Chapter 148
Chapter 148
I arrived on the rooftop and found Du Ruhai.
He was dressed in a sharp, tailored suit, leaning back in a chair and puffing on a cigar, surrounded by a cloud of smoke.
Standing behind him were eighteen bald men.
All eighteen were shirtless, their bodies covered in tattoos of the Evil Buddha.
I had expected a crowd, but there were only eighteen of them-not many at all.
Yet, these eighteen men were likely Du Ruhai’s ultimate trump card.
Seeing their number and their appearance, I couldn’t help but think of the eighteen venerable figures of Buddhism-the Eighteen Arhats.
It seemed the people in The Organization had spent so much time copying religious motifs that they had started to believe their own hype. They probably truly believed they were Buddhist saints.
Aside from these eighteen men, there was one other person on the rooftop: Anning, who had been kidnapped by Du Ruhai.
She was tied to another chair, her face pale with terror.
Even though she had helped Du Yuwei harm many people, falling into Du Ruhai’s hands had clearly broken her. She was just a woman, after all; how could she not be terrified when facing a deranged psychopath like Du Ruhai?
I noticed her clothes were intact, so it seemed she hadn’t been violated by him yet.
“You saw those people down there, didn’t you?”
Du Ruhai chuckled. “When you have money, people will risk their lives for you. The more money you have, the more lives you command. You poor people can never wrap your heads around a simple truth: without money, how do you expect to fight someone like me?”
“You can only put your life on the line. But I’m not foolish enough to trade my life for yours. Do you really think you can kill me?”
I said coldly, “Even if I can’t, I have to try. At worst, I’ll just die.”
Du Ruhai burst into laughter. “See? That’s the ‘poor man’s mindset’ right there. ‘At worst, I’ll just die.’ The man with nothing to lose doesn’t fear the man with everything. A cheap life is just a cheap life; once you’re dead, you’re dead.”
“When you’re gone, I’ll go right back to what I was doing, living a life of leisure.”
“That’s why the lives of you poor people aren’t worth a cent.”
He stretched and looked at me with a meaningful gaze. “I see the shadows of old acquaintances in you. It seems both of them are here. You all want me dead.”
I said, “Don’t you deserve to die?”
He shook his head and sighed. “My only misfortune in this life has been women. First, there was Li Yujiao. Back then, she demanded I marry her, threatening to report me if I didn’t. So, I had no choice but to kill her.”
“Then there was Du Yuwei. I raised her for fifteen years. Fifteen years of care and upbringing! Aside from my own father, I have never treated an outsider so well in my entire life. I regarded her as my greatest love. If she had returned even a tenth of the affection I gave her, she would have enjoyed endless wealth and honor for the rest of her days.”
“But in the end, she wanted to report me too. She even dared to love another man. So, I had no choice but to kill her as well.”
Du Ruhai stared at me, but he was really speaking to Du Yuwei. “I was the one who ordered the driver to hit you. Even after you died, I remained devoted to you-I even married you. And you? You turn around and try to take my life.”
“You’ve hurt me time and time again. This time, my heart is truly cold.”
“But I didn’t expect you to have a twin. The two of you look exactly the same. Since there’s a living version available, why should I stay obsessed with someone who doesn’t love me? Especially someone who’s already dead.”
The moment he finished speaking, I immediately felt Du Yuwei’s fury.
Until this very moment, Du Yuwei had no idea that the car accident had been orchestrated by Du Ruhai.
She had spent her entire life being toyed with by him, her very life and death held in his palm.
“Anning.”
Du Ruhai turned to look at Anning and said with a smile, “Don’t be fooled by my ruthless methods. I’m actually quite good to women. As long as you follow my lead, look at this massive family estate-you’ll never be able to spend it all.”
“But if you act like your sister and try to defy me behind my back, then what happens to her, Li Yujiao, and this Chen Mo will be your future. I’m only giving you one demonstration. I hope you take it to heart.”
Having said that, he waved his hand toward the eighteen bald men. “Eighteen Venerables, quickly slay these demons and eliminate these cold-blooded scum for the sake of society.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Du Yuwei, who was controlling me, lunged forward.
The Eighteen Venerables showed no fear whatsoever; they were on a completely different level from the five men who had been tapping the wooden fish.
One of them, wielding a Ritual Staff, swung it directly at my head.
To a normal person, this Ritual Staff was just an object; getting hit would mean nothing more than a bloody head. But in my eyes, the staff was like a divine weapon. It radiated waves of scorching heat, and as I drew near, it felt as if I were being roasted by a raging fire.
Knowing I was no match for them, I had to avoid a direct confrontation. I immediately changed direction and lunged toward Du Ruhai.
However, these Eighteen Venerables were likely the strongest force Du Ruhai had hired. They immediately chanted a mantra and formed a hand seal, blasting me backward.
I tumbled several times but didn’t stop for a second, preparing to fight them to the death.
After exerting all my strength to tackle one of the Arhats, I grabbed his head, intending to snap his neck. But no matter how hard I pulled, his head felt as if it were welded in place; it wouldn’t budge.
He looked up at me, and a third eye suddenly sprouted from his forehead.
The moment I locked eyes with it, my own eyes felt as if they had been splashed with sulfuric acid. The pain was so intense that I was sent flying.
I screamed several times. When I touched my eyes, my sockets were filled with blood. I looked up and saw that all eighteen of them had grown a third eye.
Such a bizarre sight was unheard of and unseen.
In moments, these eighteen monsters had surrounded me.
I knew it was impossible for a human to grow a third eye. This situation was like a person seeing a ghost with a third eye-it was an illusion. Therefore, the third eye I was seeing was also an illusion.
Everything in this world has its natural counter.
The skills they had learned were designed to suppress Ghosts, and since a Ghost was currently possessing me, I was able to see their third eyes.
It had to be some kind of dark sorcery.
I knew I was finished. Du Yuwei, Li Xiumei, and I were all finished. We were simply no match for these Eighteen Venerables.
Just as I scrambled up from the ground, the Arhat holding the Ritual Staff swung it violently, sending me flying once again.
Li Xiumei was knocked straight out of my body. Someone holding a Vajra Pestle lunged forward and drove it down into the crown of her head.
“Lv… Zheng… xian…”
A shrill, piercing scream tore through the entire rooftop.
At the final moment, Li Xiumei cried out Lv Zhengxian’s name, but in the next second, she vanished right before my eyes.
She had been killed by the Vajra Pestle.
She was completely dead, her soul and Po scattered to the winds.
Du Ruhai tossed a handful of joss paper into the air, a smile playing on his lips. “Yujiao, have a safe journey. I gave you the chance to seek reincarnation, but you were obsessed with getting revenge on me. You got what you deserved.”