Possession

"No doubt about it, the murderer is 90% likely to be Wang Baoli!"

In the large side room reserved by the village chief, police officer Li Shuang directly confirmed the answer.

"Is it reliable?" Zhang Xuezhou asked doubtfully.

Li Shuang's expression when she gave the answer was so certain.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem; Zhang Xuezhou could trust the professionals.

However, the yamen (government office) made a mistake in the trial of the case, involving the Rong family and forcing everyone to "catch the ghost." This made Zhang Xuezhou less trusting of professionals and he felt that there might be a significant error.

"It's definitely reliable!" Li Shuang confirmed.

"What's the other 10% chance?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.

"There's also a 10% chance that Wang Fu'an accidentally fell into the Longmen River and drowned," Li Shuang waved his hand and said, "But he's such a big man, it's probably impossible!"

"Did you perform an autopsy?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.

"Autopsy? How can we perform an autopsy on a body that's swollen like that?" Li Shuang waved his hand and said, "Besides, you yourselves, as the parties involved, didn't even bother to verify Wang Fu'an's body, so don't expect us to. After all, our department has limited manpower, and no one has the expertise to perform an autopsy. The chances of us making a mistake are very high!"

"Then you might as well invite me to take a look," Rong Li said. "I've been doing this for so many years..."

"All these years you've seen are dead pigs, not dead people!"

Li Shuang waved his hand, indicating that Rong Li's autopsy was even less reliable.

"They're all corpses, what's the difference?" Rong Li said unhappily, "I can tell the difference at a glance from bumps, bruises, bindings, and stab wounds!"

"Yours is a normal corpse. The corpses that the government performs autopsies on are usually dead for several days. The bodies contain a lot of filth, and they can even explode if you're not careful. Maggots can get on them and they can stink for days. There are also those that are so rotten that only a pile of bones remains..."

"Forget it, I don't meet the requirements of the government!"

Rong Li persisted for a few seconds, then gave up.

The skill of autopsy requires not only boldness and meticulousness, but also a great deal of professional expertise, which is quite different from slaughtering pigs.

"You just trust my judgment?" Li Shuang said helplessly, "There are too few strange things happening in this kind of village. It's impossible for anything else to happen. I suspect that Wang Baoli listened to the words of the water ghost from the wooden Daoist and took advantage of Wang Fu'an's search for sheep at night to commit evil deeds!"

"Then hurry up and arrest him! Why do you expect us to believe you?" Rong Li said.

"You stabbed me!" Li Shuang waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "I'm not good at arresting people right now!"

"Then go back to the yamen and ask someone for help," Rong Li said.

"If we really go back to the yamen to call for help, I'll be punished by Lord Bao, but you'll all be implicated and punished for the fake painting of immortals," Li Shuang said.

"The real culprit has been caught, so why are we involved?" Rong Tianding retorted, "I was just selling a few paintings!"

"To put it mildly, selling paintings under the guise of ghost stories is fraud; to put it more seriously, you're inciting the public and disrupting order—beheading wouldn't be an exaggeration," Li Shuang laughed. "You should be grateful that Master Rong has some standing in Hibiscus City, otherwise you'd be executed!"

He threatened Rong Tianding, then lifted Rong Li up, causing Rong Li's face to flush slightly.

Although the Rong family only runs a pig slaughtering business, Rong Li can say that at least half of the people in Hibiscus City have eaten the pork they sell.

This makes people think twice before acting out of respect for the monk, so they at least won't go too far in their actions.

The current situation is also a matter of tacit agreement.

They helped the yamen (government office) close the murder case, and the yamen kept quiet and simply moved past the matter of Rong Tianding selling fake paintings.

As long as Rong Tianding doesn't add fuel to the fire when the ghosts are around, the government can even turn a blind eye to Rong Tianding's future sale of paintings of deities.

Li Shuang and Rong Li exchanged a few words in hushed tones, and Li Shuang had a general idea of what was going on.

"We can help, but we're just butchers. We don't have the law enforcement power of the government. Arresting Wang Baoli directly would probably provoke public outrage," Rong Li said, frowning.

"We not only need to arrest Wang Baoli, but we also need to quell this ghost story," Li Shuang said with a headache. "The real challenge is convincing the villagers that Longmen Village is free of ghosts and that Wang Baoli is behind all these things!"

"Wang Baoli couldn't possibly have taken away so many pigs and cattle, could he?" Zhang Xuezhou asked doubtfully. "How can you expect the villagers to believe such a thing?"

"I heard from the clerk that the person who took the pigs and cattle was a big shot," Li Shuang said. "When he and his men passed by, they took the villagers' pigs and cattle for a feast. They have already sent a sum of money as compensation, which will be delivered to Longmen Village by the government for disaster relief soon."

"This is really..."

Zhang Xuezhou was speechless for a moment.

The fact that Longmen Village was gripped by fear and the people of Hibiscus City were thrown into a panic was actually just something a big shot did casually.

He was momentarily astonished by the immense disruption of order caused by these powerful figures, and at the same time, he felt resentment towards this particular figure.

They could have simply paid for it, but instead chose to take it without informing anyone, causing panic in the surrounding area and ultimately implicating them, forcing them to clean up the mess.

The cleanup is obviously very difficult.

Police officer Li Shuang's attempt to impersonate a ghost failed; such an incident is unlikely to happen again.

As Li Shuang said, one must have the skill to play a ghost, otherwise barking in the middle of the night will attract the village's big dogs, and you might end up in their mouths.

After a long and fruitless discussion, Zhang Xuezhou hesitantly asked a question.

"Do you think it's okay if we arrest Wang Baoli as if he were a ghost?"

On the one hand, it is necessary to dispel the rumors of ghosts, which requires either catching a ghost or fooling someone to get through the situation.

On the other hand, they need to arrest Wang Baoli.

The difficulty of having everyone work separately to complete the two tasks was extremely high, so Zhang Xuezhou proposed another possibility.

"As long as we're certain Wang Baoli is possessed by a water ghost, we can definitely catch him and get the villagers to cooperate!"

Thinking that Mu Daoren had used 'ghost possession' to control his body, Zhang Xuezhou couldn't help but follow suit and prepared to do the same to Wang Baoli.

The wooden Daoist was truly skilled, while they were just treating living people like ghosts and messing around recklessly.

When Zhang Xuezhou expressed his thoughts, Li Shuang pursed her lips and moved a little further away from Zhang Xuezhou.

"Scholars think so quickly!"

Li Shuang gave a thumbs-up.

Warriors think simply; they won't use their brains if they can just use a knife.

But writers have too many intricate and convoluted schemes.

Li Shuang felt that the Rong family members' minds were too complicated when it came to studying, far less innocent than when they were selling pigs.

"Cousin, it's time for you to show off the power of your divine painting," Zhang Xuezhou said.

"Cousin, if we keep going like this, things could easily get out of hand," Rong Tianding said. "I feel like things are getting bigger and bigger!"

"It's fine if we don't do it, since I'm not the one getting beaten up anyway," Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand and said.

"Let's go, let's go catch the water ghost!"

Reminded by Zhang Xuezhou, Rong Tianding remembered the ten strokes of the cane he owed at the yamen and immediately stopped hesitating.

"Let's hold a religious ceremony..."

Zhang Xuezhou's wicked idea immediately made Rong Tianding nod repeatedly in agreement.

Others may not be able to perform rituals, but Rong Tianding can.

As a painter of divine art, it's quite normal for Rong Tianding to have the ability to catch ghosts.

Although Rong Tianding wasn't as famous as Mu Daoren, people at least knew that he could paint paintings of immortals and had some connection with them.

As long as people believe, things will be easier.

Rong Tianding walked out with a look of excitement on his face, and Zhang Xuezhou followed behind, ready to assist him.

"Old Jia, you really know how to bring good fortune to the Rong family!"

Seeing that the two promising heirs to the pig-slaughtering family had turned into two little swindlers, Rong Li felt that it was all because of the scholar Jia Zhiyuan who had corrupted them.

"I shouldn't have been so blind to choose you. If I hadn't, I would have found an honest man. An honest man's child will definitely be honest, and he'll obediently follow me to slaughter pigs..."

As usual, Rong Li muttered a few words about Jia Zhiyuan, and only after Rong Tianding loudly called out to the 'fellow villagers' outside did Rong Li leave dejectedly.