GCLA VOL. 2 43

Chapter 43: One-Point Tasks Are Free Points

Four haggard, prematurely aged middle-aged men smoked together by the river, looking anxious.

“You bunch of scoundrels! You’ll get your comeuppance!” A woman in mourning clothes rushed out from the boat with the white lantern, cursing at the men smoking by the river. “You took the money too, back then! You’re next!”

“What did you say, you bitch?!” One of them threw down his cigarette and was about to charge at her, but the other three held him back.

“Forget it, forget it.”

An elderly couple, also dressed in white, came out of the boat and dragged the woman back inside.

“Just you wait! Just you wait—” The woman shrieked at them, terrifying like a vengeful ghost in the dark night.

The four men’s faces paled.

“Why can’t we find the body?!” One of them looked anxiously at another. “Number Four, you were right next to Old Mao. How did he fall in?”

The middle-aged man called Number Four also looked panicked. “I, I just got distracted for a second, and he fell in. But we all grew up by the river, how could he fall in and disappear without a trace?”

“Stop talking about it!” another man shouted fearfully. “You all saw it! Old Mao was dragged down!”

“Whoosh~~~~” A gust of river wind blew past, instantly extinguishing the white lantern.

The four men shivered and looked around.

“Could this really be related to what happened last year?”

As they were talking, the lights on the fishing boat flickered and went out.

The men were startled. “The lights, why did the lights go out? Go check the engine.” They started walking towards their own fishing boat by the river.

“He’s here…” Si Yi Nuo suddenly said darkly beside me. I immediately looked towards the fishing boat. A strange white fog rose from the river’s surface near the boat, quickly advancing towards it like a living thing.

“Don’t go over there!” I shouted and ran towards the riverbank with Si Yi Nuo.

The four men looked at us. One of them had just stepped onto the fishing boat when he was suddenly yanked down by something!

“Ah!” He screamed. The other three turned around in terror, but then they froze as if they had seen something, their expressions becoming vacant. Then, they all stepped forward and jumped into the river!

“Let them go!” Si Yi Nuo and I reached the shore, but the four men had completely disappeared. I immediately took out my gun and yelled, “Come out! Or I’ll shoot!”

The strange fog rolled at my feet, but there was no movement. I narrowed my eyes and fired a shot into the thick fog without hesitation.

Crimson light erupted from the gun, hitting the center of the fog. A red flash appeared, followed by a wail like a ghostly cry. “Ah—————”

I pulled Si Yi Nuo and walked onto the fog. It was a ghost wall. I knew that vengeful ghosts could create a barrier that would make you lose your way inside. This kind of barrier was weak, easily broken with a single blow, but for mortals, it was already very powerful.

So, no matter what happened here now, the people on the fishing boats wouldn’t know.

A dark figure began to emerge from the center of the fog, floating like a mass of rotting seaweed. Four human heads gradually appeared within the white fog, crying out in terror, “Help me! Help me!”

I looked sternly at the center of the fog. “Let them go!”

“Did they let me go?————” A roar came from the center of the fog.

“Help! Help!” The men shouted at me, not caring who Si Yi Nuo and I were or why we were there, just instinctively calling for help.

I looked at them sternly. “Shut up! There’s no revenge without a cause. You must have done something wicked!”

The four men’s expressions froze.

I looked at the dark figure in the center. “Tell me, what happened that made you so desperate?”

The dark figure slowly rose. “They are all bad people—They held my body for ransom—They made me soak in the water for seven days and nights until my parents gathered ten thousand yuan—My family are farmers. My parents only earn one thousand yuan a year. They scraped together five thousand, and a kind reporter donated the remaining five thousand before they released my body—”

I was immediately furious. “I hate body ransomers the most! So despicable! Fine! Kill them!”

“Huh?” Si Yi Nuo looked at me blankly, even Xiao Bai returned to his original form and stared at me wide-eyed.

“Hahaha—Hahaha—” The dark water ghost began to wave its four seaweed-like arms, binding the four men from within the fog and tightening the grip around their necks.

The four men immediately choked, their eyes rolling back.

“Xiaolan…we can’t wait any longer…” Si Yi Nuo looked at the four men who were about to be strangled. “They’re…dying…”

I looked at them coldly. “They deserve it. And we have four more battles. We’ll save our strength and use our words whenever possible.”

“But they…” Si Yi Nuo raised his hand, pointing at the four men. They were truly about to expire. I couldn’t bear to watch, so I raised my hand. “Wait! Let me say a few more words.”

The water ghost slightly loosened its grip. I walked towards him, stepping through the thick fog, and stood before him. He really looked like a pile of rotten seaweed, two eyes burning with rage within the seaweed.

“Xiaolan, be careful!” Si Yi Nuo warned behind me.

I looked at the water ghost. “I’ve calculated it, and this isn’t a good deal for you.”

“Not a good deal—?” He lowered his head.

I continued, “If you kill them like this, it counts as revenge. The evil they did to you will be settled. They can rest in peace. But what about you? You’ll go to the underworld and become a murderer. Wouldn’t that be a loss?”

“Even if I’m tortured in hell, I’m willing—I want to drag them down with me—” The water ghost roared angrily.

“No, no, listen to me.” I started to explain my reasoning to him. “Originally, they extorted money by holding your body hostage. If they died a natural death, they would be punished in hell. But, if you kill them now, it will clear their karmic debts, and they won’t have to go to hell. Aren’t you helping them?!”

He froze. “Is that so…?”

“If you drag them to their deaths now, they can reincarnate directly, but you will continue to suffer. So, it’s not a good deal. Before you make a mistake, hurry up and report to hell. That way, you’ll be considered wrongfully dead, and they will be punished after death. By then, you might have already been reincarnated.”

The resentment, like rotting seaweed, began to dissipate from him. The four men also slowly fell into the water. The true form of a man began to emerge. He continued to look at me. “Are you telling the truth…”

“It’s true. Bad people will have bad fates. Good luck will avoid them. They will suffer in life, and when they die and want to reincarnate, no way. They have to endure the punishment of hell first. Don’t help them escape, otherwise, you’ll be the one who suffers in the end.” I hadn’t been reading those books for nothing these past few days. It was a miracle that my brain, which usually couldn’t understand the books, had actually grasped the concept of karmic retribution.

“She’s right…” Si Yi Nuo came to my side and looked at the man. “The sin of holding a body for ransom is…very serious in hell…It requires five hundred years of punishment in the Frozen Hell…They will constantly drown and revive, then drown again and revive, day after day, year after year—” Si Yi Nuo suddenly became more and more excited, his silver eyes flashing a chilling light, the corners of his mouth widening. “Hahahaha—They will suffer the torment of drowning every moment, struggling in the icy water…struggling…”

I stared stiffly at Si Yi Nuo’s excited gaze, the hair on my body standing on end from his sinister smile. Could Si Yi Nuo be a latent sadist?! Why was he so excited watching others suffer? He sounded like he watched people being tortured in hell every day.

The four floating men were also dumbfounded with fear and suddenly shouted at the water ghost, “Just kill us! Kill us!”

The water ghost laughed. “Heh heh heh heh, hahahaha—I won’t kill you. I’ll let you suffer five hundred years of torment, hahaha—I was wrong—Take me away—”

Immediately, the water beneath him churned, and a black magic circle appeared. Two chains shot out from the circle, binding his hands. But he didn’t care, still laughing as he slowly sank into the magic circle, along with the fog beneath him, being sucked into the circle.

The world was calm again, leaving only the four men floating in the water. They looked around in shock, then at Si Yi Nuo and me, and suddenly screamed.

“Ah! Ah!”

“How are you standing on the water?!”

Then, as if they had come to their senses, they suddenly shouted at me, “Immortals! Forgive us!”

“Please forgive us!”

“We know we were wrong! We were wrong—”

Tch, I wasn’t Buddha, so I wasn’t that magnanimous. Forgive you? No way, just wait for your descent into hell after death, scum!

I snorted at them and picked up my phone. “Come on, smile.”

They looked at me subconsciously.

“Click.” The flash went off, and they stared blankly like idiots before swimming back to shore.

I looked at my phone. Sure enough, a seven-point block had been occupied by Fu Su. I smirked. After our grid displayed “task complete,” I pressed the next one. Fu Su, we might not lose this battle.

“Do you…forgive them…” Si Yi Nuo asked softly, Xiao Bai wrapped around his neck, almost covering half his face.

I chuckled. “There’s no karmic connection between them and me. Forgiveness is up to that person. Absolution is up to the higher gods. I’m nothing. I’m just doing what I should do…”

“Heh…” Si Yi Nuo grinned. “I like that…”

I took out my phone and waved it in front of Si Yi Nuo. “Fu Su is still stuck on the seven-point task. Let’s hurry and complete the other one-point tasks. He definitely didn’t expect us to split up. Si Yi Nuo, don’t you think so?” I smiled at him. Si Yi Nuo, what was your relationship with Fu Su, really?

Si Yi Nuo smiled from behind Xiao Bai’s fluffy white belly. “Yes…he definitely wouldn’t have thought of it…I also want to see…what he’ll be like…when he loses…”

Si Yi Nuo and I smiled at each other. If Si Yi Nuo and Fu Su were friends, they were definitely the kind of friends who brought out the worst in each other. Hmph.