“Not good!” Suddenly hearing Pan Chi cry out, Shen Du, who had been keeping an eye on the situation, abruptly looked up.
The gaze had changed; it was Lai Luofu again.
After regaining consciousness, Lai Luofu’s first action was to seek out Shen Du. Unbearable pain threatened to engulf her entire being.
“The antidote! Give me the antidote!” Even in such dire straits, her words remained arrogant.
Shen Du remained unmoved, raising his hand to shake the porcelain bottle, simply letting her suffer.
Lai Luofu’s nails dug into the floor tiles, breaking one after another. Extreme agony forced her to emit strange howls of rage: “Shen Du, you’d better obediently give me the antidote, or Lai Luozhi won’t let you off!”
“Should I fear him?” Shen Du raised an eyebrow, his gaze challenging. Knowing Lai Luofu was at her last gasp, he watched her with increasing interest.
Lai Luofu was indeed on the verge of emotional collapse. Killing the body to destroy the spirit – the man before her surely knew this method best.
As the fear of death crept over her, Lai Luofu shook uncontrollably like a sieve. Her eyes darted about, still unwilling to give up:
“Once I revive, you’ll certainly die.”
Death and rebirth – how laughable!
“Overestimating yourself even at death’s door.” Shen Du gave a cold laugh, looking at Lai Luofu as if she were already dead.
Her current appearance was utterly ridiculous, but she remained oblivious. Enduring the pain, she gritted her teeth, feeling the poison’s effects coursing through her body.
The thought of dying here in Yingzhou, beyond Lai Luozhi’s reach, with her soul having no place to return and thus unable to revive, ultimately becoming nothing but dust, made her shudder.
She looked towards Shen Du and the others, biting her lower lip hard.
“I don’t want to die.” These four words seemed to drain all her energy, her former pride completely vanished.
Her eyes were full of pleading, her entire face etched with fear. She dreaded death, even though she often used the threat of resurrection to terrify others.
Seeing Shen Du’s complete lack of reaction, not even sparing her a glance, Lai Luofu crawled a few steps on her knees, enduring the excruciating pain to beg once more, repeating many times that she didn’t want to die.
The pain made her body tremble: “Give me the antidote, I beg you.”
The first half of the sentence was somewhat harsh, so she added the latter half, her face full of sorrow, staring at Shen Du.
Shen Du kicked away her touch, disgustedly brushing off the creases in his clothes: “As long as you explain everything clearly, I’ll give you the antidote.”
“Of course, whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you everything.”
Hah, seeing this scene, the others looked at Lai Luofu with disdain. She was always going on about death and rebirth, telling her subordinates to face death bravely, but when it came to herself, where was that proud bone of martyrdom?
Zhu Yan remained silent, countless questions surging in her heart. She wanted to ask what Lai Luozhi’s ultimate goal was, to understand how far the Fire Moth Party had expanded, and to clarify how she switched between Tang Madam, Chen Huoe, and Lai Luofu.
But in the end, a heavy stone weighed on her heart, and she only managed to utter one question: “Who exactly are you?”
Lai Luofu found it laughable. Who was she? Hadn’t these people been investigated thoroughly enough?
“Of course, I’m Lai Luozhi’s elder sister,” Lai Luofu stated firmly, but seeing the doubtful looks from everyone, she added, “The genuine article.”
Zhu Yan responded bluntly: “I don’t believe you.”
Faced with such doubt, Lai Luofu was at a loss. This was an irrefutable fact, yet they still didn’t believe her.
She wanted to argue but didn’t know where to begin. A piercing pain struck, causing Lai Luofu to cry out loudly, her body trembling so much she couldn’t utter a word.
Shen Du’s eyes showed impatience: “Feed her some pain-relieving decoction to keep her alive.”
They couldn’t let her die before uncovering the truth.
Soon, a decoction mixed with datura was administered, which could numb the pain. Moreover, the poisonous datura could temporarily counteract the effects of the “Butterfly Metamorphosis” poison.
Seeing that she was no longer shaking and had regained some consciousness, Shen Du continued questioning: “How can you prove it?”
Prove it? She raised her head to look at Shen Du, testing her strength and realizing she could fully stand up, but she didn’t show it.
“I, I,” her speech was somewhat disjointed as she pondered what to say, “Can I prove it by telling you about Lai Luozhi’s childhood?”
No one objected, so she began to recall the past.
“When we were young, our family was poor. Winters were especially hard to endure. He was young and very sensitive to cold, often falling ill. I would hold him while we slept at night. Back then, lack of food and drink was common.”
She paused for a moment, “He would often cry from hunger. Sometimes when we really couldn’t make ends meet, I would go begging on the streets. I was beaten by people and chased by dogs, all to beg for food for him.”
She didn’t realize that a few tears had escaped her eyes, but she quickly controlled herself, her gaze returning to its calm state.
After a long while, she finally found her voice again and continued: “Later, I died from illness.”
Shen Du’s face remained as calm as still water.
Lai Luofu felt somewhat dissatisfied and continued: “He used a secret method to preserve my corpse until later when he obtained the divine power of the Fire Moth God and revived me.”
Although this all sounded quite far-fetched, it matched perfectly with the records in the Inner Cabinet’s secret chamber, except for the part about the revival method.
The records only vaguely mentioned a bit about it, and whether it was true remained to be verified.
Zhu Yan asked about a few more suspicious cases, and Lai Luofu answered them all fluently, constantly proclaiming devoutly: “It was the Fire Moth God who gave me divine power. Time and place cannot hinder my pursuit of the true deity.”
This seemed to suggest that there was an ability to create multiple bodies, causing the same person to appear in different places at the same time under different identities.
The doubts were growing, and they couldn’t rule out the possibility that Lai Luofu was lying, deliberately providing false information to lead them in the wrong direction.
At this moment, Su Guang abruptly said something.
Shen Du understood some of it – totem, fire, these words strung together.
Pan Chi relayed Su Guang’s message to them: “Su Guang says we can check the totem on Lai Luofu’s body. There should be some discoveries.”
Zhu Yan stepped forward without hesitation, but this frightened Lai Luofu, who used her broken hand to support herself as she continuously backed away.
“Are you going to give me the antidote or not?”
She shouted,
“You clearly said you’d give me the antidote if I explained everything. You’re going back on your word.”
Zhu Yan took out her autopsy knife, preparing to forcibly cut open Lai Luofu’s remaining outer garments, but her wrist was caught by Shen Du. He stood between the two women, saying softly:
“Don’t get close to her.”
Remembering how Zhu Yan had been poisoned earlier when approaching the phantom, he was truly worried.
Zhu Yan understood, but now they were just one step away from the truth. She couldn’t give up.
The antidote in Shen Du’s hand was extremely tempting to Lai Luofu. She stared at the bottle of antidote like a crouching beast.
Zhu Yan shook her head, withdrawing her hand, indicating she would be fine. She turned to step forward again but was pulled back by Shen Du and held tightly in his arms.
Pan Chi stood clenching his fists, not knowing what to do, and could only turn his head away, unable to watch them.
Sensing Shen Du’s unease, Zhu Yan hugged him back briefly: “It’s alright, look, she doesn’t have the strength to harm me now. Don’t worry.”
Shen Du refused to let go.
Meanwhile, Su Guang had already crouched down, pulling Lai Luofu’s collar down slightly and slowly undoing the buttons, exposing her shoulder.
Treated in this manner, Lai Luofu began to struggle, but she was now completely powerless and no match for the physically strong Su Guang. She was firmly pinned down by the shoulder and had a kind of medicinal water applied, causing her to shudder again in pain.
The tattoo on her shoulder was once again revealed to everyone.