This Monk Wants to Dig a Grave

This Humble Monk Needs to Dig a Grave

Arriving at the first location.

Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian did not even bother to go inside to search, because there was nothing left but an empty shell.

Even the walls of the house no longer existed.

It was one of those old, long-abandoned houses; with a single push, Zhou Zhenguo knocked it over completely.

There was no attack from any possessed individuals.

Apart from the sound of the collapse, the surroundings remained deathly silent.

"It seems it's not here."

Zhou Zhenguo said.

"Bang!"

Just then, a sound rang out—not particularly loud, but exceptionally clear in the silent night.

Tang Luo leaped onto the roof on the other side.

Under the dim streetlights, he saw a person run out onto the street in the distance.

The man was firing his gun frantically into the darkness.

Figures rushed out and tackled the man, followed by a second, a third, and a fourth.

More than a dozen figures, like a pack of hunting wolves, dragged the man away from the light of the streetlamp.

They dragged him into the darkness.

Immediately after, those figures began running in a single direction.

Tang Luo looked around, and with a few leaps, he jumped onto the nearest and tallest building.

He could see that the small town's streets, which had been as quiet as a grave, now had quite a few pedestrians.

A small portion were being hunted.

The majority, he feared, had already been controlled by Jack the Ripper and were hunting others.

Moreover, after each kill, those people would sprint toward the same direction.

"Master, what do you see?" Chu Chongtian shouted from downstairs.

"The Ripper is making his move. Many people have been possessed and controlled by him, and they are all running toward the church."

Tang Luo leaped down, slamming into the ground and scattering the snowflakes around him.

A circle of black earth was revealed beneath his feet.

"The church?"

Zhou Zhenguo did not understand why Jack the Ripper would possess people and head to the church.

Shouldn't he be coming here to cause them trouble?

"This Humble Monk has a theory. I do not know if it is true, but we can go verify it now. What do you think?" Tang Luo said.

"What theory?"

Chu Chongtian was almost moved to tears; Master, you have finally started to think.

"Is Jack the Ripper truly human?" Tang Luo smiled as he spoke.

It was a gentle smile, yet it made Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian feel a chill run down their spines.

It had nothing to do with Tang Luo himself, but rather the content of his words.

Is Jack the Ripper truly human?

Nonsense, if he isn't human, is he a ghost?

But, why couldn't Jack the Ripper be a ghost?

Swallowing hard, Chu Chongtian looked at Tang Luo and asked, "Master, what are you implying?"

Tang Luo did not answer, looking instead at Zhou Zhenguo.

Zhou Zhenguo nodded with difficulty: "It is possible. The two failed missions I had were both encounters with ghosts. Those types of supernatural missions are extremely difficult."

"This Humble Monk wishes to go to the church to take a look. What do you two think?" Tang Luo asked.

He was just that democratic, always asking for others' opinions first.

"Let's go." Zhou Zhenguo gritted his teeth and uttered the words.

They were wrong.

From the moment they inferred that Jack the Ripper was a human, they had been wrong.

That was the moment the mission began to spiral into the most dangerous dead end.

"Then let us go."

Tang Luo began walking in the direction of the church.

That place was the origin point where they had descended into this mission world.

A tomb chamber, with a graveyard outside, and a church nearby.

And, Li Liang, who had encountered trouble on the very first night.

The surroundings were deathly silent, with a few kerosene lamps hanging outside the church.

The townspeople who had been running toward this direction earlier had no idea where they had gone.

The church doors were ajar, just as they had been on the first night, not completely shut or locked.

Tang Luo pushed the door open and walked inside.

Zhou Zhenguo walked at the very back, closing the door and sliding the bolt into place, completely blocking out the wind and snow outside.

Inside the church, a few candles were still burning.

It was enough to keep the interior from being plunged into total darkness.

It remained empty, save for the flickering candlelight.

The scene was so similar to that first night.

Were the three of them going to complete their final mission in the very place where it all began?

"Here it is."

Tang Luo stood before a small black door.

Back then, everyone had discovered this small black door, but it had been locked tight.

No one had wanted to force their way in to take a look.

But this time, Tang Luo gave it a light tap.

He "knocked over" the door, which appeared small but was actually quite thick, sending it crashing to the floor.

It revealed a passage of stairs leading downward.

The staircase was not long, and a faint, flickering firelight could be seen.

It cast the shadow of a blurred figure.

At the same time, prayer-like mutterings drifted up from within.

Tang Luo stepped onto the door panel and walked into this unknown basement.

Before long, the muttering stopped.

Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian exchanged a glance, intending to go in and see for themselves.

However, before they could descend, Tang Luo walked back out, dragging someone with him.

The person in his grasp was dressed as a priest, but his hair and beard were a tangled mess.

His clothes were filthy, emitting a foul, unpleasant odor.

If not for that attire, anyone would have mistaken him for a vagrant.

Even while being held by Tang Luo, the priest did not struggle; his prayers merely grew quieter.

The muttering turned into a whisper.

"Tell me, where is Jack the Ripper?"

Tang Luo threw the priest to the ground and asked.

The moment he uttered the name Jack the Ripper.

The priest's prayers stopped abruptly, his body began to tremble, and he flipped over to kneel on the ground, curling into a ball: "My almighty master, your humble servant is here, offering up everything I possess."

Chu Chongtian was about to speak, but Zhou Zhenguo raised a hand to stop him.

"Is that so?"

Looking down at the priest, Tang Luo said, "Then take me to the sacred ground."

"Yes, my master." The priest stood up and slowly began to walk toward the outside of the church.

He looked exactly like a broken doll, a puppet.

Zhou Zhenguo stepped forward quickly and reopened the church doors.

The wind and snow from outside surged in instantly.

The priest's body swayed, and he nearly fell to the ground.

It was enough to make one worry he might suddenly drop dead.

Fortunately, the priest only staggered twice; he did not collapse and continued to step forward.

After walking out of the church doors, he turned and headed toward the left.

"That way, it seems to be a graveyard as well."

Zhou Zhenguo whispered.

The church was situated in a relatively remote area with plenty of open space, and there were graveyards on both sides.

Tang Luo and the others had emerged from one of those sides.

However, it was the exact opposite direction from where the priest was leading them now.

The graveyard Tang Luo and his group had seen belonged to a more upscale section.

For instance, many of those who perished in the manor tragedy had been buried there.

The other side, however, was the commoners' cemetery.

To put it bluntly, it was essentially no different from a mass grave.

The priest struggled to move forward through the wind and snow.

After a full half-hour, he finally arrived at a very secluded spot.

Not far away stood a patch of tangled woods.

The priest stopped, completely ignoring the snow on the ground, and prostrated himself in a full kowtow.

Come to think of it, when Tang Luo first saw him, he had been praying in this exact posture.

"There's nothing here."

Chu Chongtian remarked.

A sacred place?

Shouldn't this be the burial site of Jack the Ripper?

Master Xuanzang had tricked this deranged priest into bringing them here.

Yet, there wasn't even a tombstone, only a bare tree trunk.

"This is the place."

Tang Luo stepped past the priest and walked toward the trunk about five meters in front of him.

Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian quickly followed.

Upon getting closer, they realized it wasn't a tree trunk at all.

It was two pieces of wood lashed together to resemble a cross.

Stuck into the ground, it barely qualified as a tombstone.

Or rather, a marker.

Most importantly, a dagger was nailed to the top of the wood.

A rusted, blood-stained dagger.

The light from the lantern in Zhou Zhenguo's hand shone upon the blade.

The appearance of the dagger gradually aligned with the one he had seen that night.

"Have we been wasting our time all along?!" Chu Chongtian couldn't help but exclaim, his voice sounding somewhat shrill.

After working so hard for so long.

The final result, the answer, was actually this.

Was Jack the Ripper a soul, a vengeful spirit without even a tombstone?

Hmm, to use a more Eastern term, a malevolent ghost?

"No, the mission has not been completed yet," Tang Luo said. "This proves that something quite important has been overlooked. Only by finding it can we truly say we have found Jack the Ripper."

As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed the makeshift cross standing in the ground.

The moment Tang Luo's hand touched the "cross."

The already heavy wind and snow instantly transformed into a true blizzard.

The biting cold wind whipped against their faces, stinging like blades cutting into their skin.

The lantern in Zhou Zhenguo's hand swayed twice before breaking and falling to the ground.

The light vanished.

The surroundings were plunged into immediate darkness.

"Master!"

Chu Chongtian shouted, instinctively crouching down.

The bone-chilling sensation was exactly like that night.

But this time, it was different from the sudden onset of the previous encounter.

Last time, they had felt like insects trapped in amber.

This time, it felt more like freezing water rising steadily around them.

The numbness crept in slowly, leaving them some room to struggle.

"Help this monk buy two minutes."

Tang Luo's voice pierced through the howling gale, reaching the ears of the two men.

Golden light erupted from both their bodies simultaneously, dispelling the cold, numbing sensation.

This time, the radiance did not dissipate immediately.

Instead, it persisted, a warm current surging through their limbs and bones.

It allowed Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian to ignore the surrounding wind, snow, and darkness.

But the moment they saw the scene around them clearly, their bodies still stiffened.

At some unknown point, a large crowd had gathered around them; hidden by the wind and snow, the closest ones were less than twenty meters away.

These people were all residents of the small town.

There were also the Scotland Yard detectives Zhou Zhenguo and the others had seen before.

But now, none of them were "residents of the small town" anymore.

Every face was shrouded in black shadow.

Their features were invisible, save for three spots—where their eyes and mouths should have been—that were even deeper and darker than the surrounding shadows.

Two minutes?

A black, swarming mass of people "possessed by evil spirits" like this, if they rushed forward all at once—

It wouldn't even take half a minute to tear Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian to pieces.

"Master, what are you doing!"

Chu Chongtian's voice was trembling.

"A sin, this poor monk must dig a grave."

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