"It's the First Madam! First Madam!"
Madam Yang grabbed onto the young handsome Daoist priest's arm like she was clutching the only life-saving straw as she cried miserably.
She was the cloth merchant Xue Dayong's concubine who had only entered the household for three days. At this moment, she still appeared beautiful and delicate despite messy hair, untidy getup and no makeup.
Li Chu comforted her. "Madam, don't panic. Please tell me exactly what happened last night."
As he said that, he calmly pulled his arm away.
"Yes, Madam, you can relax. With this chief constable and Daoist Li here, we can assure your safety!"
Zhou Dafu patted his chest, at the same time, rubbed his large, hairy hand on Madam Yang's delicate shoulders.
Young, beautiful, widowed! And she was about to inherit the Xue family's business soon. That made Chief Constable Zhou want to comfort her with all his heart.
However, when Madam Yang lifted her tearful face and looked at Zhou Dafu and then at Li Chu, she immediately rolled her eyes at the former and shrugged away his hand by twisting her body sideways.
She then grabbed onto Li Chu's other arm as she cried. "I'll tell Daoist Li everything. You must protect me!"
'Wow, what a b*tch! Even when frightened, she still does not forget to pounce on a handsome man!' Zhou Dafu cursed bitterly in his heart.
But of course, it was a rage with nowhere to vent.
"It was the First Madam! I saw her clearly last night!" Madam Yang said start-stoppingly. "On the first day I married into the house, I was supposed to serve the First Madam tea, b-b-but she refused to accept me into the house. Milord told me to ignore her and then chased her off to the side residence."
"Who knows the next day, just yesterday morning, someone shouted something happened to the First Madam! When I asked Milord what happened, he said there was an accident, and she died. B-B-But I heard someone else say that she had killed herself."
"I was very scared then. I-I-I—the moment I married into this household, I knew I was the concubine and never thought of fighting with her for Milord's affection. What if she becomes a vengeful ghost and seeks revenge from me?"
"Then, in the middle of the night last night, I remembered that I was sleeping on the outside of the bed while Milord was sleeping on the inside. I found someone to my left when I got up, so I wanted to get off from the other side. But then I n-n-notice there was someone on the other side too!"
"I quickly rubbed my eyes, and I saw the First Madam lying on my left! Her face was blue and her body cold. I thought at first who had placed her body on our bed, and t-t-then she suddenly opened her eyes!"
"And then, I fainted in shock."
Zhou Dafu nodded by the side. After putting himself into her shoes and rethinking about the scene, he felt it was indeed rather scary.
"By the time I woke up, it was today morning, and it was the servant girl who woke me up. I then realized Milord was a mangled mess, a literal pile of flesh. I don't know what the First Madam did to him. I didn't see anything at all. The servant girls then said, all of the men in the house—the manservants, the gardener, the carriage-puller—had died. Only the women were left alive."
"It's the First Madam seeking revenge on men!"
"She must still be here. She died with resentment in her heart and will definitely not go far. She didn't kill us the last time, but who knows if she will do so the next time."
"Don't worry. There won't be a next time." Li Chu said firmly. After listening to all of what Madam Yang had to say, he resolutely pulled out his arm and took five steps back, pulling a distance away from her.
Madam Yang's embrace fell empty, and she glanced at Li Chu with a downcast look.
Zhou Dafu immediately went to place his muscular arm over her.
However, Madam Yang blinked and then turned around to hug the servant girl next to her as she started sobbing again.
Zhou Dafu left empty-handed. He sheepishly walked over to Li Chu and whispered. "What do you think?"
As soon as Li Chu stepped into the bedroom, the scene that greeted him was a bloodied partition with strands of ground flesh on the ground, bed, and even the ceiling. Although most of the corpse had been cleared away, it was still a painful scene to look at.
He did not reply but asked. "Chief Constable, have you seen the corpse already?"
"Don't even mention that." Zhou Dafu looked glum. "Those servants fared a little better. They were bitten to death and had a few scratches at most. Xue Dayong's death, on the other hand, is just gruesome! As if his entire flesh was torn off from his body with fingernails! This is definitely not something done by a human, and even a beast won't be able to pull that off. I've taken a look this morning and puked all of my last night's dinner out!"
Li Chu nodded. As he leveled up by killing monsters, his five senses had become extremely acute too. At this moment, he could clearly sense a chilling aura that made one sick, and not unlike other haunted places, it was the residual Yin Qi that a ghost had left behind.
"After listening to Madam Yang's account, this sounds really like a case of vengeful spirit running amok." Li Chu said. "Then I'll stay here tonight and see if she will show up again."
The so-called vengeful spirit was a ghost that might form when someone died while still bearing extreme resentment. It remained in the mortal world through its resentment.
Most of the vengeful spirits were Earthbound Ghosts that could not leave their place of death. After their death, the intelligence of their spirit would fade away, and they would forget most things except for vengeance. So even after they had killed their target, they would stay in place to strike against many more innocent people.
As more and more people died, the resentment it accumulated would become more and more serious, so it needed to be exorcised as soon as possible.
"But I still have some doubts." Zhou Dafu rubbed his chin again as he pondered. "A vengeful spirit does not form that easily. I've been a Chief Constable for almost ten years now, and I've only run into two or three cases at most. All of them had some horrible grievances behind them. Based on reason, the First Madam of the Xue family was just a woman with a jealous fit. Even if she was snubbed, her death was not necessary. And if she had committed suicide and was not killed by someone else, how can she so easily become a vengeful spirit?"
His suspicions made sense, and if vengeful spirits could form that easily, any petty prick would be able to hurt someone else after death.
"You're saying that Xue Dayong may have killed his own wife?" Li Chu asked.
"I don't know, but it doesn't matter anyway." Zhou Dafu shrugged. "Since Xue Dayong is now also dead, let the husband and wife settle their score in the underworld."
As he said that, the two walked out of the Xue family bedroom.
In the courtyard, with the midday sun shining bright, most of the gloom in the house seemed to have been dispelled, and Madam Yang's spirits too had slightly stabilized.
Seeing the two come out, she looked at Li Chu tearfully with her swollen peachy eyes. "Master Daoist, you must help me do a proper exorcism rite. If you need an altar, candles and incense, incense paper or whatever, you can let me know. I will prepare the best of everything for you."
"Ugh..." Li Chu hesitated and said truthfully. "I don't know how to perform exorcism rites."
Madam Yang was stunned. "A Daoist that doesn't know how to perform exorcism rites? Didn't Chief Constable Zhou brought you here to exorcise the First Madam?"
"I... don't really know how to set up altars...chants... and whatnot." Li Chu replied indifferently. "But don't worry, I have other ways to exorcise her."