Evil Spirit!

A crowd gathered around Fan Qingyang and tore into Jiang Feng from head to toe. They made him out to be some unforgivable, lawless tyrant who deserved nothing less than the harshest punishment to appease the people's fury.

Fan Qingyang wore a genial smile from beginning to end, listening attentively to everyone's accusations and nodding along now and then, as if he'd taken every word to heart.

But Jiang Feng, standing in the distance, was already on full alert.

Without drawing attention to himself, he gripped the Ghost-Head Blade at his side.

He was absolutely certain that last night, he had truly cut off Fan Qingyang's head.

The person before him looked exactly like Fan Qingyang—in appearance, features, mannerisms, and expression. But there was no way this could be Fan Qingyang.

At least, not Fan Qingyang alive.

"Demon... or evil spirit?"

This was Jiang Feng's first time encountering such a thing in real life, and he couldn't help tensing up.

His gaze swept over the other man again and again, sharp as a hawk's, searching for the slightest flaw.

A closer look revealed something strange. The expression on that plump face was far too stiff. Ever since he'd stepped into the room, that smile hadn't shifted in the slightest, as if it had been carved into place. It seemed he could make only that one expression.

And there was something wrong with Fan Qingyang's thick, fatty neck, too.

A thin black line ran across it. At first glance, it looked like the stitches left behind after a wound had been sewn shut. Unless you got close and examined it carefully, you'd never notice.

At the same time, Jiang Feng noticed that the other man kept repeating a very strange gesture. His chubby hands kept reaching out to pat the heads of the people around him.

It would have made sense if an elder were doing it to a younger person, but between people of the same age, it was awkward beyond words.

Yet the crowd around him was already worked up, grinding their teeth in hatred of Jiang Feng. Not one of them noticed anything so obviously bizarre. Instead, they craned their necks eagerly, letting the other man pat their heads.

"Boss Fan, that's more or less what happened. What do you think we should do now?"

Ma Liu embellished the story as he retold it, then cheerfully called on everyone to clear a path for Fan Qingyang.

The stiff smile on Fan Qingyang's face didn't change. He ambled over to Jiang Feng and spoke slowly. "Jiang Feng, do you know what you did wrong?"

Jiang Feng drank the last mouthful of medicine from his bowl, then nodded with utmost seriousness.

"Yeah, I did make a mistake. I should've chopped him up more last night, so he wouldn't come back from the dead.

So much for taking the easy way out. Now I have to do the unfinished job all over again."

The people around him were completely baffled. What was he even talking about?

Then they looked down and saw that the pot held nothing but a pile of spent herbs—not a drop of medicine left. Their teeth immediately began to grind in anger, and they all started shouting:

"Jiang Feng! You're too damn arrogant! You're still refusing to admit your mistake at a time like this!"

"Brother Fan, you have to punish him severely!"

"Exactly! He's pretending to be crazy and talking nonsense to dodge punishment!"

Fan Qingyang raised a hand, and the storeroom fell silent once more.

His smile remained unchanged, but there was something indescribably strange in his voice.

"Jiang Feng, even though you did something wrong, I'm still willing to give you a chance to make amends. Come, lean your head toward me."

As he spoke, that fat hand slowly reached for the top of Jiang Feng's head.

Ma Liu and the others watched with beaming smiles, just waiting for Jiang Feng to start wailing and begging for mercy.

But in the next instant, a flash of silver streaked through the air. A round object shot high above them, and the smiles on every face froze.

Thud. The object hit the ground and rolled in a circle before coming to a stop.

The crowd instinctively looked over. Lying on the floor was Fan Qingyang's fat head.

For a moment, the storeroom was silent. Then a string of terrified screams erupted.

"Jiang Feng! Have you gone mad? You... you actually dared to kill Fan Qingyang!"

"Jiang Feng, you're digging your own grave!"

A few of the more timid ones reacted before they could even think, scrambling backward with their eyes fixed on the door, ready to bolt at any moment.

Jiang Feng watched the panicked crowd coldly and said, "Are you all idiots? Take a good look. If he were still human, could he end up like this?"

At his words, everyone froze, then turned their eyes toward Fan Qingyang's body. In the next instant, their expressions shifted from shock to terror.

Fan Qingyang's body was still standing where it had been, and not a drop of blood flowed from its severed neck.

"E-evil spirit! Boss Fan's body's been taken over by an evil spirit!"

Someone blurted it out.

The head that had been lying quietly on the floor suddenly rolled over on its own.

Its face, already leering and repulsive, twisted into something even more hideous. Its mouth stretched almost to its ears.

"Oh dear, looks like I've been found out. How did you figure it out?

So, that means you were the one who killed this fatso last night."

A strange voice came from the severed head, neither male nor female, high-pitched and drawn-out. Its beady eyes fixed on Jiang Feng.

But no one cared anymore about who had killed Fan Qingyang.

The moment they saw the evil spirit reveal itself, everyone's first instinct was to run.

Several people closest to the door charged toward it like madmen. But before they could even touch the door, they were suddenly pinned in place as if an invisible force had seized them.

The people behind them shouted in panic, "What are you standing around for? Open the door! The evil spirit's coming!"

As soon as the words left their mouths, the people frozen at the front all turned around at once.

Their eyes had become two pools of thick, inky black. Dense black lines appeared all over their bodies, making them look like hideous, terrifying rag dolls sewn together with countless stitches.

Without a word, they lunged at the people behind them and began tearing into them with their teeth.

Caught completely off guard, two people had their throats bitten through on the spot. They gave a muffled groan and collapsed into pools of blood.

The gruesome sight left the rest of the crowd weak-kneed. They no longer dared run toward the door and instead scrambled toward the back corner.

Jiang Feng noticed the commotion, of course, but he had no time to pay attention to it.

Right before him, Fan Qingyang calmly placed his head back onto his neck.

A faint, teeth-grating sound of stitching followed. The black line around the severed neck wriggled like a living thing, closing the wound in an instant until it fit together seamlessly.

"Kid, do you know how much effort I put into cultivating this puppet?

Do you know how important it was to me?

I was just about to finish it...

And because of you, all my hard work has gone to waste!"

The creature's strange voice suddenly rose, turning shrill and grating. With every word it spoke, another black mark appeared on the fat body, spreading densely across it, as if something were frantically crawling around beneath its skin.

"Since that's the case, hand over your body and become my new vessel!"

Before the words had even faded, the vicious blade came slashing down again, taking its head clean off.

The head that had just been reattached flew through the air once more and rolled far away.

Jiang Feng looked down at the head on the ground, his expression cold and impassive. "Why all the damn talk? I'd like to see if you'll die when I chop you to pieces."