While Luo Yingbai was speaking, he sat comfortably on the stairs. When she heard Luo Yingbai’s words, Lou Miao lowered her head slightly, with hair falling on both sides of her face, adding an eerie feeling to her already thin face.
She said slowly: “No, I’m not just going to take revenge on Zhu Linya. In this building, Xia Zheng is a scumbag, Zhu Linya is a despicable woman, those two children are Xia family’s offspring, and as for you…”
Luo Yingbai suddenly became a bit worried about the adjectives she might use to describe him.
A pervert?
Fortunately, Lou Miao wasn’t that harsh. She said: “As for you police who only catch the pitiful people and not the bad ones, one less of you is fine. If I can bring you all together, that’s enough.”
Luo Yingbai had no sympathy for those who claimed to be “pitiful”. Lou Miao’s words triggered his disgust, and he said casually: “So you don’t consider yourself a bad person?”
Lou Miao said: “I was forced by those people! Hu Weichao said when he graduated from high school that he would marry me. He said he had no money, couldn’t afford a wedding, couldn’t buy a house, and would wait until he earned enough money to get married. I waited for him for five whole years! What I got was him entangling with that despicable woman Zhu Linya, and finally being killed by her! Isn’t that laughable? Isn’t that disgusting? Shouldn’t I be angry?!”
In her subsequent words, Luo Yingbai finally understood what had happened back then.
Lou Miao and Hu Weichao were a couple. They were from the same county town and didn’t continue studying after high school. They came to T City to work.
He had practiced martial arts since childhood and, through acquaintance recommendations, became a bodyguard for Uncle Xia San’s family.
Hu Weichao followed Uncle Xia San in and out of various occasions and quickly became familiar. Zhu Linya, in order to grasp Xia Changwei’s whereabouts in time, intentionally tried to maintain a good relationship with Hu Weichao.
Gradually, he developed feelings for Zhu Linya. Zhu Linya naturally looked down on him, but to facilitate her work, she kept stringing him along, deceiving this naive young man until he was completely confused.
But why bother? Setting aside Hu Weichao’s feelings for Zhu Linya, even if their relationship was fragile and could not withstand scrutiny, Hu Weichao could have simply left with his fiancée. Provoking Zhu Linya seemed to offer him no benefit.
Lou Miao noticed Luo Yingbai’s doubts and said briefly: “We were short on money, so Hu Weichao went back to demand money from Zhu Linya. Ever since this incident, they have been blaming each other and were on the verge of a falling out. Hu Weichao told Zhu Linya that if she didn’t give us money to leave, he would tell the whole story to Xia Changwei, causing a complete break.”
Luo Yingbai was speechless.
In fact, this was a trivial matter.
Although Xia Changwei came from a prestigious background and lived a dissolute life, he was not a cruel person and did not care much about money. He would at most fire Hu Weichao and break up with Zhu Linya, and if in a good mood, might even provide some breakup compensation—because for him, the failure of a business deal or minor financial loss was insignificant.
But in Zhu Linya and Hu Weichao’s eyes, they saw Xia Changwei as unreachable and were completely afraid to risk angering him, ultimately escalating to the point of causing a death.
Lou Miao glanced at Luo Yingbai, coldly curling her lip: “Are you thinking Hu Weichao is disgusting and not worth me avenging? Let me tell you, don’t overthink it. I’m not doing this for him, I’m doing it for myself.”
Luo Yingbai thought to himself that he hadn’t been thinking that, and she was imagining things.
He didn’t say this out loud, instead asking: “So how did you die?”
Lou Miao was not directly killed by Zhu Linya, but Zhu Linya was definitely responsible for her death. After killing Hu Weichao, Zhu Linya narrowly escaped police investigation.
However, feeling guilty, she knew Hu Weichao seemed to have a girlfriend and was worried she might have learned something. So she hired some underworld people to search the rental house where Lou Miao and Hu Weichao lived, looking for any evidence Hu Weichao might have left behind.
At that time, with Hu Weichao’s death being a hot topic, Zhu Linya didn’t dare to act personally. She made several detours before finally hiring these people, unaware that several of them were fugitives with outstanding criminal cases. These people were paid by Zhu Linya to search Lou Miao’s home for evidence, but they happened to encounter Lou Miao returning home. Overcome with lust, they raped and then killed her.
Luo Yingbai asked: “Were those people caught?” Lou Miao said: “They were already fugitives with murder cases, impossible to catch from the start. That time was no different. The underworld allowed me to seek revenge, but after dying for over twenty years, I had barely accumulated enough resentment and supernatural power, and most of those men had already died in fights!”
Since the underworld had determined Lou Miao’s grievance and permitted her revenge, if she killed those who violated her, she would not be prevented from reincarnating or thrown into the underworld’s prison. Luo Yingbai said: “You feel unsatisfied for not personally ending those men, and have harmed innocent people?” Lou Miao responded: “Innocent? I don’t care if others are innocent.”
I only know this world has been unfair to me. Since they didn’t die by my hand, I haven’t truly avenged myself. One of them had a son, so I followed the principle of ‘sins of the father,’ and killed his wife and child. After killing those two, I was ready to stop, but then I encountered two meddling Taoist priests, who insisted I was a malevolent ghost indiscriminately killing and needed to be subdued. So I killed that Taoist priest too.
Though her experience was tragic, her character and actions were indeed cruel and extreme. Lou Miao had killed underage children and attacked human practitioners.
Lou Miao was originally imprisoned in a great hell, but the subsequent incident with the rift between the spirit and human worlds gave her a chance to escape.
Lou Miao pointed at Luo Yingbai and said: “What I regret most after being captured by the underworld is not killing Zhu Linya immediately, letting her enjoy a few more years of good life. Don’t think you’re wronged by being trapped here—I’m telling you, wastes like you who can’t distinguish right from wrong, the more that die, the better!”
She grew more self-righteous: “If you hadn’t died, you would definitely have stopped me from killing Zhu Linya. When I was tortured and wronged back then, no one stood up for me or helped me. I want to do something for myself.
You police and Taoist priests who claim to be justice, jumping out to cause me trouble—ha, by what right?”
“Then by what right should I have stood up for you when you were tortured and wronged back then?”
Luo Yingbai stood up, pushing away Lou Miao’s pointing hand, directly facing her face distorted by hatred: “Lou Miao, you say people are only for themselves, so you can only see your own pain. As long as you carry out your revenge, you disregard others’ lives and feelings. Well, I am the same.”
He crossed his arms and said: “I never took anything from you, so I have no obligation to help you. As for helping others who were killed, I do it because I’m happy, because I want to, because I have the ability. You have no right to resent me for this. So put away that shrewish face—I’m not someone you can vent your anger on.”
“You!”
