he had mentioned.

This fellow was a brute, his body covered in bulging muscles, looking exceptionally repulsive. By this time, the brute had already been subdued by Jin Yuan, bound tightly with ropes, and gagged with a strip of cloth.

Jin Yuan pointed at the brute and said to me, "He is the one you are looking for. I leave the rest to you. Master is summoning me, presumably something has happened at the school, so I will head back first."

I nodded at Jin Yuan. "You go ahead."

After Jin Yuan left, only the brute and I remained in the entire room. I was not in a hurry either; I first pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and then squatted down in front of the brute. I removed the cloth from his mouth and blew a puff of smoke right at him.

At this moment, the brute began to beg for mercy, "Big Brother, this little brother doesn't know when I offended you, please be magnanimous and let me go."

I reached out and patted the brute's face, saying, "Don't rush, let's have a heart-to-heart talk first."

"Alright, alright, as long as Big Brother lets me go, I'll do anything."

I smiled at him, took off one of my shoes, and sat down on the floor. "Do you want a cigarette? I'll light one for you."

"No thanks, Big Brother, this little brother doesn't smoke. I'll just watch you smoke."

I smiled at him again and blew another puff of smoke into his face. Next, I said, "Let's play a game. We'll take turns asking each other questions—I ask you one, you ask me one. Whoever answers incorrectly gets hit."

A look of confusion appeared on the brute's face, followed by a smile. "Big Brother, isn't that unfair? I'm tied up, so even if you answer incorrectly, I can't hit you. Besides, how would I dare to hit you, Big Brother?"

"Don't worry, I won't answer incorrectly." My words seemed to make him somewhat creeped out. I saw sweat already beginning to form on his face. Ignoring him, I smiled and asked him my first question: "Is your son dead or not?"

He was stunned for a moment. "What do you mean?"

Suddenly, I stood up, grabbed the shoe from beneath me, and struck him hard across the face. "Wrong answer."

The shoe slapped loudly against his face, and I saw his expression change completely, as if he wanted to devour me alive. I put the shoe down and sat back on it. Then, I asked my second question: "How did your son die?"

The brute immediately raised his voice and began to curse wildly, "Your fucking son is the one who's dead, you asshole! I called you Big Brother, and you really think you're some kind of big shot?"

I grabbed the shoe and slapped him across the face again. "Wrong answer."

The brute widened his eyes, his entire face turning green. "Try hitting me again and see what happens!"

I smiled at him and struck him across the face with the sole of the shoe once more. "This strike isn't part of the game; you asked for it yourself."

Then I asked, "After your son died, did you avenge him?"

"Fuck your mother..." The brute was completely enraged, his body struggling violently against the bonds on the floor. At that moment, I accurately landed a blow with the sole of my shoe right across his face. With a sharp smack, a shoe print was added to the brute's face.

"What a pity, you're still wrong. Now I'll ask you my final question: someone else's son was murdered by you—should I come to avenge him?" After asking this question, I stopped smiling and looked at him with absolute seriousness. By this time, the brute was struggling even more violently while continuing to hurl abuses at me.

Without hesitation, I raised the shoe sole once more and swung it across his face with all my might. "You damn well got it wrong again."

After being repeatedly slapped with the shoe sole, the brute grew somewhat dizzy and disoriented. He still wanted to curse, but the sight of the shoe sole in my hand made him hesitate out of sudden fear.

"Big Brother, I beg you, please don't hit me anymore."

I looked at him with a grin. "Is that supposed to be answering the question? Too bad, still the wrong answer."

With that, I struck him across the face with the shoe once more. At this point, the robust fellow finally fell completely silent. He stopped cursing, and his tough attitude vanished.

However, things were not going to end that easily. This was merely a warm-up; the real highlight hadn't even begun yet.

I sneered at the hefty man. "Weren't you very tough? You dared to kill people, so what on earth are you afraid of from me?"

"Big Brother, you've got the wrong person. I definitely didn't kill anyone."

"Still putting on a damn act?" Hearing his words, I flew into a rage. I stood up once again, rapidly forming hand seals and drawing talismans to cast a ghost-summoning technique. Moments later, chilly winds howled through the room, and behind me appeared an old woman with a deathly pale face covered in wrinkles like withered tree bark.

In truth, using Taoist arts to harm people incurs bad karma. However, I believed I was not harming anyone unjustly. To deal with such a wicked person, one must use their own methods against them.

I said to the brute, "Since you refuse to tell the truth, I'll let her talk to you instead."

With that, I walked out of the room. Inside, the brute's piercing screams, sounding like a butchered pig, immediately rang out: "Ah, a ghost! Help!"

I do not know how much time passed before the brute's cries gradually grew faint. Only then did I walk back into the room to find the brute lying on the floor, paralyzed with terror. Squatting beside him was the old woman.

I said to the old woman, "Thank you for your trouble, Ghost Immortal. Forgive me for this uninvited intrusion, but I had no other choice."

The old woman was not particularly pleasant to look at—she had a blue face with protruding fangs, and her eyes lacked pupils, showing only the whites. Suddenly, her head spun around on her neck to face my direction. Truly, her neck did not move; only her head turned completely around.

"Were you the one who summoned this old self?"

I nodded and briefly explained the whole origin of the matter to her. After listening, the old woman muttered, "So that's how it is," and then slowly turned to leave.

The old woman also briefly told me a bit about herself. I was rather lucky; the entity summoned by my ghost-summoning technique this time happened to be this benevolent old woman. Just as people are divided into good and evil, ghosts are likewise divided. This old woman was a benevolent ghost. The reason she remained in this building and refused to reincarnate was because all the residents had moved away, and she wanted to stay behind to keep watch, reluctant to leave.

After the old woman left, I heard a creaking sound from outside the door. I ran out to look and saw a rocking chair placed in the corridor. At that moment, the rocking chair was swaying back and forth repeatedly all on its own. There was no one sitting in it.

Terrified by the old woman's ghost, the brute finally surrendered. "Big Brother, please let me go. I'll say everything, I'll confess everything."

I smiled at him. "Wouldn't it have been better if you'd done this earlier? Why put yourself through the suffering?"

"Big Brother, I was wrong. I will never dare do it again."

Seeing his state, I untied the ropes on his feet and dragged him away from the building awaiting demolition. Afterward, I delivered him straight to the police station. This fellow was truly obedient now; the moment he stepped inside the station, he voluntarily confessed to everything.

The matter was finally over, and I let out a long sigh of relief.

Little did I expect that just as this matter concluded, trouble on Jin Yuan's end would arise.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that because of how I dealt with the brute just now, I would plunge Jin Yuan into an abyss of eternal damnation.