Wang Liang hung up the phone.
“Uh.”
In the communications room at headquarters, Su Xinxi looked up awkwardly at Zhao Jianguo beside her.
Zhao Jianguo shook his head and said,
“Then contact him again after daybreak. We should always be a bit more tolerant toward capable people—assuming Wang Liang didn’t falsely report the intelligence.
If he can independently deal with a ghost whose terror level has reached A-rank, then his value to headquarters will have to be assessed even higher. He might even be qualified to enter that plan. With a few more merits accumulated, I imagine there won’t be much of a problem.”
At this point, Zhao Jianguo’s thoughts drifted elsewhere, and a trace of incomprehensible admiration appeared on his face.
“Moreover, compared with the other persons in charge, his condition is frankly far too good. He had only just arrived in Da’an City, yet he repeatedly used supernatural powers and quickly resolved two supernatural incidents, one of which involved a ghost with an A-rank terror level.
With strength like that, even in headquarters, I only know a handful of people capable of doing the same. They can be counted on one hand. And yet someone with such ability was honestly teaching at a school before this, only revealing his identity as a ghost controller after an incident occurred.
No—perhaps it is precisely because he has such ability that he was able to remain at school and teach in peace, without needing to worry too much about the problem of ghost revival.
Judging by the current situation, the decision to hand Da’an City over to him and grant him the greatest degree of autonomy was not wrong.”
“Could he have become a ghost controller only during the Knocking Ghost incident?” Su Xinxi asked curiously.
Zhao Jianguo hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
“It’s possible, but not very likely. The supernatural power on Wang Liang is clearly very strong, and he seems extremely practiced in using it. Even after using it multiple times, he hasn’t shown any obvious symptoms of ghost revival.
At present, we don’t know how many ghosts he controls, nor what their abilities are. We can only infer that he seems to possess the ability to invade and track ghost domains, and that merely watching surveillance footage of him is enough to be affected by his supernatural power.
The possibility that someone this mysterious only recently became a ghost controller is really not high. He has secrets. All right, contact him again in the morning. When the time comes, I’ll speak with him personally.”
“Mm, understood.”
On Changxing Road, after Wang Liang hung up the phone, he placed the old woman ghost, together with the coffin nail, into a gold body bag.
Then he carried the ghost fire brazier, picked up the bag, returned to the car, and drove back to Shuangqi Gardens.
By the time he returned to the villa, the person Su Xinxi had arranged to deliver the gold box had already been waiting there for some time.
Wang Liang got out of the car and received the gold box. Only after sending the delivery person away did he open the car door again, take down the body bag and the ghost fire brazier, and carry them together into the safe room beneath the villa.
The fewer people who knew about the existence of the ghost fire brazier, the better.
Wang Liang opened the gold body bag and transferred the nailed-down old woman ghost inside into the sturdy gold box.
He gripped the coffin nail embedded in the old woman ghost’s forehead. From his other hand, strands of black blood flowed down along his palm, filling the gold box.
After the ghost blood had submerged most of the old woman ghost’s body inside the gold box, leaving only her head exposed, he yanked out the coffin nail.
Without the coffin nail’s suppression, the old woman ghost’s body trembled. A cold, sinister aura rose from her, and her aged face, covered in corpse spots, twitched. Her eyelids quivered; she was about to revive.
But the ghost blood Wang Liang had just filled the box with delayed the old woman ghost’s revival by a little.
Wang Liang seized the opportunity to shut the lid of the gold box, fasten the clasps, and immediately use welding tools to thoroughly weld the edges of the box shut.
Simple welding was not difficult to operate. When he had been outside Lan Village, Wang Liang had already found someone to learn the relevant procedures. Now, he personally sealed the gold box shut.
Only at this moment could it be considered that he had completely imprisoned this A-rank terror-level old woman ghost.
Wang Liang tossed aside the tools, let out a breath of relief, and after putting the box away, shifted his attention to the ghost fire brazier placed on the table.
Arriving before the ghost fire brazier, Wang Liang looked at the dark orange ghost fire that seemed as though it would never go out and rubbed his chin.
“How exactly are these supernatural ashes produced? Do I just throw things in and burn them? Or do I have to throw ghosts in?”
After thinking for a moment, Wang Liang set aside the matter of how to continue producing new ashes for now and instead took out some unprocessed gold stored in the safe room.
He spent some time using the existing processing tools in the safe room to work on it. In the end, he made an extremely crude container that could barely be considered a small bottle—or rather, a small hollow rectangular block.
“It’ll do.”
Wang Liang tried using a shovel to reach into the brazier and scoop out some ashes.
The ghost fire did not emit any especially intense heat, but the moment the shovel came into contact with it, it began to melt. It fell into the brazier as liquid, then evaporated and disappeared. It was impossible to tell whether it had been completely burned away or transformed into the supernatural ashes at the bottom.
But Wang Liang leaned toward the former. Supernatural ashes probably were not that easy to produce.
Wang Liang took out more unprocessed gold and began working again. In the end, he made a crooked gold tool resembling a small scoop.
Using the gold scoop, which was unaffected by the supernatural, he reached into the ghost fire brazier again. This time, everything went smoothly, and he successfully took out some ashes. Wang Liang carefully poured them into the gold bottle.
He did not pour in too much, only a small handful—enough to fill a tiny bottle half the height of a finger.
The remaining ashes at the bottom of the brazier could probably still fill three more bottles like this, but Wang Liang did not immediately take them all out and fill the bottles.
After all, he could not confirm whether these ashes could be stored outside for a long time after leaving the burning ghost fire brazier. He would first use this small amount for an experiment.
After capping the gold bottle and putting it away, Wang Liang finally left the safe room in satisfaction and returned to the bedroom above to rest.
He slept all the way until noon, when he was awakened by the vibrating satellite phone. Somewhat impatiently, he answered.
“What is it?”
“Wang Liang, Captain Zhao wants to speak with you,” Su Xinxi said.
“Fine. Put him through.”
Inside the communications room, Su Xinxi handed the phone to Zhao Jianguo beside her.
After taking it, Zhao Jianguo spoke in a steady voice.
“Wang Liang, this is Zhao Jianguo. I’d like to confirm the Changxing Road incident in Da’an City with you. Can you confirm that the terror level of the Ghost Burning People incident can reach A-rank?
Domestically, whether in terms of hazard level or terror level, any supernatural incident that can reach A-rank is extremely worthy of attention—especially an A-rank incident that has been resolved. It is very valuable for research. At the same time, this is also a major merit that will be recorded in your file and will be very helpful in the future, so I’m here to confirm it once more.”
“I believe it is A-rank. Captain Zhao, you should have read the records, right? A terrifying supernatural power capable of forcibly sending people into a supernatural place can’t possibly be weak.
If Captain Zhao doesn’t believe it, headquarters can send someone to verify it. But the verification location cannot be in Da’an City. And if something goes wrong, I won’t be responsible for imprisoning it again for free. If you want me to make a move, that will have to be discussed separately. Think it through carefully.”
Of course, Zhao Jianguo would not request to verify whether it was true or false. That would be an obvious display of distrust toward the person in charge. No matter whether the one on the other end of the phone was Wang Liang or not, he would not do such a thing.
In a matter like this, even the ghost’s killing pattern had been clearly written down, so the possibility of a false report was very small.
After all, not wanting to verify it did not mean they could not verify it. At present, no fool would dare deceive headquarters on this point.
Moreover, falsely claiming merits without the ability to back them up would only bring even greater trouble upon oneself.