I Went Crazy Killing in the World of Gods and Demons - Chapter 80

Chapter 80

“Wang Laodian, what happened?”

The worst-case scenario had occurred.

Ling Fang’s eyes instantly sharpened, like an unsheathed sword.

“Everyone, attention!” Ling Fang connected to everyone’s channel and said coldly, “Stay alert. This village isn’t safe.”

“Received!”

All five responded in unison.

“Ye Anran, Dai Xingyu, you two keep watch over the Village Chief.” Ling Fang quickly made arrangements. “Lao Yu, check the scene and see if any traces were left behind. Shen Huaizhou, take Xie Qingling with you, keep an eye on her while also standing guard. Don’t let anything approach Wang Laodian’s house!”

After swiftly issuing orders, Ling Fang rushed toward Wang Laodian’s house.

Hearing his assignment, Shen Huaizhou glanced back at Xie Qingling sitting in her chair, picked her up chair and all, and quickly ran toward Wang Laodian’s house.

Although he had been badly worn out by the River God and hadn’t fully recovered, he could still handle a simple task like keeping watch.

About five minutes later, Shen Huaizhou reached the slope in front of Wang Laodian’s house, planning to climb a tree to gain a vantage point for surveillance.

However, after looking at Xie Qingling, Shen Huaizhou found himself in a dilemma.

Xie Qingling was currently bedridden and basically had no self-defense capabilities. Leaving her alone wasn’t safe, but bringing her along would make keeping watch difficult.

As if seeing through his predicament, Xie Qingling proactively said, “You can put me inside Wang Laodian’s house. The captain and Brother Yu are both there. With them watching over me, I’ll be fine.”

Shen Huaizhou listened, then picked her up chair and all again, first placing her inside Wang Laodian’s house before going off alone to stand guard.

Sitting inside Wang Laodian’s house, Xie Qingling saw Wang Laodian tied to a pillar. He had collapsed on the ground, which was covered in blood, with cuts on all four limbs. It seemed like all the blood in his body had nearly been drained.

Meanwhile, the Incense Hall in Wang Laodian’s house had been completely destroyed. The clay statue was smashed to pieces, and the Piggyback Ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Ling Fang crouched on the ground, felt Wang Laodian’s neck, and the stormy expression on his face showed a trace of clearing.

He opened the silver case, took out the pink potion, and poured it down Wang Laodian’s throat.

This was the first time Xie Qingling had seen someone use the pink potion while on the verge of death.

She remembered when Ye Anran had introduced this pink potion, saying: It can only be used when someone is barely breathing, almost beyond saving.

She wondered what effect drinking it would have.

Moments later, Wang Laodian’s deathly pale face regained the color and vitality of a living person, looking as if he were merely asleep.

His still eyelids began to tremble, and the eyeballs beneath them started rolling around.

He was waking up.

Wang Laodian coughed weakly a few times, lifted his eyelids, and immediately saw the two men and one woman who had intruded into his home.

“I… didn’t I die…” Wang Laodian muttered to himself.

Ling Fang didn’t give him much time to dwell on the feeling of approaching death. Grabbing his collar, he forced him to straighten his long-bent back and coldly demanded, “Who did this?”

“Deceiving the villagers into sacrificing to the River Godwhat is your purpose?”

“Speak now!”

Wang Laodian allowed Ling Fang to lift his head, glancing at him sideways with a contemptuous gaze. Even facing death, he remained unrepentantly arrogant and sharp.

“Kill me! Kill me! Even in death, I won’t speak!”

“Hahahaha… What a pity, what a pity.” Wang Laodian’s eyes turned toward Xie Qingling. “You are the one the River God desiresa woman filled with Spirit. Offering you as a sacrifice would have pleased Him greatly. Yet you managed to return alive… The village will suffer again.”

Wang Laodian laughed until tears streamed from his eyes, appearing utterly deranged.

Ling Fang’s brow furrowed deeply. He delivered a heavy punch to Wang Laodian’s stomach, causing him to grunt in pain. His previously flushed face paled once more. Yet even then, he tilted his disheveled, bird’s-nest-like head and continued laughing like a madman.

Through muffled speech, he muttered, “Almost dead, almost dead… I’m almost gone… Just… just hold on a little longer… I’ll be dead soon. I won’t speak. I won’t plunge the village into endless disaster and curses. I won’t speak, won’t speak…”

Wang Laodian was indeed at the end of his rope. Though the pink potion had temporarily revived him, its effect was merely a final flare before extinction. Once the medicine wore off, he would return to his original state.

Feeling his life flicker like a lamp running out of oil, Wang Laodian knew he only needed to endure this war of attritionthese people would have no way to break him.

The dead cannot speak.

Ling Fang’s expression darkened unbearably. He hadn’t expected Wang Laodian to be so stubborn, unlike the Village Chief who had been easily intimidated by corpses and confessed everything.

This was truly a tough nut to crack!

Such a precious potion wasted, only to pry open a mouth that refused to speak.

The situation had reached an impasse.

Xie Qingling sat on a chair, her back to the light, positioned exactly where the sunlight fell through the doorframe. From Wang Laodian’s perspective, only her blurred silhouette was visible, her expression unclear.

Wang Laodian heard the voice of this womanwho should have been sacrificed and died at the river bottomspeak coldly: “Legend says every village has a Village Guardian.”

“The Village Guardian bears disasters for the village, thus becoming disabled. He appears mad yet not mad, foolish yet not foolish, deranged yet not deranged. The villagers both avoid and revere him.”

“The villagers regarded you as the Village Guardian. They thought your hunched back resulted from bearing disasters, so they revered and obeyed you, believing you would protect the village.”

“But your hunched back is merely the consequence of your own actionsraising Little ghosts as tools for profit, using them to create lies, controlling the villagers, deceiving them. After all this, you turn around and claim the village will sufferisn’t that hypocritical?”

Xie Qingling’s voice dripped with sarcasm: “All these years, under the guise of the River God’s marriage ceremony, you’ve secretly taken considerable benefits for yourself, haven’t you? Lining your own pockets while exploiting the villagers? Otherwise, I can’t understand why you’d encourage decades of sacrifices to the River God. Your pickle jar, your broken courtyardthey must be buried with gold and silver treasures, right? Or perhaps you’ve hidden them elsewhere. But what does it matter now? You won’t get to enjoy any of it. So, how was the taste of worldly riches and honor? Pity you’ll never experience them again.”

In truth, Xie Qingling’s accusations lacked evidence and credibilitythey could easily be dismissed as pure fabrication.

She was merely bluffing, trying desperate measures as a last resort.

Faced with an unyielding hard nut that couldn’t be cracked through threats or bribes, she could only attack his psychological weak point.

Wang Laodian cared deeply about this village.

Xie Qingling wasn’t sure if her assumptions were correct, but time was short, forcing her to take risks and employ unorthodox tactics.

Fortunately, she soon heard Wang Laodian’s rebuttal.

A vehement rebuttal.

Wang Laodian’s face flushed crimson, his lips moving rapidly as flecks of foam flew: “I didn’t! Shut up! I didn’t!!”

“The suffering and hardships I’ve endured for this village aren’t for a young girl like you to judge! I’ve lived a life of austerity, never enjoying wealth or luxury! Never any comfort! I only wanted everyone to be safe!! All of them safe!!”

Wang Laodian screamed hysterically, his agitation causing fresh blood to surge from his wounds.

The flowing blood pooled and spread on the ground, forming lakes of crimson.

“Oh really? Making villagers sacrifice to an Evil God, living in perpetual fearis that your contribution? Don’t disgust me. You’re a complete fraud. There’s no River God in the riverit’s all fake. You’re a false Village Guardian, using the Evil God as a pretext to wield power and revel in your authority.”

Closer, she was getting closer to the truth she sought.

Xie Qingling stared intently at Wang Laodian, her expression growing more contemptuous.

Her demeanor deeply wounded Wang Laodian.

After enduring over twenty years of bitter solitudemisunderstood, with no one to confide in, not even anyone daring to approach him, isolated and companionlessWang Laodian couldn’t allow Xie Qingling to reduce all his sacrifices to worthless, insignificant history.

And now she was tarnishing that history, calling him a false Village Guardian.

If he wasn’t the Village Guardian, then what was he?

A laughingstock?

Wifeless, childless, shunned by all like a plaguewas it all his own doing?

No, absolutely not!

Eyes bloodshot, Wang Laodian glared fixedly at Xie Qingling, his voice hoarse: “I’m not fake! I witnessed divine miracles with my own eyes! I saw the river change its course, the River God descend!! You’re the liar! You’re the fake one!”

Xie Qingling lifted her chin haughtily, unmoved by Wang Laodian’s pitiable state, her tone icy as she continued: “Oh? Since you claim to have witnessed divine miracles and seen the River God descend, then you should know the River God is a female deity, shouldn’t you?”

“You” Wang Laodian wanted to say something but suddenly froze, his eyes widening in disbelief as he stared at Xie Qingling. “What did you say? The River God… is female?”

“Just as I thought. You never knew. All that talk about witnessing divine miracles was just you being deceived.” Xie Qingling let out a cold laugh. “Do you know why the River God has never been satisfied with your decades of sacrifices? Because from the very beginning, He wanted a groom, not a bride. If you truly care about this village, why don’t you offer yourself as the sacrifice?”

“The River God… wants a groom?” Wang Laodian muttered, then suddenly burst into mad laughter. “Yes, yes! Sacrifice me! Offer me to the River God…”

Madman. A complete and utter madman.

Xie Qingling could no longer tell whether he had worn a mask for so long that it became his true face, or if he genuinely believed these delusions.

“The River God is dead,” Xie Qingling declared abruptly. “I killed Him. The village no longer needs to sacrifice to this Evil God.”

Wang Laodian’s laughter cut off instantly. His eyes fixed on Xie Qingling, desperately trying to discern the truth in her words.

“You can keep hiding the truth. I’ll uncover the mastermind eventuallyit’s only a matter of time. But you… how pitiful. Deceived for decades, fooled even until death. How tragic for you, for the villagers, for all those wronged girls!”

Xie Qingling turned to Ling Fang. “Chief, let’s go. No point wasting time with this idiot.”

Ling Fang nodded.

The group made to leave, already stepping out of the house.

Then Wang Laodian’s hoarse, feeble voice emerged from inside, murmuring as if to himself.

“I… I never knew who that person was initially… Thirty years ago, he taught me how to raise Little ghosts and summoned the River God for our village. He told me that sacrificing to the River God and selecting brides who pleased Him would protect our village forever. I believed him.”

“I believed him…”

Wang Laodian’s voice trembled, interrupted by violent coughing.

During a brief pause in his coughing fits, his breathing grew fainter. “Three years ago, the contact person changed to a young man. He’s the one who killed me. He said he came to take the Little ghosts away, said… I was no longer useful.”

“The young man had one blind eyehe was One-Eyed. He had a large tattoo on his arm. He said his name was Tang Tian…” Wang Laodian’s voice suddenly rose again, sharp and strained like a broken bellows. “And he was wrong!”

“I am useful!”

Even with the three Little ghosts gone from his back, his hunched body maintained its former curvature. The blood had nearly drained from his torso, forming winding crimson streams that seeped into the cracks between the floor tiles.

“I… I, Wang Fuquan, guardian of this vill”

His bloodshot eyes stared at the sky outside, fixed intently on his village.

Beyond the seldom-visited house, the sounds of children at play now echoed. They ran, jumped, laughed, and frolicked, taking turns kicking the now-useless red lanterns like balls.

A crow alighted upon the courtyard wall. The red lanterns adorned with double happiness characters soared high like footballs, clearing the wall.

One paper, Vision Obscuring.

The round lantern blotted out the radiance of the crimson sun in the sky, as if it were another red sun itself.

This was the final sight Wang Laodian witnessed in his lifetime.

This red sunmerciful, warm, and dripping with bloodconcealed too much madness and delusion behind it. It was not the true sun.

It could never lead him to the hopeful homeland he sought.