My family tree hollow connects to the modern era : Chapter 37

Liu Tao was brought back to the Bureau office. The office is located in the same area as the main headquarters but in a different building, which is shorter than the main one. This side primarily handles matters involving ghosts and evil spirits, and it is also where Lu Mingyu typically works.

Upon learning that they had caught Liu Tao, Lu Mingyu rushed back immediately. “Why did you arrest him? The person I assigned has been keeping a close watch on him, planning to use him as a way to lure Zhuang Lixu out.”

Bai Zhizhi asked, “Who is Zhuang Lixu again?”

Lu Mingyu replied, “He is most likely the killer in the alleyway case. I’ll explain the details to you later, but why did you capture Liu Tao?”

Bai Zhizhi said, “Because he is the killer in the alleyway case. Can’t you smell that he has the same scent on him as the people who died in the alley?”

Lu Mingyu frowned slightly, looked at Bai Zhizhi steadily for a moment, then turned and headed to the place where Liu Tao was being detained.

Liu Tao’s body was covered with talismans and bound by red rope. Such items have no effect on ordinary people, and the red rope could be undone with a simple tug, but for ghosts and evil spirits, the restraining power of the red rope traps them, leaving them unable to move.

Clearly, Liu Tao was no longer a normal person; he could not break free from the ropes, and the talismans stuck to his body made him extremely uncomfortable, with liver mortis even starting to appear on his skin.

Seeing this, Lu Mingyu understood everything—Liu Tao had long since been possessed by Zhuang Lixu.

No wonder his team members didn’t notice any problems while tailing him; a possessed ghost can use the living person’s aura to hide its own ghostly energy. They are cultivators, not celestial masters specialized in catching ghosts, and since the person tailing him had never had direct contact with Liu Tao, no abnormalities were detected.

Mei Tianli was just about to interrogate ‘Liu Tao’ when he saw the boss arrive, so he handed the task over. His current mission was to follow Bai Zhizhi, and since he hadn’t been involved in this case before and didn’t know the background, he wouldn’t have known how to ask questions anyway.

Taking advantage of the moment they opened the door, Bai Zhizhi slipped in and sat in the primary interrogation chair. Lu Mingyu pinched the bridge of his nose, and before he could speak, Bai Zhizhi said, “I caught him.”

Lu Mingyu paused, then closed his mouth and sat to the side.

The door to the interrogation room was closed again. The lighting inside was very dim, with only a single lamp shining down from above, illuminating ‘Liu Tao’.

Lu Mingyu opened his record book and asked, “Name?”

‘Liu Tao’ glanced at him sinisterly and remained silent.

Lu Mingyu moved his fingertips, and a flash of spiritual light flickered across the red rope binding ‘Liu Tao.’ A searing, sharp pain began to spread from his wrists. At first, ‘Liu Tao’ tried to grit his teeth and endure it, but he soon realized that this pain seemed to be burning his very soul, continuously draining his strength, and the liver mortis on the shell of his body became increasingly obvious.

Seeing this, Lu Mingyu slowly spoke up: “Wan Fang is dead, Miao Sheng is dead, and now Liu Tao is possessed by you. Judging by the state of this liver mortis, he has likely been dead for a day or two. Only Qin Yilun remains. If you don’t cooperate, I can make your soul scatter at any moment. You haven’t made Qin Yilun pay the price yet—are you satisfied with that?”

‘Liu Tao’ clenched his fists, waiting for the burning pain to subside before speaking: “Zhuang Lixu.”

Lu Mingyu asked, “Did you kill Wan Fang’s family, Miao Sheng, and Liu Tao?”

Zhuang Lixu let out a laugh: “That’s right.”

Lu Mingyu asked, “Why did you kill Liu Tao and possess his body?”

Zhuang Lixu replied, “Why? To help his family reunite, of course.”

When he killed Wan Fang, someone helped him, and because Wan Fang’s whole family happened to be together, he resolved it all at once. When killing Miao Sheng, his parents weren’t around and wouldn’t be home for weeks, and he couldn’t wait that long because his power couldn’t sustain him for that duration, so he had to act first.

By the time he got to Liu Tao, his parents were local. He wanted to wait for them to return and send their whole family to the underworld for a reunion, which was why he possessed Liu Tao to wait for the opportunity, but he ended up getting caught.

He knew he would be caught sooner or later. He had been a wandering ghost for over half a year, invisible to everyone. He could feel himself becoming weaker the longer he lingered in the mortal realm, but he wasn’t satisfied. He died, his parents died, and yet the killers responsible remained at large. How could he be satisfied?

But no matter how unwilling he was, what could a ghost who could only drift and couldn’t even touch physical objects do?

Just when he thought he was about to dissipate, someone saw him and said they could help him.

When he killed Wan Fang’s family, he knew that even if he wasn’t caught in the mortal world, he would have to pay a price after going to the underworld. He thought that at least he could deal with all his enemies. If they had given him just one more day, he could have killed Liu Tao’s entire family and then dealt with the Qin family.

Lu Mingyu asked, “Did you commit suicide?”

Zhuang Lixu laughed: “What do you think? Aren’t you all very capable? Can’t you see ghosts? Can’t you tell if it was suicide or murder?”

Bai Zhizhi, who was sitting to the side, chimed in: “You are currently possessing a corpse; even the most powerful person cannot see through a body to see the soul.”

Even he relied on scent to identify the target; these cultivators couldn’t even smell the aura, let alone tell the truth of the death at a glance.

Zhuang Lixu looked at Bai Zhizhi—it was him. If not for him, he would have surely escaped today.

Bai Zhizhi clicked his tongue: “Don’t look at me like that. You provoked me first.”

Zhuang Lixu was confused: “I don’t even know who you are. How did I provoke you?”

Bai Zhizhi said, “You left claw marks behind Wan Fang’s family. You were trying to frame me.”

Zhuang Lixu was bewildered—how did leaving claw marks amount to framing someone?

Lu Mingyu asked, “Why did you leave claw marks on Wan Fang, her husband, and her son?”

Zhuang Lixu replied, “Someone told me that doing so would allow me to consume their souls and increase my own strength.”

Bai Zhizhi asked, “Who told you that?”

Zhuang Lixu said, “A foreigner. I don’t know who he is. He just gave me a thin, transparent sheet. As soon as that thing fell into my hands, I grew long fingernails, and my soul became much more solid.”

Unfortunately, that state of having his entire soul enhanced only lasted for one night, but after he consumed the souls of Wan Fang and the others, he wasn’t as weak as before, which gave him the strength to deal with Miao Sheng.

Bai Zhizhi slammed the table: “I knew it was those people from Huer!”

Regarding this matter, Lu Mingyu had already interrogated Huer and the others at the Bureau: “It wasn’t Huer, it was Aike. Through purchase records provided by Hu Fei’s side, we found that Aike paid someone on a forum to buy Hu Fei’s fingernails. Aike has also admitted to it.”

Bai Zhizhi hummed: “Just ruining them is far too lenient.”

Lu Mingyu pacified him: “Regarding this matter, the Director said he would try to negotiate with the United States; he will definitely get some compensation for you.”

Bai Zhizhi asked, “Really?”

Lu Mingyu nodded firmly; that was indeed what the Director had said.

Lu Mingyu then turned to Zhuang Lixu: “The thin sheet they gave you was a fox demon’s fingernail. Having you leave claw marks was intended to frame a demon for the killings. The goal was naturally to sow discord, not to help you take revenge.”

The superpowered individuals in the U.S. would never pass up an opportunity to create chaos in the country. Forget about framing Bai Zhizhi—even if they couldn’t, if they encountered a ghost with such deep hatred, they would gladly lend a hand just to see the chaos.

If the ghost had escaped successfully, tasted the satisfaction of growing stronger by devouring souls, developed cravings, turned into a vengeful spirit, or even grew to the level of a Ghost King, it would have caused them a lot of trouble.

Zhuang Lixu was completely confused. A demon—was it the kind of demon from his own understanding? The fact that souls remained after death already shattered his understanding of a scientific world, and now there were even demons?

Before Zhuang Lixu could think about it further, Lu Mingyu asked, “You didn’t commit suicide; then who killed you?”

Zhuang Lixu said, “Who else? Miao Sheng, Liu Tao, and Qin Yilun. The three of them conspired to kill me. Their families cleaned up after them and staged my death to look like a suicide.”

Initially, the conflict between them wasn’t serious enough to cost a life. It was nothing more than Wan Fang’s stirring up trouble, which led a few wealthy students in the class to dislike him. After they tried to give him trouble a few times and saw he didn’t bite, they thought he was stuck-up and arrogant, and grew to dislike him even more.

After he represented the school in a few competitions, word spread from somewhere that the school beauty found the boys chasing her immature and said they were not even as good as him. This naturally escalated an already existing conflict.

Their escalation didn’t mean they bullied him worse at school; when he chose a private high school, he had already mentally prepared himself for everything that could go wrong, but he hadn’t expected human evil to reach such a level.

Zhuang Lixu said, “My mother had a breakfast shop—a very normal profession. But in the eyes of those rich young masters, this profession was inherently inferior. Honestly, I couldn’t understand how selling breakfast could be shameful, but they thought so. If they wanted to think so, fine, as long as I ignored them, they couldn’t do anything to me. But I never expected that the more I ignored them, the more it seemed to ignite their malice.”

“They didn’t just target me at school; they hired people to cause trouble at our breakfast shop. My mother died in an accident because of the trouble they caused.”

“The Miao family, the Liu family, and the Qin family—they were either the sons of CEOs or board members of some company. For the power of these three families to erase the truth behind hiring people to cause trouble that led to a death was truly too easy.”

“My father didn’t know who did it, but he wanted to find the people who caused the trouble; he wanted justice for my mother, so he never gave up investigating. Then, my father was gone too.”

Zhuang Lixu looked up at the two people interrogating him: “How terrifying. Because they had money and power, they could do whatever they wanted. My parents were both gone. To cut off any future trouble, they also pushed me off the rooftop and then announced to the public that I couldn’t handle the blow of losing my parents and committed suicide.”

“Hahaha, suicide. Me, commit suicide? It’s too ridiculous. Even if I were to die, I would drag them down with me! How could I possibly commit suicide? How could I commit suicide after my parents died under such mysterious circumstances!”

Zhuang Lixu was so full of hate his eyes turned red, and the liver mortis on his face became even more visible: “They all deserve to die! Just because they didn’t like the look of me, they took the lead in bullying me. Those rich people, knowing full well their sons had done wrong, didn’t hesitate to kill my whole family to protect them! What did I do wrong? Was I wrong to want to attend a good school and strive for a good future? Was I wrong to want the truth about my parents’ deaths to come to light? Was I wrong to want to avenge myself?”

Lu Mingyu stayed silent. A ghost will only develop such an obsession if they were treated with extreme injustice in life. At times like this, they could only try to calm the ghost’s emotions as much as possible.

However, Bai Zhizhi said, “You weren’t wrong. Someone killed your whole family; you killing their whole family is quite justified.”

If someone hurt his family, let alone an entire family, he would wipe out their entire clan.

Zhuang Lixu looked at Bai Zhizhi; he had expected these so-called law enforcers to criticize him, not to hear such words.

Lu Mingyu sighed, “Zhizhi.”

Bai Zhizhi insisted, “It’s the truth. If someone killed your whole family, wouldn’t you take revenge?”

Lu Mingyu said, “The mundane world has its laws. If everyone practiced ‘an eye for an eye,’ the world would descend into chaos.”

Even among ordinary people, there are hierarchies of money and power. Beyond ordinary people, there are practitioners. Without a system, the people at the bottom wouldn’t even possess human rights.

The law might not shine its light justly into every corner, but it illuminates a large portion of the world.

Bai Zhizhi asked, “So what now? What do you plan to do? Does he deserve to die?”

Lu Mingyu said to Zhuang Lixu, “Regarding your family and your death, we will reopen the investigation. If the matter is truly related to those three families, the law will definitely give you the most impartial verdict.”

Zhuang Lixu smiled at him, “No need. No matter how impartial it is, it will never be as profound as truly experiencing the same suffering.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Pan Xuan knocked on the door and entered. Seeing the person covered in liver mortis, he said, “Qin Yilun is dead. We found his body in the lake.”

The body was dragged down by rocks, and ropes had bound his hands and feet behind his back, forcing him into a triangular kneeling position.

Hearing this, the smile on Zhuang Lixu’s face became even more gratified: “Justice I couldn’t get while I was alive, I will collect for myself after death.”