Mysterious Recovery: Starting by Controlling the Person-Hiding Ghost, Part 27

What was baffling, however, was that they had no other obvious external injuries, yet their clothes were covered in blood.

The little girl in particular had once worn a pure white dress, but a great deal of blood had dyed it bright red.

"Something's strange." Jiang Li pointed at the photograph. "The way these people died doesn't look right. It doesn't look like a person did it at all. It's more like some kind of inescapably fatal curse from a fierce ghost."

Chapter 42: Wang Xiaoming's Intentions

"They did die from a fierce ghost's curse, but that isn't the important part."

Yang Jian's expression grew much darker as he pointed at the people in the photograph. "The investigation found that all these dead people had two things in common. They were all close blood relatives of Zhao Kaiming, and every one of them had already died once before."

Jiang Li's eyelids twitched when he heard that.

Zhao Kaiming's relatives?

Shouldn't they have been successfully resurrected by now, with Zhao Xiaoya chosen again as the Wishing Ghost's host?

Why would they die at a time like this, and at the hands of a fierce ghost?

Before Jiang Li could think any further, Yang Jian revealed an even more bewildering fact.

"Tests by the relevant department showed that almost none of the blood on the deceased came from them. It came from Zhao Kaiming. After visiting the scene, I began to suspect that Zhao Kaiming was the one who killed them."

"How is that possible?"

Jiang Li frowned. "Those people were brought back to life by Zhao Kaiming using a fierce ghost's supernatural power. He had absolutely no reason to resurrect them only to kill them, especially when they were his own blood relatives."

After a moment's silence, Yang Jian spoke again.

"I don't know either. If he had no feelings for those relatives, that might just barely make sense. But I found tear tracks on the faces of most of the corpses. Judging by the way the tears ran, it looked like someone had left them there while holding them and crying."

"So you mean Zhao Kaiming was forced by some circumstance to kill those relatives with his own hands, and afterward he held their corpses and wept bitterly?"

Jiang Li replied, vaguely guessing at the reason behind it.

A fierce ghost was probably acting in secret behind all this.

Aside from the Wishing Ghost, there was probably only that one ghost capable of making Zhao Kaiming kill his own relatives.

"Also, Sun Yi's corpse was found in that hospital."

"That wouldn't have meant much on its own, but now his face is missing," Yang Jian said gravely. "Early last night, surveillance footage caught someone who looked exactly like Sun Yi entering the outskirts. He never came back out."

"The situation couldn't be clearer, it seems. After the Newspaper Ghost that disguised itself as your father failed to seize the Hunger Ghost's body, it set its sights on Zhao Kaiming's newly resurrected family and fought Zhao Kaiming. In the end, the price was the horrific deaths of his entire family."

"But... what about Zhao Kaiming? He's probably not dead yet, is he?" Jiang Li said thoughtfully.

"We haven't found his corpse, so he's most likely alive. Having an enemy like that lying low in the shadows now is bound to make people deeply uneasy," Yang Jian said, taking a bottle of cola from the refrigerator.

"But I sent people to search, and he's no longer in Dachang City. At least we shouldn't have to worry too much about Zhao Kaiming for the time being."

"All right. So what's the good news you mentioned?" Jiang Li asked.

"Zhao Lei woke up, and he's recovered quite a few of his memories."

As Yang Jian spoke, he pointed at his own face.

"Most importantly, there were still a few scraps of newspaper stuck to the half a face you brought back. Those scraps were different from the other newspapers used to tamper with memories. They seem to be part of the Newspaper Ghost itself."

"Perhaps that ghost's original, more cautious plan was to completely erode Zhao Lei and turn him into a vessel for its own body. But later, our operation against the Hunger Ghost with Zhao Kaiming made it change its mind, leaving some of its supernatural power on Zhao Lei's face."

"You mean Zhao Lei not only managed to wake up, but also gained some of the Newspaper Ghost's supernatural power? That really is good news."

As Jiang Li spoke, his frown eased somewhat.

He had used quite a few of Yang Jian's things and fierce ghosts lately, and had always felt indebted to him. Hearing now that Zhao Lei had survived thanks to him, he could not help feeling gratified.

"Zhao Lei's recovering well, but considering the Newspaper Ghost's peculiar nature, I haven't let him leave the hospital yet," Yang Jian said. "It's all the same, though. He can still play games with Zhang Wei and me from the hospital. You can join us."

"No need. I'm not in particularly good shape right now, and I can't really enjoy games normally. Just let me stay by myself," Jiang Li said.

"Fine. Consider this house a gift from me. If you want to live here, you can stay as long as you like."

"If anything comes up, you can find me in the house at the very front. I'll be here all week. If I'm not around in the future, you can go to Jiang Yan. She's more or less my assistant."

With that, Yang Jian got up to leave, but before he went out, he turned back again.

"Oh, right. You'd better watch yourself at tomorrow's meeting. Wang Xiaoming seems to have taken an interest in that wooden box of yours. He's not a very likable guy. If you want to keep the box, I'm afraid you'd better prepare in advance to fight some people with bad intentions."

"I understand. Thanks for the warning."

After Yang Jian left, Jiang Li immediately frowned deeply, then gave a cold smile.

There was undoubtedly only one reason Wang Xiaoming had set his sights on his belongings.

In his view, the wooden box was worth more than Jiang Li's potential. In other words, he thought Jiang Li was unworthy of possessing it.

Perhaps Wang Xiaoming thought Yang Jian or some other criminal police officer was more outstanding than Jiang Li, and intended to seize his belongings and give them to that person.

If that was really the case, it would definitely cross his bottom line.

Hand on heart, since he had transmigrated here, he had never thought of or acted on the idea of plundering anyone else's resources. Even the two fierce ghosts he had obtained from Yang Jian had been used entirely in the operation against the Hunger Ghost.

Even if he really did owe someone something, he would never just dust off his backside and walk away.

But Wang Xiaoming was clearly not the same kind of person as him, at least not in his memories.

He was nothing more than a seemingly precise machine for calculating value.

Jiang Li remembered it clearly.

Back when Yang Jian had been afflicted by the music box curse, Wang Xiaoming had personally brought people to Guo Fan's home to demand the Ghost Spirit Tablet Guo Fan controlled, in preparation for helping Yang Jian break the curse.

Although he had only tried to persuade him at first, after Guo Fan explicitly refused to provide the Ghost Spirit Tablet, Wang Xiaoming had completely dropped all pretense. In front of Guo Fan's friend, who was also the person in charge of a city, he had called out the Ghost Messenger, Wei Jing, to seize Guo Fan's spirit tablet by force.

In the end, Guo Fan died an unexplained death, and no one cared.

No one cared about the injustice he had suffered before his death. People only marveled at the Ghost Eye criminal police officer's latest rebirth.

Now that Wang Xiaoming had set his sights on Jiang Li's supernatural wooden box, he meant to make Jiang Li suffer the same fate as Guo Fan.

Heh.

Jiang Li suddenly laughed, then dialed Wang Shan's number.

"Wang Shan, I remember you saying there were quite a few people in charge at headquarters who also lent their names to the Friend Circle for money. Spend some money and find out which people in charge will be attending tomorrow's Hunger Ghost meeting. Send me whatever detailed information you can get on each of them."

Chapter 43: A Less Than Friendly Meeting

It was already two in the morning, and the room was still pitch-dark.

Jiang Li sat silently in front of the small wooden box, wrestling with himself over a decision.

Finally, he gritted his teeth, went to the kitchen to find a sharp little knife, and returned to the box.

After aiming the knife at the twisted, deformed fierce ghost's finger, Jiang Li lowered his head and muttered to himself.

"This finger is already of little use to me, and it probably won't be much help at tomorrow's meeting either. Maybe the best choice now is to throw it into this wooden box and see if I can get some useful supernatural item out of it."

"Although this finger is rather incomplete and might not count as a ghost, I urgently need to improve my strength right now, so I can't worry about that much."

Plop.

After he cut it off with one stroke, the finger did not bleed. Instead, it began to wriggle and bend eerily inside the box.

Jiang Li closed the wooden box without hesitation, pressed a tissue against the wound, and began to wait quietly for it to open again.

At last, the wooden box opened again, and a finger bone appeared in its center.

A slip of paper floated out immediately afterward.

[Drowned Ghost's Finger Bone: A short finger bone from the Drowned Ghost. When it is pointed continuously at a target for ten seconds, an attack on that target will follow. The time until the attack arrives can be judged by the descending shadow.]

Seeing this, Jiang Li fell into thought.

The Drowned Ghost's Finger Bone...

The sun rose as usual.

By then, Jiang Li and Yang Jian had arrived at the stadium in central Dachang City, where they waited for the meeting to begin.

Zhao Jianguo was in the corridor inside, holding a stack of documents. When he saw the two of them, he immediately came over to greet them.

"You two are early. The meeting won't start for another ten minutes or so."

As he spoke, Zhao Jianguo suddenly frowned slightly and addressed Jiang Li.

"The dark circles under your eyes look pretty bad. Has a fierce ghost affected your sleep schedule? If you're really not feeling well, I can apply now to let you listen in from the room next to the meeting room. That would still count as attending the meeting."

"No need. I just lost some sleep thinking about a few things last night. I'm fine for now," Jiang Li replied mildly, slipping his hand into his trouser pocket.

Yang Jian said nothing, merely glancing quietly at Jiang Li's trouser pocket.

He had noticed something odd about Jiang Li's hand when they first set out, but he had not asked about it.

After all, some things did not need to be asked about.

"Oh, a few people are already here. I thought I'd be the first to arrive."

A smiling young man in casual clothes walked in and waved to Zhao Jianguo and the other two.

"Cao Yang, go on into the meeting room and take a seat. Professor Wang is already inside," Zhao Jianguo said. "Next time you attend a meeting, remember to dress more formally. Otherwise, what kind of impression does that make?"

"As the dignified person in charge of an entire city, I carry such a heavy burden on my shoulders. Is headquarters unwilling to give me even the freedom to dress as I please?" Cao Yang sighed.

"If I get criticized over my clothes, I'm afraid my mental state might undergo some extremely unpleasant changes. When that happens, Captain Zhao, you'll have to take responsibility."

"You silver-tongued rascal."

The corners of Zhao Jianguo's mouth twitched, but he could not argue back. He could only watch helplessly as Cao Yang entered the meeting room.

After looking away from Cao Yang, Jiang Li said in a low voice:

"It's about time. We should go in too."

"All right."

Just as Jiang Li and Yang Jian were heading toward the meeting room, a child less than 1.4 meters tall suddenly darted between them, then looked back and pulled a face at them.

"Bleh~"

Apparently worried that he had not been mocking enough, the child stuck out his backside and thrust it around at the two of them, wearing a sleazy, mischievous grin.

"That little brat. I really have to catch him after the meeting and beat him senseless," Yang Jian said, narrowing his eyes slightly. "I'll beat him until he calls me Daddy."

Sensing the killing intent in Yang Jian's eyes, the child immediately showed a hint of fear and scurried into the meeting room.

"Sure enough, ghost controllers aren't quite normal. Even the kids behave like this."

Seeing that, Jiang Li could not help sighing.

So Xiong Wenwen really was asking for a beating. Watching that little performance just now had made Jiang Li's fists clench.

He was right to find a chance to beat him up.

After the two entered the meeting room and took their seats, more than twenty people in charge wearing uniforms arrived one after another.

These latecomers were clearly very different from Cao Yang and Xiong Wenwen.

Most of them were deathly quiet and expressionless, like walking corpses.

"Everyone, please take your seats. I'm Cao Yanhua, deputy minister of headquarters, and I'm responsible for convening this meeting..."