The Nine Bulls' Strength!
This was a marvelous use of Rewarding Good and Punishing Evil that Luo Zhou had never imagined.
So there was such great good—then surely there had to be a so-called great evil?
He carefully sensed the Nine Bulls' Strength.
The strength of one bull was roughly eight hundred jin. The Nine Bulls' Strength should have been seven thousand two hundred jin.
But the real Nine Bulls' Strength was far greater than seven thousand jin. Luo Zhou now possessed nearly ten thousand jin of strength—an awe-inspiring might!
Aside from the gains in strength, Luo Zhou felt as though his entire body had been covered in a layer of ox hide. No, it seemed more like nine layers of ox hide protecting his body.
The auxiliary ability of the Nine Bulls' Strength was Hide Armor Protection!
In addition, his overall constitution had improved. He could endure hardship better, and his stamina had become much more enduring.
It was as though his stomach could chew its cud, digesting whatever he ate. His digestive ability was several times stronger than before.
Luo Zhou had a feeling: this was only the nine bulls. If he gathered two tigers as well and fully completed the divine ability Nine Bulls and Two Tigers, it would become even stronger!
Upon examining it more closely, he found that the divine ability Dragon-Slaying Thrust had also mutated under this influence.
Originally, Dragon-Slaying Thrust had only a range of about one zhang. Now that Four Bulls' Strength had become Nine Bulls' Strength, its range immediately expanded to two zhang and three chi!
This was immensely significant!
It filled Luo Zhou with delight!
But that delight did not last long. At dawn, when the sky had only just begun to brighten, the ward erupted like boiling water.
"Come quickly! Something's happened!"
"Something happened to Old Wang's family! They were slaughtered by the 13th of the Month Devil!"
"Why did the 13th of the Month Devil come to our ward? He's never come here before!"
"Something's happened! Something's happened!"
Luo Zhou was jolted awake, as if someone had reminded him that there were still twenty-nine days left...
He hurried outside and saw Old Wang's home surrounded by layer upon layer of people.
Last night, the 13th of the Month Devil had come here and killed the entire family.
Bald Old Wang, his beautiful stepmother, and Wang Xiaoya were all dead!
Luo Zhou rushed over. The ward head was already maintaining order and preventing anyone from entering. Before long, constables arrived as well.
Constable Captain Wang Ying came, not Constable Captain Li Haitian. This was not his jurisdiction.
The scene was sealed off. The coroner conducted an examination. After a whole sequence of procedures...
The crowd outside was seething with anger, and someone could not help cursing loudly:
"What use are you constables? You still haven't caught the 13th of the Month Devil!"
"You useless trash! Good-for-nothings!"
"We pay so much in taxes, and it's done us no good at all!"
Fear drove people mad...
The 13th of the Month Devil had never come to this ward before, so everyone had believed they would remain safe and sound.
After all, the people here did not earn much. They could not possibly flee to restaurants and inns to take refuge.
The constables had long grown accustomed to abuse. They went through the procedure especially quickly, and soon the scene had been cleared.
The 13th of the Month Devil left no corpses behind, only blood splattered everywhere. There was not much to clean up.
The house was sealed immediately, and no one else was allowed inside. The crowd dispersed as well.
The dead were dead. No matter how frightened they were, life still had to go on. If they did not work today, they would have no food tomorrow. If the 13th of the Month Devil came for them, then they would deal with death when it came!
Luo Zhou also headed to the Dao Academy to cultivate.
The Dao Academy was abuzz with the news, and Luo Zhou did not know how he made it through the day.
After school that evening, he returned home. When the third watch arrived, Luo Zhou abruptly rose and headed to Old Wang's home.
He wanted to inspect the scene!
When he reached Old Wang's home, he used Flying Pounce to leap over the courtyard wall.
With the Keen Dharma Eye, he could see clearly even at night. He carried an Eyebrow-Level Staff in his hand, with two more strapped to his back. With weapons at hand, he feared no one.
With the Nine Bulls' Strength, he broke open the main door and entered the room.
The Dead Spirits had already formed. However, the people killed by the 13th of the Month Devil had no ability to communicate as Dead Spirits.
What secret technique had the killer used when murdering them to cause this?
Bald Old Wang's Dead Spirit blocked the doorway, holding a kitchen knife, as though protecting something.
At the final moment, he had been a real man. He had been guarding his family.
Behind him, the Dead Spirit of his beautiful stepmother, Liu Sanmei, was also shielding her son, hiding behind Old Wang.
Even their youngest son, a one-year-old baby, had not been spared.
Luo Zhou ground his teeth with a grating sound. I must kill this beast!
He searched for Wang Xiaoya and quickly found her. She had already fled to the window and was about to climb out, frozen in the act of escaping.
The killer had done it deliberately. He had let her run, then killed her at the instant she believed she had escaped!
He had been toying with her!
Luo Zhou tried communicating with Wang Xiaoya's Dead Spirit, but received no response.
A tattered cloth doll had been carefully placed beside the window.
Wang Xiaoya might have known she was going to die. She had carefully placed it beside her so it would not be dirtied.
Luo Zhou picked it up. No matter how carefully Wang Xiaoya had protected it, a great deal of blood had still splattered across it.
This was Wang Xiaoya's blood!
With the cloth doll clenched in his hand, Luo Zhou was consumed by hatred.
Suddenly, Luo Zhou's eyes lit up. Something was wrong!
He began analyzing everything carefully, vaguely sensing that something was amiss.
He carefully examined the various expressions of the Dead Spirits. Although they could not speak, Luo Zhou flew into a rage.
A liar!
What 13th of the Month Devil?
Old Wang's family had not been killed last night, on the third day of the month.
They had been killed the night before, on the second day of the month!
On the night of the second day, the 13th of the Month Devil had come to kill them. When Wang Xiaoya saw her father die horribly, she could not help crying out...
Luo Zhou had heard her inner voice and deliberately come to investigate, but the 13th of the Month Devil had made arrangements. Finding nothing unusual, Luo Zhou had left.
When Luo Zhou investigated, Wang Xiaoya should have seen him. But she had not called for help or done anything.
It was not that she could not cry out. It was that she knew he was the 13th of the Month Devil. Even if Luo Zhou came to save her, he would only die!
She did not want Big Brother to die!
So she had merely watched Luo Zhou, without calling out for Big Brother to save her!
By silently making no sound, she had saved Luo Zhou's life!
If she had called out then, Luo Zhou would have come over. With the 13th of the Month Devil hidden in the darkness and Dragon-Slaying Thrust unable to be launched, Luo Zhou would have died without a doubt, reduced to a pool of blood.
She had pretended to climb out the window, watched Luo Zhou standing there, pretended not to see him, and silently waited for death!
At the final moment, had she cried?
She was only eight years old!
Luo Zhou's hatred reached its extreme, yet he became calm instead, breathing heavily.
This 13th of the Month Devil had deceived everyone. His ritual actually had nothing to do with the third or second day of the month.
He killed people on the second day and fabricated the scene, making everyone believe he had killed them on the third day. But why?
To create an alibi. Every third day, he had a perfect alibi!
"Someone once speculated that this 13th of the Month Devil might actually be an official from the government!
"A thief crying 'Stop thief'—that's why he's never been caught."
Luo Zhou suddenly remembered what Cheng Wanli had said!
On the night of the third day, all the government constables mobilized, each with an assignment. Only then would they need an alibi to prove they were not the 13th of the Month Devil.
Why had the Dead Spirits been unable to respond? The killer was likely a constable with a special technique, capable of washing away traces while murdering them. Only then could this have happened.
As for the coroner's examination, the killer had left behind no flesh or blood from the corpses at all—only blood sprayed across the sky, along with various arrangements that made it impossible to discover the true time of death.
"Bastard, you've shown your hand. I'll find you and nail you to the wall!"
The reason he had killed the entire Wang family was that although they now appeared to be ordinary people, their bloodline was definitely extraordinary.
The fact that he had obtained the divine ability Overturning Rivers and Seas from punishing evil was proof.
After investigating the place, Luo Zhou returned.
Back home, he carefully placed the cloth doll beside his bed and slowly said:
"All right, I'll accept your gift. It's as if you'll always be with me."
The cloth doll was extremely worn. If he washed it, it would fall apart, so he could only preserve the bloodstains.
The next day was the fifth day of the sixth month. Twenty-eight days remained.
An esteemed elder in the ward took the lead. Everyone pooled their money to hold a funeral and burial for the members of the Wang family.
They could only make it a clothing-and-crown burial, but they had to give them graves somehow.
Luo Zhou directly contributed ten taels of silver, effortlessly solving the fundraising problem.
Now that there was money, everyone specially erected a stone stele for Old Wang's family.
They wrote the names one by one: Wang Dong, Liu Sanmei. When they reached Wang Xiaoya, Luo Zhou said:
"I know her name!"
"Wang Xiaoya!"
He gave her a name.
Everyone looked at one another. Quite a few people knew that she had never actually had a name.
"Good. Wang Xiaoya—the little girl left this world with a proper name. That counts as complete. She didn't come into this world for nothing."
"A person leaves a name behind, and a goose leaves its cry."
And so the funeral ended.
Before long, Old Wang's home was unsealed, and renovations began.
The house was inherited by Bald Old Wang's brother-in-law, Liu Sanmei's younger brother, Liu Jinpeng.
Bald Old Wang's two male cousins, Wang Qiang and Wang Gang, refused to accept this and came to argue. Liu Jinpeng beat them severely.
Liu Jinpeng was a member of the Sanjiang Gang, a disciple of the underworld skilled in fists and kicks. Even the ward head did not dare say anything.
Wang Qiang and Wang Gang went to report it to the authorities, but they did not fare any better. They were no match for Liu Jinpeng in either the black or white worlds.
Luo Zhou paid no attention. He failed to notice that his ten taels of silver had revealed his wealth. Liu Jinpeng, who had come to renovate the house, quietly fixed his gaze on him and remained motionless for a long, long time!
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