Ruthless Killing

Zhao Ke walked out of the back kitchen and looked at the offering in his hand, shaking his head. This kind of thing was useless to him. If he had known the reward would be like this, he should have given up the mission.

You have to understand that the kitchen isn't like other places; the information you can gather is extremely limited. If Zhao Ke had a choice, he would have preferred to clean the toilets.

Zhao Ke casually tossed the spirit money in his hand into the Post Album and turned back to the small courtyard. He saw three other people huddled together, whispering about something.

These three weren't from the previous group; they were clearly another bunch of Postmen who had teamed up temporarily.

Sensing Zhao Ke entering the courtyard, three pairs of eyes immediately locked onto him. In fact, ever since Zhao Ke fell into the water and climbed onto the small boat, some Postmen had already noticed him.

When they saw Zhao Ke brazenly grilling meat at the bow of the boat, they knew that Zhao Ke was likely a newcomer who had passed his internship.

Even among low-level Postmen, there were different tiers. You had to consider that internship missions were usually very simple. After passing the internship, you'd move on to normal horror spaces, which were much more difficult.

Many people who had just become low-level Postmen often died here, with a death rate even higher than in more difficult missions.

Adding the internship horror space, the missions were simple and offered very little reward. Most of them only gave a few Post Points, not even enough to exchange for a low-level special Stamp.

Teammates without awareness or strength like that were obviously not welcome anywhere.

Therefore, when Zhao Ke walked in, the way the other three looked at him wasn't exactly friendly, but it wasn't much better than the previous group.

"Master, why did you take so long?"

Seeing Zhao Ke return, Cui Lan sat up from the bedside. She looked at the dim light outside and said in a low voice, "Annoying, the sky is already getting light. Steward Bai will probably come over soon. I wonder what new trouble he'll stir up."

Zhao Ke ignored Cui Lan's grumbling from the bed. Calculating the time, he quietly put a mouthful of paper ash into his mouth to mask his scent.

At the same time, he quickly thought to himself. It seemed that whether it was food, water, or fire, they, as living people, were completely out of place here. Even their body temperatures were noticeably different from this place. The flaws they had were astonishingly numerous.

Zhao Ke didn't believe that merely masking their scent could perfectly hide their identities as living people.

It was fine when facing spirits, but if they encountered ghosts like that flower child pair, they could easily reveal themselves.

However, this was also their advantage. Thinking this, Zhao Ke narrowed his eyes and turned to ask Cui Lan, "Cui Lan, how do you tell which ones are spirits and which ones aren't?"

Cui Lan chuckled at his question. She walked over to Zhao Ke and put an arm around his, saying, "Hehe, Master, did you forget this little detail when you hit your head?"

As Cui Lan spoke, she lifted Zhao Ke's arm, rolled up his sleeve, and said to him, "Most of the Bai Family are spirits. There are only a few true ghost masters. Besides, our masters' names are written on our arms, you..."

Cui Lan's words trailed off as her eyes suddenly widened. She saw that Zhao Ke's smooth, well-shaped arm was completely bare, with nothing on it.

Seeing this, Cui Lan was stunned for a moment, then suddenly understood something. She looked up, her eyes fixed on Zhao Ke, "You!"

"That's right, I'm not your master."

Zhao Ke, who had been sitting on a chair, slanted his eyes, suddenly jumped up from the chair, and plunged a dagger directly into Cui Lan's forehead.

"Pfft!"

The blade pierced straight through Cui Lan's forehead. Zhao Ke twisted it forcefully, and immediately Cui Lan's head split open like a cauliflower, creating a gaping wound the size of a bowl.

However, strangely, Cui Lan didn't die. After a moment of stunned silence, her expression changed, and she reached out to grab Zhao Ke's throat.

Cui Lan's already distorted face had its delicate features twisted into a mess. However, unlike the paper figures he had killed before, Cui Lan's blooming head looked like a bloody, mangled mess.

They were spirits. After stepping through the gates of hell and entering the Underworld, they had a semblance of a physical body.

But it was only a physical body, without bones, without human brains or organs, just a lump of bloody flesh.

"Still not dead!"

Seeing Cui Lan reach for his throat, Zhao Ke raised an eyebrow. He grabbed the dark dagger in his hand and quickly flicked it, stabbing it through Cui Lan's throat from under her arm and twisting the blade.

"Pfft!"

The cold blade, like a saw, tore open half of Cui Lan's neck. Her head tilted, hanging by her chest.

Severely wounded twice by Zhao Ke, Cui Lan couldn't even scream. She could only turn and run.

"You think you can escape!"

Seeing Cui Lan try to run, a fierce look flashed across Zhao Ke's face. He lunged forward, plunging the dagger directly into Cui Lan's spine and twisting it forcefully. This should have been a fatal blow or at least paralyzed her, but the blade met no bone.

Instead, Cui Lan fell to the ground. The half-split side of her face was twisted, unable to make a sound, and she could only wave her hands, begging Zhao Ke for mercy.

They say that a hundred days of kindness between husband and wife are hard to forget. Now, she only begged Zhao Ke to let her go. She knew that spirits had the hardest lives in this world; they were born to die. They couldn't survive in the living world and only truly came alive when they reached the Underworld.

All their lives, they only wished to find a good master, to serve peacefully for a few hundred years, and finally achieve human form, which would be a life well-lived.

Cui Lan had thought everything through, but she never expected that her life as a spirit, which had just begun, would end after only one night.

"Sorry, I can't keep you!"

Despite Cui Lan's pleas, Zhao Ke showed no hesitation. He knew that keeping Cui Lan would be like keeping a ticking time bomb.

No matter if she could speak or how much she promised, Zhao Ke wouldn't believe her, because he never entrusted his life to someone else's words.

"Squelch!"

Zhao Ke swept his blade, cutting off Cui Lan's head. Without a head, Cui Lan's body twitched on the ground, but she didn't die just like that.

There was no blood, no internal organs. After her head was severed, she had merely lost control of her body.

Holding Cui Lan's head in his hands, Zhao Ke walked to a corner of the room, found an iron basin, and directly placed her head inside. To Zhao Ke's amusement, once Cui Lan's head was placed in the iron basin, her body also stopped moving.

When he took Cui Lan's head out, her body nearby immediately began to twitch, seemingly struggling to crawl out according to Cui Lan's will.

Seeing this, Zhao Ke directly put Cui Lan's head back into the iron basin, then attempted to transfer the iron basin into the Post Album.

However, the information he received was still that his permission was insufficient for conversion.

He tried it, and it seemed that after Cui Lan's body was no longer under her control, it had become an inanimate object. With a thought from Zhao Ke, the corpse was immediately converted into the Post Album.

Opening the Post Album, he saw a new Stamp depicting a paper figure, but the paper figure was headless.

"I see!"

Zhao Ke nodded, shoved the iron basin under the bed, dusted off his hands, and strode out of the room.

Just as Cui Lan had said, the moment Zhao Ke stepped out, he saw the Bai Family steward approaching with people, ready to assign tasks.

Zhao Ke hid in the crowd, his peripheral vision catching sight of Dongzi and the other three standing with grim faces, looking quite displeased. It was clear they hadn't fared well when they went to the front yard and had come back empty-handed.

"You lot go wash clothes, you go chop wood in the woodshed, and you few are responsible for cleaning the front yard."

Upon hearing the steward assign their group to cleaning the front yard, Dongzi and the other three's faces looked as if a layer of frost had settled on them, appearing extremely ugly.

In contrast, the other group of three Postmen, assigned to the woodshed, exchanged glances and showed satisfied smiles.

"And you... huh? Why is someone missing? Where's that woman?"

The steward pointed at Zhao Ke, asking about Cui Lan's whereabouts. Zhao Ke's face contorted in distress, and he said with a troubled expression, "I don't know. I went to the kitchen last night, and when I came back, I didn't see her."

The steward froze, then a furious expression spread across his pale face. Without pressing further about Cui Lan, he angrily walked up to Zhao Ke and roared, "Who told you to go to the kitchen! That's not a place you can go!"

"But... I have to go now, don't I?"

Before the steward could erupt, Zhao Ke reached out and summoned the token the old man had given him, holding it in his hand.

The prelude needs to be slow, so the text might seem a bit drawn out. I'm going to go write the third update now.