Day of Imprisonment

For this Taoist Mao, Luo Xi's response was very simple and direct. If he was not convinced and kept talking nonsense, then he would stab him with scissors. Anyway, it wasn't him who would feel the pain.

Taoist Mao had seen many ruthless people, but to be honest, it was his first time seeing a lunatic like Luo Xi who didn't change his expression or skip a beat, and stabbed without hesitation.

"This guy is more difficult to deal with than a ghost!" This was what Taoist Mao truly thought.

Even ghosts and monsters were sometimes afraid of his identity as a Taoist, suppressed by his methods, or tricked and deceived by him to become his pawns.

But the person with the scissors in front of him would not.

Moreover, he seemed to have seen these scissors somewhere before.

It seemed to belong to a fierce ghost on the first floor.

Taoist Mao felt that even he would have trouble dealing with that fierce ghost. The fact that this person could take the fierce ghost's weapon meant he was a ruthless character.

So it wasn't strange that he was defeated by this person.

At the same time, Yu Xiaoru was searching the house, while Fatty Qian and Brother Mao were still suppressing Taoist Mao.

Guarding against the other party's counterattack.

"Taoist Master... No, I, I wanted to refine a ghost king. That little ghost Zhang Hao was just a pawn. He drew the trigram seals in specific directions and positions. Once my formation was complete, I could immediately refine the fierce ghost within and turn it into a ghost king to be driven by me."

Taoist Mao said.

"Xiaoru!"

"Coming." Yu Xiaoru obediently came over, and Luo Xi grabbed her hand and placed it on the scissor handle.

"If this guy acts up, stab him directly, don't hesitate."

"Okay!" Yu Xiaoru didn't waste any words either. Although she was a woman, she was definitely not ambiguous when she took action. Otherwise, how could she have become a high-level member of the Awakened Association?

Luo Xi began to personally search the house.

He quickly discovered something.

A "Ghost Collection".

Among them was content with the words 'Ghost King'. As expected, it involved refining methods, just like Taoist Mao said.

But in addition to refining the ghost king, there was other content, which seemed to be modified based on the "Taoist Canon", extracting and optimizing things.

If it were someone else, they would definitely be fooled by Taoist Mao, but meeting Luo Xi, the situation was different.

In Luo Xi's memory, there was content about the "Taoist Canon". Combining what he was currently seeing, he immediately came to a conclusion.

"This rabbit is lying. What he said seems reasonable, but in reality, there are loopholes. His 'Ghost Collection' is for fooling people. The 'Taoist Canon' is the orthodox one. It speaks of the eight directions of righteous ghosts. East, South, West, North, and Center, all have eight ghosts, a total of forty ghosts. Only Taoists who have received the talisman and are familiar with the ghosts' directions and names can use the Taiqing Golden Tower Secret Text to drive the ghosts. Only then will the ghosts obediently listen to commands. But this Taoist Mao is talking about refining a single ghost king."

Luo Xi didn't expose the other party.

Thinking back to the 'Zhen Trigram (☳)' that Zhang Hao left on the desk before, it was originally in the due east position. Zhang Hao recorded this mark, obviously intending to engrave it in other places.

This felt very much like deliberately disrupting a normal jigsaw puzzle.

"This guy is deliberately disrupting the eight directions of ghost positions, and is almost successful. That's why this place is so chaotic, with a night parade of a hundred ghosts and no order..." Luo Xi suddenly understood at this moment.

If he didn't understand the content of the "Taoist Canon", it definitely wouldn't be so easy to see through this matter at once.

So next, Luo Xi thought of another possibility from this.

"What would happen if the already disrupted eight directions of ghost positions were corrected? Could this be another way to clear the level?"

Luo Xi felt that this possibility was very high.

Originally, the clearance requirement for this "Haunted Apartment Building" was survival. As long as you survived here for seven days and seven nights, that is, seven day and night cycles, you could achieve it and get a reward.

But there were too many things buried in this kind of scenario.

There were all kinds of fierce ghosts, as well as the "Taoist Canon" and Taoist Mao.

So it was almost 100% certain that there were other ways to clear the level, because that elementary school student scenario administrator had said that surviving for seven days allowed you to choose whether to leave the scenario. Choosing to leave would grant you a normal clearance reward, or you could continue to challenge for an elite-level clearance reward.

Perhaps, unlocking the hidden secrets of the "Haunted Apartment Building" and correcting the disrupted eight directions of righteous ghost positions was the requirement for elite-level clearance.

Luo Xi felt a sense of excitement at this moment.

After discovering these hidden clues, he naturally wanted to achieve elite-level clearance, but Luo Xi quickly reacted.

"I came here to find the hypnotist, not to achieve elite-level clearance."

He had to distinguish between the primary and secondary tasks.

There wasn't enough time. After 12:00 noon, his [Lie] would become ineffective, and those terrifying taboo memories would immediately attract unknown backlash and attack Brother Mao. So he had to have the hypnotist hypnotize Brother Mao and hide that part of the memory before that time.

However, gaining more understanding of this scenario and insight into its rules would also be helpful for finding people next.

But the premise of all this was that the hypnotist was still alive.

If he was dead, then everything would be in vain.

Luo Xi then took out his phone and opened the chat group he had created before.

Inside, people were still talking, but their words didn't match each other.

This meant that ghosts had already mixed in, and many people had been replaced.

Moreover, some people had noticed this. Under normal circumstances, if they were still Memory Retrievers, if they knew there were ghosts in the chat group, they shouldn't continue to speak, because it would be useless to say anything, and they would instead be confused and interfered with by the mole.

However, Luo Xi had predicted that there might be such a moment when he created the chat group.

So he wasn't surprised by this result.

He had other intentions when he created the chat group.

That was, he could directly communicate with many 'Replacers', that is, ghosts.

But right now, Luo Xi had a better plan.

He took a picture of Mao Daoren, who was pinned to the ground, and sent it to the group chat.

Not a single word was sent.

This picture was like a bomb, instantly silencing the endless chatter in the group.

If they were Recollectors who hadn't been replaced, they wouldn't have been talking anyway. Seeing a random rabbit picture at this time, they wouldn't know what to say. And if they were ghosts, there would be two situations: one where they knew Mao Daoren, and one where they didn't. Luo Xi actually wanted to see what would happen when this picture was thrown into the pond.

Whether he could fish something up.

And the result didn't disappoint Luo Xi.

The next moment, his phone rang.

It was a very familiar number. Luo Xi had a good memory. He already knew the contact numbers of several acquaintances by heart.

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He answered it, while giving Fatty Qian a hand signal.

The latter understood and immediately covered Mao Daoren's mouth with his hand.

Luo Xi turned on the speakerphone.

"Qiqi, why are you calling me now?" Luo Xi asked.

The caller was Lin Qiqi.

This was within expectations, and also beyond expectations.

Luo Xi knew that Lin Qiqi was the first to be replaced in their team, but he didn't expect that this ghost was also related to Mao Daoren.

This was very interesting.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

After a while, a voice came, exactly the same tone as Lin Qiqi, but without a trace of familiarity, only strangeness.

"Stop pretending, you saw it long ago, didn't you? Let's make a deal. You kill that rabbit, and I'll tell you where she is."

Hearing this, Luo Xi smiled.

If the situation didn't forbid it, he might have laughed out loud.

"I'll kill this rabbit, and you bring Kanan to me alive. Remember, I want the real Kanan." Yu Xiaoru had already said the hypnotist's name, so it was clearer to say the name directly.

There was silence on the other end of the phone again for a few seconds.

"This woman is devoted to you, and you don't care about her life or death, but go looking for another woman?" The voice actually had a hint of resentment.

"You also said that she is devoted to me, so what does that have to do with me? Besides, what does that have to do with you?" Luo Xi retorted.

"Hahaha, men, really ruthless and shameless." The female ghost's voice was teasing.

"You have no right to judge me, and I don't have time to chat with you. Bring the person over, and I'll skin the rabbit in front of you." After saying that, Luo Xi hung up the phone directly.

From beginning to end, he never asked about Lin Qiqi's life or death.

Yu Xiaoru on the other side seemed to hear something. She glanced at Fatty Qian and whispered, "This Lin Qiqi, likes Luo Xi?"

"Yeah." Fatty Qian nodded.

"Then Luo Xi is indeed a little heartless. He's a bit too cold this time. I admit that he is indeed impeccable in terms of intelligence and means. In my opinion, he has surpassed Lin Yixuan, although Sister An doesn't agree with my judgment, but I'm very sure that Luo Xi is very strong, one of the most special Recollectors I've ever seen, but he's too boring, too ruthless, a person who uses any means to achieve his goals, like a robot."

Women are emotional, and so is Yu Xiaoru.

Putting herself in Lin Qiqi's shoes, she immediately had a very big opinion of Luo Xi.

Fatty Qian didn't agree with this result at all, and had a look of loving an idiot: "Heh, women, no wonder you're so stupid. What did the ancients say? A woman's virtue is her lack of talent. I really don't know what you're thinking."

Yu Xiaoru's face changed, unconvinced: "What do you mean by that?"

"What do I mean?" Fatty Qian secretly glanced at Luo Xi over there at this time, and lowered his voice: "You're not a man, you don't understand. I'm a man, so I understand Luo Ju. He just cares, so he can't ask, and even has to pretend not to care."

"Why why?" Yu Xiaoru was stunned.

The next moment, she seemed to have thought of something, and her face changed.

"Thought of it, right? I take back what I just said. You're not very stupid either. That's right, what's on the other end of the phone? It's a ghost, and it's a ghost that replaced Lin Qiqi. If Luo Ju shows that he cares about Lin Qiqi, then this ghost will definitely use this to make a fuss, or even threaten Luo Ju. Now you understand, right? Not asking doesn't mean not caring, on the contrary, this is the highest level of care. Luo Ju, as expected of my idol, his level of picking up girls is also beyond my reach."

"So that's how it is!" Yu Xiaoru reacted, feeling all sorts of emotions in her heart. As a result, she put herself in Luo Xi's position from Fatty's perspective, and was immediately moved to tears.

"Clearly caring a lot, but having to pretend not to care at all, bearing all the pain, suffering, and scolding alone."

All of a sudden, Yu Xiaoru's eyes softened a lot.

Luo Xi was completely unaware of the conversation between the two of them. If he knew, he might have said, 'Are you two sick from being idle?'

Because that's not what he thought at all.

First of all, Lin Qiqi is a Recollector. Even if she dies, she can still come back to life on the next cycle day; secondly, Lin Qiqi is not weak. Her ability is definitely the strongest among the Recollectors around Luo Xi, far surpassing the others.

You should know that in the Recollector circle, Lin Qiqi's nickname is 'Brother Qi'.

So in this kind of situation, Lin Qiqi has a great chance of protecting herself.

So what's there to worry about?