LWGP - Chapter 130
Chapter 130: Punishment!
The appearance and departure of the ghost hand were both terrifying.
First, not even Bai Bai and Wang Jiu had sensed it.
Second, its arrival was imperceptible, and its departure was unstoppable.
Because it was beyond their control, everyone was shaken. For a time, the warehouse was exceptionally silent.
After a long moment, Xie Lu sent Wang Jiu a private message: “Was your Brand useful? Mine disappeared the moment I applied it. Just now, when I tried to use the Brand, the System prompted that the target was not a living being’s true self, but some kind of avatar technique with limited tracking capabilities. Then it vanished.”
“Mine disappeared too, but I don’t think it’s just because it’s an avatar.”
Xie Lu pondered this and quickly understood. “Like the butterfly we branded before, which disappeared after flying from a simple to a normal scene?”
Wang Jiu: “The butterfly wasn’t an avatar, and there was no notification when we used the Brand on it, yet it disappeared just the same. It’s clear this has nothing to do with it being an avatar.”
An avatar with the ability to cross realms?
Xie Lu couldn’t immediately decide if this was good news or bad news, but after studying Wang Jiu’s expression, he ventured a guess—she probably thought it was good news.
The person was dead, their body convulsing and stiff, but in the end, Wang Shu and the others laid it on the ground. There was no other reason than it was just too creepy to look at.
Instant noodles were now a vital survival resource. After packing them up, the group returned to the main villa.
“Master, what should we do now?” Wang Shu, still deeply frightened by that bizarre black hand, asked with lingering fear. Wang Jiu replied, “What else can we do?”
“Boil water and make instant noodles.”
“…”
She had a point. The sweet potatoes hadn’t been filling, and they were tired again after all that.
Wang Shu started getting things ready, and Qi Shuanghan spontaneously went to help. The others went upstairs to check what needed checking, rest where they needed to rest, and…
“We need to change, but there probably aren’t any suitable clothes for you in this room,” Wang Jiu said gently to the person behind her in the mistress’s room. Xie Lu, who had followed her in thinking they were about to search for clues, flushed, muttered a quiet apology, and quickly exited.
Wang Jiu opened the walk-in closet, glanced inside, and casually picked out a simple, practical outfit before heading into the changing room. Qiao Xuejing and Mei Qingshu also chose clothes outside and changed.
After changing and eating their noodles, the sky darkened. The cage holding Luo Sheng was placed in the second-floor hallway.
Inside the master bedroom’s monitoring room, Wang Jiu sat with her legs crossed, tapping away as she brought up the numerous camera feeds. After a quick scan, her gaze suddenly paused on one spot.
This area seemed to be the empty garden space outside the house. In the current camera view, several pools of blood were faintly visible.
This was where they had fought earlier.
Wang Jiu was thoughtful. The surveillance system was quite comprehensive, covering almost every blind spot.
Only the warehouse was not covered.
She withdrew her gaze, not needing a second look. With her exceptional memory, she had already committed the positions of all the cameras to mind. Then, she began to click into the video archives, watching footage from the past few days. She wanted to see the scene of Luo Sheng’s group making their move, as well as the ghostly events of those nights.
However, either Luo Sheng was lying, or the cameras had failed to capture any trace of the ghost hand.
As expected, when Wang Jiu reviewed the videos, she found no surveillance footage of anything ghostly. There wasn’t even a video of Luo Sheng’s team attacking Diao Guang.
Wang Jiu clicked on Luo Sheng’s social avatar for a private chat. The latter replied quickly: “I only deleted the footage concerning ourselves. After all, if you discovered this monitoring room later, these videos would be incriminating. As for traces of that ghost hand, its terror lies precisely in the fact that none of these countless cameras can capture it, doesn’t it? You can check the integrity of the video timelines.”
“That’s all I have to say. Do you believe me, Lord Lao Wang?”
Luo Sheng spoke so gracefully, then waited for Wang Jiu’s response. Regardless of whether she was believed or not, she had a reply ready.
In the end… Lao Wang didn’t respond.
Luo Sheng: “…”
So cold.
Back in the monitoring room, Wang Jiu had indeed put Luo Sheng aside. She was, in fact, checking the integrity of the camera timelines.
Was it complete?
It was not, but not because of missing footage. It was because it had been transferred.
Wang Jiu opened the program’s backend and saw an operation log—a segment of video had been copied and transferred.
After a while of tapping away, Wang Jiu traced the destination of its transfer IP address.
This location was?
The slightly dim light of the monitoring room was behind Wang Jiu, but the glow from the monitor screen illuminated her face, revealing a silent, cryptic expression.
An hour later, the group gathered in the guest room next to the cage holding Luo Sheng.
Standing by the window, they could see that the villa under the cover of night was even quieter and more eerie than during the day. They could also faintly sense that in certain quiet corners, the teams of Diao Guang and Zhong Qing were hidden, seemingly recuperating and planning their next move—how to tackle the dungeon or rescue their companion under the pressure of the Demon King, Wang Jiu.
Team channel.
Qi Shuanghan: “I wonder if that ghost hand will attack them, or if it’s targeting Luo Sheng.”
Xie Lu: “Luo Sheng.”
Wang Shu: “Why? Because she’s pretty? Shouldn’t it go after my Master then? My Master is the prettiest.”
It was hard to say if that counted as respecting one’s master.
Leaning against the wall, Xie Lu glanced at him and said, “Because the house with the HP-draining cellar is a game mechanic, but the old butler and the mistress knew about it. This means that even if they didn’t know about the game’s existence, they acknowledged this setup. Therefore, this villa must be a part of the main questline. The ghost hand is its highest-level challenge. It is our enemy, and we are its enemy—it will definitely come for us. Currently, the biggest threat to it on our side is Wang Jiu. Wang Jiu is not easy to deal with, but the second most difficult target is the prisoner, Luo Sheng. If it has a chance, it will definitely make a move. As for whether we have an ambush set up, since it dared to reveal itself to kill the mistress, it’s confident that we can’t do anything to it.”
That made sense.
Wang Shu had a moment of realization, then muttered, “I wonder what Master is doing now?”
Wang Jiu suddenly came online: “I’m just one person, what else can I do?”
It was a perfectly normal sentence, but for some reason, the entire channel fell silent.
Because Lao Wang never spoke nonsense, they all subconsciously tried to interpret her words. And this interpretation led them to a certain idea—things one person can’t do, two people can. After the silence, they all waited for a sound from outside.
Would the ghost hand come?
And in the hallway outside the room, Luo Sheng sat in her cage, wearing a long dress. She toyed with her right hand with her left, her gaze distant, as if she too were waiting, yet also seemingly unperturbed.
Honestly, this woman’s class was truly high, and her charm was immense. It was no wonder that Zhong Qing’s team, knowing full well they were no match for Wang Jiu, still risked coming here.
That’s right. At this very moment, Zhong Qing and his team were stealthily approaching the house, attempting to infiltrate and risk a rescue.
And on the other side, Diao Guang and his people were also lying in ambush.
“Captain, are we just going to wait here?”
Diao Guang: “Yes, we’ll be the oriole.”
The last time they tried to be the oriole, they ended up as corpses. This time, they were still going to be the oriole?
But were there any other options?
Lying low was also a strategy.
So, this team hunkered down again.
About three minutes later, their patience paid off, because a commotion erupted from inside the house.
And it was quite a loud commotion.
A thunderous crash.
A wall had been smashed through.
Was it the staircase where Zhong Qing and the others were sneaking up, the hallway where Luo Sheng was, or the room where Xie Lu and his group were waiting?
Or perhaps… the monitoring room where Wang Jiu was!
“Not good!” Xie Lu was horrified. He and the others rushed out of the room. As soon as they reached the hallway, they saw immense black energy seeping from under the door of the master bedroom at the end of the hall.
At first glance, it looked like a demon had descended.
In the cage, Luo Sheng raised an eyebrow and let out a soft whistle. Then, just as the others were about to charge forward, she said something.
“It seems you don’t know your own lord very well.”
“If she dared to use herself as bait, she must be confident.”
Just as she finished speaking, bang!
The bedroom door cracked open. From within the surging black energy, a figure stepped out, treading on the dark mist. The Weeping Blood in her hand was still impaling two twisting, screaming ghost hands.
Tinged with the dissipating black energy and bathed in the light, she glanced at the group. “What are you looking at me for? Bai Bai has already gone down.”
Bai Bai went down? Down for what?
Xie Lu flashed and leaped out the window, blocking Zhong Qing and his team’s escape route from below, while Mei Qingshu and the others attacked downwards from the top of the stairs.
In the dead of night, a slaughter ensued.
Wang Jiu didn’t go down. She just called out to Wang Shu, asking him to help her unlock the loot.
Wang Shu began the unlocking process, utterly astonished. “Ah, Master, an avatar? There’s such an avatar? I wonder what we’ll get.”
He was thrilled. Just as Wang Jiu’s mind and body could conquer countless resources, Wang Shu’s positioning for himself was also precise. He was the Lucky Hand; looting corpses was his career!
The breadth and height of this career depended entirely on the prestige of the corpses!
But Wang Shu was soon startled, because the ghost hand he was unlocking suddenly emitted a hoarse sound.
It was aged and raspy, as if its throat had been burned. It was difficult to understand and very unsettling.
Even Luo Sheng in her cage was surprised, staring at the ghost hand that the System had already designated as loot.
Did it make that sound?
It seemed to have just said: “You moved the position and angle of the monitor, so you know who I am.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
Was there logic to this? Probably. One could deduce it in reverse—if one moved the original fixed positions and angles of the monitors, it would be possible to capture its true movement trajectory. This meant it knew all the camera routes from the beginning. So, who could achieve this? Besides Luo Sheng’s group, there were only the three people from the villa.
The mistress, the butler, and the master to whom the butler was infinitely loyal.
In other words, the mistress’s husband, the true owner of this villa.
And the identity of the villa’s owner wasn’t hard to find. Wang Jiu had found some information about him on the computer in the monitoring room.
“I know, I just don’t know where your real body is,” Wang Jiu replied.
The voice remained hoarse. “In danger, or in a nightmare. I’ll be waiting for you to find me.”
The voice faded as Wang Shu finished unlocking, and more than a dozen items burst forth.
One piece of gold armor, one Goblin Trader’s Invite, two Upgrade Scrolls, a small avatar gadget, villa furniture—a rockery (300 permanent spirit energy), the Class Skill 《Fire Tongue》, and the rest were top-tier silver equipment.
The quantity wasn’t large, but the quality was extremely high.
Wang Jiu collected everything else and tossed Fire Tongue to Wang Shu. Wang Shu was deeply moved. “Master, you’re so good to me!”
Fire-based offensive magic skills were super expensive! That was because so many people chose this path.
“Minus your looting fee, that’s 300 gold. Pay me back within seven days.”
“…”
Wang Shu gritted his teeth and agreed, quickly learning the skill.
Luo Sheng watched the entire exchange, thinking to herself that this Wang Jiu was a truly complex person. To say she was good to people, she was actually quite harsh. To say she was harsh, she was actually very reliable.
It was probably a kind of “transactional” relationship.
She had a very direct, transactional relationship with everyone, unless they were an enemy.
Then it was complete exploitation.
For example, right now, after Zhong Qing’s team was crushed, a pile of loot was distributed entirely based on individual damage output. Everyone benefited. Wang Jiu immediately equipped the gold armor and threw the rest into her inventory. From upstairs, she added, “There are still people outside.”
And so, Diao Guang’s group was also crushed.
Luo Sheng couldn’t get out, and seeing that Wang Jiu had no intention of leaving either, she asked with some curiosity, “Why did you immediately think of him, even though he’s been dead for so many years?”
A dead man. She truly hadn’t suspected him, even though she had also investigated the villa’s history.
“To silence a witness.”
Killing, to silence a witness? Silence a witness? Luo Sheng suddenly had an epiphany. She remembered what the mistress of Bi Yue Villa had said in the warehouse before she was killed: “It wasn’t me, it was them.”
A woman who had just decided to give up on her husband due to lost love, lumping the old butler together with another person. This other person could be no one else.
A dead person was either not dead, or had returned from the dead.
“Zhang Shen!!” When Xie Lu and the others returned and heard this news, they were all stunned.
Qi Shuanghan: “No way. Zhang Shen was already in his fifties or sixties when he died. His wife is this young?”
“That’s the terrifying part. Over ten years ago, before Zhang Shen died, his wife—the mistress of this villa—was actually forty-nine years old. But today, more than a decade later, she looks like she’s in her early thirties.”
A woman who should be sixty-seven years old looked like a young woman in her early thirties. This was indeed highly abnormal.
Xie Lu took out a photo frame.
It was a photo frame without a picture.
What did that mean?
“She probably put the photo away or destroyed it. Before today, she must have been infinitely in love with this husband of hers. If she destroyed it before, it must have been for another reason—for example, a comparison a woman is most unwilling to face.”
Qiao Xuejing tapped her finger on the glass of the photo frame, saying thoughtfully, “She didn’t want people to know what she was supposed to look like when she was old, but rather how she looks now—beautiful and youthful.”
So the question was, how did she do it?
Could it be… eating corpses?
Just as the group was pondering this, they suddenly heard a noise from outside.
The blare of a car horn. It sounded like… a police siren!
The entire villa was surrounded.
Before they could react, bang, bang, bang! Several windowpanes shattered, and bullets shot through the air.
These were high-performance sniper rifles! At least ten were aimed at them!
Normally, this would only be a sudden incident, not the most dangerous one. But the worst part was that at that moment, everyone received a notification from the System.
“Congratulations, everyone. In this normal dungeon, you have violated the highest hidden taboo—murdering the butler of Bi Yue Villa within someone else’s social system. A video of the murder has been sent to the police. Now, as a punishment, your attributes will be reduced to 50%, and the degree of reduction will change based on the length of time you are wanted.”
Holy crap! The group, their attributes halved, was stunned. They hastily adapted to their drastically reduced stats to dodge the bullets. While dodging, they all launched counterattacks.
At that moment, Diao Guang and his team were particularly indignant: “My god, we didn’t do anything! We didn’t kill him! Why?! You two teams are the real culprits!”
Zhong Qing wanted to say he wasn’t taking the blame either, but arguing now was pointless. Escaping was the priority.
They were really planning to fight their way out or take care of the police outside when they heard Luo Sheng shout, “Don’t attack! The more you fight, the more your attributes will drop, because you’ll go from being suspects to resisting arrest with force! Didn’t you see that Wang Jiu and her team haven’t moved?!”
Zhong Qing and the others looked and immediately froze.
Wang Jiu’s team indeed hadn’t attacked; they had only taken cover behind obstacles.
Wang Shu and the others had actually wanted to fight back. After all, it wasn’t impossible to win or escape. But Wang Jiu calmly reminded them that escaping would get them put on a wanted list, and resisting would lead to a conviction, both of which would deepen the punishment.
Everyone was speechless. This game was toxic. What kind of mechanic was this?
“Was that video from the surveillance cameras? Was it that ghost hand of Zhang Shen’s doing? He specifically sent it to the police station?”
There was likely no other possibility.
So what now? Surrender without a fight?
Wang Jiu frowned. “We can only go to the police station. For now, we’ll maintain the 50% reduction and see what the situation is at the station.”
The other two teams had no other choice. But at that moment, Wang Jiu suddenly opened the cage and let Luo Sheng out.
“Although I know you’re only doing this so the police don’t add illegal confinement to your list of charges, Lord Lao Wang, I still want to say—thank you for your tenderness towards a fair lady.”
Wang Jiu: “Mm, you paying?”
Luo Sheng: “…”
She had no such intention.
Half an hour later, Wang Jiu and the others were handcuffed and loaded into police cars one by one.
But two had escaped—Bai Bai and Dao Dao, being non-human, were not arrested. They hid in the bushes, silently watching the group being taken away.
Dao Dao was very worried: Ah, my master, my Jingjing! Don’t worry, I will definitely come and save you!
Bai Bai: Hahahahaha! Serves you right! Is there any wine? I want to drink and be merry!
A huge difference, indeed.
Zhong Qing, Diao Guang, and their teams were also arrested. The three teams looked at each other, completely speechless.
At the police station, the group was separated into several cells. They endured a full night of exhausting interrogation until the police themselves were tired. Only then were they returned to their cells.
Wang Jiu was the main suspect, a dangerous element, and was given a solo cell. At 3 AM, she, who had been resting with her eyes closed, opened them. She glanced at the surveillance camera on the opposite wall, then slightly opened her palm. A mid-level puppet was molded into a cockroach in a corner hidden from the camera. It crawled up her back, down her pant leg, and then onto the floor via the leg of the iron bed…
A few minutes later, it crawled out of the cell and past the cell holding Xie Lu and the others.
Well, Zhong Qing, Diao Guang, and Luo Sheng all had insight skills. Wang Jiu’s cockroach brazenly crawled right past them…
Diao Guang: I want to shout and expose her!
Zhong Qing: Oh, go ahead and shout then.
Diao Guang: Forget it. We’re in the same boat now. For the greater good, it’s better to be amicable. Maybe she can handle this (mainly because I can’t beat her).
Luo Sheng: This cockroach is quite ugly.
Wang Jiu paid no mind to this bunch of defeated foes. She familiarly made her way into the police chief’s office and opened the computer.
It was as if she had been here many times before.
In reality, she hadn’t. She had simply determined the location of this office before being captured, because that video had been sent here.
In the team channel, Xie Lu and the others already knew where Wang Jiu had gone.
Xie Lu: “Is there a problem with this chief?”
Wang Jiu: “No.”
Mei Qingshu: “Then what are you doing there? Oh, are you getting the keys to our cells?”
Mei Qinghe: “My dear sister, wake up. What era do you think this is? Keys? These cells have smart locks that are electronically controlled!”
Wang Jiu: “The entire police station is the problem.”
Xie Lu: “Because real, good police officers don’t aim for the glabella. Those snipers outside today were all aiming for the space between our eyebrows. Even if the video was ironclad proof, they can’t do that before a conviction, unless a superior ordered it, or they are all collectively corrupt. But you seem to have dismissed all of them in one go.”
Qiao Xuejing: “It’s probably because their condition during our all-night interrogation was too good.”
Oh, she hit the nail on the head.
Wang Shu had been so hungry during his interrogation that he had considered confessing just to get some food. He had also privately grumbled about how energetic these police officers were. Thinking about it now, wasn’t it obvious something was wrong? Putting it all together, either they were also eating corpses, or they were part of the corrupted faction and had deep ties to Bi Yue Villa, acting as its protectors.
But that didn’t make sense. If the mastermind was Zhang Shen, wasn’t he convicted by the police back then and burned to death during his arrest… that didn’t sound like an alliance.
Wang Shu couldn’t figure it out, but Wang Jiu had already cracked the police station’s system on the chief’s computer. After infiltrating it, she didn’t look for a way to escape as Wang Shu and the others guessed, because a jailbreak was equivalent to an increased sentence, equivalent to suicide!
She was searching for three types of information.
1. The historical records of Mist Town over the years.
2. All records related to Zhang Shen’s case from back then.
The amount of data was enormous, but Wang Jiu still managed to read through all of it in an hour. Then she began to search for the third type of information.
3. The personnel files of the police station staff, such as their bank accounts.
Then she contacted Bai Bai and had it go to the old butler’s room in the villa to find his bank card. Using the card number, she hacked into the banking system, found his transaction records, and after checking them, picked out some problematic accounts, matching their identities with the data.
Half an hour later, she finished her review and compilation. She packaged all the evidence of these financial transactions, along with some surveillance videos of these people entering and leaving Bi Yue Villa, and sent it to three places.
1. The entire global network platform of this world.
2. The social media platforms used by all the survivors in Mist Town.
3. The municipal government system that had jurisdiction over Mist Town.
After finishing all this, she shut down the computer, crawled to the police station’s cafeteria, took two loaves of bread from inside, and dragged them all the way back to her cell. It was still the same two cockroaches. They avoided the line of sight of the dozing prison guards and brazenly dragged the two loaves of bread past several cells, right in front of the starving crowd, and back to her cell.
A moment later, the people in all three teams heard a faint chewing sound.
Then, gurgle, gurgle… a chorus of stomachs provided the background music.
In the team channel, even Wang Shu couldn’t help but accuse her—Master, have a heart!
Wang Jiu: “Hm? What’s wrong?”
That “hm” was even exceptionally sexy and charming, carrying the alluring laziness of a beauty just waking from a deep sleep.
“That bread…”
“I can’t eat anymore,” Wang Jiu said.
Everyone’s spirits lifted. They also knew that Lao Wang was no saint; they would have to pay something. Just as they were about to speak… Wang Jiu threw the bread towards the opposite cell. Luo Sheng caught it and blew Wang Jiu a silent kiss with a smile.
Wang Shu and the others: “!”
Zhong Qing and the others: “???”
In front of everyone?
Xie Lu saw through the truth and asked faintly, “How much did you sell it for?”
Wang Jiu didn’t answer, but she let out a light yawn. Luo Sheng, however, took the initiative to say, half-jokingly, “Lord Lao Wang hadn’t even mentioned money, but I offered to pay with my body first. She probably felt that selling it for money was more respectable than selling my virtue. For the sake of my reputation, she sold it to me for 300 gold. She really is a good person.”
Everyone was stunned.
Had Luo Sheng gone mad? No, she hadn’t. She had to buy it.
Because she had been locked in a cage the whole time, she was in a state of starvation and exhaustion without any food, making her more vulnerable than anyone else. She probably also realized this police station was very dangerous. To protect herself, she had no choice but to be extorted by Wang Jiu.
But for someone being extorted to still maintain her composure and blow a kiss, this woman was truly forbearing.
Of course, no amount of forbearance could match Lao Wang’s ruthlessness.
No wonder she had taken an extra loaf of bread—she had intended to extort someone from the very beginning.
Wang Jiu couldn’t care less what others thought. The money was in her account. She lay down and officially entered a state of sleep.
But four hours later, while everyone was sound asleep, the cell door quietly opened. A person outside threw a vial inside. It shattered on the floor, releasing a terrifying misty gas.
Everyone woke up with a start.
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