The female ghost was battered by Zhou Ze's fingernails, her soul damaged to the point of becoming transparent and unreal.
She was in pain, she was suffering, she was pitiful, but for Zhou Ze, he could try to use her to kill someone else, but he couldn't let her leave this hospital, and even more so, he couldn't let her leave his sight and control.
Now, she hadn't become the knife he'd hoped for, so he could only send her where she needed to go.
The gates of hell opened.
Zhou Ze grabbed the female ghost's shoulder with one hand and threw her directly inside. After being severely wounded by his fingernails, the female ghost had no room or strength to resist.
Clapping his hands, Zhou Ze took out his certificate book, which showed an increase to twenty-five percent.
The revenue from this female ghost was still very high. It wasn't just because Zhou Ze had gone with the flow, but because this female ghost was a monster born from the resentment of many people who died on this street.
It was just a pity that she didn't have the brutality of a fierce ghost that one would expect; her style and identity didn't match.
Zhou Ze leaned on his cane and started to walk out. He didn't want to stay here any longer, he didn't want to linger in this place that made even him, a ghost messenger, feel uncomfortable and depressed.
The old Taoist followed along. After the two reached the street entrance, the old Taoist subconsciously looked back. Inside, there were still several similar small hospitals and clinics, and of course, many underground places hidden in the corners.
This was the human world,
but it was more like hell's incinerator.
In the invisible sky, it was as if chimneys rose from the ground, with clouds of smoke drifting away, and those lying on their beds waiting painfully for death were like truckloads of cinders sent to the incinerator.
"Boss, back to the bookstore?" the old Taoist asked.
Zhou Ze nodded.
"Boss, it's not worth getting angry over that matter. Just let it go, and it'll be fine. That female ghost was actually quite pitiful. At least, she was a good mother."
"That's precisely what makes me feel sad."
"Boss, I don't agree with you saying that pitiful people must have hateful aspects. I think she did the right thing. Anyway, death is death, so it's better to sell herself before dying and leave some income for her family. It's human nature. Although human lives can't be bought and sold, when it really comes down to it, using your last remaining value can actually be understood.
Moreover, her actions didn't hurt anyone else. It was a consensual thing, actually."
"Old Taoist, have you ever been arrested by the police?" Zhou Ze suddenly asked.
"Uh, a few times, that's because..."
"Have you ever been caught in an anti-vice raid?"
"Uh, not that. I've been lucky. Actually, sometimes I'm also worried, after all, I'm already so old. Although I'm trying to care for those women who have gone astray, my intentions are good, but I'm also afraid of being misunderstood by outsiders.
You know, in this world, when you want to do something, especially when you want to do something good, it's always easy to be criticized."
"Then do you think anti-vice operations are right or wrong?"
"This..." The old Taoist didn't know how to answer.
"According to your logic, the prostitutes are willing, they need money, and you also have needs, and you also give money. Both sides get what they want, so why should the police interfere?"
The old Taoist didn't know how to refute.
"Even in the United States, which prides itself on freedom and openness, prostitution is illegal in every state except Nevada, which borders Los Angeles.
The law is actually the last moral guideline of a society, and your so-called protection of women who have gone astray,
seemingly a win-win situation, but if it were legalized or brought into the open, do you know how many prostitution rings it would create? Many women would even be forced into prostitution. Even in the current illegal environment, there are already many instances of forced prostitution.
India is a country that advocates the legality of individual prostitution, and you also understand the rape rate in India."
"These are two different things..." the old Taoist explained.
"Two different things?"
Zhou Ze smiled,
pointed to the street behind him, and continued:
"This is just the tip of the iceberg that we can see. Do you know that the flame of evil may start as just a spark, and there are moths willing to fly into it. The fire is willing to burn it, and the moth also makes its own choice.
But when this fire burns bigger and bigger, it will no longer be satisfied with just burning those moths that fly to it voluntarily. It will burn the nearby houses and the nearby forests. At that time, it will create a catastrophe.
In the end, aren't those moths who initially fed the fire and made it bigger also one of the culprits?
When this industry begins to mature and expand continuously, who can guarantee that there won't be more bloody and exciting gambling methods appearing? Even, when there aren't enough voluntary moths, won't those who are addicted to this game, those platforms that are used to getting huge incomes from this game, force and semi-forcefully find new chips to continue this game?
Six months later,
a year later,
three years later,
this increasingly large and mature black industry grabs an innocent person and creates some conditions for a similar death gamble.
Does that person have the right to curse those idiots who initially voluntarily joined this game as chips for money?"
The old Taoist smacked his lips. He felt that what the boss said made a lot of sense, but he still felt that something was wrong, so he stubbornly retorted:
"Boss, I think the real culprits are still those organizers, the bookmakers."
"When an avalanche occurs, no snowflake is innocent."
...
By the time they returned to the bookstore, it was already dark. Because he wasn't in a good mood, Zhou Ze had walked back, which took a lot of time.
The bookstore door was open. Tang Shi was sitting behind the bar, and a man and a woman were sitting in the store reading books.
"Where's Bai Yingying?" Zhou Ze asked.
"She went upstairs to play games. I'm helping her watch the store for a while. She's been watching it all day," Tang Shi said indifferently.
Zhou Ze was speechless. It seemed that he had to limit that internet-addicted girl's game time. How dare she hand the store over to Tang Shi to manage? Was she not afraid that something would really happen and blood would flow like a river in the bookstore?
"You guys were out for quite a while. By the way, where's Old Taoist?" Tang Shi asked, a little strangely, when she didn't see Old Taoist following Zhou Ze back to the bookstore.
"He went to the police station to report a crime," Zhou Ze replied.
"Want something to drink? A cocktail?"
"You know how to mix them?"
Tang Shi didn't say anything and started mixing the drink on her own. Her movements were quick and skillful. Soon, a cocktail was placed in front of Zhou Ze.
"Try it."
Zhou Ze picked up the glass, took a sip, and then nodded.
"Very good."
"Thank you." Tang Shi sat back in her chair, holding a book called "The Origin of Hell" and reading it.
"Is this book from the bookstore?" Zhou Ze had no impression of this book, and there was no publisher listed on it.
"It's his book, a fantasy book from his teenage years. You can read it for fun and pass the time."
Zhou Ze walked up the stairs with his drink. As soon as he pushed open the bedroom door, he saw Bai Yingying, wearing headphones in front of the computer desk, talking excitedly, as if she was arguing with her teammates.
It seemed that they didn't know she was a woman at first. They only found out when she opened her mic during the argument, and it seemed that they said something else.
"Heh, you want me to play with you?"
Bai Yingying didn't know that Zhou Ze was already standing behind her. She lowered her voice and said coquettishly:
"Little brother, want to sleep with a corpse? The kind that goes 'ooh ooh ooh.'
Go sleep with your mothers, you fools! I'm old enough to be your great-great-grandmother!"
Then, Bai Yingying took off her headphones and threw them disdainfully on the table. She leaned back slightly, placed a slender leg on the table, and naturally took out a pack of women's cigarettes from her pocket. She tapped the cigarette butt downwards on the table familiarly, then put it in her mouth, rubbed her fingers together, and a spark came out, lighting the cigarette.
"That's a nice way to light a cigarette," Zhou Ze said. "Can you teach me?"
"Go ask your mother to teach you, I don't have time..."
As Bai Yingying spoke, she suddenly took a deep breath, quickly extinguished the cigarette in her hand, then stood up, lowered her head to Zhou Ze, and greeted him in a soft voice:
"Boss, you're back."
Zhou Ze sat down in the chair that Bai Yingying had been sitting in before. The chair still retained some warmth. He took a cigarette from the cigarette case, lit it, took a puff of the women's cigarette, and frowned slightly. This women's cigarette was too mild for Zhou Ze.
"Was it hard to hold back?"
Zhou Ze looked at the female corpse sideways.
He didn't know when he had become a little used to Bai Yingying obediently staying by his side and "ooh ooh oohing."
He seemed to have forgotten the intimidation and terror that Bai Yingying had brought to him and Xu Qinglang when she first woke up in the bookstore. Zhou Ze was also a little dazed, wondering which one was the real her.
"That's not it, Boss, don't misunderstand. In front of you, Yingying will only be a docile little bird. Boss, you should know it yourself,
you are also a zombie, and your bloodline is much higher than mine."
Zhou Ze narrowed his eyes and said:
"But my previous life was just a doctor, just an ordinary person. I've always been curious about one question, and that is that I've already died once, and I've changed bodies. If it's just a bloodline problem, then it should be able to be ruled out. Otherwise, there's only one explanation left, and that is that Xu Le himself was a zombie, but that doesn't make sense either."
"Boss, my mistress once told me that some zombies, they..."
At this time, Zhou Ze's phone rang. Zhou Ze picked up the phone and signaled Bai Yingying to pause and wait a moment before speaking.
It was Old Taoist's call. The two had walked back together, but Zhou Ze had given Old Taoist some ghost money and told him to find a place to burn it before going to the police station to report the crime.
"Hello, did you report the crime?" Zhou Ze asked.
"Boss, I... I didn't dare to report..." Old Taoist said tremulously.
"Didn't you burn the ghost money? You just participated in gambling, and you have a self-surrender and reporting plot. Plus, if you burn some ghost money, you won't even be detained. At most, you'll just make a statement."
"No... no, Boss... I'm in the police station, and there are a lot of reporters here now. It's said that someone reported half an hour ago that all the nurses, doctors, and patients in a hospital were killed. It seems... it seems to be the hospital we went to before.
Boss, this is no joke. Burning more ghost money won't help. If I surrender, the police will definitely take me down as the prime suspect."
"Everyone's dead?"
Zhou Ze frowned slightly. That shouldn't be. When he left, those doctors and nurses were just lying there unconscious, and they were fine. He estimated that they would wake up in a while.
"It's definitely, definitely that hospital," Old Taoist said in a low voice. "I just asked a reporter, and he told me."
"How is that possible? We haven't been gone for long."
"Boss..." Old Taoist asked nervously: "Didn't you also feel strange before, why that female ghost didn't kill or take revenge?"
"What do you want to say?"
"I was thinking, at that time, did two ghosts appear, but one of them hid."