"This place... this is where you 'play cards,' isn't it?" Li Ang, holding Lu Gui aloft, asked casually, "Looks quite upscale, huh."
Lu Gui's knees and shoulders were still dripping blood. He seemed to realize his captor wouldn't let him go, so he remained silent.
Li Ang stood on the wooden floor, bouncing on the spot a few times. With his Perception of 8, he could clearly feel that a section of the wooden floor in this room was hollow beneath.
Li Ang kicked open the mahjong table at the very back. The heavy mahjong table flew sideways, crashing to the ground. It revealed a square section of wooden flooring beneath, fitted with a copper ring handle.
So, this is it? Li Ang smiled, hooked his toe under the copper ring handle, and gently pulled, flipping open the wooden hatch.
The wooden hatch opened to reveal a wide staircase leading down. Li Ang descended the stairs into a spacious basement. He casually felt along the wall and pressed the light switch. The lights flickered on.
This was a large basement with pure white ceramic tiles on the floor and walls. Three of the walls were padded with thick mattresses. Near the ceiling on these walls, four thick iron spikes were driven in, each with an iron chain attached. At the end of each chain was a set of shackles: one pair of handcuffs and one pair of legcuffs. Beneath the shackles, several large mattresses were pushed together. It resembled a padded cell from a mental asylum, used to confine patients prone to self-harm.
Li Ang used the lamppost to lift a set of shackles. Looking at the dried bloodstains on their inner surface, he smiled.
He walked to the center of the basement. A wooden TV stand sat there, holding a television set. Flanking the stand were numerous disc cases—all privately burned, without any labels.
The now ashen-faced Lu Gui watched as Li Ang's fingers skimmed over the discs—one, two, three...
Li Ang silently straightened up, took a deep breath, turned, and left the basement, returning to ground level.
Inside the villa, the spider-like spectral figure remained prostrate. Meanwhile, the brothers Lu Maocai and Lu Maodian were sweating profusely, clutching the Wooden Long Stick and huddled in a corner of the second-floor living room.
Seeing Li Ang return, Lu Maodian shrieked, "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer! Do you want money? I'll give you all my money! Just let me go! No, even if you hand me over to the authorities for trial, that's fine! Let me go, please..."
Li Ang shook his head. "When those women—kidnapped, sold, and locked in the basement—begged you, did you ever consider letting them go?"
Lu Maodian sobbed, "The law doesn't punish the masses! The law doesn't punish the masses! Everyone here had a part in it! You have no right..."
Li Ang blinked and said calmly, "If everyone who came here to 'play cards' had a part in it, then they should all die."
He casually tossed Lu Gui out. The venerable old village chief traced an arc through the air, falling toward the prostrate spectral figure outside the villa door.
She leaped up suddenly, her mouth splitting wide like a massive jar, and deftly swallowed Lu Gui whole.
She landed on the ground. Her belly, unnaturally distended with a living person inside, was pale and semi-translucent, clearly showing the contours of Lu Gui's limbs.
"MMMPH! MMMPH! MMMPH! MMMPH!" Lu Gui struggled desperately inside the Ghost's belly, but his weak, powerless punches and kicks couldn't break him free.
SZZZZ— The Ghost's belly rapidly corroded Lu Gui's skin. Amidst screams of utter anguish, Lu Gui's body shrank at a visible rate, eventually withering into the shape of a deformed infant, wailing miserably inside her stomach.
Inside the villa, the villagers were deathly pale with fright. Lu Maocai and Lu Maodian trembled uncontrollably, their pants completely soaked.
Li Ang stretched lazily, smiled at the Ghost, and said casually, "Do as you please."
The Ghost bowed her head to Li Ang in gratitude. When she looked up again, her form shot into the villa like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Screams, cries, pleas for mercy, and wails mingled with the sound of the wind and rain outside, creating an unbearable cacophony.
Li Ang watched calmly as the Ghost swallowed one adult male villager after another, dissolving them into a pile of ugly, deformed infants. They were all squeezed together in her grotesquely swollen belly, continuously screaming, constantly suffering the intense pain of being melted and corroded, yet unable to die for a long, long time.
This eternal punishment might not bring back the women who had died so horribly in the basement, nor could it offer solace to their families. But at least it would make these inhuman monsters feel the pain their victims had once endured, every second of every day for the rest of their wretched lives.
Delayed justice demanded a harsher judgment to compensate. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.
After the devouring frenzy, only a few oblivious women, children, and villagers who hadn't participated in the "card games" remained in the villa. They stood in the devastated hall, looking at Li Ang, whose expression was as calm as still water, unsure how to face him.
Hate? They weren't worthy. Resentment? They didn't dare.
In the end, the survivors could only watch helplessly as Li Ang and the Ghost—who now wriggled and crawled like a bloated caterpillar—left the villa together.
Outside the villa's main gate stood a man, his figure Broken and spectral, like a mere shadow. This Ghost was none other than the sacrificed village teacher, Meng Qixi.
Seeing Li Ang emerge, the severely Broken Meng Qixi said little, merely bowing deeply.
Li Ang nodded and asked casually, "Are you a player?" Li Ang didn't sense the profound resentment most Ghosts possessed from Meng Qixi. Meng Qixi's consciousness was remarkably clear, and he was unnaturally calm for a typical Ghost.
"Yes." Meng Qixi nodded, revealing his Lv. 3 player status. The l&a!te@st c#ha@p*ter#s- are a*l#w-ays av@a@ila-b+le* fi-rst^ on *.@
"How long have you two been... aware?"
"I died six months ago and only became a Ghost, and a player, two months ago." Meng Qixi smiled bitterly and pointed to the nameless female Ghost crawling on the ground. "She became aware even earlier than I did, turning into a Ghost seven months ago. Perhaps her resentment was heavier, so she couldn't gain player status."
Li Ang frowned. "No one else turned into a Ghost?"
"No." Meng Qixi shook his head. "I only found out after I died, from the Lone Ghosts wandering the nearby mountains, that for the past twenty years or so, a group of villagers, including Lu Gui and Lu He, had been buying young women to satisfy their private desires. I don't know how many were confined in that basement, dying unmourned..."
He glanced at the female Ghost crawling on the ground and sighed sorrowfully. "For the past few months, she and I have been planning our revenge. But even now, I don't know her name, where she came from, or even when she died. She's... just one of the many victims, I suppose."