Chapter 46: Rotten

Guided by Boss Hu, the group successfully entered the cold storage room where the bodies of Hu Dawei and his wife were kept.

"The bodies of my family members are right here..."

Boss Hu cast a lingering, apprehensive look at the corpses in front of him and issued a warning.

Ever since he woke up, he had learned that relocating Old Master Hu's ancestral graves was Steward Ma's conspiracy. Coupled with having witnessed Old Master Hu's corpse "resurrect," he no longer fussed over the grave relocation and simply decided to have all of them cremated at once.

Yet, what he did not know was that Old Master Hu's vengeful spirit was very real...

Since Fan Biao and the others kept silent, Le Dong naturally found it difficult to speak up. At this moment, gazing at the outlines of the two corpses covered in white sheets and recalling his recent terrifying experiences, a deep chill and fear welled up inside him.

"You all wait outside."

Zhou Fan waved away Boss Hu and the throng of bodyguards behind him, then reached his hand into his bosom.

Instead of pulling out talismans as he usually did, he carefully retrieved two deep green, withered vegetable leaves.

The moment the leaves were brought out, a pungent, bizarre odor instantly filled the air.

"Tch, Uncle Zhou, what kind of treasure is this? Why is it so suffocatingly stinky?" Cai Kun covered his nose, almost vomiting.

Zhou Fan smiled. "This is called a 'nether meal,' specially designed to lure wandering spirits or entities that crave ghostly qi.

The two bowls of sweet noodles last time were relatively mild nether meals meant to lure away those two spirits. What we need to entice this time are the Gu worms hiding inside the corpses, so the scent has to be much more pungent and 'to their taste.'"

As he spoke, he lifted the white sheet covering the corpses' heads and placed the two intensely stinking vegetable leaves directly onto the lips of Hu Dawei and his wife.

Instantly, everyone held their breath, staring intently.

Before long, a hair-raising sight unfolded!

Along the half-open corners of Hu Dawei and his wife's mouths, the skin began to ripple slightly. Following that, a bizarre, pitch-black, glossy insect the size of a fingernail crawled out laboriously from the gaps at the corners of their mouths, its antennae twitching as if strongly drawn to the scent of the "nether meal."

The very second the two Gu worms completely crawled out and lunged greedily toward the vegetable leaves, Fan Biao struck with lightning speed!

"Whoosh, whoosh..."

His calloused fingers pinched out with absolute, blinding precision, moving so fast that only an afterimage remained, and the two writhing little insects were firmly trapped between his fingertips!

"Give them to me!" Zhou Fan barked in a low voice, swiftly pulling out a yellow talisman paper covered in complex runes from his bosom. With tacit coordination, Fan Biao placed the two struggling Gu worms right onto the talisman.

Zhou Fan formed hand seals, chanting incantations under his breath while quickly tracing empty strokes across the talisman paper with his finger.

The yellow talisman suddenly trembled violently, flashing with golden light that enveloped the two Gu worms.

At the same time, a teeth-setting "hissing" sound and faint shrieks emanated from within the talisman paper. In mere seconds, the golden light dissipated, and the talisman reduced to a small pinch of dark gray ash smelling of scorched fat. The Gu worms inside, along with their eggs, had been utterly obliterated.

The instant the two insect eggs vanished, the lights in the cold storage room flickered violently, and the surrounding air suddenly grew even colder and more piercingly biting.

This familiar and suffocating atmosphere made Le Dong shudder all over, his hair standing on end. Before he could utter a word, two extremely faint, almost transparent, hazy human figures slowly drifted out from the two corpses covered in white sheets.

Those outlines unmistakably belonged to Su Juanjuan and Hu Dawei!

Only, having been severely battered by Ma Wenwen previously, though their souls were not entirely shattered, their spiritual bodies were left battered beyond recognition, flickering like candles in the wind, on the verge of being completely extinguished at any moment, barely maintaining even the most basic human shapes as they wavered in the icy air.

"Hmph, I was just wondering how to track you down!" Beside them, Fan Biao's gaze turned as sharp as a blade, and with a reverse flick of his hand, he drew his companion bronze coin sword. A chilling glint swept across the blade, radiating an aura of stern slaughter.

"Wuwuwu..."

The response he received, however, was two bouts of heart-rending, mournful wails. The sounds lacked their previous malice and ferocity, filled instead with boundless grievance, pain, and despair, like the final crying lament of crushed souls.

Fan Biao cared nothing for any of that. Had it not been for the two of them, how could Ma Wenwen have fallen into an unawakened coma? With a cold hoot, his bronze coin sword sliced through the air with a piercing whistle, aimed straight at the two feeble spiritual shadows!

"Master, spare my life! Spare my life, please!"

Su Juanjuan's residual soul shrank back violently, using the last of her strength to drift toward a corner, her voice fractured, urgent, and laced with sobs, "I didn't mean to harm anyone! I... I had my grievances!"

Her cries were so pathetic that, surprisingly, Fan Biao halted his advance.

Seeing this, Su Juanjuan's spiritual shadow fluctuated violently, her words pouring out like a blood-stained indictment of tears:

"I... since I was little... my family was poor! In those remote mountain ravines, my parents broke their backs working, yet couldn't afford to send me to school... It was him!"

Her illusory finger trembled as she pointed toward the door of the cold storage room—precisely in the direction of Boss Hu. "It was he who put on a kind facade, claiming he would sponsor my college education. I thought I had met a benefactor, that the heavens had finally opened their eyes, but... but that was the beginning of my nightmare!"

Her voice spiked abruptly, filled with bone-deep hatred and humiliation: "He... taking advantage of being my sponsor, forced me to dine with him! And then... then at the hotel... he drugged me and raped me!

My cries to heaven went unanswered, my pleas to earth fell on deaf ears! I wanted to die, but if I died, what would become of my parents?" Her spiritual shadow shook violently, as if on the verge of collapsing from the sheer magnitude of her agony.

"Later... his son, Hu Dawei..." Her "gaze" shifted to Hu Dawei's residual soul nearby, who looked equally shocked and dazed, her voice dripping with deeper despair and mockery, "He acted nice to me at school, pursued me... I thought he was sincere, thought he was my salvation. Heh... I was so utterly foolish!

It wasn't until I arrived at the Hu household that I discovered they were father and son! Even my pursuit had been ordered by his father. That old beast... he... he raped me several more times! I... I didn't even dare to cry out loud..."

In another corner, Hu Dawei's residual soul roared, "It wasn't like that, Juanjuan. I only found out later, I hated him too..." He tried to defend himself, trying to draw closer.

"Shut up!" Su Juanjuan's spiritual shadow suddenly erupted with a fierce wave of resentment, hurtling straight toward Hu Dawei. "You are just like your father! You're beasts in human skin! What did you take me for? A plaything! Garbage to be toyed with at will! You ruined me! You destroyed everything I had!"

She turned to Le Dong and the others, her voice once again submerged in overwhelming sorrow: "I... I endured humiliation, only wanting to finish my studies, to make something of myself... to repay my suffering parents... to let them live a few good days... to bring honor to their faces... But how could I know... that Steward Ma! That demon!

He strangled me with a leather belt... and... and he skinned my face off! When I died... I didn't even have an intact face! How could I repay my parents? How could I bring honor to their faces?! I hate them! I hate them so much! I only wanted to kill the Hus! To make them pay blood for blood! Only then... could this grievance in my heart... ease just a little bit... just a tiny bit..."

Her voice grew softer and softer, and her spiritual shadow grew increasingly dim, beneath that monstrous hatred lay endless grievance and an unfillable guilt toward her parents.

Le Dong sighed inwardly, watching the cluster of souls bearing so much suffering and humiliation, trying hard not to let compassion sway him. Yet, after a moment's thought, he spoke up to offer a warning:

"Ma... Steward Ma has received his due punishment. You, you can rest in peace now."

"Rest in peace?"

Su Juanjuan's residual soul uttered a sharp, desolate sneer, as if hearing the most absurd joke in the world. "What about that old beast?" She pointed toward the door once more. "What about Hu Xiansheng, the main culprit?! He is still living comfortably, eating and drinking well, by what right? If he doesn't die... how can I rest in peace? How can I close my eyes?"

With that, resentment surged in the corner, and the edges of her spiritual shadow flushed with an ominous black tint.

"Enough!"

Sharp-eyed Zhou Fan barked harshly, stepping forward. "Living humans are governed by mortal laws! Wandering spirits belong in the underworld; lingering in the mortal realm and disrupting order is already a grave crime! To harbor further murderous intent and remain obstinate will only completely sever your path to reincarnation!"

He attempted to cow her with final warnings and consequences.

"Reincarnation? Hahaha..." Su Juanjuan's laughter was filled with desperate mockery, uglier than crying. "Reincarnation? To be born human again? To endure this misery and humiliation all over again? I, Su Juanjuan... haven't wanted to be human for a long time! This mortal world... is too filthy! Too bitter!"

Her spiritual shadow suddenly turned frantic, her chilling aura surging violently until it faintly recovered its previous ferocious appearance.

"Old Zhou, why waste your breath with her!" The last trace of hesitation vanished from Fan Biao's eyes, and his martial aura erupted.

With a flick of his wrist, the bronze coin sword transformed into a swift, peerless streak of golden light, carrying power to vanquish evil as it pierced with absolute precision straight toward the core of Su Juanjuan's about-to-erupt spiritual shadow!

"Ugh, ah—!"

A piercing, terrifying shriek rang out.

When the golden light burst and scattered, Su Juanjuan's already fragile spiritual shadow burst like a popped soap bubble, instantly dissolving into specks of faint, glowing dust.

"She was also pitiful, listening to it even made my heart soften."

Behind him, Cai Kun's tone turned somewhat heavy, while Le Dong watched the final fading specks of light in silence.

"I'm sorry..."

Suddenly, an ethereal voice drifted from the glowing specks, and a tiny, faint trace of Su Juanjuan's lingering consciousness seemed to remain in the corner.

"Mr. Le... I'm sorry... hurting you earlier... I didn't mean to... truly... I'm sorry..."

Following that, that consciousness seemed to ripple slightly, carrying a sigh of relief, yet resembling a final attachment before parting ways:

"Home..."

Hearing that illusory voice, Le Dong felt a complex knot in his chest and could not help speaking up: "Where is your home? I can pass word to your parents."

The specks of light in the air had nearly all vanished, leaving only Su Juanjuan's final, clear sigh, which seemed to come from a distant void:

"No... there's no need... I am a... rotten wretch... Don't... don't let my parents... suffer... any more shame..."

As her words faded completely, not a shred of Su Juanjuan's presence remained in the cold storage room, as if she had never existed at all, leaving behind only the humble self-mockery of her final confession: "I am a rotten wretch."

Le Dong sighed internally.

Is the person rotten? Or is it the world?