Chapter 83: Underworld Soil

Actually, whether the story I told was true or not didn't really matter; the important thing was that I wanted to use it to calm Zhao Shuihe's emotions.

Since we were all human beings operating on the same physical needs, it was only right to offer some comfort where possible.

True to my expectations, after listening to my words, Zhao Shuihe did indeed calm down. She stopped crying, and of course, she didn't let me touch her hand again either.

Zhao Shuihe shoved me away, pulled back her arm herself, and said, "I have my own saliva, I don't need yours! Instead of wasting time on that, go see how that fake Daoist is doing!"

Seeing that Zhao Shuihe had returned to her normal state, I put away my cheeky grin. Turning around alongside Lei Ren, I looked at the fake Daoist lying unconscious on the ground.

Right now, it was time to deal with this fraudulent scammer.

I knew very well that I could easily call the police at this point, as the things inside the tomb were more than enough to prove the fake Daoist's numerous crimes. However, I didn't do it immediately.

Because I wanted to figure out a few things first.

There were simply too many mysteries surrounding this fake Daoist. He seemed to have an inextricable connection to the Zhao family as well.

For instance, why did he know the long-lost Zhao family technique of "controlling cats"? Why did he try to snatch the Zhao family's kitchen cleaver? And what kind of connection did he have with the death of my former platoon leader?

I had to get to the bottom of all this; otherwise, letting him be locked away in prison without knowing the truth would simply let him off too easily.

At this moment, after being kicked dizzy by me, the fake Daoist was lying face down, gasping for heavy breaths. His eyes were rolled back, clearly suffering from a heavy concussion, though judging by his condition, it wasn't life-threatening.

After turning it over in my mind, I figured I would use the same method I previously used on "Boss Bai"—hitting the fake Daoist's nervous system hard with something chilling and cold should wake him right up.

After pondering for a moment, I called Xiao Ah Si over.

At that moment, Xiao Ah Si was holding that string of Five Emperors Coins, "flexing his might" against the trembling cats. Seeing me call him, he immediately ran over and showed off, "Big Brother, these coins are really useful. All the cats are terrified of them."

I took the coins from Xiao Ah Si's hand, put them away properly, and said to him, "Stop playing around. Do me a favor and go dig up a handful of dirt, will you? Use the soil from that grave robber tunnel we just came out of—the colder and eerier, the better!"

Xiao Ah Si nodded. He immediately sprinted back to the tomb tunnel we had just walked out of. When he came back, he was holding a full handful of tomb earth against his chest, the chill freezing his lips until they turned pale.

I smiled broadly as I took the soil, which radiated a bone-chilling, ghostly aura. Weighing it in my hand, I felt extremely satisfied.

I knew that tombs were gloomy by nature, and coupled with Zhao Huo's underground palace which carried its own decaying, frigid energy, this combination of cold upon cold was practically no different from pressing a block of ice right against the fake Daoist's chest!

With a cold smirk, I immediately slammed all of the dirt directly onto the fake Daoist's chest!

The rest was just waiting for a good show.

Sure enough, the very moment that soil made contact with the fake Daoist's chest, his rolled-back eyes snapped wide open. A loud "Ah!" burst from his mouth, and he instantly jerked upward into the air, only for me to ruthlessly stomp him right back down onto the ground with my foot!

Stepping heavily on his chest, I drew my military dagger and waved both the Five Emperors Coins and the blade right in front of his eyes before saying, "Your cats might not listen to you, but my knife will definitely listen to me! If I kill you right here and bury you in some ditch, nobody will ever know!"

My vicious threat quickly made the fake Daoist compromise.

He immediately folded, flashing a miserable, ingratiating smile as he begged for mercy, "I was just trying to scrape together a living! I never meant to offend any high-level experts!"

"Never meant to?!" I smiled, pressing my foot down harder on his chest. "You're the one who pulled off my former platoon leader's corpse revivification, right? You kidnapped Lei Ren, didn't you? You're the one who cursed my comrade Wang Hou with the food curse, aren't you? And you still dare to quibble!"

The fake Daoist was being crushed so hard he couldn't catch his breath. After a long while, he finally squeezed a sentence out through clenched teeth: "I have unspeakable hardships! Hardships!"

Hearing this, I didn't ease up on him because of his plea for mercy. Instead, with a sense of retaliation, I continued grinding my foot into his chest until I could hear the bones beneath my sole crackling continuously!

In my anger, I roared, "You've put us through hell, what kind of damn hardships could you possibly have!"

Right at that moment, Lei Ren couldn't bear to watch any longer. He stretched out his old, thin arm, patted my shoulder, and said, "Young man! Don't go taking a human life. We still need to get to the bottom of the Zhao family's business by questioning him!"

Xiao Ah Si chimed in as well, saying, "Yeah, Big Brother! We have to be reasonable! We can't use torture to extract confessions, the law doesn't allow it."

When half of the group put it that way, it was really hard for me to keep insisting.

After venting a little bit of the lingering resentment in my heart, I lifted my foot off the fake Daoist's chest, squatted down, and looked into his twisted, distorted face. "If you dare to utter a single false word, I will let you—"

Before I could even finish, the fake Daoist eagerly cut in, "Meet a horrible death! I understand! I understand! Actually, I've wanted to tell the truth for a long time. These past few years of living like a ghost and not a human have made me sick of it!"

Hearing him talk like this, I suddenly had a feeling that there might be a hidden story behind the fake Daoist's cat-like behavior.

Therefore, I immediately demanded, "Start from the beginning. Why did you set up that ghostly banquet on Laoqi Road? And why use cat demons to rob people? What did you used to do for a living? Why didn't you walk the righteous path?"

Faced with my questions, the fake Daoist answered with a somewhat embarrassed expression, "I used to be a farmer. Waylaying people on the road with cat demons... I originally just wanted to make some extra pocket money, but I never expected things to snowball out of control. As for my real name... I didn't dare say it."

"Didn't dare say it?" I asked in surprise. "What's there not to dare? Could it be you were waiting to tell the police?"

Faced with my interrogation, the fake Daoist squirmed awkwardly for a long while before letting out a long sigh. "It's heaven's will! I might as well tell you. My surname isn't actually Duan; my real name is Li Douniu!"

The fake Daoist's words left the three of us—who had been waiting with bated breath—completely dumbfounded.

If he had said his name was Duan Yanqing, Duan Zhengchun, or Duan Ziyu, I wouldn't have been surprised at all. After all, this guy's behavior had already been assimilated by cats, and his nervous system didn't seem quite right either; having him blurt out any name wouldn't be strange.

Yet, he actually claimed his name was Li Douniu? Li Douniu, the son of the village chief of Zhaojialou Village who had been dead for over a year?!

At that moment, I lost my temper!

I pointed straight at his nose and cursed, "Whose leg are you trying to pull, you damn liar? Village Chief Li of Zhaojialou personally told me that Li Douniu was eaten by wild cats the year before last! Besides, you wander around Zhaojialou every single day—how could the village chief fail to recognize his own son?"

My words resonated strongly with everyone present. Because on the very night my former platoon leader's corpse had revived, we had all heard Village Chief Li of Zhaojialou recount the story of his son's death.

Although that story sounded bizarre, judging by the reactions of the villagers of Zhaojialou, it was universally accepted that Li Douniu, at the age of thirty and on the very day his son turned one month old, had been eaten by a black cat he had raised himself.

Back then, although people only found clothing stained with human blood, no one doubted the truth of the event—not even my uncle-master, Zhao Haikun.

For the fake Daoist to claim he was Li Douniu was utterly unbelievable. Taking a step back, even if it were true, why would Li Douniu, a man with a family and a household, have turned into the walking-corpse-like "Cat Man" fake Daoist of today?