Drenched in blood and cold sweat, Ma Lao San trembled all over, a murky yellow liquid slowly seeping from between his legs.
"Wow! Ma Lao San, you're really useless, getting scared to the point of pissing your pants!"
Huzi shook his head in disdain and quickly distanced himself from him.
Liang Ge looked at Lu Fei anxiously.
"Lu Fei, has the malevolent energy on the knife been neutralized?"
"The malevolent energy on the knife is gone." Lu Fei examined the blade carefully. In just a moment, the sharp cold gleam of the blade had disappeared, and it became rusted and pitted.
"Does this mean it's been subdued?"
Liang Ge couldn't quite believe it. The killer who had to skin someone every seven years had been eliminated so easily.
It was unbelievably smooth!
"By general standards, this would be considered a success!"
Lu Fei rubbed his chin, looking at the dulled, rusty blade. He felt the same way as Liang Ge—it seemed too easy and too smooth.
Moreover, they had just decided to act today, and the knife started causing trouble right away.
It was as if things were going their way.
"Could it really be our good luck?"
Lu Fei and Brother Liang exchanged a glance, both seeing doubt in each other's eyes.
But the evil aura on the blade was truly gone, what else could be the problem?
"Ma Laasan, are you okay?" Lu Fei nudged Ma Laasan with his foot. He had kept the blade for quite some time, perhaps he could learn something from him.
"I, I…",
Ma Laasan seemed to be scared out of his wits, unable to speak, his eyes blankly staring at the blade that was just an inch away from his crotch, unresponsive to any call.
"What's wrong with him? Should we send him to the hospital right away?" Brother Liang frowned slightly.
"It's fine, he's just too frightened. I'll calm him down." Lu Fei channeled his magic power into his palm and slapped Ma Laasan hard.
Smack!
With a crisp slap, the side of Ma Lao San's face immediately swelled up high.
He shivered as if suddenly awakened from a nightmare, gasping for breath in large gulps.
"Ah, my head! My head feels like it's going to split open!"
As he came to his senses, the excruciating pain at the top of his head became particularly clear, and he clutched his head, crying out in agony.
Brother Liang looked at the top of his head.
It was a bloody mess, but it seemed only the scalp had been cut.
After all, the purpose of that knife was to peel the skin.
"You are lucky. If we had come a moment later, you would be just like those people in the photos, left with only a mass of red flesh, dying in excruciating pain!"
"How, how could this happen?"
Ma Lao San felt like crying, but no tears came.
"I told you long ago, that knife is an evil object!" Tiger child could not conceal his schadenfreude, "You kept it as a precious treasure and sold fakes to others. People like you deserve to be skinned alive!"
"How was I supposed to know about the knife..." Ma Lao San suddenly felt a chill down his spine, trembling as he got up from the ground, "So, can this knife still skin people now?"
"That's hard to say." Lu Fei looked at him, "After you got this knife, have you noticed anything strange?"
"Strange? The knife has always been fine. Tonight was the strangest..." Ma Lao San held his head in pain, grimacing, "Stop talking, get me an ambulance, call an ambulance for me!"
"Think carefully again. If you've missed something, this knife might come after you again."
"Come after me?"
Ma Lao San was stunned and quickly moved away from the knife on the ground. After a moment, he said with a pained expression, "My head hurts too much, I really can't remember anything... I kept the knife for two years, planning to sell it when the market was good. I always kept it in the safe and never took it out."
"Wait, you said you put the knife in the safe and never took it out after you got it?" Liang Ge interrupted.
"Yes, if you hadn't come today, I wouldn't have thought of selling it..."
Liang Ge pondered, "Although the skinning knife kills someone every seven years, it doesn't fix the date, indicating that the date is not the trigger. This year is the seventh year, and just today, Ma Lao San took the knife out, and it started to cause trouble."
"What you mean is, the first person to touch this knife in the seventh year will be killed?" Lu Fei immediately understood his meaning.
"Exactly!" Liang Ge said with a bright look in his eyes, "So, it wasn't just a coincidence that we encountered the knife's mischief; we were the ones who brought it about! If we hadn't gone to find Ma Laosan, he wouldn't have taken out the knife!"
"Gentlemen, I beg you, stop analyzing and take me to the hospital!" Ma Laosan pleaded, the blood from his head not stopping. He was really afraid that he might suddenly die.
But the two men paid no attention to Ma Laosan.
"This only explains why the skinning knife happened to cause trouble today, but it doesn't explain why the process of subduing it was so easy," Lu Fei said, scanning the ground. He felt they had missed something.
"Maybe we were overthinking it. We thought the killer was terrifying because we didn't know what it was..."
Liang Ge didn't finish his sentence.
"Wait! Where did the leather sheath of the knife go?" Lu Fei suddenly shouted, rushing to the roadside, "The sheath was here just now, I saw it with my own eyes. How could it be gone now?"
"Leather sheath?"
Liang Ge's heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly ran over as well.
He also remembered that the sheath had fallen right here, but now the roadside was empty, with only dust and gravel.
The sheath was about as thick as an adult's finger, just enough to cover the handle of the skinning knife. Although it was not large, the leather had some weight to it, so it couldn't have been blown away by a gust of wind.
Moreover, there had been no wind at all just now.
"Could we be mistaken?"
Lu Fei thought of a terrifying possibility.
"The sheath couldn't have disappeared for no reason, unless… it's also an evil object!"
"Maybe the knife isn't the real culprit; the sheath is?" Liang Ge was also startled by this speculation.
"Hurry up and find it!"
Both of them immediately felt goosebumps and started searching along the roadside for the finger-width knife handle sheath.
Hu Zi, on the other hand, was looking at Ma Laoshan.
Ma Laosan asked Huzi to take him to the hospital, but Huzi refused, so he had no choice but to go to the car himself to find his phone and call an ambulance.
"Where's my phone…?"
With one hand supporting his aching head, Ma Laosan used the other to search around the car, but couldn't find it anywhere.
Just as he was getting anxious, he suddenly saw a flash of light under the car.
He looked down.
Half of his phone was sticking out from under the car, its screen glowing faintly.
"How did it end up here?"
Ma Laosan hurriedly bent down to pick it up, but as soon as his hand reached out, it was held back by another hand.
That hand had yellowish skin, was icy cold, and felt soft and boneless.
Like a venomous snake emerging from under the car, it coiled around his wrist.
In this instant.
He felt as if all the blood in his body had frozen.