This was a bad sign. This meant that an intimidating spirit was down there, and it was probably a fiend!

If a fiend was involved, I would have to give up this case. My grandpa used to tell me it was better to provoke a hundred ghosts than meddle with a fiend.

However, the compass needle suddenly stopped spinning. Moreover, the needle sank as if it was really heavy.

My spirit was lifted. I moved the compass over the hole where the henchmen had dug and shifted to a few locations. The needle sank in every location.

“Phew…” I sighed then put the compass back in my bag.

“What did you find?” Baldy sounded worried.

“The compass needle sank. This means that your hotel is haunted. However, it’s not the doing of a malicious ghost. The deceased is calling for attention to seek justice.”

I was puzzled though. If it wasn’t an evil ghost, why did it murder so many innocent people? Did something happen when Baldy decorated the hotel? I asked him.

Baldy shook his head repeatedly. “No, no, I just decorated the hotel and made it more lavish and luxurious. I didn’t dig anything from the ground!”

“That’s strange then…” My head was filled with questions.

Li Mazi chimed, “Why are you hesitating so much? Just dig it up, and we’ll know what it is.”

Then, he picked up a shovel that was positioned against the wall and started to dig.

If the spirit was underground, it would have to attach to something. Such being the case, it was an otherworldly item, and not a fiend. That was why I didn’t stop Li Mazi.

However, not even a whole minute had passed when the enthusiastic Li Mazi started to sweat hard. His face paled, which made him look like a patient that had just recovered from a serious sickness.

“Stop!” I shouted.

I didn’t expect this otherworldly item to be this formidable. It seemed Li Mazi couldn’t hear me; he started to dig even harder.

I was scared and guessed the spirit had possessed him. I rushed to the hole to pull him up.

“Little Brother Zhang, don’t pull me up. I’m not convinced yet!”

It turned out he just wasn't ready to give up yet.

I pulled him up and shouted, “You should stop now! If something happens, I can’t save you!”

“Shoot! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Li Mazi threw the shovel aside. Then, he sat on the ground in low spirits. “This is the only clue we have. If you don’t let me dig it up, what should we do?”

I rubbed my head then asked Baldy to go to the food markets to find some butchers. Although he didn’t know the reason, he didn’t ask much and left immediately.

“This man isn’t vigilant at all. There’s no one else in this big hotel. Isn’t he worried that we will clean up the whole place?” As we talked, Li Mazi scanned the place. He was looking for some valuable items.

I patted his head and scolded him. “Don’t stay idle. You should also go and prepare some things for me!”

“What do you need?”

I thought of the items and said, “A massive mirror that can cover an entire wall, the ashes of fresh grass, and blood from a male bat.”

Li Mazi made a face and pouted. “The two first items are okay, but where can I get bat blood? Also, male bat blood?”

“I can feel this otherworldly item’s energy. It’s so tremendous that eel blood is not enough. We have to use male bat blood. It’s the top tool to summon spirits,” I told him in a serious tone.

Li Mazi stopped smiling. “Don’t worry. Leave it to me.”

Then, he left. I was now alone in this hotel. Since I had nothing to do, I decided to pick up the shovel and dig. However, after a few minutes, my chest felt heavy, and my heart started to race. I had to put the shovel away and decided to wander around the silent hotel.

I had to admit, Baldy’s hotel was ultra-lavish. From the second floor upward, the floors were made of mahogany wood. The teahouse on the third floor had green bamboo partitions, which gave the room an elegant touch. Unfortunately, the room was now half burned.

The fourth and fifth floors were guest rooms. I skipped them and headed to the sixth floor. Baldy said that the sixth floor was meant to be a casino. I had never been to a casino, so I wanted to take a look.

Before I could get there, I felt thick Yin energy surround me. After a few seconds, my body was chilled from the toes upward.

My heart sank. I didn’t expect that it would dare to show up here. I didn’t carry any defensive tools with me, so I quickly made up my mind and rushed downstairs.

Luckily for me, it didn’t follow me. I exhaled in relief. I wanted to learn what that thing was tonight!

At around noon, Baldy returned with five or six burly men. I checked each of them. They all had a strange murderous aura. I gave Baldy a satisfied nod.

Since butchers had slaughtered pigs daily, they had accumulated murderous energy in their bodies. They could help subdue the spirit. That was why I had asked Baldy to invite them here.

The men’s shirts had dabs of dirt. It seemed Baldy had invited them from the countryside. I guessed they were also superstitious. When they saw the burned, dark lobby and the hole by my feet, they began to talk amongst themselves. Perhaps they were considering whether to take this job or not.

“Talk to those people. Don’t let them run away tonight,” I reminded Baldy. Then, I found a sofa and took a nap.

If Baldy wasn’t even able to handle those butchers, he shouldn’t be in the mafia anymore! After I had slept for around an hour, Li Mazi returned with a bag.

“Did you prepare all the stuff?”

“Oh, I got two of the items, but I couldn’t find bat blood.” Li Mazi sounded a little embarrassed.

“All right,” I sighed and knew that he had tried his best. We had to use eel blood then.

Unexpectedly, when Baldy heard that, he told me he knew where we could get some male bats. He had a friend who liked to keep small, exotic pets like bats, hedgehogs, and even chinchillas.

I was excited and asked him to get me several male bats. Baldy was also hurried. He drove away and returned shortly with a cage that contained seven or eight bats.

When the bats flew around, they looked okay. But when they folded their wings into a ball, they looked even uglier than a bunch of rats. I felt a little scared, so I didn’t want to take their blood. I gave this task to Li Mazi.

At twilight, the mirror that Li Mazi ordered arrived. I asked them to install the mirror on the kitchen wall. Afterward, I sprinkled a thin layer of ashes on it. Since there wasn’t much bat blood, I decided to save it for later.

I didn’t know what tactic Baldy had used, but all the butchers decided to stay and help us. He then invited us to dinner.

The way he treated us and the butchers was respectful. He offered us liquor with equal treatment and manners. What a generous and frank man he was!

When we returned to the hotel, it was 11:00 PM. After drinking, the butchers looked fearless. On my command, they picked up the shovels and started to dig.

Baldy was surprised. “You invited them here just to dig this hole?”

I smiled. “That’s right. Everything in this world has a nemesis. Although the spirit is fierce, it will be afraid of these butchers.”

“If I had known this earlier, I would have chosen to become a butcher!” Baldy smacked his tongue.

While we were talking, the butchers were digging hard. They looked much more at ease than when we dug the hole earlier. After a long time, nothing strange had happened.

I thought they would be able to dig this hole to the end. Unfortunately, around fifteen minutes later, they stopped. One of them crawled out of the hole and said, “Brother, something’s wrong down there. We don’t want your money. Can we stop?”

“What?” I frowned and took a look at the hole. A blood-like substance was gushing out from the ground.

There wasn’t much of it. It was just a thin layer of a liquid substance, but it bubbled like boiling water. It rose higher than the butchers’ soles. The liquid continued to gurgle and rise over the butchers’ ankles that were still standing in the hole.

“Stop digging. Climb up!”

I didn’t know what kind of blood it was, so I asked them to leave the hole first. With a stern face, I jumped into the pit and bent to dip a finger into the blood. I brought my finger to my nose to sniff it, but there was no smell of blood.

Feeling suspicious, I rubbed my nose and took another sniff. It wasn’t blood but rather a strange red liquid.

I put my entire hand into the red water to dig some soil. However, as soon as my hand reached the blood, I felt a massive suction force!

It felt like a vortex was spinning underneath the blood surface. I didn’t have time to react, and my entire hand was sucked in. The mud and soil under the red liquid were so cold. I felt a chill deep to the bone.

I paled and quickly retrieved my hand. I also took a handful of mud. I studied the red-blood mud in my hand and soon noticed a detail. People who lived in the Northeast knew that the soil would freeze in winter. It created a sort of cold mud, which was similar to the mud in my hand.

However, it was just the beginning of autumn. How could it be frozen already?

I scratched my head and suddenly had a terrifying thought. The mud and soil here were frozen by the thick Yin energy!

To verify this guess, I asked the butchers to go down there again and dig one meter deeper. When the small hole was deep enough to bury a person standing upright, I asked them to stop and get up.

Then, I poured the bat’s blood around the hole and waited!