"What? Li's dead!"
The cry made Tang Luo open his eyes. He also stopped his meager, barely-better-than-nothing attempt at healing.
"His abdomen was cut open."
Zhou Zhenguo said.
No need to say more. Everyone thought of Jack the Ripper.
"Should we go take a look?"
Xiao Chu pushed up his slipping glasses and asked.
Zhou Zhenguo nodded and led everyone toward the bathroom. Just as they were nearing it, he suddenly stopped and took a step back.
His sudden move startled Xiao Chu and the others, and they hurriedly backed away several steps too.
Only Tang Luo kept walking, passing Zhou Zhenguo.
He came to the tightly shut door and pushed it open without hesitation.
"Careful!" Zhou Zhenguo shouted.
He hadn't closed the bathroom door when he left, but now it had shut by itself. Even the bloody footprints left behind had vanished without a trace.
Such an abnormality meant danger.
Tang Luo pressed his palm against the door and paused before applying a little force.
The locked door burst open, slamming into the wall with a sharp bang.
"Ah!"
Li Liang, who was sitting on the toilet behind the door, cried out and fell off, staring blankly around him.
He looked as if he'd just woken up.
"He's not dead."
Tang Luo stepped back twice to make way, letting Zhou Zhenguo and the others see Li Liang, who looked like he'd just woken up.
Zhou Zhenguo's eyes widened.
Xiao Chu and the others looked back and forth between Zhou Zhenguo and Li Liang in confusion.
What happened to his abdomen being cut open?
"I clearly saw..."
Zhou Zhenguo said.
"Saw what?"
Li Liang stood up, puzzled, and headed outside without knowing what was going on.
Zhou Zhenguo reacted sharply, pointing at Li Liang and shouting, "Stop!"
Li Liang instinctively stopped.
"Uncle Zhou, calm down. We can sit down and sort this out slowly, figure out what happened."
Xiao Chu said.
The others nodded along like pecking chicks.
A few minutes later.
Li Liang's face was full of disbelief. "What the hell! I just sat in the bathroom for a while and fell asleep! How did I end up dead? Uncle Zhou, don't scare me."
Zhou Zhenguo folded his arms and stared at Li Liang without a word.
He trusted his own eyes and his own judgment.
So the Li Liang standing before him was no longer Li Liang!
The Jack the Ripper in the God and Demon Game mission couldn't possibly be the "ordinary" serial killer from history.
He must have some kind of special ability.
Zhou Zhenguo had already prepared himself for that possibility.
"Uncle Zhou, could you have seen it wrong?"
Xiao Chu said hesitantly.
"Maybe I really did see it wrong?"
Zhou Zhenguo frowned and approached Li Liang, as if he wanted to get a good look at him.
Then he abruptly thrust out his hand.
He pointed at Li Liang and made a fist.
A black chain appeared out of nowhere on the floor, circled around Li Liang, then burrowed back into the floor on the other side.
The black chain tightened, binding Li Liang and pinning him in place.
This was one of the skills Zhou Zhenguo had acquired—
Binding Chain.
It could tie up a target and pin them in place, restricting their movements.
At Zhou Zhenguo's current level of proficiency, using this ability
required him to be within ten meters of his target and spend some time marking them. Once the mark was successfully placed, the skill would activate at once.
The mark also had requirements. Zhou Zhenguo had to see the target with his own eyes and focus his attention on them.
The target moving, too much obstruction to his line of sight, or Zhou Zhenguo himself getting distracted or losing focus would all prevent him from using the skill.
In other words, Binding Chain was actually difficult to use in the heat of battle.
As Zhou Zhenguo grew more proficient,
his chance of successfully activating Binding Chain would increase.
"Uncle Zhou, what are you doing?"
Zhou Zhenguo's sudden attack startled everyone.
Li Liang naturally struggled too.
The chain clanked again and again, its echoes rippling through the empty church.
Zhou Zhenguo lowered his hand and instead took a step back, not approaching any further.
Binding Chain didn't mean that once the target was restrained, they could be held forever.
Aside from its current two-minute time limit, its effectiveness also depended on the target's strength.
A powerful target could break free with ease.
Zhou Zhenguo was certain that, in the real world, even the strongest weightlifter couldn't escape his Binding Chain.
An ordinary person like Li Liang certainly couldn't.
But the question was, was the Li Liang before him an ordinary person?
Could Jack the Ripper, disguised as Li Liang, break free of the chain?
That was unknown.
If Zhou Zhenguo approached and got suddenly attacked and killed, that would be ridiculous.
Zhou Zhenguo walked a couple of steps to the side and grabbed the candlestick on the stand.
The candle had burned down. The spike that had held it in place, nearly an inch long, was exposed and could easily serve as a weapon.
Upon entering the God and Demon Game, players couldn't bring all the random things on them.
There was no such thing as starting with weapons and provisions.
Want a weapon?
They had to adapt to their surroundings and use whatever they could find.
"Zhou! What are you doing?"
At the sight of Zhou Zhenguo's actions, Li Liang began struggling even more violently.
This usually amiable man was suddenly turning on him?
Was he crazy?
Or had he been putting on an act ever since they entered the mission world, and this was his true face?
"Uncle Zhou!"
Xiao Chu and the others called out from the side, trying to stop him, but they didn't actually do anything.
Faced with an experienced player turning on them,
newcomers to the God and Demon Game were utterly weak and helpless.
No one wanted to take on an experienced player head-on for a stranger they'd just met.
The two women retreated several meters, already prepared to run.
This uncle was unreliable!
After weighing the candlestick in his hand, Zhou Zhenguo approached Li Liang and said, "I don't know whether you really can't break free, or if you're just pretending—"
He didn't even finish speaking before raising the candlestick in his right hand and bringing it down.
He had no intention of wasting words.
That half-sentence had only been meant to confuse Li Liang and make him lower his guard.
The candlestick whistled through the air as it fell toward the immobilized Li Liang.
The candlestick was heavy, and it had a spike. Zhou Zhenguo was strong, too.
If that blow landed squarely, Li Liang would be seriously injured, if not killed.
The players' mission was to find Jack the Ripper.
That was actually a fairly broad concept.
Under a more lenient interpretation, they might not even need to see Jack the Ripper himself. Like in a detective game, identifying the Ripper's true identity could count as finding him and completing the mission.
Under a stricter interpretation, they might even have to capture Jack the Ripper themselves.
Simply seeing him or identifying him wouldn't be enough to complete the mission.
However they defined it,
killing Jack the Ripper would definitely count as completing the mission.
Zhou Zhenguo's face twisted with savagery as he struck without mercy.
"Ah!"
Li Liang let out a scream.
The candlestick's spike was less than two centimeters from his eye. He only had to move his head a little to touch it.
His head, barely able to move, had already bent back as far as it could.
Pain kept shooting through his neck. Li Liang even wondered if he'd twisted his head right off.
Zhou Zhenguo's hand stopped in midair.
He was clearly just "one step away" from Li Liang, yet he couldn't move any closer. He was completely immobilized.
The force coming from the hand gripping his forearm made Zhou Zhenguo feel as if he had been caught in his own Binding Chain.
"Amitabha Buddha."
Tang Luo stopped Zhou Zhenguo and recited a Buddhist prayer, giving a slight nod.
A strand of merit appeared from the unseen, absorbed by the Merit Jade Lotus.
A faint gleam flashed. Tang Luo immediately used the merit he had just absorbed.
A cool yet warm force surged out of the jade lotus and entered Tang Luo's body.
Like a spring flowing.
Like someone who'd been thirsty for years finally drinking a cup of water.
The rush of satisfaction made Tang Luo let out a soft breath.
"Ah!"
This time, Zhou Zhenguo was the one who screamed.
The sharp pain made him release the candlestick, which fell onto Li Liang's head as he jerked it desperately.
After leaving a cut beside Li Liang's eye, the candlestick hit the floor.
Li Liang felt a burning pain around his eye. Realizing he had survived, his body went limp.
If the chain hadn't been holding him firmly in place, he would have collapsed to the ground.
"Sorry."
Tang Luo let go and stepped back.
He'd just felt like a parched field finally getting rain, even if the "rainfall" amounted to only a single pot of water.
So Tang Luo had used just a little too much force and accidentally injured Zhou Zhenguo.
"Benefactor Zhou, you were reckless."
Tang Luo said to Zhou Zhenguo.
Zhou Zhenguo's entire right arm was trembling. From his elbow down, he felt as if his whole forearm no longer belonged to him.
The intense pain left him unable to speak for a moment.
The others finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Then they looked at Tang Luo differently.
This monk who called himself Xuanzang didn't seem to have been lying.
He really did seem strong.
"You don't believe me? I trust my eyes. I saw what I saw."
Zhou Zhenguo clutched his arm and spoke to Tang Luo.
"Benefactor, there's no need to get angry. I never said I didn't believe you."
Tang Luo chuckled.
"Then why did you stop me?" Zhou Zhenguo asked.
He didn't seem particularly shocked that Tang Luo had stopped him.
He knew his own circumstances.
As a God and Demon Walker who had only just made it past the novice stage—and had done so by keeping his head down—
aside from the skills he'd acquired, Zhou Zhenguo wasn't much stronger than an ordinary person.
If you threw him into a professional boxing or martial arts ring to face off against those pros,
Zhou Zhenguo definitely wouldn't stand a chance without using his skills.
In Zhou Zhenguo's eyes, Tang Luo must have trained in martial arts since childhood, like a warrior monk or something.
He was strong and probably knew how to fight.
And he was a bit of a chuunibyou—why else would he claim he could exorcise demons and vanquish evil?
It was only natural that he could stop him.
"Heaven above values the preservation of life. It would be wrong to kill someone just because you suspect them."
Tang Luo said.
Zhou Zhenguo snorted and said nothing.
"However, since Benefactor Zhou insists that Benefactor Li isn't himself and may have been impersonated by the Ripper to quench his thirst, I think we ought to verify it." Tang Luo smiled as he picked up the candlestick from the floor.
Li Liang shuddered, sensing something ominous. "Hey! Monk, what are you going to do?"
"Benefactor Li, there's no need to worry. At most, it'll hurt a little. Your life won't be in danger."
Tang Luo might as well have given him a thumbs-up and said, "No problem."
"Hey! Hey!"
Li Liang, who'd just run out of strength, began struggling against the chains again, making them clang.
Human potential really was boundless.
"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
His miserable cries echoed through the church, though honestly, they were so loud and hearty that they sounded more like an emotional release than an expression of pain.
A moment later, Tang Luo tossed the bloodstained candlestick to the floor and nodded with absolute certainty. "It's been verified. I don't think Benefactor Li is the Ripper."
The Li Liang before them had several bloody holes pierced into each arm.
"If he were the Ripper, he wouldn't have let me do whatever I wanted. He would definitely have fought back. So Benefactor Li isn't the Ripper." Tang Luo sounded utterly confident.
"..."
"..."
"Master, he—he's still tied up," Xiao Chu reminded him quietly.
When a person was tied up, they couldn't fight back. That was one of nature's basic laws.
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