Ryan Clark turned his head to glance at the seemingly dazed Ethan Sullivan and said, “Madam, there’s no evidence for this, perhaps…”

“The evidence is on my son!” Mrs. Moore pointed at the corpse on the ground. “See for yourselves! Eddie’s body has already told me who killed him!”

Before anyone else could move, Ethan Sullivan rushed forward and lifted the white cloth from head to toe. There was something missing from Edward Moore’s corpse.

His left arm, from the shoulder down, had vanished without a trace!

Mrs. Moore said, “Do you see? Right here today, you all heard it, didn’t you? This lunatic, what did he say? He said, if Eddie touched his things again, he’d chop off Eddie’s arm!”

After her outburst, she covered her face and choked with sobs: “…My poor Eddie never even touched anything of that lunatic’s. Not only was he falsely accused, he was driven to his death by that madman…”

Driven to madness!

How many years had it been since he’d heard such a description used for himself? It almost felt nostalgic. Ethan Sullivan pointed at himself, but was left speechless. He couldn’t tell whether he was the crazy one or Mrs. Moore was. Back in his youth, he’d said plenty of ruthless things about exterminating clans and leaving corpses strewn everywhere, but most of the time it was just talk. If he’d really done everything he said, he’d have dominated all the sects by now. Mrs. Moore wasn’t really seeking revenge for her son—she just wanted someone to vent her anger on.

Ethan Sullivan didn’t bother arguing with her. After a brief thought, he reached into Edward Moore’s clothes and searched around, pulling out an object. When he unfolded it, it turned out to be a Summoning Yin Flag.

In an instant, everything became clear to him, and he thought to himself: You reap what you sow!

Ryan Clark and the others, seeing what was taken from Edward Moore’s body, also understood what had happened. Thinking back on today’s farce, the cause and effect weren’t hard to guess: Edward Moore had been humiliated by Henry Moore’s outburst during the day and was furious, wanting to settle the score. But Henry Moore had wandered off and disappeared for half the day, so Edward Moore planned to ambush him when he returned at night.

But that night, as he snuck out and passed by the west wing, he saw a Summoning Yin Flag stuck in the eaves. Although he’d been warned countless times not to go out at midnight, not to approach the west wing, and especially not to touch those black flags, Edward Moore thought it was just a scare tactic to keep people from stealing rare magical items. He had no idea how ominous the Summoning Yin Flag really was—once he put it in his clothes, he became a living target. He’d always had sticky fingers, addicted to stealing his crazy cousin’s talismans and magical tools, and when he saw such a strange item, he couldn’t resist and had to have it. So, while the owners of the flag were inside the west wing subduing walking corpses, he quietly took one.

There were six Summoning Yin Flags in total, five of which were set up in the west wing, using the Lan clan’s young disciples as bait, but they were protected by countless magical tools. Edward Moore, however, only stole one flag and had no protective items on him. Evil spirits always go for the weakest prey, so he naturally attracted them. If it had just been a walking corpse, it wouldn’t have been so bad—he might have survived a few bites and could have been saved. But by terrible misfortune, this Summoning Yin Flag ended up attracting something far more terrifying than a walking corpse. It was this unknown evil spirit that killed Edward Moore and took his arm!

Ethan Sullivan raised his own wrist—sure enough, the wound on his left hand had healed. It seemed the body-offering contract had already credited Edward Moore’s death to him. After all, the Summoning Yin Flag was originally created and passed down by Ethan Sullivan himself, so it was a case of fate’s cruel joke.

Mrs. Moore was well aware of her son’s little faults, but would never admit that Edward Moore’s death was his own doing. Now, flustered and furious, she grabbed a teacup and hurled it at Ethan Sullivan’s face. “If you hadn’t slandered him in front of everyone yesterday, would he have gone out in the middle of the night? It’s all your fault, you bastard!”

Ethan Sullivan was ready for this and dodged aside. Mrs. Moore then shrieked at Ryan Clark, “And you! All of you useless things—what’s the point of cultivating immortality and exorcising evil if you can’t even protect a child! Eddie was only a teenager!”

These young disciples were still inexperienced, having only been out training a few times. They hadn’t detected anything unusual here and never expected such a vicious evil spirit. At first, they felt guilty for their oversight, but after being scolded so harshly by Mrs. Moore, their faces turned pale with anger. After all, they came from prestigious families—no one had ever dared treat them like this. The Lan clan of Gusu was extremely strict, forbidding its disciples from raising a hand against ordinary people who couldn’t fight back, or even being rude to them. So, though they were upset, they forced themselves to hold it in, their faces growing uglier by the second.

Ethan Sullivan, however, couldn’t stand it any longer. He thought, “After all these years, the Lan clan is still the same—what’s the use of all that self-restraint, just suffocating themselves. Watch me!”

He spat heavily and said, “Who do you think you’re yelling at? Do you really take others for your own servants? They came all this way to exorcise demons for you, asking nothing in return, and now they owe you? How old is your son? Seventeen this year, right? Still a ‘child’? What kind of child can’t understand human speech at that age? Didn’t they warn you again and again yesterday not to touch anything in the formation, not to go near the west wing? Your son sneaks out in the middle of the night to steal and cause trouble, and you blame me? Blame him?”