Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 207 - 127: Mysterious Merchant

Chapter 207: Chapter 127: Mysterious Merchant

Duan Mingyuan didn’t endorse coercion in transactions.

The benefit of traveling with Zheng Liu was having a police officer able to attest to his innocence. They came for investigation but encountered a crooked merchant at the company, who tried to force them into selling 150 years of their lifespan for the truth—an outrage overriding even the rigged melons in the greenhouse. To prevent them from falling victim to the unprincipled merchant, he had no choice but to resist reluctantly.

That was what had just happened.

As for the leads related to the 13 missing people and the long-sealed truth spoken by the merchant, those were unexpectedly discovered while they fought to protect their lawful rights.

Mingyuan found this easy to understand.

In gaming terms, it was as if the merchant dropped quest items upon death.

This critical "quest item" uncovered why these 13 individuals had turned their luck around as the company neared bankruptcy and swiftly rose to prominence, becoming Siyang City’s and even the entire Blue Star’s most successful investment firm.

"There were originally 15 founders of the company, not 13. The other two were the bodies we found under the company building. They encountered a merchant when the company was about to go under and made a deal."

"A merchant?"

Seated in the police car, Zheng Liu rest his hands on the steering wheel, his emotions unsettled for a long time.

For a moment in the company’s basement, he thought he saw something extraordinary—the entire space was constructed of human facial features and organs, and those disgusting black tentacles attacked them simultaneously.

By the time he came to his senses, he had unwittingly followed Mingyuan back to the surface.

Everything he had seen appeared to be an illusion, and even the underground passage they’d taken had vanished; the walls of the parking lot had closed up. This left Zheng Liu unable to discern whether the events underground were real dangers or merely his imagination.

But if it was all real...

How had they survived the crisis?

After returning to the police car, Zheng Liu felt extremely unnerved, his limbs cold. Had Mingyuan not been with him on this visit to the company, and he had come alone to investigate the case, he might very well have been the next person to disappear.

Zheng Liu had indeed considered revisiting the company. If it wasn’t for this expert called in by the station arriving in time, he might have gone back to the company to investigate the case on his own that very night.

"They traded each person’s ten years of lifespan for the company’s revival and a bright future."

Mingyuan said.

With 15 founders, that was a total of 150 years of lifespan. He speculated that the company’s malevolent spirit practiced coercion to "redeem" itself, so if it came across two other unfortunate souls to take on that redemption, it would be able to leave the building and venture to places beyond the company.

The 150 years seemed to be at a shocking group discount rate at the time—a grand opening gift package prepared by the mysterious merchant who had just started business.

Averaged among everyone involved, it meant trading ten years of lifespan for a bright future.

The future was intangible, but Mingyuan thought that many people would be willing to trade their 10 years of lifespan for wealth and honors if given a clear promise.

It seemed like a deal with which both parties were initially very satisfied, but during the payment process, the remaining 13 people came up with a shocking idea.

They could each pay with 10 years of their lifespan, or let two of them pay 75 years each.

With the company on the brink of bankruptcy, the core team’s internal relations became highly strained. They took this opportunity to select the "least popular" among them on the day of the transaction.

A young couple, also former classmates.

They had been trying to extricate themselves from the impending collapse of the company.

"Thus, the core team shrank from 15 to 13 members, securing a promising future without paying any price; as for the mysterious merchant, he only cared about obtaining the 150 years, regardless of whether the deal was shared by 15 people or paid by just two."

"I’ll have colleagues at the station help check it out immediately. If it’s an unsolved disappearance case, there should be a record."

Zheng Liu said.

The thought that those attacking them in the underground space might be the victims of another case or that it was due to Siyang City Police’s limited capabilities that left them buried under the company building for decades was something he couldn’t reconcile with.

He compiled key information such as time and place into a text message and sent it to a colleague in records. Then he asked, "Is this case about the two missing people who held a grudge and transformed into malevolent spirits seeking revenge on the others?"

"I’ve read in books that the obsessions of those who die with hatred may linger and become malevolent spirits, but this case is somewhat strange."

"What’s strange about it?"

"Normally, with the bodies right underneath the company building, if the two harbored immense resentment, they should have killed off those 13 people one by one a long time ago. They wouldn’t wait so many years to act. The merchant who dealt with them may have suppressed their resentments through some means, or perhaps something recently happened at the company that reactivated their resentment."

The truth behind this case seemed clear: the 13 missing paid the price for their past deeds, but in reality, it implicated a deeper conspiracy.

Their leftover memories were jumbled; it was unclear if it was because they had been dead too long, or if the merchant had tampered with their memories. There was no clear image of the merchant in their memories.

But it was foreseeable that the merchant still existed and had conducted business with many more people over the years.

Lifespan was universal currency, and it seemed that with the merchant, you could buy anything with it.

Moreover, the one who turned their resentment into malevolent spirits, propelling them into transformation, was very likely the Wangxu member mentioned by the Siyang City liaison.

The malevolent spirits formed by the two grew rapidly in strength. Based on their barrier’s development, Mingyuan could rank them an A, earning a mid-level title in just a few days after the case opened, completing the Nesting process inside the company building.

However, considering that Zheng Liu, an ordinary person, was with him, Mingyuan didn’t give the spirits the chance to display their talent.

"If we don’t find the merchant and the person who turned their resentment into malevolent spirits, more cases like this will happen."

"I understand."

Zheng Liu nodded solemnly. "I’ll head back to the station now to report the severity of the situation, hoping we can get ahead of the next case..."

His cellphone’s vibrations interrupted him.

He quickly unlocked the screen, but the message wasn’t from his colleague in records; it was from his master.

Seeing the content, his frustration led him to slam the steering wheel, swallowing back the words that had just reached his lips.

"There’s been another victim."

Zheng Liu said in a subdued tone, "It’s close to us. Master wants me to go there now and told me to bring you along... It seems the latest victim is one of your own."