Chapter 173 The Truth

I hadn't even left Bai-Hu Gou (White Tiger Gully) when I received a call from Ye Yang: "Li Po, I dug up the grave of Sun Qing's grandfather."

"The corpse in the grave is missing a piece of skin. The skin on his back was peeled off."

"Also, there are Huagu Qu (bone-melting maggots) in the old man's grave..."

Ye Yang roughly explained the situation, and my face darkened. After I hung up the phone, I muttered to myself, "Has the person seeking revenge also been reincarnated? That shouldn't be!"

Zhao Yuezhu asked curiously, "Li Po, what are you talking about?"

I said, "Huagu Qu (bone-melting maggots) were found in the old man Sun's grave. This means that the Sun family wants to use Gu (poisonous) insects to peel off the human skin completely."

I pointed to my eyes, "If the Huagu Qu (bone-melting maggots) are inserted into the body through the eyes, the person will turn into a human skin without any gaps except for the nine orifices."

"The Sun family is the one peeling the skin. But, what about the Sun family's tattoos?"

Zhao Yuezhu said, "Haven't you considered that the Sun family also knows that they are the killers?"

"Huh?" I suddenly turned to look at Zhao Yuezhu, "What did you say?"

Zhao Yuezhu was startled by me, "I mean, what if... what if Sun Qing knows that he was the murderer who killed and buried the bodies back then?"

"That's right!" I couldn't help but stomp my foot, "I've narrowed my own path!"

I reiterated, "All my initial deductions were based on the premise that there was no loophole in the iron laws of the underworld. How could I not have thought that someone could use the secret art of reincarnation?"

I simply sat down, "Let me sort out my thoughts again. Help me think about whether there are any loopholes."

I said:

"Initially, I thought that the murderer who created the skinning case in the past had been reincarnated as a human, and those wronged souls who had their skin peeled off were waiting for him somewhere, wanting to seek revenge for their previous lives."

"This is a kind of inertial thinking of術士 (Shushi – Taoist experts). It is not uncommon for ghosts to wait in a certain place for decades or even hundreds of years."

"Moreover, if the cause and effect are not broken, the ghost's enemy in the previous life is likely to return to the place where the feud was first formed under the traction of cause and effect."

"That's why in the story Sun Qing told us, his grandfather repeatedly said that he was involved in a calamity."

"I'm sure that Sun Qing told us some of the truth when he told us the story. Because we are all術士 (Shushi – Taoist experts), he can't deceive us if he makes up the whole story."

"So, I was also drawn into this story by him. My thinking has always stayed on the vendetta between humans and ghosts. But I never thought that in this business, humans are ghosts, and ghosts may also be humans."

"Just now, Zhao丫头 (丫头 – Yatou, girl) reminded me. I should think about everything in reverse."

"If Sun Qing was the murderer who peeled the skin and killed people back then, and those ghosts suppressed by him in Bai-Hu Gou (White Tiger Gully) were the ones who were reincarnated, many doubts could be explained."

"Back then, although those victims were full of resentment, the resentment was not irreconcilable. For example, the Buddhist Dharma (teachings), or suppression with Taoist methods could resolve the resentment and send them to be reincarnated."

"Since Zhao丫头 (丫头 – Yatou, girl)'s previous life had released them all, why couldn't she have done a good deed to the end, resolved the resentment on them, and sent them into the underworld?"

"If this hypothesis holds, then the person waiting to kill is not the resentful ghost of the past, but the murderer of the past."

"That murderer is Sun Qing!"

"The earth souls in the underworld will be reincarnated at different times because of the sins they committed during their lifetime. Some earth souls must wait until they have served their sentences in the underworld before they can be reincarnated, so the one hundred or more people who were killed back then will not appear at the same time."

"Sixty years ago, Sun Qing waited for the reincarnation of the first batch of victims, so there was another skinning case. The number of people killed this time was far less than the first time."

"After another sixty years, Sun Qing has been waiting for the second batch of victims, so he started killing again."

"You mean, Sun Qing is one hundred and thirty or forty years old?" Zhao Yuezhu asked before realizing, "No, you mean, Sun Qing is not a human at all, but an evil ghost walking around in human skin?"

I nodded, "That's what I mean!"

Zhao Yuezhu said, "But he has a father and a grandfather!"

"Having relatives doesn't mean he's not a ghost." I waved my hand, "The problem should be with that coffin tattoo."

"The Sun family may be his disciples and grandchildren, or they may be his family. They are using various methods to cover up Sun Qing's identity."

Qin Xin also said, "I think there is still an unexplainable point in your speculation."

"Since Sun Qing is the murderer in the skinning case, why does he have to target the same group of people to peel their skin? If he just wants human skin, it shouldn't be difficult to find a target."

"The two skinning cases happened during times of war and chaos, when human lives were cheap, and ghosts and monsters were rampant. The government wouldn't even care about a murder case. Why did he have to kill the same group of people?"

"And one more thing..."

Qin Xin looked at my face and continued after realizing that I was not angry, "How can you be sure that Sun Qing is a ghost? He entered the Two Worlds Hall! So many experts in the Two Worlds Hall, didn't anyone see that he was a ghost?"