Chapter 73: As long as I kill myself fast enough, nothing weird can kill me.

At that moment, another scream rang out.

It was the fat man.

His feet were wrapped in hair, and he was dragged to the ground and dragged along. His thick fingers dug into the ground, leaving several half-meter-long bloody marks.

"I don't want to die! Help..."

His words trailed off as the fat man was dragged into the crowd of villagers. The villagers immediately sprouted countless black strands of hair, wrapping them around the fat man's entire body. Some of the finer strands even burrowed into his mouth, nose, ears, and every orifice on his body.

Shen Lingxue was also in trouble; her spiritual energy had completely dried up, and not a single flame remained. She could only rely on her body to fight hand-to-hand.

However, without her spiritual energy, she was like a martial artist who had lost their inner strength, unable to even defeat a minor foe. She managed to hold on for a moment before being dragged into the crowd of villagers, following the same fate as the fat man and Zhao Hao.

Countless black strands of hair wrapped around her, those black hairs like snakes burrowing into her mouth, nose, and every orifice on her body...

At this point, only Fang Xiu remained.

It wasn't necessarily because he was the strongest; in terms of destructive power, Shen Lingxue was clearly superior. However, while her flame abilities were powerful, they consumed too much energy and weren't sustainable. After slaughtering several villagers, her spiritual energy dried up.

On the other hand, although Fang Xiu also relied on single-target attacks, he was more at ease thanks to the sharpness of his scalpel and the twisted nature of his pain-based abilities.

When dealing with these ghost slaves, he only needed to expend a fraction of his pain power to kill one, as his pain power was simply too agonizing.

However, Fang Xiu's defeat was merely a matter of time. Without teammates to support him, even he couldn't handle attacks from all directions simultaneously. Though the Pain Force consumed little energy, he had only activated five percent of his spiritual energy, making him less durable than Shen Lingxue.

Of course, he had a trump card, but it wasn't time to use it yet, as the main antagonist hadn't even appeared yet. Using the trump card now wouldn't resolve this bizarre incident completely.

Facing such a desperate situation, Fang Xiu remained calm. Feeling his spiritual energy nearing depletion, he immediately raised the scalpel in his hand and stabbed it into his forehead.

As long as I kill myself quickly enough, no strange force can kill me—that was Fang Xiu's creed.

The main reason was that the way Shen Lingxue and the others had died was simply too hard to accept. After all, besides the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, there are other orifices on the human body.

As the scalpel pierced his forehead, an excruciating pain surged through him. The next moment, Fang Xiu lost consciousness....

...

"Brother Xiu, what's going on here? Did these villagers all grow up eating black sesame seeds?"

"Where could you find black sesame seeds with such powerful effects? I just saw several elderly people whose hair was also jet-black and lustrous, not a single white hair in sight."

The voices of the brutally murdered Zhao Hao and the fat man sounded again.

Fang Xiu snapped back to reality, his gaze deep and calm, like an bottomless abyss.

He looked around at the villagers who had not yet mutated and already had a hunch.

It seemed that these villagers would live like ordinary people as long as they did not discover their true identities.

This time, he had no intention of taking action against the villagers, as it would be pointless. These villagers were all ghost slaves, and even if they were all killed, it would not resolve this bizarre incident.

To completely resolve it, one must find the true form of the bizarre entity.

Clearly, the bizarre entity at the bottom of the lake was not the true form; it was likely a ghost slave like the villagers, controlled by the hair.

But why, with so many ghost slave at its disposal, did it insist on luring them to the Black Water River and having that ghost slave corpse act instead of simply eliminating them directly?

Could it be...

that the ghost was deliberately diverting their attention, making them believe the corpse was the source, so that after killing it, they would think their mission was complete and could return to report?

But if that were the case, then there was a problem: what about the Special Operations Squad being controlled?

The first time, they had all been killed by the Special Operations Squad's guns.

If the strange entity's goal was to kill them, then with its hundreds of servants, it could have acted freely when they were staying at the village chief's house that night, and there would have been no need for such a roundabout method.

Moreover, the method the entity used to control the villagers and the special operations team was clearly different. It controlled the villagers through their hair, with each person having its hair inside them, but the special operations team did not have it inside them.

The two incidents were beginning to contradict each other, and Fang Xiu sensed that there might be some key hidden within, but there was too little information for him to make a judgment at the moment.

Following normal logic, perhaps he should start with the female corpse.

Who was the female corpse? How did she die? Why was the mysterious entity still controlling her even though she was submerged in water?

Once these questions were clarified, by unraveling the clues, he could find the source of the mystery.

But Fang Xiu didn't plan to follow conventional logic.

Uncovering the truth was the detective's job. When it came to the supernatural, he only cared about killing, not burying.

Fang Xiu took out the encrypted phone from the Investigation Bureau and began dialing a number.

"Su Kexin, tell the Special Operations Team to turn around immediately and go to the nearby gas station. Buy all the gasoline and diesel and bring it here."

After saying that, he hung up the phone.

Shen Lingxue and the others looked at him in surprise.

"Brother Xiu, what do you need gasoline for?" Zhao Hao asked curiously.

"I have my own uses for it," Fang Xiu replied calmly.

After making the arrangements, Fang Xiu went through the same process again, but this time, instead of killing one man and one woman, he drove them away.

As for the Special Operations Team, Fang Xiu had them set up the water pumps and dig the channels before leaving quickly, not giving them a chance to be controlled.

After observing a few times, he had a general understanding of how to drain the Black Water River and could operate it himself.

After working for half a day and draining the river, the Hair Demon reappeared, and Shen Lingxue engaged in a fierce battle with it.

Meanwhile, Fang Xiu began inspecting the gasoline and diesel. The Special Operations Team was highly responsible, executing orders without compromise.

They had brought nearly a hundred barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel.

By then, Shen Lingxue had already resolved the battle, successfully burning the hairy creature to ashes.

"The mission is complete; we can prepare to return."

"It's not over yet," Fang Xiu shook his head. "It was just a bizarre clone; the true bizarre entity is still hiding in Blackwater Village."

Shen Lingxue paused, then asked cautiously, "Did you sense it?"

"Yes, but it's more than that. Every villager in Blackwater Village is a servant of that strange entity. There are no living people left. The only way to resolve this incident completely is to find the source of the entity."

Fang Xiu spoke calmly, his words sending a chill down the spine.