156 Tomorrow is a Good Day (1/2)

An old man with black gloves stood at the end of a long street. He lit his cigar and inhaled deeply before letting out a puff of cool blue smoke. He waited quietly.

After a long time, his shoulders twitched and he turned slowly. A figure had appeared behind him. ”Mr. Holmes,” he nodded. ”I have been waiting for you.”

”Mr. Ghosthand, long time no see.” Ye Qingxuan smiled and took off his hunting hat. ”I remember our first meeting was outside the White Horse hotel. You gave me directions before, but now it’s the opposite.”

Ghosthand gazed deeply into the youth’s eyes. He could not help but sigh in lamentation. A few months ago, he and the youth had met for the first time, brushing past each other on the street. At that time, he was still the debtor, Ghosthand, an infamous legend of Avalon. Ye Qingxuan was just an Eastern kid who had just arrived.

At that time, the kid was like fish on the cutting board. Ghosthand could do whatever he wanted to him. But in a few short months, Ye Qingxuan had made a name for himself. He used his actions to incite fear and respect from many people. He was the Vengeful Spirit of Avalon. Even the Shaman wanted to have him as a right hand man and had high expectations for this young man. Fate was not something the average man could predict.

”Please help us with the Professor’s traces.” With that, Ghosthand turned to lead the way.

Ye Qingxuan walked into an alley. Stepping over puddles and broken tiles, he walked into a hut. The empty hut was covered in blood. And the corpse in the center was already stiff.

The cold night had preserved the body well. Instead of decaying, the corpse’s skin was deathly pale. The sight was chilling.

”Who is this?”

”A smuggler. His nickname is Lychee. Lychees are a rare Eastern fr…”

”I know.” Ye Qingxuan nodded. ”A Westerner with this name? That’s rare.”

”It’s because the thing he’s most famous for is smuggling in ten tons of lychees. He got it through customs and sold them throughout the entire Anglo market.”

”A fruit smuggler?”

”They look clean and cute, but it’s just a disguise. There were refined opiates inside the lychees,” Ghosthand stated. ”It was all high-grade stuff. The Indians called them Krishna. With this boat-load, the Indians were able to buy ninety percent of the market, creating the basis of their illegal drugs market.

”Lychee had always been Silo’s right hand man and was hated by others. But he was very careful. Sometimes he would even disguise himself as a pregnant so no one could get any dirt on him.”

”Pregnant?” Ye Qingxuan squatted and looked at the swollen body. Seeing the beard and thick chest hair, he could not help but furrow his brows. ”He really put in a lot of effort…When was the corpse discovered?”

”Three hours ago,” Ghosthand said as he smoked. ”According to the Shaman’s rules, illegal drug smugglers should have their feet and hands chopped off, but he was already dead when we arrived. The Professor was a step before us. This is probably revenge on Silo’s betrayal.”

”Not just that.” Ye Qingxuan shook his head. ”If it’s just for revenge, the Professor would hang Silo’s brother Po Sinai before Silo’s bed. When Silo wakes up from a nightmare, he’ll see his brother’s twisted features and forever live in fear…”

Ghosthand flinched. ”How do you know?”

Ye Qingxuan gazed at him coolly. ”That’s what I’d do if I were the Professor.”

Ghosthand fell silent.

Ye Qingxuan felt around the corpse, looking for any marks left behind on the body. It was much easier with Bolero. He pressed a hand on the corpse’s chest and transformed the liquid in the body into perception threads to investigate the organs. Quickly, he let go.

”His heart stopped suddenly. There was internal bleeding in his organs and his brain seemed to be poisoned…” Ye Qingxuan’s eyes hardened. ”Lychee wasn’t killed. He scared himself to death.”

Ghosthand immediately understood the fury in the youth’s eyes. ”This is what you often do…Is the Professor trying to provoke you?”

Ghosthand knew that Holmes was a dark musician who hated to see blood and kill others. He would always make the enemy torture themselves. No matter how cruel he was, he would never take any lives. He was merciful and valued life—he was not like a dark musician at all.

But that was the cruelest. His enemies often wanted to die but could not! Such as the ruined Pyramid King and Indian musician Puspotkata who had turned into an idiot, and the many others who had been sent to the Arkham Asylum…If Ye Qingxuan had wanted to punish Lychee, he would undoubtedly use this method; however, the Professor was much crueler. No matter what the process had been, it was horrible enough to create nightmares.

In the stillness, Ye Qingxuan gazed coolly at the corpse’s dull eyes. After a long while, he stood up slowly. ”I think he’s challenging me. Most people would think I did this.”

If it was just Lychee, Ye Qingxuan would not care, but this was a warning. If he still could not find the Professor before the next kill, the victim would be someone different.

Ye Qingxuan could think of many that he could be used as a scapegoat for. An important figure in the police department, the son of a noble…At that time, it would be much more difficult to work in Avalon.

The Professor was taking revenge on Ye Qingxuan for knowing that he was a Moon Spirit. He wanted Ye Qingxuan to know that if he revealed the truth, he would also make it impossible for Ye Qingxuan to survive in downtown.

But what was the point in killing this person just to warn Ye Qingxuan when he could plan further and take revenge on the parliament? Or was this a plan to kill two birds with one stone, and just happened to be a warning?

Studying the corpse, Ye Qingxuan suddenly asked, ”Mr. Ghosthand, is it true that you can capture an enemy’s soul and make them work for you? If it’s true, can you do it on Lychee?”

Ghosthand chuckled and shook his head. ”I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes, but when did humans ever have something like a soul? It’s probably just philosophers spreading false information,” he said. ”The only thing I can do is kill people. And I can’t do anything after that. After all, you can only kill someone once. So, I have to disappoint you on this.”

Ye Qingxuan had not had much hope on this strange rumor in the first place. Hearing Ghosthand’s explanation, he just nodded and said lightly, ”I’m not disappointed. Sometimes, it’s not bad to have a solution that can solve everything.”

”Oh?” Ghosthand looked up. ”Do you not think that it’s a shame to be a murderer like me?”

”No, I just think it’s laughable.” Ye Qingxuan glanced at him, not scared of angering the old man. ”Everyone knows that killing can’t solve everything, but so many people still think that everything can be solved by killing. It’s strange, isn’t it? Some things can’t be changed, no matter how many people you kill.”

Ghosthand did not reply.

Ye Qingxuan squatted down to check the corpse again. He would not let anything past his eyes. He could tell that the man had suffered a long torture before his head. The first thing to be attacked in the terrifying hallucination was the brain. His mind would be tortured by unprecedented horror and blood would rush to the brain.

When his subconscious mind found something it could not understand, fear would be born. When the fear reached a certain level, his subconscious mind would search for salvation in death. His heartbeat would quicken, his panting would become heavier, and his glands would secrete more hormones. The hormones would stimulate his organs, causing internal bleeding. The hormones in the blood would reach his brain, poisoning it. That was how someone could be scared to death.