Chapter 57: Lin Sheng

Inside the second room, Cell Bing, lay another pile of charred bone ash.

This time, Lin Sheng had left noticeably fewer words in the room. He had clearly struggled less with his humanity, becoming far more decisive.

[Hua Yingmei, she is a human trafficker.]

[Though she never actually killed anyone, she harmed countless people. Who knows how many families she shattered, or how many parents she left weeping.]

[According to the Great Shun Legal Code, this person should also be killed.]

[She must die to appease public outrage.]

Stepping up to the ash pile, Wang Ping swept his foot through it, instantly revealing the writing hidden beneath: [I am right. Everything was done according to the law.]

Wang Ping shook his head, left the room, and headed toward the third room, Cell Yi. This time, there wasn't a single word of self-justification. The room was empty. Beneath the completely burnt pile of ashes lay only a single line of text. The writer seemed to have used immense force; the carved strokes were splintered and broken:

[This person deserved to die.]

Staring at those words, Wang Ping sighed. It was exactly as he expected. He could almost see the once-righteous bailiff descending into madness under the weight of starvation.

The prisoner in Cell Yi was a fraudster.

True, his scams had caused many to lose their life savings, and he had ultimately absconded with the money... But no matter what, this was not a capital offense.

Under the Great Shun Legal Code, the heaviest punishment was only exile.

Yet Lin Sheng had killed him anyway.

This showed that he had completely lost his initial resolve. He no longer even bothered finding a suitable excuse, wanting only to fill his stomach as quickly as possible.

After a moment of silence, Wang Ping arrived at the estate's final room, Cell Jia. According to the case files, the person in this room was an unquestionable saint—kind to his neighbors, always willing to help, blessed with a perfect family... However, to a bloodshot, murderous Lin Sheng, none of that would mean anything.

He stood before the door to Cell Jia.

Wang Ping steadied his breathing. Barring the unexpected, there should be a corpse seething with resentment inside this room, along with a newly birthed demonic entity.

'I must be careful.'

Come to think of it, he had yet to witness the strange arts of the Great Shun. This might be his chance to probe just how deep the Great Shun's waters really went.

Creak...

Wang Ping raised his hand to push open the heavy door to Cell Jia, but an abnormal resistance halted his movement, preventing him from pushing any further.

"...Locked?"

Wang Ping paused in surprise. The door to Cell Jia had actually been locked from the inside. Was it done by the good man locked within? No, that made no sense.

Because Lin Sheng knew martial arts.

Yama's Three Demon Sabers, the mandatory technique for County Yamen bailiffs, was a muscle-tempering martial art. Once mastered, it multiplied one's physical strength. Locking a wooden door like this would be utterly meaningless against it.

Wang Ping was certain the prisoners in the previous three rooms had tried similar tactics, but it couldn't stop the martial-arts-trained Lin Sheng... So why didn't Lin Sheng break the door down when he reached the fourth room? Starvation should have already driven him past his breaking point.

Could he have found his way back from the brink of madness at the very end?

"...Impossible."

After a moment of thought, Wang Ping shook his head. The murderer in Cell Ding, the human trafficker in Cell Bing—killing them could still be considered somewhat justifiable.

But the fact that Lin Sheng had killed the fraudster in Cell Yi meant he was no longer constrained by morality or good and evil. How could he suddenly repent?

It didn't make any sense. Wang Ping couldn't figure it out.

Yet right at that moment, he suddenly sensed something. He turned his head toward the estate's tea pavilion, a hint of surprise flashing across his face.

Inside the tea pavilion, an extra person had appeared.

It was a man with a sallow complexion and a weak expression, but he was physically intact. Judging from his heartbeat, pulse, and the state of his muscles and skin, he didn't appear to know any martial arts.

"...I see," Wang Ping realized instantly.

There was a cellar hidden beneath the tea pavilion. The spiritual sense that his paper substitute could bear was simply too weak; coupled with the interference from the estate's malevolent resentment, the man had actually managed to hide from him.

A second later, the man spoke.

"Do not open that door."

"You are... Li An," Wang Ping slowly called out his name. "The man who originally lived in Cell Jia. Lin Sheng actually didn't eat you."

Hearing this, a visible sorrow washed over Li An's face. Still, he choked out, "Do not open the door to Cell Jia. That was my benefactor's final request before he died. If you open it, something terrible might happen. It could endanger the entire county town beyond this estate."

"Before he died... Lin Sheng is dead?"

Wang Ping was even more surprised. He murmured, "He locked himself inside Cell Jia? He had clearly given up his convictions, yet he held back at the very last moment?"

At those words, tears streamed down Li An's face.

"No! My benefactor never gave up! Not ever!"

Wang Ping subconsciously shook his head. "What are you talking about? He already killed the man in Cell Yi— ah."

His voice stopped abruptly.

The next second, Wang Ping's gaze locked onto Li An. "The fraudster in Cell Yi... he wasn't killed by Lin Sheng. You were the one who did it?"

...

Regarding the four people in Cells Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding, there was a chain of cause and effect that had been deliberately concealed. It had never been recorded in Xu Bingzheng's case files.

And that was—

"I am one of the victims who was swindled out of his entire family fortune by Pang Yue... the fraudster in Cell Yi. Because of him, my wife committed suicide."

As he spoke, Li An's tone was completely calm.

"So when I discovered he was the one locked in Cell Yi, I was ecstatic. I knew he would be killed by my benefactor, just like the other two."

"But... my benefactor refused to do it."

"Even when I told him of the feud between me and that bastard, even when I begged him to strike, he kept refusing... So, in the end, I chose to do it myself."

"He deserved to die!"

Only at the very end did Li An reveal intense indignation in his voice. That fury instantly reminded Wang Ping of the single line carved into Cell Yi.

[This person deserved to die.]

"You left those words," Wang Ping sighed.

Li An nodded and continued, "After I killed that bastard, I dragged his corpse to my benefactor. I wanted him to eat the bastard."

"I could see how agonizingly hard my benefactor was fighting it."

"And after I killed that bastard, I didn't want to live anymore anyway. A life for a life. I told my benefactor he didn't need to hold back anymore—he could just eat me too..."

Wang Ping closed his eyes.

'This is truly... vicious.'

He began to regret killing Xu Bingzheng and Li Yiran with a single punch earlier. Given another chance, he definitely wouldn't have let them die so easily.

'Xu Bingzheng deliberately hid this chain of cause and effect.'

'All to completely crush Lin Sheng.'

Think about it. If Lin Sheng had been tenacious enough to stop at the door to Cell Yi, choosing starvation over killing to fill his stomach—what would have happened?

Without a doubt, Xu Bingzheng's plan to cultivate a demonic entity would have failed.

So he set up a failsafe.

'Even if Lin Sheng reined himself in at the brink and firmly refused to kill Pang Yue in Cell Yi, Li An from Cell Jia would take the initiative to commit murder because of this feud.'

'If Pang Yue were alive, Lin Sheng might have been able to endure it. But with Pang Yue dead? Consuming a corpse—and one he hadn't even killed himself—would undoubtedly shatter Lin Sheng's mental defenses. At the same time, the morally flawless good man, Li An, would become a murderer.'

The need for restraint would vanish in an instant.

'This was the final straw Xu Bingzheng had specially prepared to break the camel's back! The decisive strike meant to completely obliterate Lin Sheng's mental defenses!'

"...Hm?"

Thinking up to this point, Wang Ping suddenly opened his eyes again.

Wait, that wasn't right.

He turned to look at Li An. Only a burnt fire pit remained in Cell Yi, which meant that in the end, Lin Sheng had still eaten Pang Yue's corpse. Xu Bingzheng's plan had succeeded.

But then why?

Why was Li An still alive?

Wang Ping was certain that after Li An personally killed Pang Yue, Lin Sheng's psychological bottom line would have been completely shattered. It would have been impossible for him to continue enduring his starvation.

Finally, he looked at Cell Jia.

The answer lay inside this room.

Taking a deep breath, Wang Ping stepped up to the door once more. Seeing this, Li An hurriedly stepped forward. "My benefactor said it might be dangerous..."

"He underestimated himself."

Wang Ping activated his spiritual sense vision and spoke softly. "The malevolent resentment in this room is the weakest of all. Rest assured, there won't be any danger."

With that said, he channeled his spiritual sense.

His spiritual sense pierced through the door, allowing him to see the scene inside. A Swallow-Feather Saber had been wedged into the door, acting as a bolt to lock it shut.

With a gentle nudge of his spiritual sense, Wang Ping removed it.

The next second, accompanied by a creaking sound, the heavy door swung open, revealing the sight inside—a mangled, shattered corpse lay upon the floor.

It was none other than Lin Sheng.

Traces of agony still lingered on his face. The maddening starvation had relentlessly tortured him up to the very last second of his life.

His feet were completely twisted and snapped, making it impossible for him to stand. Both his hands had been chopped off from the elbows, scattering clumps of dark, coagulated blood around him. His final posture before death was that of someone trying to crawl toward the door, only to succumb before he could make it.

It was a horrific mutilation, reducing him to little more than a limbless torso.

Likewise, scattered around Lin Sheng's corpse, Wang Ping saw a dense cluster of words. They recorded all the changes he had gone through after locking himself in Cell Jia.

[I can't hold back anymore.]

[Li An killed Pang Yue. By the time I realized it, by the time I snapped out of my daze, my hunger had vanished... In the end, I still ate Pang Yue.]

[Li An has become a murderer too.]

[While my stomach is still full, while I am not yet starving and can still maintain my sanity, I have to do something. Otherwise, everything will truly be beyond saving.]

[I locked myself in Cell Jia and chased Li An out, locking the door from the inside... But that isn't enough. That will only stop Li An from entering; it won't stop me from leaving... It seems I can only break my legs and find the corner furthest from the door, severing any possibility of me walking out.]

This was the first set of words, etched right in the corner of the room.

However, the handwriting soon changed.

[I am hungry again.]

[Perhaps because I lost too much blood after breaking my legs, I got hungry so fast this time... Speaking of which, Li An doesn't want to live anyway. He told me to eat him.]

[Tch, broken legs are such a hassle. Fortunately, I can still crawl, using my hands in place of my legs. With my martial arts, catching Li An should be easy.]

The text trailed from the corner of the room all the way to the center, before shifting once again.

[My luck is not bad. Maybe it's because I was too hungry, but I ended up eating the legs I had broken off earlier. This helped me regain a bit of clarity at the crucial moment.]

[Giving me just enough time to chop off my hands too.]

[There are no problems now. I've confirmed it. In this state, I can barely move, and my martial arts are practically crippled. It's impossible for me to kill anyone else.]

The writing paused for a stretch here.

The words that followed gradually became chaotic, distorted, and crooked.

[Bastard!]

[My hands and feet are all gone. I've lost too much blood. Even if I channel my qi to staunch the bleeding, I won't be able to move easily for a while; doing so would only accelerate my death.]

[But... I'm so hungry.]

[Why did I cut off my own limbs? It was foolish to the extreme! All to protect a murderer? According to the Great Shun Legal Code, he deserves to die!]

[I don't want to die... I want to live.]

[I want to eat...]

Wang Ping stopped reading. With a direct wave of his hand, he erased the writing on the floor—this was not left by Lin Sheng. Lin Sheng had died much earlier.

What remained was nothing more than a maddened, empty shell.

At the same time, Wang Ping finally understood why his martial artist's Divine Intent had told him there was "no danger" from the very beginning. Because there truly was no danger.

Because Lin Sheng had held on.

He had endured until the very last moment of his life, refusing to become the human livestock of a demonic entity.