The fat man pursed his lips and turned his head to the other side. "Who would pay for a burden?" Jiang Cheng heard him say.

"Fat brother." After hesitating for a moment, Chen Qiang still spoke to persuade him, "Although I don't know what your relationship is with that little beggar, he is already dead. Even if we snatch him back, he won't come back to life."

"And you should have seen it too, the whole thing is a trap. They want to force us to act and have already set up an ambush in advance."

The fat man didn't react to Chen Qiang's words at all. His huge body trembled slightly. Because of the angle, Jiang Cheng couldn't see his face.

"Here, this is for you," Jiang Cheng said.

Hearing this, the fat man's body paused, then he slowly turned his head back. His eyes were red and swollen. He turned his head away because he didn't want the doctor to see his face.

"Here, this is for you." Jiang Cheng took out something from his arms and handed it to the fat man. "It fell from that child's body and was picked up by me."

After the fat man took it, in his hand was a pearl. This pearl seemed to have been inlaid on some kind of jewelry before. There was a broken mark on one side, as if it had been forcibly broken off.

Clutching the pearl, the fat man was trembling all over. He looked at the doctor, as if trying to see through the things under his calm face.

"Fatty." Jiang Cheng stretched out his hand, seemingly wanting to touch the fat man's head, but stopped halfway. After a moment, he changed to patting the fat man's shoulder. "This is real, I didn't lie to you." He looked into the fat man's eyes and said, "I promise."

Only then did the fat man look at the pearl in his hand. After a few seconds, the fat man's eyes were filled with tears again, and they fell down.

"Doctor." He clutched the pearl, and said, choking with sobs, "Did you hear what they said? This child was beaten to death for stealing something from the mansion. How could it be possible if it was just stealing food?"

"She was helping us... she was beaten to death to help us!" The fat man said excitedly, "I harmed her! I harmed her!"

"She believed in me so much, and I couldn't even protect her body..."

"If you keep crying like this, you might die too, let alone avenge her." This suffocating atmosphere continued until the door was pushed open and Xia Meng walked in.

The fat man's expression paused, then he moved his gaze away from Xia Meng and looked at the doctor, as if inquiring.

Jiang Cheng nodded. "When you were in a coma just now, An Xuan came back. He brought back a very important piece of information."

"If the information is true, then there may be a very fierce conflict between us and Steward Zhou and the others." Jiang Cheng said, "Maybe the only way out is to kill them."

Hearing this, the fat man stood up from the bed with a whoosh. His red eyes, coupled with his huge physique, really subverted Xia Meng's previous impression of him, "When?"

"I'm not sure," Jiang Cheng said, "but it must be soon."

Without even thinking about it, this was a very normal guess. After all, the mission was coming to an end. In the end, either Steward Zhou and his gang would be finished, or these people would be wiped out.

"There's one more thing." Jiang Cheng looked at the fat man and said, "You Qi is dead."

"He..." The fat man frowned, "Dead?"

"Yes." Jiang Cheng nodded, "Someone came to inform us just now, saying that a body was found by the lake. I went to see it, it was You Qi."

Because he was afraid of stimulating the fat man, Jiang Cheng didn't say that the one who came to inform them was the burly man with the thick wooden stick, and that he had a very provocative attitude.

"How did he die?" The fat man asked.

He looked at the window again as if to confirm. It was just getting dark. According to his understanding of the ghosts in this copy, people were usually killed at night.

Unless it was like Shi Liaozhi, who sneaked to a dangerous place and then rang the drum to his death.

Seeming to have thought of something, the fat man looked at Jiang Cheng and asked, "Did he go to a place he shouldn't have gone?"

"Otherwise?" Xia Meng said indifferently.

Chen Qiang looked at the fat man and explained, "He went to Young Master Huang's阁楼 alone, and then something happened."

"How do you know?" the fat man asked suspiciously. After all, it was impossible for You Qi to tell others where he was going in advance.

Could it be... His eyes suddenly sharpened. Did Steward Zhou and his gang say it?

"It was An Xuan," Jiang Cheng said, "When You Qi secretly went to the 阁楼, he happened to be bumped into by An Xuan, so we knew."

"He said it," Jiang Cheng added.

The fat man looked into the doctor's eyes, as if he suddenly understood something.

An Xuan...

The doctor's wording sounded strange, but when combined with the identities of An Xuan and You Qi, the whole thing became clear.

You Qi... was killed by An Xuan.

With the help of a ghost.

Seeming to see the fat man's thoughts, Jiang Cheng said in a very natural tone, "You Qi is luckier than others, at least his skin is still there."

After hearing the doctor's explanation, the fat man didn't feel anything at first, but he suddenly noticed that the expressions of Xia Meng and Chen Qiang had changed.

Especially the latter, he clearly seemed to have heard something, but pretended not to know anything.

Almost in the next second, a light flashed in the fat man's eyes. He turned his head to look at the doctor, and found that the doctor was also staring at him.

You Qi's skin... is still there.

Why?

Obviously, the skins of other people who were killed by ghosts... were all peeled off. Tang Shirou was, Qin Jian was, Shi Liaozhi was, and Zuo Jing's screams last night were even more heart-rending.

Their skins were gone, so why was only You Qi's skin still there?

There was only one explanation.

You Qi was not killed by a ghost.

By a person.

A person killed him!

Although You Qi's skin was still there, Chen Qiang recalled the scene when he saw You Qi's body by the lake, and he couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.

You Qi was lying face down by the lake, looking like nothing, just like a person who had been drowned in the lake and then pushed to the shore by the waves.

But after turning his body over, the scene in front of him scared Chen Qiang so much that he felt a chill down his spine. He almost fell to the ground before he could stand still.

You Qi's face... was gone.

No, not his face, but his facial features. Except for his ears, everything else had disappeared. Judging from the wounds left, they should have been dug out with a knife or something.

His mouth was wide open, his tongue was also gone, and even the two rows of teeth in front had been knocked down.

His abdomen was cut open, and only some of his intestines were left.

The wounds on the corpse were hideous and terrifying. Some of them were completely meaningless acts, just to increase the pain of the deceased.

That was all.

No one was willing to explore what was missing from the corpse. After all... everyone already knew who the murderer was.

What frightened Chen Qiang even more was that An Xuan was standing next to them at the time, silently looking at You Qi under his feet, and said in a calm tone that You Qi's missing organs might not be lost, perhaps... they were in his stomach.

From the final result, this was indeed the case.

They found his eyes, nose, lips, and even... teeth in You Qi's stomach.