Chapter 13 Anger

Anger?

Absolutely!

"Boss, we... we should call the police."

The old Taoist suggested from the side.

Then, he saw Zhou Ze looking at him with the gaze one reserves for a mentally challenged child.

Um...

Did I say something wrong?

But haven't you always said that if there's a problem, find the police and be a good law-abiding citizen? I've been carrying out your instructions and spirit!

"Old Taoist," Zhou Ze said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"If your money was stolen, would you be angry?"

"Of course, I'd be angry."

"Then, if your ashes were stolen, would you be angry?"

"Uh…………"

Who the hell is as perverted as you? Your original body has turned into ashes, and you can still discuss whether you're angry about it?

"I'm going to find that guy."

A black luster began to flow in Zhou Ze's eyes, and his ten fingernails emitted an eerie light.

"Then, I'll tear him to pieces!"

Steal anything, but he had to steal my ashes. Well, then I'll make sure he's buried with them.

"The cemetery office is over there. Go there and check the surveillance footage."

Zhou Ze instructed the old Taoist, who nodded hurriedly. Fine, you're the boss. You want to do things this way, then do it. I won't try to figure out what you're thinking.

Zhou Ze directly broke the cemetery gate lock, and the two went in. The old Taoist sat down at the computer in the monitoring room and began to retrieve the previous recordings, while locking onto the camera that could observe Zhou Ze's tombstone.

"Night, during the Qingming Festival." (Tomb Sweeping Day)

Zhou Ze gave the specific time.

Because the traces of moving the tombstone hadn't completely disappeared. It must have happened not long ago. Otherwise, if another ten or fifteen days had passed, Zhou Ze wouldn't have been able to discover this clue.

He might even come to worship himself every year in the future, not knowing that what he was worshiping wasn't his own ashes, nor his own past, but a box of plastic balls.

Then, he would come every holiday and entrust his sorrow to a box of plastic balls.

"Boss, if you ask me, since the other party stole something, they should have deleted the surveillance video as well. That's how it's always done in TV dramas.

For us to come and check the surveillance video now is just the kind of watered-down plot that this poor Taoist hates the most when watching TV dramas.

It's completely useless, just padding for time."

Zhou Ze put his hand on the old Taoist's shoulder, his fingernails gently swaying, that cold and terrifying feeling seemed to pierce directly into the old Taoist's body.

The old Taoist's body trembled, and he immediately sat up straight, not daring to say another word. He seriously began to rewind the surveillance footage.

"Stop!"

Zhou Ze shouted.

The old Taoist immediately pressed pause.

"Rewind a little more."

The old Taoist began to rewind, and sure enough, a figure wearing red clothes appeared in the frame. The quality of the surveillance wasn't very good, and it was night, so the person in the picture was very blurry, only able to roughly tell what color clothes he was wearing.

They actually found it?

The old Taoist was a little surprised in his heart.

The picture slowly played,

The person in the red clothes bent down, and used two things similar to surgical knives to pry open the tombstone. The movements were neat and quick, no slower than Zhou Ze's previous use of his fingernails.

Then the other party took out the urn, took out a glass container, and poured the ashes into it. Afterwards, it seemed like they sprinkled something into the urn, which, as expected, should be that string of plastic balls.

The man put the glass bottle in his arms, then turned his head and looked towards the camera.

From the angle of the surveillance video, it was as if the other party was pointing the camera at himself, making eye contact with the person watching the video.

The other party deliberately put his face close to the camera,

This face,

Zhou Ze felt inexplicably familiar. It was an East Asian face, with very fair skin.

He began to search for information about this person in his chaotic memories, but unfortunately, the last time he fought the Qing Yi Niangniang (Green-Clothed Goddess) on the rooftop, he had entered that state, which caused him to have severe memory loss at the time, and he couldn't remember who the other party was for a while.

"Amen!"

After the other party said these words, he directly turned and left, leaving behind a meaningful smile.

Until the other party's last "Amen" was uttered, Zhou Ze's pupils suddenly shrank,

The memory screen began to rewind non-stop, and finally appeared in the villa surrounded by rapeseed flowers, at that dining table, the priest who had been standing there quietly.

It was him!

He stole my ashes!

"Boss, do you know this person?" The old Taoist was a little strange seeing Zhou Ze's reaction.

"Mm."

When the two walked out of the cemetery, it was already past one o'clock in the morning. Zhou Ze took out his phone and first called Xu Qinglang, but Xu Qinglang was probably drunk and didn't answer.

Zhou Ze could only call Tang Shi.

"What's the matter?"

"Help me wake up Xu Qinglang, no matter what method you use."

"Okay."

After about half a minute, a scream came from the other end of the phone.

Then, Xu Qinglang answered the phone with some resentment, directly cursing:

"Are you sick in the head, asking her to wake me up!"

"The phone number of the lady who rented our shop, give it to me."

"Tsk, I'll find it."

Xu Qinglang heard the suppressed anger in Zhou Ze's voice, and didn't continue to complain to Zhou Ze. He immediately started looking for the phone, and then said the number.

Zhou Ze called, but a prompt came from the other end of the phone: "The phone you dialed is turned off, please try again later."

Zhou Ze took a deep breath. Although Tongcheng was just a small city with a population of only a few million, it was very difficult to find someone here without any connections.

And now Zhou Ze's anger urgently needed an outlet, but he simply couldn't find the priest's specific information.

When he returned to the bookstore at night, Tang Shi was sitting inside reading a magazine, and Xu Qinglang was sitting at the bar with some bruises on his face.

"Did you get in touch?" Xu Qinglang asked while applying an egg to his face.

Zhou Ze shook his head.

"Hiss…………"

Xu Qinglang felt the pain on his face become even more intense. Did he get beaten for nothing?

Zhou Ze walked to Tang Shi and asked, "What method is there to quickly find a person in this area?"

Tang Shi put down the magazine in her hand and asked, "Scratch the ground with your fingernails and see if you can call out a Tudigong (local earth deity)."

"I'm serious."

"I have no way, did you lose something?" Tang Shi asked.

Zhou Ze didn't answer. His ashes were lost, it wasn't something to be proud of, it was even comparable to his underwear being stolen.

It seemed like there was no way. He couldn't get through to that lady's phone, and Zhou Ze believed that even if he did, it would be very slim to find the priest's address and news through that lady.

The other party seemed to have specifically investigated him. He could let the video surveillance go without doing anything, the reason was likely that he had great confidence in his hiding place, believing that even if he discovered this matter, he wouldn't be able to find him.

Suddenly, Zhou Ze thought of something, took out his phone, and dialed a number with no saved name:

"Hello, who are you?"

A cute loli (young girl) voice came from the other end of the phone.

"Tell your sister to answer the phone." Zhou Ze said.

"Who are you, I don't have a sist... Captou, I was just sleeping."

The loli voice suddenly turned into an imperial sister's (older, mature woman) tone.

"Help me find someone, a priest from Japan, he's been active in Tongcheng recently."

"Okay."

Then he only heard a sound from the other end of the phone:

biu,

The phone was hung up.

Zhou Ze felt a little unreal,

He didn't expect his newly acquired little brother,

Oh no,

It was his little sister,

To be so efficient. After he instructed her to do something, she directly said "Okay" and went to do it.

"Hey, let me ask you a question." Tang Shi suddenly said.

Zhou Ze looked at Tang Shi.

"Has your conscience been hurting recently?" Tang Shi pointed to the position of her heart.

Zhou Ze didn't quite understand what she meant, and then shook his head.

"Heh..." Tang Shi laughed, "It seems like you're slowly getting used to it."

"Getting used to what?"

"Getting used to living without a conscience."

Tang Shi stood up, looking like she was preparing to go upstairs, and at the same time reminded him: "Tomorrow night, let's have tea together, don't forget."

"I'm not in the mood."

Tang Shi was noncommittal and continued upstairs.

…………

In a one-bedroom apartment, a priest was sitting on the sofa, with some pictures and information on the coffee table in front of him. He was sitting there thinking hard, and at the same time talking to himself.

At this moment, the door was opened.

The intern walked in, and when he saw the priest sitting on his sofa, he was directly startled and scolded:

"Who are you, why are you in my house!"

At the same time, the intern reached out and took out his phone, preparing to call the police, he felt that a thief had broken into his home.

But the priest appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye, grabbing his wrist with one hand and holding his neck with the other.

The phone fell to the ground,

And the priest lifted his neck,

The intern felt a strong sense of suffocation.

The priest remained motionless, continuing to maintain this posture, until the intern's eyes began to slowly disperse, and a hint of viciousness appeared on his face.

"I clearly fed you with the things extracted from his ashes, how can you only turn into this kind of ghoul, what use is this kind of thing to me."

The priest kicked the intern's butt, and the intern fell to the ground, then immediately got up, with drool dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"Splatter."

A raw pig trotter was thrown on the ground by the priest,

The intern rushed over and held the trotter in his hands, gnawing on it, with blood stains from the pig's trotter still remaining on his mouth, but a look of dissatisfaction flashed in his eyes. Obviously, pig trotters and pork couldn't satisfy him.

The priest shook his head, and somewhat helplessly sat back on the sofa.

"It seems that his ability to become a jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampire) shouldn't be due to his body, it should be due to his soul's mischief. It's because that body was entrusted with his soul, so some changes occurred, causing ordinary people to have some mutations after taking it, but this mutation is insignificant.

Not to mention jiangshi, it can't even be a zombie, it just adds a lovely hobby - eating corpses."

The priest rubbed his hands,

"So, it's not the reason of the body, is it the reason of his soul itself?

Wasn't his previous body the original product either?

His possession of the body looks like it was arranged by the female ghost messenger,

But in reality, there are things hidden even deeper?"

The priest picked up his coffee and took a sip,

On the coffee table in front of him,

There was a photo of Zhou Ze's previous life, as well as photos of Xu Le and his sister-in-law,

There were even photos of the old man who stabbed Zhou Ze with his fingernails that day in the hospital.

The priest took out a scalpel, directly shredded the photos of the old man and his sister-in-law, and then let out a long sigh of relief,

"I have to investigate again."