Mo Hua and his companions exchanged glances, their eyes filled with shock.
Murder for corpse-trading?
"Who did you sell to?" Mo Hua asked.
Wang Lai hedged, "A grey-clothed, masked Cultivator... I don't know who it was..."
"You didn't see his face?"
"I only want the Spirit Stones; I don't care about his appearance..."
"What else?" Mo Hua's eyes narrowed slightly.
Wang Lai looked somewhat bewildered, "What else is there?"
Mo Hua said, "How did you meet him, how did you connect, how did you make the transaction, how did you murder, how did you sell the corpses—tell me everything, without missing a detail."
Wang Lai tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Mo Hua kicked him, and said fiercely,
"Don't try to deceive me. Your little tricks won't get past me. If I find out you've lied to me, I'll make sure you regret it!"
But his delicate, picturesque face didn't seem threatening when he tried to be fierce.
Yet, Wang Lai didn't dare not speak.
This young demon might look adorable, but his actions were anything but.
Especially those eyes—innocent yet profound, as though they could see right through one's secrets...
Besides, there was no need for him to hide anything anymore at this point.
If he was to speak, then there was nothing he couldn't say:
"I met that grey-clothed Cultivator in a brothel on Jinhua Street..."
"He was average in height, lean, with his face covered, his features unclear, his Divine Sense impenetrable."
"He always had a faint, odd smell about him—I didn't realize at first, but after making a few deals, I understood. That scent, it was the smell of the dead, a cold, decaying odor."
"The first 'deal' happened because I ran out of Spirit Stones."
"I gambled away everything the previous night, and my creditors were pressing me hard, threatening to chop off my hands if I didn't pay up."
"Desperate, he asked me, 'Do you want to make a deal?'"
"I scoffed. These days, with legitimate business, how can one earn Spirit Stones?"
"He then said it wasn't legitimate."
"That piqued my interest, so I asked him about the deal. He asked if I had killed before, and I said yes. He then told me it was similar to killing, except this time, I was to give the bodies to him afterward."
"It felt ominous, but without any Spirit Stones, I was worse off than a stray dog—hungry and unable to fend for myself."
"Poverty can be scarier than death."
"Besides, it was others who were dying, not me. So I agreed to it."
"The first time I did this job for him, I killed a passerby Cultivator. After killing him, I cut a few extra times before handing over the body. He frowned and said that except for the vital meridian, there couldn't be too many wounds, or I'd have my payment deducted."
"I was impatient—it was just a killing, yet there were too many damn rules. But I needed the Spirit Stones, so I had no choice but to follow his rules."
"He went on to explain the details to me..."
"A young and fit Cultivator's corpse, one hundred and fifty Spirit Stones;"
"An aged Cultivator's corpse, eighty Spirit Stones;"
"Gender doesn't matter."
"Apart from the vital meridian, the body mustn't have any wounds."
"If there are wounds, depending on the severity, ten to fifty Spirit Stones would be deducted..."
"..."
"After a few sales, I realized this business wouldn't last long."
"Kill one or two, and the Taoist Court might not bother. But if you kill too many, even fools will track you down."
"That's when the grey-clothed Cultivator suggested I target Mining Cultivators."
"I hesitated at first; after all, my father was a Mining Cultivator, and I'm half a Mining Cultivator myself. Even though I did no good, we would still see each other from time to time, and we weren't without rapport."
"But he offered too much, I couldn't refuse..."
"For Cultivators, Spirit Stones are the only truth, while rapport is illusory."
"Killing a Mining Cultivator, I could make roughly a hundred Spirit Stones per hit."
"With so many Mining Cultivators in South Yue City, I couldn't even begin to imagine how many Spirit Stones I could earn if this continued to the end..."
"And more Mining Cultivators would be born, an endless cycle of potential targets..."
"Even if I didn't kill them, they would die of old age, exhaustion, mineral poison, oppression, or accidents in the mines..."
"Since they're bound to die anyway, why not let me make some Spirit Stones off it?"