Chapter 482: Chapter 418: The Strongest Surgeon
With a light swipe of the horsetail whisk on Pang Cai’s left hand, his hand, along with half his forearm, completely shattered, turning into a nauseating mess of bones, flesh, and tendons. Pang Cai was stunned by the sight before him, and it took a long while before he let out a scream of agony.
As a spoiled second-generation rich kid, he had never seen anything like this. His psychological defenses collapsed instantly, his snot and tears flowed uncontrollably, but to save his own life, Pang Cai was still trying to secure one last chance for himself, "I was wrong, I was really wrong, please... forgive me. If I tell you everything, can you spare my life?"
"If you tell the truth, I can let you go," Yang Xiao said sternly, not seeming to lie.
After getting the promise, Pang Cai immediately spilled everything about how he had killed Zhuge Zhijie. He didn’t really have any grudges against Zhuge Zhijie; he had always wanted a Resentful Eye, but his father said it was a Death Sentence and refused to buy it for him.
This mission was an opportunity for him. Zhuge Zhijie had been leading the entire mission, and by the time it was nearing its end, there was no danger left. If Zhuge Zhijie died, as the only teammate who acted with him, he would have the biggest chance to obtain the Resentful Eye.
Things developed just as he had planned. He had engineered Zhuge Zhijie’s fall off a 20-meter-high crane, and later, Zhuge Zhijie was killed by a ghost and dumped into a pit. When he returned to reality, he indeed got the Resentful Eye, which was a rusty iron shovel in the hands of a ghost.
"Where’s the shovel?" Yang Xiao asked harshly.
"It... It was taken by my father. He said this kind of thing wasn’t suitable for me; he wanted to use this treasure as a stepping stone to send me... to send me to study at Ru Lin Academy." Pang Cai, enduring inhuman pain, answered all of Yang Xiao’s questions without holding back.
Seeing Yang Xiao’s face turning darker, Pang Cai loudly defended himself, saying that he didn’t do all this alone, Ruan Lihuan also helped, secretly untying the safety rope on the crane, causing Zhuge Zhijie to fall. It was her idea.
Yang Xiao knew this Ruan Lihuan; she was an edge broadcaster for midnight shows and one of the survivors of the last mission.
"She was involved too? You’re not lying to me?" Yang Xiao shook the Ghost Duster slightly and let out a cold laugh.
This sight scared Pang Cai to the point where he wet his pants, immediately begging loudly for mercy and swearing that everything he said was true. If Yang Xiao didn’t believe him, he could go ask Ruan Lihuan, who had also been promised money by him during the mission, half a million.
"Was the money given?" Yang Xiao remembered that Beibei had people check on this Ruan Lihuan and found no communication between her and Pang Cai, let alone any money.
Hearing this, Pang Cai quietly explained that he had lied to Ruan Lihuan; it was just something he said at the moment, with no intention of actually giving the money.
"You really are a beast," Yang Xiao was amused and angered by this guy, and lifted his leg to stomp on him several times.
These stomps nearly made Pang Cai cough up blood, already frail as he was. Pitifully he begged for mercy: "Stop... stop hitting me, I’ve told you everything I know, please let me go, I beg you..."
"I can let you go, but are you sure you won’t seek revenge on me?" Yang Xiao asked with interest.
"I wouldn’t dare, I’ll pretend this never happened, I... I’ll just take my losses," said Pang Cai, then quickly changed his tone to flattery, "Big Brother, you’re so skilled, why don’t you stick with me? I’ll bring the money, you bring the muscle, we can be very good friends!"
"You take me back, I’ll introduce you to my father, my family’s business is huge, and we really need a talented person like you!" Pang Cai repeatedly invited Yang Xiao.
Yang Xiao didn’t waste words, just kicked him in the stomach, causing Pang Cai to clutch his abdomen in pain, curling up like a shrimp, whimpering.
"Get lost, if I see you again, I will kill you!" Yang Xiao, a man of his word, had made a promise to Pang Cai, and allowed him to leave immediately.
At those words, Pang Cai struggled up from the floor, steeled his heart, and ripped away his half-arm and flesh that were stuck to the floor. He barged through the door and stumbled outside, leaving a trail of blood behind. But the scene that met him outside was a shock: the bar that should have been full of people was eerily empty, not a single shadow in sight, and unnervingly quiet.
He dragged his severed arm, heading straight for the bar’s entrance. There was no one at the front desk either. As he burst through the front door to the outside, Pang Cai nearly broke down, as there was not a soul to be seen, and the surroundings were dead silent.
The next second, Pang Cai’s pupils trembled, he saw a figure in the distance. At that moment, he felt like he had grabbed a lifeline, and ran madly toward the figure, all the while shouting at the top of his lungs, "Someone, help! Help me!!"
But that person just stood still, motionless. As Pang Cai got closer and recognized the figure, he was stunned.
It was none other than Yang Xiao, holding the horsetail whisk that Pang Cai would never forget, smiling at him, "What a coincidence we meet again. You remember what I said before, don’t you."
"A ghost, a ghost!" Pang Cai collapsed, and he turned to run, but the next moment, his legs lost all sensation, and he fell flat on the ground.
His two legs had already received a dimensional strike, evenly spread across the nearby 4 to 5 square meters of ground, merged with the soil, bricks, weeds, and the like.
Everything here was Yang Xiao’s Mirror World; he was the god of this place, able to do as he wished. No matter what he did to Pang Cai, no one would find out.
In his desperate situation, Pang Cai showed an astonishing will to live, crawling frantically on the ground, leaving behind a ghastly trail of blood, "Don’t kill me, do you know who I am? My father is the chairman of Xin Ye Group. If you kill me, he... he won’t let you off!"
"Today, unless your old man is me, you won’t survive." Yang Xiao wasn’t in a hurry, leisurely following Pang Cai, stepping on the long trail of blood. He couldn’t allow this beast to die just like that— that would be too lenient.
"Dad, dad, please spare me!" Pang Cai, desperate to save his own life, had lost all sense of shame and pleaded loudly.
The final moments of Zhi Jie’s life kept flashing in Yang Xiao’s mind. He couldn’t change the past or save anyone, but revenge was still something he could accomplish.
Now that he thought about it, Zhuge Zhi Jie asking someone to look for him before his death was clear evidence that he believed Yang Xiao was the most likely to avenge him.
With another wave of the horsetail whisk, Pang Cai’s right arm also disintegrated. With all his limbs disabled, he could no longer crawl away, wriggling on the ground like a maggot, tormented by excruciating pain and psychological fear. In his eyes, the man before him was a pervert who saved him only to personally torture him!
He was the cruelest devil in the world, an Evil Cultivator, certainly the most vile and brutal one! He couldn’t understand how Zhu Junjie, who seemed so dim-witted, could know such a terrifyingly cruel person. He truly regretted it, but it was too late.
"Kill me, just kill me!!" Pang Cai roared at Yang Xiao, being alive in this man’s hands was a torture.
But Yang Xiao calmly put away the Ghost Duster and pulled out the other Magic Artifacts one by one to try on Pang Cai. He wanted to know what effects these artifacts could have as his spiritual power increased.
Previously, Yang Xiao wanted to find a subject to test them out, but it was too cruel, so he never found a suitable candidate until now, where an opportunity presented itself.
After a round of experiments, Pang Cai, whose half face had been scorched and body mutilated, was left with his last breath. Of course, at this point, he was too weak to speak. Under the friction of the Ghost Duster, his mouth had been moved to his chest.
This was a brand-new discovery. After several experiments, Yang Xiao realized he could finely control the Ghost Duster. He could channel his spiritual power into the horsetail whisk and then, wherever his heart desired, swipe it across Pang Cai’s face and then across the chest, the mouth would just "pluck" right off and get transferred to the chest. What was more terrifying was that the transplanted mouth could still open and close, producing intermittent sounds.
This was too amazing. Yang Xiao felt like he had opened the gates to a new world. He tried several times, with few successes and many failures. But it wasn’t a problem with the method; rather, his current spiritual power still wasn’t potent enough to sustain it.
It was foreseeable that, in time, he would become the strongest surgeon.
Feeling that it was about enough, Yang Xiao took out the short knife Beibei had given him and found the heart, wrapped in blue fascia, in a pile of rotten flesh a few meters from the torso. The heart was still "thumping" with strong vitality.
But it all ended here. Yang Xiao stabbed the heart viciously with the knife. The flesh on the ground trembled violently for a few moments and finally became still.
Withdrawing the knife, he wiped off the bloodstain and sheathed it, looking at the pile of corpse that was too gruesome to behold. Yang Xiao sighed inwardly—Zhi Jie’s revenge had finally been avenged.
If it had been a normal competition in the nightmare, and Zhuge Zhi Jie had been killed because he was outmatched, Yang Xiao would have avenged him, though not with torture.
But this time was different. Zhi Jie willingly shared the guide, and everyone should have been safe. However, Pang Cai, this vile creature, had returned kindness with ingratitude, leading his brother to die in such a tragic way; this was intolerable. And then there was Ruan Lihuan. Yang Xiao would also go to find her, get to the bottom of things, and then decide how to deal with her.
After one final look around the scene, Yang Xiao decided to leave. He used the Soul-Capturing Mirror to return to the same public restroom he first entered the Mirror World, the same stall.
The stall door was still locked from the inside. Yang Xiao changed quickly, unlocked the door, and walked out as if nothing had happened. Many police cars were parked in front of the distant bar, suggesting someone had called the police. In the midst of them, Yang Xiao spotted a Patrol Defense Office vehicle.
The bar was closed off, and everyone inside had to undergo police questioning. Police lines were also drawn in front of the bar—a gunshot had occurred, so it was a serious matter.
Of course, the most crucial issue was the disappearance of two living people. The window through which girl number 49 had escaped was fitted with iron bars, which had gaps too narrow for a person to squeeze through; the girl had hidden in the shadows to escape.
It’s no wonder the Patrol Defense Bureau got involved—it didn’t look like a normal case, especially since it involved Pang Cai, a wealthy young heir.
