Lin Sheng

The second room, Bing Room, likewise held a pile of charred bones and ash. This time, the writing Lin Sheng had left behind in the room was noticeably sparser. Clearly, when it came to preparing human flesh, he had struggled far less and grown much more decisive. Hua Yingmei was a human trafficker. Although she had never actually killed anyone, she had harmed countless lives. Who knew how many families had been torn apart because of her, how many parents reduced to washing their faces in tears? According to the laws of Dashun, she too deserved death. Not killing her would never appease the public fury. Walking up to the pile of ash, Wang Ping nudged it with his foot, immediately revealing the words written beneath: *I am in the right. Everything was done in accordance with the law.* Wang Ping shook his head, stepped out of the room, and walked toward the third room, Yi Room. This time, there was not even writing to console himself. The room was bare and empty, save for a single line written beneath the burnt ashes. The writer seemed to have exerted tremendous force, the strokes fragmented and ragged: *This person deserved to die.* Looking at these words, Wang Ping sighed inward, though it was not unexpected. It was as if he could see a once-upright constable descending into madness under the torment of starvation. Confined in Yi Room was a fraudster. Admittedly, his swindles had caused many people to lose their life savings, and he had even absconded with the money in the end... Yet no matter what, this was not a capital offense. Under the laws of Dashun, the harshest penalty was merely exile. Yet Lin Sheng had still dealt the fatal blow. From this, one could see that he had completely lost his initial resolve, no longer even bothering to find a fitting excuse, wanting only to fill his belly as quickly as possible. After a moment of silence, Wang Ping came to the final room of the residence, Jia Room. According to the dossier, the person in this room was undeniably a good man—kind to his neighbors, eager to help others, blessed with a harmonious family... Yet before a Lin Sheng driven into a frenzy of slaughter, none of that would mean anything. Standing before the door of Jia Room, Wang Ping calmed his mind and gathered his breath. If nothing went amiss, inside this Jia Room should be a corpse radiating soaring baleful resentment, and a fiend on the verge of being born. *I must be careful.* Come to think of it, he had yet to witness the "thaumaturgy" of Dashun. This might be his chance to test just how deep the waters of Dashun truly ran. "Creak..." Wang Ping raised his hand, intending to push open the door of Jia Room. Yet an abnormal resistance checked his movement, preventing him from proceeding. "...Locked?" Wang Ping was stunned. The door to Jia Room was actually locked from the inside. Had the good man confined within done it? No, that made no sense. For Lin Sheng knew martial arts. The Three Demon Blades of Yanluo, a mandatory art for county yamen constables, was a sinew-tempering martial technique. Once mastered, one's strength multiplied. Even if such a wooden door were locked, it would be utterly useless. Wang Ping believed the people locked in the previous three rooms had surely tried similar things, yet none could stop Lin Sheng, who possessed martial prowess... But why, when it came to the fourth room, had Lin Sheng not battered the door down? The hunger should have pushed him past all moral limits by then. Could he have turned back from the brink at the very end? "...Impossible." After a moment of thought, Wang Ping shook his head. The murderer in Ding Room, the human trafficker in Bing Room—if killing them could still be excused as somewhat justifiable, then by killing the fraudster in Yi Room, Lin Sheng had already ceased to care about good and evil. How could he have suddenly found his conscience again? It made no sense. Wang Ping could not fathom it. Yet right then, an inkling stirred in his heart. Turning his head toward the residence's tea pavilion, a look of surprise crossed his face. Inside the tea pavilion, another person had appeared. It was a man whose complexion was sallow and countenance weak, yet who was still entirely whole. Judging from his heartbeat, pulse, skin, and flesh, he did not appear to know any martial arts either. "...So that's how it is." Wang Ping understood in an instant. There was a cellar beneath the tea pavilion. The spiritual sense the paper double could carry was too weak, and coupled with the interference from the baleful resentment permeating the residence, the man had actually slipped past his notice. The next second, the other person spoke. "Do not open that door." "You are... Li An." Wang Ping slowly voiced the man's name. "The person originally housed in Jia Room. Lin Sheng actually didn't eat you." Upon hearing this, visible sorrow washed over Li An's face, yet he choked out, "Do not open the door of Jia Room. This was Benefactor's final request before he died. If it is opened, something terrible may happen, endangering the county seat beyond this residence." "Before he died... Lin Sheng is dead?" Wang Ping was even more surprised and murmured, "He locked himself inside Jia Room? Even though he had already abandoned his resolve, he held back at the very last moment?" At those words, tears and snot streamed down Li An's face. "No! Benefactor never gave up!" Wang Ping shook his head instinctively. "What are you talking about? He already killed the one in Yi Room... Ah." His voice cut off abruptly. The next instant, Wang Ping's gaze locked onto Li An. "The fraudster in Yi Room... wasn't killed by Lin Sheng. You were the one who did it?" ... Among the four individuals in rooms Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding, a thread of cause and effect had been deliberately concealed, left unrecorded in the dossier by Xu Bingzheng. And that was— "I was one of the victims whom Pang Yue... that fraudster in Yi Room, swindled out of all our family wealth. Because of him, my wife took her own life." Saying this, Li An's tone was calm. "So when I discovered that the person locked in Yi Room was him, I was wild with joy, because he would be killed by Benefactor just like the other two. "Yet... Benefactor refused. "Even after I told him of my grudge against that bastard and begged him to strike, he kept refusing... So in the end, I chose to do it with my own hands. "He deserved to die!" Only at the very end did intense indignation seep into Li An's words, which immediately reminded Wang Ping of the line carved into Yi Room: *This person deserved to die.* "Those words were left by you," Wang Ping sighed. Li An nodded and continued, "After killing that bastard, I brought his corpse to Benefactor, hoping he would eat that scoundrel. "I could tell that Benefactor was enduring excruciating agony to hold back. "And after killing that bastard, I didn't want to live anymore either. A life for a life, anyway. So I told Benefactor not to hold back any longer, to just eat me as well..." Wang Ping closed his eyes. *This truly is... vicious.* He began to regret killing Xu Bingzheng and Li Yiran with a single punch earlier. If given another chance, he certainly would not have let them die so easily. *This karmic tie was deliberately concealed by Xu Bingzheng.* *To thoroughly break Lin Sheng.* Just imagine: if Lin Sheng had been resilient enough to halt before the door of Yi Room, preferring to starve to death rather than kill to fill his stomach, what would have happened? Without question, Xu Bingzheng's plan to cultivate a fiend would have failed. So he had put a fail-safe in place. *Even if Lin Sheng reined in at the brink of the precipice and adamantly refused to kill Pang Yue in Yi Room, Li An in Jia Room would take the initiative to kill him out of this deep vendetta.* *While Pang Yue was alive, Lin Sheng might have held out. But once Pang Yue was dead? Consuming a dead body—one not even killed by his own hand—would undoubtedly shatter Lin Sheng's mental defenses. At the same time, Li An, an innocent man of spotless morals, would be turned into a murderer.* The reason to exercise restraint vanished in an instant. *This was the final straw Xu Bingzheng had deliberately prepared to break the camel's back, meant to deliver the decisive blow and thoroughly crush Lin Sheng's mental defenses!* "...Hm?" Thinking up to this point, Wang Ping suddenly opened his eyes again. Wait, that's not right. He turned to look at Li An. Yi Room held only a burnt fire pit; in the end, Lin Sheng had indeed eaten Pang Yue's corpse, meaning Xu Bingzheng's plan had succeeded. Yet why? Why was Li An still alive? Wang Ping was certain that after Li An personally killed Pang Yue, the bottom line in Lin Sheng's heart had been completely shattered, making it impossible for him to go on enduring the hunger. Finally, he looked toward Jia Room. The answer lay inside that room. With that thought, Wang Ping took a deep breath and walked up to the door once more. Seeing this, Li An hurriedly stepped forward. "Benefactor said there might be danger..." "He underestimated himself." Wang Ping opened his spiritual sense vision and said softly, "The baleful resentment in this room is the lowest of all. Rest assured, there won't be any danger." With that, he channeled his spiritual sense. His spiritual sense penetrated the door, allowing Wang Ping to see the scene within. A swallow-tail saber had been slotted into the door, serving as a bolt that locked the doors shut. With a gentle nudge of his spiritual sense, Wang Ping removed it. The next second, accompanied by a creaking sound, the doors swung open to reveal the sight within—a mangled corpse lying on the floor. It was none other than Lin Sheng. Pain still lingered on his face. The hunger, intense enough to drive a man insane, had continued to torment him even in the final moments of his life. His feet were completely twisted and broken, making it impossible to stand. Both of his arms had been severed from the elbows down, with dark brownish coagulated blood scattered all around. His final posture in death was that of crawling toward the door, though he had perished before reaching it. This was a torment bordering on the horrific punishment of the human swine. Likewise, around Lin Sheng's corpse, Wang Ping saw dense rows of writing, recording everything that had transpired after he locked himself inside Jia Room: *I can't hold back anymore.* *Li An killed Pang Yue. By the time I realized what had happened and came to my senses, the hunger was gone... In the end, I still ate Pang Yue.* *Li An has become a murderer too.* *While my belly is just filled, while I'm not hungry yet and still lucid, I must do something, or else everything will truly be beyond redemption.* *I locked myself in Jia Room and drove Li An out, barring the door from inside... Not enough. This can only keep Li An from coming in, but it can't stop me from leaving... It seems I can only break my own legs and find a spot farthest from the door, severing any possibility of walking out.* This was the earliest writing, right in the corner of the room. Yet soon, the writing changed. *I'm hungry again.* *Maybe it's because of the heavy blood loss from breaking my legs, but hunger came quickly this time... Come to think of it, Li An doesn't want to live anyway. He told me to eat him.* *Tsk, broken legs are such a hassle. Fortunately, I can still crawl over, using my hands in place of legs. With my martial arts, catching Li An should be easy.* The writing stretched all the way from the corner to the center of the room, before changing once more. *My luck isn't bad. Maybe because I was too hungry, I ended up eating the legs I broke earlier, which brought me back to my senses just in time.* *Just in time to sever my arms as well.* *Now there's no problem. I've made sure that in this state, I can barely move at all, and my martial arts are essentially crippled. It's impossible for me to kill anyone else.* The writing paused for a stretch here. The subsequent text gradually grew chaotic, twisted, and skewed: *Bastard!* *My arms and legs are all gone. Too much blood loss. Even though I circulated my inner arts to staunch the wounds, I can't move easily anytime soon, or it will only speed up my death.* *But... I'm so hungry.* *Why did I break my own limbs back then? Utterly idiotic! Just to shield a murderer? Under Dashun law, he deserves to die!* *I don't want to die... I want to live.* *I want to eat...* Wang Ping read no further. With a wave of his hand, he erased the writing on the floor—this had not been left by Lin Sheng. Lin Sheng had already died before this. What remained was merely a maddened, empty shell. At the same time, Wang Ping finally understood why, from the very beginning, his martial artist's divine intent had told him there was "no danger." Because there truly was no danger. Because Lin Sheng had held out. He had held out until the final moment of his life, refusing to become the human sacrifice for a fiend.