Chapter 50: Helping Out Means Everyone Should Be Happy
After the Old Man of the Farm and his Ni Tou Car left, the hourglass-like cave edge actually began to gradually collapse. Jiang Ce watched the ruins being gradually buried, yet he was helpless.
Not long after, the big hole was filled in. At a glance, aside from the foundation pit looking completely unrecognizable, nothing could be seen.
Standing at the edge of the pit lost in thought for a long time, Jiang Ce finally came back to his senses.
“No, I must report this. That guy who raised it doesn’t seem like a good person.”
Jiang Ce recalled Aatrox and remembered the attacker’s appearance.
His intuition told him that he might have encountered someone from the Gluttonous Ghost.
The last Gluttonous Ghost he met had jumped out to block a knife for him. Jiang Ce thought it was a charitable organization, but now another one jumped out and gave him a knife.
This was simply outrageous. Isn’t this slapping me in the face?
Anyway, he had to return to the Gatekeeper Branch first. It would be best to report this directly to Xiao Lin. The Gluttonous Ghost stealing the Corpse King hidden in the Corpse Raising Ground was undoubtedly a very major discovery.
After packing up, Jiang Ce stepped over Daoist Wang’s body to leave, but suddenly remembered something, turned back, wrapped his hand in cloth, and took some cash from him. Out of mischief, he wrote a few words on the muddy ground beside Daoist Wang:
My name is Wang Jian. When you see this message, I am already dead.
Leaving the construction site, Jiang Ce first found Old Liu and the other two waiting in the board room, told them the situation was very complicated, the thing below was too powerful and couldn’t be completely cleared in one go, and it was a job that required time.
Jiang Ce had been brewing this rhetoric for a long time. He wasn’t here to do good deeds; mainly to gain benefits. While those people worked diligently, of course, he had to drag it out as much as possible, make it as troublesome as possible, and make sure they knew his actions were extremely difficult, so the results would have value.
He couldn’t say he went up and fixed it in three moves and two steps, making them doubt if their money was well spent. That wouldn’t be good.
Not only make them know their money was well spent, but also make them feel they got a huge bargain. That was true win-win cooperation.
“Where is Daoist Wang?” Assistant Jin noticed Daoist Wang hadn’t come out together and had an ominous premonition.
“I have to say a few words to you about this.” Jiang Ce sighed: “It’s good that you’re solving problems for Old Liu, but you can’t just grab at straws in desperation. Luckily Su Feng reliably found me; otherwise, not only that fraud, but you all would have died together, got it?”
“Daoist Wang is dead?!” Assistant Jin was shocked. Old Liu and Su Feng were also stunned.
“Not dead, but possessed. If I hadn’t discovered it early, he might have been done for. Go check quickly. This time I handled some minor issues, but couldn’t eradicate the root cause. It can be stable for a while, but probably not too long. If you want to start work, do it soon. Contact me in a month, and I’ll come back then.”
Jiang Ce looked solemn, speaking as if it were a grave matter, fooling the three into a daze.
“Can’t it” Old Liu probed: “be resolved all at once?”
“No.” Jiang Ce immediately shook his head in denial: “You think it’s like fishing, throwing bait and netting them all? You know this is resentment left from an ancient battlefield. How could it be so simple to handle? I’m considering your urgency to start work and went all out. Otherwise, following normal procedures, who knows how much longer it would be delayed.”
Su Feng nodded deeply in agreement. He had 100% trust in Jiang Ce.
But Old Liu always felt like this exorcism job sounded just like dealing with relevant departments.
“Thank you for your hard work, Master Jiang.” Old Liu said gratefully.
Jiang Ce waved his hand: “Don’t thank me yet. Thank me after confirming you can start work. Those things are very powerful. Remember not to work at night, or if you encounter something, I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Understood, understood.” Su Feng was grateful to tears, feeling immensely fortunate to have found Jiang Ce.
Jiang Ce inadvertently glanced at Assistant Jin. Since learning Daoist Wang was a jianghu fraud, the other had kept their head down, not knowing what they were thinking.
He and Su Feng each brought one person, fine. When Daoist Wang was suppressing him, this person didn’t speak up for fairness. Even thinking with his heels, he knew they didn’t get along with Su Feng, with some competitive intent hidden. So he casually did Su Feng a favor, disgusted the other a bit, and whatever happened next had nothing to do with him.
“I have other matters, I’ll head out first. Contact me if there’s anything later.”
“Alright, goodbye Master Jiang.”
Just as Jiang Ce had expected, it was win-win cooperation.
Rushing back to the Gatekeeper Branch overnight, Jiang Ce directly found Tian Yongle and vaguely indicated he wanted to see Xiao Lin.
Tian Yongle had already been scolded by Xiao Lin for secretly leaking questions to Jiang Ce. Hearing Jiang Ce wanted to see Xiao Lin, his first reaction was to play dumb, righteously saying things like young people should work hard and not seek shortcuts, and other such rhetoric.
But with Jiang Ce’s one sentence “I encountered someone from the Gluttonous Ghost,” Tian Yongle immediately shut up, face full of solemnity, and unhesitatingly brought Jiang Ce to Xiao Lin’s office.
“Yongle, you came at the right time. Headquarters just issued new regulations: fellow disciples must not hurl insults at each other or mention family members. You convey it on my behalf.”
Xiao Lin said, then looked up and saw Jiang Ce, puzzled: “What are you here for?”
Jiang Ce rolled his eyes inwardly, thinking how petty you must be to come up with this way to weaken me.
But whatever, if I can’t curse outright, I can still be elegant and affable. If not that, I can still be sarcastic!
The limits you can imagine aren’t even my upper bound!
Jiang Ce vented inwardly, but aloud he told Xiao Lin everything that had happened recently. Not only did Xiao Lin show deep thought, even Tian Yongle listened in surprise.
“Looks like the one you met last time wasn’t a coincidence. The Corpse Raising Grounds are also starting to resurgence. The Gluttonous Ghost wants to use these naturally nurtured corpse ghosts for something? What grand ambitions!”
A rare trace of worry appeared in Xiao Lin’s eyes.
“Resurgence?” Jiang Ce recalled what Jie Tan had said when they first met—Supernatural Resurgence was imminent.
Could it be that ghosts would soon be everywhere?
“But it won’t be that fast. The resurgence now is at most fierce ghosts, but it’s hard to say in the future.”
Xiao Lin seemed reluctant to say more about Supernatural Resurgence in front of Jiang Ce, just nodded seriously at him:
“You did very well this time. Though you didn’t catch the other party, you let us know what they’ve been secretly planning while hiding. We Gatekeepers also have experts skilled in finding dragon veins and acupuncture points. Next time, if we can find a soon-to-resurge Corpse Raising Ground one step ahead, we might catch a big fish.”
Saying this, Xiao Lin called Jiang Ce closer, had him turn around: “Let me see where you’re injured?”
Jiang Ce pointed to the back of his head: “That bastard ambushed and slashed me. Next time I catch him, I must call his mom to fight him together with one knife.”
Xiao Lin laughed: “No matter. Gluttonous Ghost controls ghost things only with pre-prepared curse techniques; it doesn’t require high cultivation from the caster. Since even the ambush couldn’t injure you, it means the attacker’s cultivation isn’t high. As long as next time… eh?”
Xiao Lin’s voice abruptly stopped, because he found the residual spiritual energy in that faint dent actually reached Sixth Rank!
With his sharp eyes, he judged that if this strike caught someone off guard, it would be enough to seriously injure or even kill a Fifth Rank cultivator lacking body training!
And Jiang Ce’s skin wasn’t even broken.
“Did you train Golden Bell Shield?” Even Xiao Lin furrowed his brows, a flash of disbelief in his eyes.
“Lucky, lucky.” Jiang Ce nodded embarrassedly.
“How many layers?”
Jiang Ce turned back puzzled: “One layer.”
“One layer… This was a full-force strike from Sixth Rank, and you say it’s just one layer.” Xiao Lin’s breathing quickened slightly.
“Then two layers? Uh, three?” Jiang Ce wasn’t sure either, looking to the equally baffled Tian Yongle for help: “Boss Tian, how many layers is appropriate?”
Tian Yongle shook his head: “I don’t know.”
Xiao Lin pursed his lips, shook his head, casually wiped away the residual spiritual energy in the dent. In an instant, the dent vanished without a trace, and Jiang Ce no longer felt that swelling sensation.
“Any number of layers is pretty unreasonable.”
He slightly exerted force in his right palm, pressing it on Jiang Ce’s back, his expression changing slightly but instantly returning to normal, then he clicked his tongue:
“The only thing certain is, if he didn’t slash you with a knife, but punched you or kicked you…”
Xiao Lin made a punching motion:
“You could probably bring his corpse back with you.”
