One day, he visited their home and went straight into Old Lady Zhang’s room, only to find her lying stiff on the bed, her eyes wide open, her face deathly pale, and her chest completely still. Terrified, he let out a scream and practically scrambled out of that low, cramped room on all fours. When the Zhang brothers rushed over upon hearing the commotion and asked what had happened, Zhang Fugui pointed at the room, unable to form a coherent sentence. But the next moment, Old Lady Zhang walked out.
Her eerie smile and hollow, unblinking stare remained the same.
Zhang Fugui, overcome with fear, hurried back home and immediately fell seriously ill. He recalled hearing about the White Cloud Temple and sent his son to seek help from Taoist Priest Xuanchen. Unexpectedly, it was the priest’s junior brother who arrived.
"It’s only been a few days, but their eldest son and his wife are already dead. The second son’s leg was crushed by a falling tree, and his wife, terrified, took their child back to her parents’ home..." Zhang Fugui rambled on. "If you’d come any later, I fear..."
Jiang Mubai watched as his senior uncle waved a hand dismissively. "As long as the payment is good, anything can be handled! Don’t you worry!"
Thank goodness the master hadn’t come—otherwise, they might’ve had to chip in extra.
Zhang Fugui knocked on Old Lady Zhang’s door, but there was no response for a long time.
"No way... Could it be...?" Zhang Fugui grew nervous and knocked harder.
Jiang Mubai stared anxiously at the wooden doors. The next moment, they creaked open, revealing a haggard face peering out warily. "What do you want?"
Zhang Fugui exhaled in relief. "Fourth Zhang, open up. I’ve brought a master from the White Cloud Temple to help you."
"What master? We don’t need one! Get lost!" Fourth Zhang snapped rudely and slammed the door shut.
"Ah? Oh no, oh no—he must be possessed!" Zhang Fugui paced frantically before turning to Fang Zhiyi for help.
From behind the door, Fourth Zhang’s cursing voice rang out. "Scram! Trying to swindle us out of money? Not a chance! Nosy old fool."
Jiang Mubai saw his senior uncle turn to them. "Remember what I taught you? ‘When a man is near death, his words are kind.’"
The second senior brother answered first. "Yes, Uncle. Beat a man half to death, and his words will naturally become pleasant."
"Then what are we waiting for? We took the money—now we do the job."
Jiang Mubai watched as the second senior brother kicked the door. To his surprise, the man had already embraced his role wholeheartedly. A startled scream came from inside, followed by the door bursting open. The second senior brother leaped in, and soon after, a series of howls erupted.
"Taoist Master, this..." Zhang Fugui stammered in shock.
The senior uncle reassured him. "Don’t worry. He’s possessed. This is an exorcism."
At these words, Zhang Fugui and the gathered villagers nodded in understanding.
Moments later, the second senior brother stuck his head out, smoothing back his disheveled hair. "Uncle, it’s about done."
Jiang Mubai followed his senior uncle into the courtyard. The moment he stepped inside, he sensed something strange. Just as he was about to speak, the first senior brother’s hand landed on his shoulder. Jiang Mubai turned and saw him shake his head slightly.
Two coffins lay in the courtyard.
The senior uncle strode forward to inspect them, ignoring the groaning man on the ground.
Then he motioned for Jiang Mubai to come closer. When he looked inside, his heart nearly stopped.
Both corpses had their eyes wide open, their bodies slit open from the neck down, their chests and abdomens hollowed out.
"Legends say man-eating ghosts prefer children—tender meat. For adults, they eat the organs because the flesh is tough," the senior uncle explained calmly. "And they only feast on their own kin."
But his gaze remained fixed on the groaning Fourth Zhang.
"Which room is Old Lady Zhang’s?" the senior uncle asked.
Zhang Fugui quickly pointed to a corner of the courtyard—a low, gloomy shack that looked more like a woodshed.
Jiang Mubai didn’t dare follow. He watched as his senior uncle and the two senior brothers entered. Soon, they emerged—the senior uncle deep in thought, the first senior brother as composed as ever, and the second senior brother looking queasy.
The senior uncle then slung an arm over Zhang Fugui’s shoulder, bending slightly to match his height.
"Elder Zhang, if I solve this, the payment stands, right?"
Zhang Fugui blinked, then nodded. "Of course."
The senior uncle smiled in satisfaction. "Good."
Jiang Mubai saw him whisper something to the two senior brothers, who then began darting around the courtyard. "Uncle, what should I do?" he asked.
"You? Just observe." The senior uncle noticed Fourth Zhang struggling to get up and promptly kicked him back down.
Before long, the second senior brother returned, tossing a hatchet and rope onto the ground with a dull thud.
The villagers craned their necks to watch.
"Ahem." The senior uncle cleared his throat. "Good folks, the matter is now clear. There’s no evil spirit—it was all this man’s doing." He pointed at Fourth Zhang, still sprawled on the ground.
"What?!"
Even Jiang Mubai was stunned.
The first senior brother reappeared, dragging a bound man behind him.
"Uncle, found him."
"Isn’t that Third Zhang? What’s going on?" a villager gasped.
Third Zhang stared blankly at the crowd before his eyes landed on Fourth Zhang. His expression twisted with fury as Li Buyan yanked the rag from his mouth.
"You damn Fourth! Brothers for life, and you tried to kill me too? You rotten bastard! I’ll curse you to hell!"
The crowd erupted in shock.
Amid Third Zhang’s furious tirade, the truth slowly unraveled.
Contrary to the villagers’ perception, the Zhang sons were far from filial. Once Old Lady Zhang grew too old to work, her sons wished for her death and banished her to the woodshed. Yet she still held some wealth, forcing them to keep her around—none dared suggest dividing the family, fearing they’d be stuck caring for her while others took the money. So they waited, locked in a stalemate.
She had died... and then come back to life.
When their chickens were found dead, Fourth Zhang didn’t care—just beasts prowling near their isolated home.
But after hearing tales of the "old demon" while gambling in town, the debt-ridden Fourth Zhang hatched a plan.
He began spreading rumors of the old demon in the village. Then he sold his eldest brother’s daughter to traffickers, disguising it as a disappearance. But Third Zhang discovered his crime.
Instead of stopping him, Third Zhang blackmailed him, and the two conspired to kill the eldest brother and his wife. They tried to make the second brother’s death look like an accident, but he survived with only a broken leg.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
