Chapter 37: Spider Never Left Its Lair
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It went without saying that cuffing Mr. Ikeda up was a no go. Baishi Shū had something better than that.
All he had to do was perform a meditation spell on Mr. Ikeda, and all his pain and anguish would disappear.
Having finally calmed down, Mr. Ikeda had stopped yelling and stood obediently on one side.
The die was cast, and his son was dead. There was nothing he could do other than act in concert with Master Baishi and help him get revenge so that his soul could rest in peace.
On the other side, Inspector Aoki looked at Baishi Shū in awe. It was only now that he realized how blind he had been. The monk in front of him was the real deal. He possessed real spiritual power and could effortlessly calm the runaway Mr. Ikeda down. Inspector Aoki was relieved that he had not made any impertinent remarks just now. Otherwise, it would be like having eggs thrown on his face.
After he had calmed both of them down, Baishi Shū let out a sigh as he finally could get down to the real business. Ikeda Shinn's soul had been screaming for more than 10 minutes straight, and he reckoned that it was the right moment to ask him about the evil spirit, or he should say, the yokai.
"Ikeda Shinn, do you still remember what killed you?" he asked the first question in his mind.
Right now, he could say for sure that the thing that killed Ikeda Shinn and his girlfriend was not an evil spirit but a yokai. Just as he thought, the moment Ikeda Shinn heard his question, he let out a cry of pain, and the expression on his face changed terribly. Fear and hatred were awakened in his eyes as he blabbered, "It is Ayumi! That b*tch! No, no, she's not a b*tch, she is a monster, a monster! Please, please, don't come close to me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You aren't a monster and you aren't a b*tch. You are my beloved Ayumi. You are the girl I loved the most…"
It seemed to Baishi Shū that Ikeda Shinn was rather confused. This was something he had anticipated. After all, a soul was a soul. After people died, they would lose most of their reason as well as a large chunk of their memory. They would only remember the last thing in their life before they died. This was the reason why most of the spirits appeared very clumsy and would keep on repeating the same thing over and over again. The only exception to this rule was the spirit king. Not only did they retain their thinking ability and have the intelligence comparable to humans, but they also had some special powers as well.
However, Ikeda Shinn had given him quite some information. The murderer was a woman known as Ayumi. There was a huge probability that she was his previous girlfriend. As for whether or not she was a yokai, Baishi Shū still could not say for sure.
When people were on the doorstep of death, they could see things that they would not be able to normally see. In the eyes of common people, be it evil spirits or yokai, they would collectively call them "monsters".
"Mr. Ikeda? Do you know who Ayumi is?" he turned to Mr. Ikeda and asked.
Mr. Ikeda was extremely sedated right now. After hearing the question, he spilled everything he knew about Ayumi to Baishi Shū without any qualms.
It turned out that Ayumi was one of Ikeda Shinn's ex-girlfriends. They had been engaged in an on-and-off-again relationship. She even had four abortions in the span of two years, and her body was on the verge of collapsing. Then, just when she thought they were going to have a wonderful life together, he dumped her again.
'What an a*shole!' Inspector Aoki chided Ikeda Shinn in his heart. For a moment, he felt that Ikeda Shinn deserved it for what he did to Ayumi.
"This is just a normal crime of passion if it didn't involve any supernatural being…" Baishi Shū remained neutral about Ikeda Shinn's deed, unlike Inspector Aoki, who felt indignant.
After all, Buddha said, "What goes around comes around."
It served Ikeda Shinn right for everything he had done to Ayumi. However, she did not just kill him, but she had also involved his new girlfriend in her wrangle with Ikeda Shinn and brutally murdered her. Therefore, she was equally guilty and had to pay for her sins in front of Buddha as well.
To put it simply, Baishi Shū did not care who was at fault in their relationship as he would deliver the hammer of justice to whoever committed a sin.
"Inspector Aoki, can you help me to check whether a girl named Hiroshima Ayumi died recently?"
Evil spirits usually came out at night and were confined to a certain area, but that was not the case for yokai. Yokai could walk under the sun like normal human beings. Baishi Shū had to make sure what kind of yokai Ayumi was before he could devise a plan.
Upon hearing the request, Inspector Aoki nodded. He pulled out his phone and quickly called the police department to get his colleague to go through all the records. At the same time, Baishi Shū continued to question Ikeda Shinn in hopes that he could dig up more information about Ayumi.
Unfortunately, the damage to his soul began to take hold and messed up his memory. He was slowly losing his ability to think as well. Right now, he just mindlessly wailed for Ayumi, calling her a monster or a b*tch again and again. It occurred to Baishi Shū that whatever happened before his death must have been very terrible.
Since he could not get more information from Ikeda Shinn, Baishi Shū decided to relieve him of his pain.
Although he was scum, he did receive the punishment he deserved. He hoped that after he had paid his sins in front of Buddha, he could turn over a new leaf and be constant in his love in his next life.
After he got the consent from Mr. Ikeda, Baishi Shū raised his palm. Just when he circulated his spiritual power to his palm, the web, which had been stationary the entire time, suddenly moved.
Startled, Baishi Shū quickly pulled back, but he was too late.
In the next second, the web exploded. All of the hair materialized and swarmed forward like a tsunami, enveloping the trio standing beside the car and turning them into three humanoid cocoons.
"Master Baishi! Master Baishi!" Inspector Aoki shouted as he tried to wriggle himself free.
Be that as it may, his attempt was futile. The hair that was cast around them was as tough as iron. No matter how hard he struggled, he could not break himself free. Mr. Ikeda was still under the effect of the meditation spell, thus he just stood there quietly waiting for Baishi Shū to save him. He was pretty confident that Baishi Shū was able to deal with something like this.
Just like Mr. Ikeda expected, Baishi Shū was unflustered and remained calm. Since the hair was fundamentally made of yin energy, he could dissipate them easily with his spiritual power.
However, he was just a little disappointed in himself. How could he forget something so simple? A spider would never leave its lair. No matter if it was a spider yokai or Spiderman, it was ingrained in their DNA that they had to stay around their web at all times unless something so terrible happened that urged them to leave.
It occurred to him that he had been spending too much time experimenting with his body cultivation method that he had neglected his studies. As a monk who also doubled as the scholar-lord in his school, he must become someone with all-rounded abilities.
Baishi Shū did not try to break free from the cocoon but activated his Divine Eye instead. Everything became crystal clear. He could see that there was another half of the spider web below the ground with a long strand of hair connected to the bottommost part. The strand of hair extended all the way down to the depths of the ground where light could not reach. A woman, whose face and body had turned into a spider, could be seen climbing up along the strand of hair with her eight limbs.
As she rushed up to the surface, she murmured, "Nobody can take away my Shinn. He's bearing our children… Hehe…"
Without a doubt, the spider woman was Hiroshima Ayumi. It seemed to Baishi Shū that she wanted Ikeda Shinn to experience the feeling of bearing a child after causing her to abort four of her children.
'Is this karma as well?'
Baishi Shū was stunned.
-- Gift
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