Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Bai Zhizhi slammed the table, and the three people beside him quickly tried to calm him down in different ways. Watching this, Lu Mingyu even wondered if this Fox Demon had drugged them all.

He could tell now—forget bringing the little fox demon back for questioning; if he pressed too hard here, those two old cultivators would probably kick him out.

After meeting Bai Zhizhi, Lu Mingyu's suspicion did diminish somewhat. Although he believed all demons were wild and untamable, he didn't sense that wildness in Bai Zhizhi. Even if he relied on evidence alone, the only connection between Bai Zhizhi and the deceased was a trace of demonic aura.

But that couldn't serve as evidence.

Lu Mingyu finished his tea and stood up. "I will thoroughly investigate that family's case. In the meantime, try to stay in the courtyard and don't go out."

He said this to Gao Man and Bi Weiqing, implying that they should keep this fox demon under watch until the truth was found.

With that, Lu Mingyu politely bid farewell to everyone in the room.

Bai Zhizhi watched him leave, let out a soft scoff, and raised his hand. A pearl shimmering with seven-colored light flew from his palm, dispersing into a rainbow halo that settled over the entire courtyard.

The three of them looked up in unison.

Bai Zhizhi said, "This is a Phantom Pearl. Anything that enters the courtyard without using the front door will fall into an illusion, whether they have cultivation or not. Stay in the yard, and nothing will harm you. Don't run around, got it?"

Yue Zhihuan tugged at Bai Zhizhi and asked, "Where are you going?"

Bai Zhizhi replied, "I'm going to keep an eye on that guy while he catches the killer. How dare he suspect me? I want to see how capable he really is!"

Before they could object, Bai Zhizhi dashed out of the yard. Yue Zhihuan wanted to chase after him but was stopped by Uncle Gao. "Let him go. Xiao Bai knows his limits."

His cultivation talent was poor—after a whole lifetime of training, he'd only reached the fourth layer of Qi Refining. But having lived through many experiences, he had a good eye for people. That kid Bai Zhizhi had a temper, but he wasn't bad-natured. He wasn't the type to kill recklessly.

Yue Zhihuan could only gesture at Uncle Gao: "Uncle Gao, please just call him Zhizhi. The neighbor's dog next door is also named Xiao Bai. We can't get them mixed up."

Uncle Gao smiled and nodded. "Got it, got it. Zhizhi. Zhizhi from now on."

The deceased family's home was not far from the courtyard, but not close either—it took about five or six minutes to walk there through the alley. That was the downside of these courtyard neighborhoods: lots of people, all kinds, especially old folks who loved to gawk. They weren't even afraid of the dead. If not for the door being blocked, they would have gone inside to see the excitement.

Back at the crime scene, Lu Mingyu was about to ask the forensics team if they had found anything when he heard a voice that was neither unfamiliar nor familiar: "How can people live in such a tiny house? I thought Jiang Lin's place was small, but there's actually one even smaller."

The whole place had just two rooms—an inner room with a bed and an outer room with a sofa and TV. There wasn't even enough room for two people to stand in.

Compared to this, Jiang Lin's place really had something going for it.

Lu Mingyu turned and saw Bai Zhizhi behind him. He frowned again. "Weren't you supposed to stay in the yard? What are you doing here?"

Bai Zhizhi rolled his eyes at him. "Why should I do whatever you say? Who do you think you are? Besides, we still haven't caught that shadow that broke into our yard last night. It might be the killer, so of course I need to check it out."

Pushing past Lu Mingyu, Bai Zhizhi went into the house first. Inside, the smell of blood was strong and sickening, made worse by the slightly warm air.

The three had died horribly—all killed by a wooden stake driven through their hearts. They knelt on the ground, the stake propping up their bodies. On their backs were claw marks—three deep wounds ringed with black vapor, with traces of demonic aura.

A family of three: two men and one woman. The male victim looked young, about twenty, and had died the worst—multiple wounds with the skin turned outward, as if he had been tortured before death.

Bai Zhizhi took one look and said, "Wasn't a demon that killed them."

Lu Mingyu asked, "Why are you so sure? Just 'cause they were stabbed through the heart with a sharp object, you think it's not a demon?"

Bai Zhizhi looked at him. "Ever dealt with people killed by demons?"

No, Lu Mingyu lowered his eyes. He hadn't dealt with them—just seen it. The people killed were his own parents.

Seeing him silent, Bai Zhizhi grabbed his hand, extended a claw from one finger, and gently scratched his arm. "See how this is different from the wounds on the bodies?"

Lu Mingyu looked at the obvious gash on his hand and said helplessly, "What's the difference? Couldn't you just tell me? Why'd you have to scratch me?"

Bai Zhizhi replied, "Telling you wouldn't make you feel it as deep."

Lu Mingyu felt like Bai Zhizhi was definitely getting back at him!

But since he was already hurt, Lu Mingyu had to endure the pain and examine it closely. Scratches were pointless to compare—different demons used different force, so marks varied. No basis for comparison.

Soon Lu Mingyu realized what Bai Zhizhi meant by "different"—the demonic aura. It wasn't the type of aura, but how it behaved. The demonic aura on the victims' wounds was dissipating outward, as if just smeared on. The scratch Bai Zhizhi gave him had aura stuck in the flesh, lingering and trying to burrow into his blood.

Lu Mingyu said, "This is a fresh wound, and I'm still alive—my blood's flowing, so the demonic aura doesn't dissipate. They're dead, their blood's stopped, so the aura leaks out?"

Bai Zhizhi felt that even with the evidence right in front of him, Lu Mingyu was still trying to pin the murder on a demon. "Think what you want. Finding the killer ain't my job anyway."

One of Lu Mingyu's team members came over with the collected information. "Captain Lu, we've interviewed the neighbors. The deceased is Chen Li, forty-eight, a manager at a design company. The female victim is Wan Fang, forty-six, Chen Li's wife. She's a teacher at Mingde High School, currently in charge of a senior graduating class. Their son, Chen Baojun, twenty-one, dropped out of high school and stays home unemployed."

"Their neighborhood relations are average—no major bad blood, but they're not easy to get along with. Chen Li often doesn't come home, Wan Fang is kind of snobbish and looks down on everyone around, and their son is a good-for-nothing who quit school and stays home, barely going out for ten or twenty days straight. Based on our initial assessment, revenge is likely the motive. Next, we will focus on investigating their social connections."

After hearing the report, Lu Mingyu turned and saw Bai Zhizhi holding a wooden stick, pouring some unknown liquid onto the blood on the floor. The dried blood re-liquefied, and he dipped the stick in it, drawing something on the floor.

Lu Mingyu walked over, intending to yank him up and tell him not to disrespect the dead by messing around. But when he got close and saw the nearly completed diagram on the floor—it didn't look like random scribbling—he held back his anger and asked, "What are you doing?"

Bai Zhizhi crouched on the floor without looking up. "Summoning spirits. The one who killed them would be the clearest source. I'll summon their souls and ask."

Soul summoning—an evil technique created by human cultivators. Some human cultivators liked making puppets, but a puppet without a soul was just a lifeless shell. So they would forcibly extract the souls of the living, brand them, and imprison them in the puppet's body to achieve complete control.

However, the souls of the living varied in strength. Strong ones belonged to cultivators with high cultivation, who were hard to capture. So puppet masters turned their attention to demon cultivators. Demons were naturally powerful in soul, making them ideal for turning into strong, loyal puppets after branding.

Soul summoning was a required lesson for their young. One had to learn to summon and to resist being summoned.

These three had just died recently, so Bai Zhizhi thought he'd try to summon their souls and ask questions. He had learned the technique but never actually used it.

When the last stroke on the floor diagram was completed, a red light swept over it, and a strong wind suddenly rose both inside and outside the house, slamming doors and windows noisily.

A few people near Bai Zhizhi, who had overheard him talking about summoning spirits and saw the commotion, thought it had worked and waited nervously. But the wind soon stopped, and Bai Zhizhi let out a "Huh?" "No souls."

Bai Zhizhi turned to Lu Mingyu. "Their souls are gone."

Lu Mingyu didn't believe him. He was inherently wary of demons. Having lost his parents to demon attacks, it was impossible for him to feel goodwill toward that race. The fact that he could keep from indiscriminately hating all demons was already great restraint.

So he wouldn't take everything Bai Zhizhi said at face value, but he also wouldn't outright dismiss it. He would verify it using his own methods.

Lu Mingyu ordered someone to bring a box from his car. The box contained various bottles of medicine, red ropes, and incense sticks of different thicknesses. Bai Zhizhi watched as he lit one incense stick, letting wisps of spiritual energy drift outward with the smoke. After bowing three times toward the void, he manipulated the smoke into forming a curse seal.

Bai Zhizhi couldn't decipher the runes, but he could feel a pulling force from the seal. The smoke gradually split into two strands: one wound around the three corpses, and the other formed a formation.

After a moment, just before the curse seal was about to complete, both strands of smoke dissipated simultaneously.

Bai Zhizhi asked, "Well? Did you summon them?"

Lu Mingyu turned back to look at the bodies. "Their souls have already been devoured."

Bai Zhizhi nodded. "And then?"

Lu Mingyu glanced at him. "No 'and then.' Whatever killed them harbored deep hatred. Arranging their bodies in a kneeling posture and devouring their souls means the killer isn't a living person. Of course, it's also possible that the mastermind had enough money to make the ghosts do the work."

But Lu Mingyu thought this last possibility was unlikely. Hiring a hitman to kill someone only required money, but hiring a ghost to kill was not something ordinary people could do. Given how normal the Chen family of three was, even if they had offended someone formidable, killing them wouldn't be this much hassle.

Bai Zhizhi: "Oh, so after all that trouble, you still can't find the killer."

Lu Mingyu didn't argue with him. He had his people handle the scene and then headed outside.

Bai Zhizhi casually tossed the wooden stick aside and followed him out. Lu Mingyu looked at him: "Why are you following me?"

Bai Zhizhi: "I'm not following you; I'm keeping an eye on you. What if you can't catch the killer and try to pin it on me?"

He didn't trust this human at all. Given that he'd already shown prejudice against him before they even met, Bai Zhizhi thought pinning the blame on him was exactly the kind of thing he would do.

Lu Mingyu, who had originally planned to forcibly send the guy back to the small courtyard, hesitated. Rather than letting him run around uncontrollably, it was better to keep him under surveillance. "Fine, get in the car."

Bai Zhizhi eyed him suspiciously: "Where are we going?"

Lu Mingyu: "Aside from needing time to look into the victims' connections, there are two leads now: one is the malevolent aura, and the other is the demonic aura. Demonic aura doesn't just pop up out of thin air. My team just sent me the verification report. This demonic aura belongs to a fox demon. Currently, there are two registered fox demons in the Administration Bureau—one is you, and the other is..."

Bai Zhizhi: "Working at the zoo!"

Lu Mingyu: "...So now I need to go check if that fox is still there."

Bai Zhizhi quickly got into the car: "Let's go."

He'd been here over a month and hadn't seen any other demons yet. It was a perfect chance to see what kind of life that fox demon led.