Taoist priest goes to America

Ang Lee didn't give Doyle time to react.

He raised his hands and tore the handcuffs off with his bare hands.

Doyle's right palm, now missing his index finger, was covered in blood. The sticky blood and intense pain made it difficult for him to grip the gun.

Ang Lee pressed his advantage, drawing a semicircle in the air with his left hand and knocking the gun out of Doyle's right hand.

Doyle raised his left hand to draw the pistol from his waist. Ang Lee's right hand lashed out, his five fingers forming a knife-like motion, slicing Doyle's left wrist. The sensation of severed tendons traveled from his fingertips. Doyle's left hand fell limply to his side.

Ang Lee's left hand didn't stop either. He spread his five fingers into a claw shape and pushed forward, grabbing both sides of Doyle's neck. His palm pressed against the trachea, and his right hand slid the knife across Doyle's Adam's apple, making a cut above it.

Doyle opened his mouth to shout, but only vomited a mouthful of blood. Air leaked out from the cut, and no sound came out.

Immediately afterwards, Ang Lee made a horizontal slash across Doyle's abdomen with his right hand, his four fingers joined together as he cut from his left waist to his right waist.

Although the wound wasn't deep, Doyle's abdomen was immediately covered in blood.

The abdominal muscles bulged out of the incision, like two cut rubber bands, shrunken together.

Doyle tried to bend over and struggle, but he couldn't get any strength in his waist, and his knees started to buckle. His body slowly slid down, like a collapsing building.

Ang Lee didn't let him fall; he plunged his right index and middle fingers into Doyle's neck.

The finger pierced his skin and blood vessels, clamping his carotid artery like a chopstick.

Blood flowed from between his fingers, trickling down the back of Li An's hand.

Doyle's face turned from red to purple, then from purple to white. His brain's blood supply had been cut off; his major artery was clamped by fingers, blocking blood flow, and his brain quickly lost its oxygen supply.

His vision began to narrow, and the surrounding light seemed to dim. He tried to struggle, but his left hand was useless, his right hand was still bleeding, he couldn't use his waist, and he couldn't make a sound.

Ang Lee brought his face close to Doyle's, so close that Doyle could see his own blurry reflection in Ang Lee's pupils.

"Shh-"

Ang Lee's voice was very soft, like he was soothing a crying baby to sleep.

The last glimmer of light in Doyle's pupils went out; due to cerebral ischemia, he was no longer able to process any visual information. His eyes were still open, but he couldn't see anything.

Ang Lee pushed Doyle against the wall, supporting Doyle's limp head with his left hand, and placed his right foot on the side of Doyle's right knee, causing him to slowly fall to his right side.

Ang Lee used two fingers simultaneously to clamp down on Doyle's neck, severing the major artery directly. The sound of the blood vessel wall rupturing was very faint, like tearing a wet piece of paper.

The fingers were pulled out of the two holes that had been poked out.

The blood pressure in the carotid artery is very high. If the blood vessel ruptures, blood will spurt out like a high-pressure water gun.

Two dark red streams of blood gushed from Doyle's neck, drawing two straight lines under the streetlights before falling to the ground like champagne bottles uncorked.

Blood splattered on the ground, pooling into a small puddle on the concrete before flowing downhill.

Doyle's face had turned ashen. His lips were purple, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

His right hand weakly patted Ang Lee's arm, the force so weak it was like a baby grabbing a blanket.

There was no blood on Ang Lee's clothes. His face, neck, and Taoist robe were all clean. Only his right hand, where he had pinched someone's artery, was covered in blood.

Li An released his hand.

Doyle's body slid down the wall, slowly sliding down the brickwork, leaving a dark red bloodstain on the white surface.

He lay against the wall, his head tilted to one side, his eyes still open, his pupils dilated.

The two holes in his neck were still bleeding, though the bleeding had slowed down considerably.

Ang Lee stood there, his right hand hanging by his side, blood dripping from his fingertips. The blood dripped onto the ground.

He glanced down at Doyle's face. The smugness and mockery from before were gone; the corners of his mouth still held a mocking curve, but his lips had turned bluish-purple.

Ang Lee crouched down and laid Doyle's body flat. The back of his head was on the ground, his hands were folded over his abdomen, and his legs were straight.

He took out cinnabar and yellow paper from his sleeve pocket. The yellow paper was the best paper he had picked out from Chen Houde, and the cinnabar was also of the highest quality.

Ang Lee took out a lighter from the inner pocket of his Taoist robe and heated the cinnabar. The powder turned from dark red to bright red after being heated, and emitted a faint sulfur smell.

He picked up a pinch of roasted cinnabar with his fingernail, crushed it on the paper, and the red powder seeped into the paper fibers, leaving bright marks as he drew corpse symbols on the paper.

He drew it in one stroke, without hesitation. The three hooks at the top of the talisman were level, and the tail tip tapered inward. The core of the talisman for raising a corpse was an upside-down "敕" (imperial edict) character, and the last stroke ended between the corpse's eyebrows. After finishing the drawing, Li An placed the yellow paper on Doyle's forehead.

Then came the seven traditional methods: applying cinnabar to seven points on the corpse's forehead, chest, back, palms of both hands, and soles of both feet.

"Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling." Li An shook the Soul-Capturing Bell.

Doyle's eyelid twitched, and then his eyes slowly opened. The grayish-white membrane on the surface of his eyeballs did not disappear, but his eyeballs began to move slowly, as if readjusting to the light.

His fingers twitched, then his wrist, and finally his neck. Doyle's head lifted off the ground, his cervical spine cracking.

He sat up from the ground, hands behind him, legs still out. Then he rolled over into a kneeling position, and finally stood up.

The whole process was much smoother than when Old White first stood up. Doyle's body stood still, head bowed, arms hanging at his sides.

His uniform was covered in blood only on the shoulders, and the police badge on his chest was obscured by blood, unable to reflect light. Blood was still seeping from the two holes in his neck, but very slowly; blood beads clung to the holes for a while before dripping down.

The system panel popped up.

[Corpse transport successful. Corpse servant +1. Current number of corpse servants: 2/2.]

[Analyzing the body's data before death... Analysis complete.]

[The deceased servant's previous identity: Patrick Doyle, Superintendent of the New York City Police Department, served for ten years.]

[Characteristics of his behavior before his death included: violent law enforcement (23 complaints were recorded, all of which were suppressed internally)]

[Racial discrimination (using abusive language against a minority group 47 times during duty, with evidence from body camera footage, but which was deleted)]

[Abuse of power for personal gain (collecting protection money from local vendors every month to pay off mortgages), (protecting colleagues, covering up three cases of colleagues shooting and killing, fabricating crime scenes and reports), (being bribed by gangsters, turning a blind eye to their illegal activities)]

[Manslaughter (twice: once shooting a Black teenager in the back during a chase, classified as "reasonable use of force"; the other time beating a suspect to death in an interrogation room, classified as "heart attack").]

[The powerful and influential (Rabbit Face has hired more than 27 people to kidnap so far. Doyle has cleaned up the mess in each case, delayed the progress of the case, provided false information to the victims' families, and even used torture to force innocent people to confess]

"6..." Li An was speechless, never expecting that he had rid the Americans of a scourge. "Never mind that, let's see what skills I can get."