False evidence

Chapter 451 Painted Skin (1)

The fisherman was filled with doubt after hearing the monk's words.

As the saying goes, money makes the world go round.

There is another saying: "Sake makes people's faces red and wealth moves people's hearts!"

The ascetic's words were strange, but the fisherman had other thoughts in mind:

This long-haired monk is quite extravagant; judging from the sound of him taking out money, who knows how much money is in that tattered bundle.

Within a radius of thirty miles, there are no temples or monasteries; you are merely a wandering ascetic.

A monk living such a lavish lifestyle must not be from a respectable background.

It's late now, and there's no one around. Why don't you do as Buddha did and feed your flesh to the eagle?
Driven by impulse, taking advantage of the moment when the ascetic turned his head, he grabbed a harpoon and plunged it into the ascetic's back!

The monk was quite large and fat. The fisherman was afraid that if he missed his target, the monk would retaliate, so he used all his strength in this strike.

But when the harpoon pierced the monk's back, the monk was as light as a piece of paper, completely weightless, and was directly pushed into the sea by the harpoon!

Fortunately, the fisherman was used to living on a boat and was quite agile, so he wasn't thrown into the sea by the feint. He managed to stand up on the bow of the boat by using the harpoon stuck in the shallows.

When they came to their senses, they discovered that the bundle the ascetic was carrying had also fallen into the sea.

Money is a good thing.

But the fisherman wasn't a fool.

With just that one strike of the fork, I could tell that something was wrong with this ascetic.

When you first insert the fork, it feels like you've pierced a hard shell!
It's really late at night.

With no one around, the fisherman grew increasingly terrified as he thought about it, and dared not stay any longer.

He abandoned the harpoon stuck in the water, took down the fishing lamp from the bow of the boat, jumped off the boat, and ran home.

When he arrived at his doorstep, he suddenly remembered the monk's words.

Looking through the gate into the house, the door was closed, but the lights were still on.

He sensed something was wrong, so he became more cautious and instead of unlatching the door, he took his fishing lantern and went around to the back of the house.

The fishing lamp was placed on the ground, with two stones placed on top. Stepping on it, I wet my fingers and poked a hole in the window paper to look inside!
There was a bloody corpse lying flat on his own bed.

A humanoid monster, its body purplish-black as if its flesh had been dried out, was lying on the bed, tearing out the heart and liver from the corpse's cavity and gnawing on them!
"Holy crap!"

Erpang slammed on the brakes, and Liang Yuan, Zhao Qi, and I in the back seat were almost thrown out by the sudden stop.

"Isn't it?"

I braced myself on the dashboard with one hand and held my forehead with the other, glancing sideways at Erpang.

Seeing Erpang gripping the steering wheel, trembling all over, I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Liang Yuan, saying:
“He can’t drive, and I’ve been drinking, so you can drive.”

I didn't find Zhao Qi's story particularly scary; rather, it felt like I'd heard it before.

But he shouldn't have mentioned the corpse, and he definitely shouldn't have described the scene in such detail.

After experiencing all sorts of strange things, my hemophobia has finally been cured.

But Erpang's 'necrophobia' is definitely not something my uncle Tong Xiangnan can cure with a few words. Liang Yuan switched to the driver's seat, restarted the engine, and glanced at Zhao Qi in the rearview mirror:
"and then?"

Zhao Qi gestured as he explained, "Then the fisherman watched as the monster, after devouring the man's heart and liver, peeled off the entire skin of the corpse! Then it wiped its mouth clean, laid the skin on the table, picked up a pen, and began to draw eyebrows, eyes, nose, and mouth on the skin!"

Liang Yuan and I exchanged a glance, then I shifted gears and stepped on the gas.

I glanced back at Erpang and said sullenly:

"Stop trembling. Just put together the stories of The Snail Girl, Water Margin, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, Painted Skin, and the earliest erotic martial arts novels we ever read, and that's the story he's telling!"

"Wait!" Zhao Qi patted my arm. "Don't try to be clever, let me finish."

He continued, still savoring the story, "The fisherman was truly terrified, but not paralyzed. Remembering the monk's words, he immediately used his fishing lamp to light the string of coins the monk had given him. And guess what happened?"

As Liang Yuan drove, he sneered, "The rope's caught fire, and so is the money. Only now does the fisherman realize that what the monk gave him was all money for the dead."

"Oh my god..." Erpang clutched his chest, slumped in his chair, and rolled his eyes.

“That’s right!” Zhao Qi said excitedly, “Let’s not talk about the monster with the painted skin yet. Let’s just say that when the fisherman saw the copper coins turn into ghost money, he was even more frightened. He immediately threw the burning ghost money into the house through the window and then ran away as fast as he could.”

"No one knows how the fisherman survived the rest of the night. By daybreak, his house was burned down. Whether the monster was burned to death is unclear, but the fisherman's entire fortune was truly gone."

Zhao Qi leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and began to speak in the tone of a storyteller:

"The fisherman, though he lost his livelihood, was thankful that he had at least saved his life. Remembering that he still had a boat, he hurried to the sea. Seeing the harpoon still stuck in the bow, he was blinded by greed and suddenly remembered the bundle he had fallen into the sea with the monk!"
He didn't dare pull out the harpoon. Why? Because he remembered that the bundle was tied to the monk. Regardless of whether the monk was human or monster, if the harpoon was pulled out and the monk escaped, wouldn't the bundle be gone?
His house burned down, his wife gone, the fisherman was desperate. He found half a jar of liquor in the hold, gulped it down, and then, fueled by the alcohol, swooped down to the seabed using a harpoon. Guess what happened?

The harpoon was embedded in the seabed, but the ascetic was nowhere to be seen. The bundle was found, but instead of coins, there was a crab shell the size of a washbasin!

"And then?" Erpang asked, wiping his sweat.

Zhao Qi smiled but didn't respond. Instead, he asked, "Do you know why I'm telling this story?"

Liang Yuan and I both shook our heads.

Zhao Qi slapped my arm hard: "Because my wife is ugly. When you see her later, if she's wearing makeup, it's fine. But if she's not wearing makeup, having this story as a reminder will prevent you from being scared out of your wits!"

Liang Yuan stopped the car, picked up her phone which was plugged into a car charger, and while pressing the power button, turned her head and said:
"Should I record what you just said and play it for your wife? Do you think it's appropriate for you to 'praise' your wife like that behind her back?"

Zhao Qi raised one eyebrow: "I'm telling the truth, my wife is really ugly!"

Before he could finish speaking, Liang Yuan's cell phone, which had just been turned on, rang repeatedly.

Liang Yuan had already turned off the engine. He frowned and looked at his phone. His expression suddenly changed, and he reached out to turn the key.

Zhao Qi suddenly leaned forward and pulled out the car keys.

"give me back!"

Liang Yuan rushed forward to fight for it.

But his physique was nowhere near that of the robust Zhao Qi.

As soon as he reached out, Zhao Qi grabbed his arm and pressed his face against the steering wheel.

I caught the phone that Liang Yuan had dropped and looked at it.

It was a message with only two words: "Help me!"
The sender's signature is—Boss Lady!
(End of this chapter)