Chapter 32: Chapter Thirty-Two: The Poor Monk Wants to Dig a Grave

They arrived at the first location.

Zhou Zhen'guo and Chu Zhongtian didn't even go in to search, because there was only an empty shell here.

Even the walls of the house no longer existed.

It was that kind of old house abandoned for years; a shove and Zhou Zhen'guo completely pushed it over.

They hadn't suffered any attack from possessors.

Apart from the collapsing sound, the surroundings remained dead quiet.

"Looks like it's not here."

Zhou Zhen'guo said.

"Bang!"

Just then, a sound not particularly loud, but exceptionally clear in the silent night.

Tang Luo jumped onto the roof on the other side.

In the dim light, he saw a person running out onto the distant street.

He was firing his gun in a panic toward the darkness.

A shadow rushed out, tackling him, then a second, third, fourth.

More than a dozen shadows, like a hunting wolf pack, dragged the man away from under the streetlight.

Dragging him into the darkness.

Immediately afterward, those shadows ran off in one direction.

Tang Luo looked around, leapt a few times, and jumped onto the nearest tallest building.

He could see that on the town's originally quiet-as-a-chicken streets, many more pedestrians had appeared.

A small portion were being chased.

Most likely, the majority had already been controlled by Jack the Ripper, hunting others.

Moreover, after hunting, those people all sprinted madly toward the same direction.

"Master, what did you see?" Chu Zhongtian shouted from below.

"Jack the Ripper has exerted force; many people have been possessed and controlled by him, running toward the church."

Tang Luo leapt down, slammed into the ground, shaking the surrounding snow loose.

A circle of black ground was revealed around him.

"Church?"

Zhou Zhen'guo didn't understand why Jack the Ripper would possess people and send them to the church.

Shouldn't he have come here to cause trouble for them?

"I, the poor monk, have an idea—don't know if it's true—but we can now go verify it. What do you think?" Tang Luo said.

"What idea?"

Chu Zhongtian nearly burst into tears, "Master, you finally started thinking."

"Is Jack the Ripper really a human?" Tang Luo said with a slight smile.

Although his smile was gentle, it made Zhou Zhen'guo and Chu Zhongtian feel a chill down their spines.

It had nothing to do with Tang Luo himself, but rather the content of his words.

Jack the Ripper, is he really a human?

Nonsense—if not human, then what else but a ghost?

But why couldn't Jack the Ripper be a ghost?

After gulping hard, Chu Zhongtian looked at Tang Luo and asked, "Master, what do you mean?"

Tang Luo didn't answer, just looked at Zhou Zhen'guo.

Zhou Zhen'guo nodded with difficulty: "It's possible; my two failed missions both encountered ghost-type tasks, those leaning toward the supernatural, which are hard."

"I, the poor monk, want to go check out the church over there—what do you two think?" Tang Luo asked.

That's how democratic it is—always ask others' opinions first.

"Go." Zhou Zhen'guo gritted his teeth and said the word.

Wrong.

From the moment they assumed Jack the Ripper was a person and reasoned from there, it was wrong.

At that point, it meant the mission had headed toward the most dangerous dead end.

"Then let's go."

Tang Luo walked toward the church.

There, it was the origin point where they had descended into this mission world.

A burial chamber; outside the chamber is a graveyard, and near the graveyard stands a church.

Also, Li Liang, who had encountered something on the first night.

The surroundings were dead quiet, with a few oil lamps hanging outside the church.

The townspeople running this way didn't know where they had ended up.

The church doors were ajar, just as they were the first night, not fully shut or locked.

Tang Luo pushed the door open and walked inside.

Zhou Zhen'guo walked in last, closed the door, slid the bolt into place, completely blocking the wind and snow outside.

Inside the church, some candles were still burning.

It wasn't enough to plunge the interior into darkness.

Still empty of anyone, only the flickering candlelight.

The scene was remarkably similar to that of the first night.

The three seemed to intend to finish their final task at the original place.

"Here."

Tang Luo stood before a small black door that flashed.

At that time, everyone also discovered this black small door, though it was locked shut.

No one wanted to force their way in to take a look.

But this time, Tang Luo gave it a light pat.

He slapped the door, which looked small but was actually quite sturdy, sending it flipping over onto the ground.

This revealed a downward stairway behind it.

The stairway wasn't long, with a faint firelight flickering in and out of sight.

It illuminated a blurry figure.

At the same time, a murmuring prayer-like chant came from inside.

Tang Luo stepped onto the door panel and walked into this unknown cellar.

Not long after, the chanting stopped.

Zhou Zhen'guo and Chu Zhongtian exchanged a glance and also decided to go in and have a look.

But before they could go down, Tang Luo grabbed a person and came back.

The person in his hand wore a priest's outfit, but his hair and beard were a messy tangle.

His clothes were also filthy, giving off a foul odor.

If it weren't for those clothes, anyone would surely think he was a vagrant.

Even though Tang Luo held him, the priest didn't struggle; he just lowered his chanting voice considerably.

It went from a mutter to a whisper.

"Tell me, where is Jack the Ripper?"

Tang Luo threw the priest to the ground and asked.

The moment he spoke the name Jack the Ripper,

the priest's chanting stopped instantly, his body began to tremble, he flung himself down and knelt on the ground, curled up, saying: "My almighty master, your humble servant is here, offering everything I have."

Chu Zhongtian was about to speak when Zhou Zhen'guo raised a hand to stop him.

"Really?"

Looking down at the priest, Tang Luo said, "Then take me to the holy land."

"Yes, my master." The priest rose and slowly walked toward the outside of the church.

He was basically a broken toy, a puppet.

Zhou Zhen'guo strode forward and reopened the church's main door.

The wind and snow outside rushed in instantly.

The priest's body swayed, almost falling to the ground.

It was worrisome that he might suddenly die.

Fortunately, the priest merely swayed twice, didn't fall, and continued walking forward.

Having exited the church doors, he turned and headed left.

"That side also seems to be a cemetery."

Zhou Zhen'guo said softly.

The church's location is relatively remote, with plenty of open space around, and both sides are cemeteries.

Tang Luo and the others had just come out from one of those sides.

But the direction the priest is now leading them is exactly opposite.

The cemetery Tang Luo and the others had seen before was of a higher grade.

For example, after the manor tragedy, many people were buried there.

The other side, however, is a commoners' cemetery.

Put more bluntly, it's basically a potter's field.

The priest trudged forward with difficulty in the wind and snow.

After a full half hour, he finally arrived at a very remote spot.

Not far off lay a chaotic thicket of trees.

The priest stopped, completely ignoring the snow on the ground, and threw himself down in a full prostration.

Come to think of it, when Tang Luo saw him, he was also praying in that posture.

"There's nothing at all."

Chu Zhongtian said.

Holy land?

It should be Jack the Ripper's burial site, right?

Master Xuanzang deceived this abnormal priest into bringing them here.

But here there isn't even a tombstone, just a bare tree trunk.

"This is the place."

Tang Luo walked past the priest toward the tree trunk about five meters ahead of him.

Zhou Zhen'guo and Chu Zhongtian hurried to follow.

Only upon getting close did they realize this wasn't a tree trunk at all.

But they were two pieces of wood tied together, like the wood of a cross.

Stuck in the ground, barely counting as a tombstone?

Or rather, a marker.

The crucial point is, a dagger is nailed to the top of the wood.

A dagger covered in rust stains and stained with blood.

The light from the lantern held in Zhou Zhen'guo's hand shone on the dagger.

The appearance of the dagger gradually matched what he had seen that night.

"We've been coming all this time, doing nothing but useless work?!" Chu Zhongtian couldn't help but speak, his voice somewhat sharp.

We've worked so hard for so long.

In the end, the answer turned out to be this.

"Jack the Ripper," is he a wandering soul, a vengeful spirit, without even a tombstone?

Well, using a more Eastern way of speaking, a vengeful ghost?

"No, the mission isn't completed yet." Tang Luo said, "There's still something more important that has been overlooked. Finding it counts as truly finding Jack the Ripper."

Saying that, he reached out, grabbing toward the simple cross erected on the ground.

Just as Tang Luo's hand reached to grab the 'cross'...

The already heavy wind and snow instantly turned into a true blizzard.

The biting cold wind blew on the face, painful as if being cut by a knife.

The lantern in Zhou Zhen'guo's hand shook twice and then broke, falling to the ground.

The light disappeared.

The surroundings instantly fell into darkness.

"Master!"

Chu Zhongtian shouted loudly, instinctively crouching.

The icy, bone-piercing feeling was just like that night.

But this time, it's different from the sudden occurrence last time.

Last time they seemed to be insects directly sealed in amber.

This time, it's more like the icy water underfoot continually rising.

The numb feeling came slowly, with still some room to struggle.

"Help the poor monk buy two minutes."

Tang Luo's voice penetrated the howling gale, reaching both of their ears.

Both of them simultaneously glowed with golden light, dispelling the cold numbness.

But this time, the light did not immediately fade.

Instead, it persisted, warm currents surging through their limbs and bones.

Allowing Zhou Zhen'guo and Chu Zhongtian to ignore the surrounding wind, snow, and darkness.

But when they cleared their vision of the surroundings in an instant, their bodies still stiffened.

At some point, a large crowd had gathered around them, hidden by the wind and snow, with the nearest person now less than twenty meters away.

These people were all residents of the small town.

Also there were the Granfield agents that Zhou Zhen'guo and company had seen before.

But now, they are no longer "residents of the small town."

Each person's face was shrouded in a black shadow.

One couldn't see the facial features; only three spots could be seen—at the positions of both eyes and the mouth—each a darkness deeper than the surrounding black shadow.

Two minutes?

Just such a crowd of people possessed by evil spirits, all rushing forward at once.

It wouldn't take even half a minute to tear Zhou Zhen'guo and Chu Zhongtian to pieces.

"Master, what are you doing?!"

Chu Zhongtian's voice was trembling.

"Sin, the poor monk wants to dig a grave."