"You are Lan Ying!"
As an officer of the Heavenly Master Alliance, Zhu Chun'an had carefully investigated the recent missing persons cases when he took over this assignment, and Lan Ying was prominently listed among them. Seeing her face, he immediately matched the person to the photograph. If he remembered correctly, she had been missing for less than two months. That meant she was a newly deceased ghost. Even if her resentment reached the heavens, it was impossible for her to possess such power. This detail caught Zhu Chun'an's attention.
"Did you cause all three car accidents?"
"So what if I did? You're about to die anyway, so why waste your breath?" Lan Ying greedily licked her lips. "Consuming one Daoist is more effective than eating a hundred ordinary people."
Zhu Chun'an's expression changed at her words.
"Eating people? Five Thunder Fierce General, Train General, Soaring Heaven and Earth, Thunder Chasing Clouds, heed my command, do not delay, swiftly as decreed!"
Unable to wield his sword, he resorted to using a talisman. Zhu Chun'an carried quite a stockpile on him, but the female ghost's poison was extremely overbearing. While he could usually activate a talisman with ease, today it proved exceptionally difficult.
"Insignificant parlor tricks!" The female ghost sneered, already planning how she would devour Zhu Chun'an. His flesh and blood would be a tremendous tonic!
"Hey, can you two not get so absorbed in your little drama? Do you think the rest of us are just background props?" Pei Ye, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, grabbed Lan Ying's ghost claw. They were acting out their rivalry with such oblivion to their surroundings that Pei Ye couldn't help but ask a question from the depths of her soul. "Is my presence really that low?"
Zhu Chun'an instinctively wanted to shout a warning, but instead, he actually saw a thick, walking mass of black Evil Qi. Wasn't this the same mass from earlier today?
"You aren't on my side?" Lan Ying stared at her captured right wrist. Suppressing an instinctual terror and urge to submit stemming from her very soul, she gritted her teeth and asked Pei Ye, "When I was about to kill those people just now, you didn't stop me!"
"Who is on your side? Don't go drawing arbitrary faction lines; how could I be in the same boat as you? I respected your choice, so if you had revenge to take and grudges to settle, I didn't stop you. However, you never told me that aside from your enemies, you also had the blood of innocent people on your hands." Pei Ye smiled cheerfully. "That crosses my bottom line. Besides, when you made a move against those pieces of trash, I never stopped you."
Watching the female ghost Lan Ying's expression change drastically, and then looking at the pitch-black mass of Evil Qi beside her, Zhu Chun'an fell into deep thought. He doubted the authenticity of Pei Ye's words. When he had first burst in, he had indeed suspected that Pei Ye and the female ghost were in cahoots. Fear was fear, but there were ordinary people in the private room. Even if he couldn't win, he still had to charge in and try to save them. Looking at the situation now, that didn't seem to be the case at all. If Pei Ye could make the female ghost this terrified and docile, why couldn't she see the number of human lives on the ghost's hands?
Zhu Chun'an decided to watch from the sidelines and take the opportunity to apply a few more Detoxification Talismans to himself. Son of a biscuit! He wondered what kind of poison this ghost had cultivated to make her this difficult to deal with.
Lan Ying's eyes flickered with a scarlet hue as brutality temporarily suppressed her fear.
"Then what do you want to do? What innocent people? Humans are just food for ghosts; the weak are prey to the strong! If I hadn't eaten those people and used their flesh and blood, how would I have found the strength to get my revenge?" Lan Ying spoke with absolute self-righteousness, her tone thick with eerie yin energy. "Heh—you are just an ordinary person! You might be full of Evil Qi, but you aren't even a Heavenly Master. You can't do anything to me!"
"An o-ordinary person?" Zhu Chun'an was so shocked he forgot his Spell, wasting a Detoxification Talisman for nothing. He wondered if an ordinary person could really possess such heavy Evil Qi. According to his master, those capable of possessing such intense Evil Qi were either unfathomable Ghost Kings, ancient Ghosts with unknown years of Cultivation, or military generals who had slaughtered countless people in life. The person before him was clearly a living human, and judging by her voice, she wasn't very old. She didn't belong to any of those categories. He couldn't help but wonder if she was the reincarnation of a Tianmo Star.
"You say I can't do anything to you?" Pei Ye flicked her cigarette at the female ghost. The cigarette wasn't lit, but following her action, the female ghost let out an incredibly shrill scream. The yin energy surrounding her instantly dissipated by twenty to thirty percent!
She smiled cheerfully. "Sister, say that again."
The ghosts in this world were similar to the spiritual lifeforms Pei Ye was familiar with; a mere mental attack was enough to make them suffer. A starved camel was still bigger than a horse. No matter how severely ill she was, her remaining Spiritual Domain was more than enough to crush weaklings. Since when was it a lowly ghost's turn to flaunt its power in front of her?
"I don't care if you carry out targeted strikes. According to what you said, those people really did deserve to die. Since they were going to die sooner or later, dying by the hands of their victim sounds pretty satisfying." Pei Ye lifted Lan Ying into the air. The female ghost tried to escape, only to realize with horror just how perilous her situation was. A deep layer of terror hung over her ghostly face. If she moved even a fraction of an inch, a portion of her yin energy would dissipate. A couple more times, and her soul would scatter entirely.
"If you hadn't made a move, I would have beaten those bastards half to death myself today," Pei Ye continued. "But you shouldn't have crossed my bottom line!"
Hearing this, Mr. Du and the others felt their legs tremble and their sphincters tighten. The combat power ranking in the private room went like this: A group of useless mortals < Daoist < female ghost < Pei Ye. As the person at the absolute pinnacle of this power ranking, if Pei Ye said she was going to beat them half to death, she definitely wasn't joking.
While they were speaking, Zhu Chun'an had consecutively used over a dozen Detoxification Talismans. His arm was still a bit numb, but he could at least wield his Peach Wood Sword now.
"Um... Senior, how do you plan to deal with her?" Zhu Chun'an was on guard against both Lan Ying and Pei Ye. She hadn't recited a Spell or used a talisman, yet she had scattered twenty to thirty percent of a female ghost's yin energy with just a flicked cigarette. He marveled at her masterful badassery, wondering if she was some ten-thousand-year-old ancient Ghost who had come down from an isolated mountain peak.
"The nation has its laws. If she killed people she shouldn't have, she should naturally be handed over to the relevant authorities." Having encountered three ghosts and a Demon-subduing Daoist all in one day, Pei Ye figured this world had a high tolerance for the supernatural. She assumed the police would probably accept this sort of case, though she wasn't entirely sure.
Zhu Chun'an breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his work ID out of his pocket. An ancient Ghost wasn't scary; what was scary was an uneducated one. Since she was educated and reasonable, it meant they could communicate.
"Greetings, Senior. This junior is a Heavenly Master from Team One of the Heavenly Master Alliance's Special Security Investigation and Management Department. I am currently in charge of this case and responsible for bringing the suspect ghost to justice."
Pei Ye didn't hand Lan Ying over to him. It wasn't that she didn't believe him; there was just one detail she needed to ask about.
"Aside from those car accidents, she also ate quite a few people alive. Have you investigated those missing persons?"
Zhu Chun'an said, "There have been quite a few missing persons recently. Before taking over this case, this junior reviewed all the missing persons records. Lan Ying was just one of them. Besides her, there were three others. However, those three wouldn't be enough to cause her strength to surge to this level. Looking at the bloody aura surrounding her, the number of innocent lives on her hands is definitely more than three."
"Then here lies the problem. Where are the people she ate?"
Zhu Chun'an's expression suddenly darkened. He immediately pulled out his phone and called his colleagues, instructing them to keep a close eye on missing persons reports.
Seeing him hang up, Pei Ye finally said, "Is there a need to go through all that trouble? Why not just interrogate the party involved?"
Zhu Chun'an was speechless. The victims were all dead, and they hadn't found any suspicious new ghosts. Which party involved was she talking about interrogating?
"Is Senior referring to... her? Lan Ying?"
Pei Ye shot back, "Who else? Do we have a second party involved?"