ask."Doctor Xiao, over here!" Fangyuan shouted to Xiao Yu from among the crowd."Mom, I'm over here!" Upon hearing Fangyuan's shout, Xiao Yu quickened his pace and said to his mother."Mom, this is Mana...Chapter 422: Aftermath

Xiao Yu looked at these people, whose tendons in their hands and feet had been cut by him, crying pitifully on the ground. He felt no mercy whatsoever. If they were gambling normally, he wouldn't have interfered, but using magical means to amass wealth was unbearable for him, especially lending money at exorbitant interest rates, which is what truly ruins people.

"Can you speak now" Xiao Yu walked up to the wailing householder and squatted down to ask.

“I... I’ll say…” This person saw that Xiao Yu showed no hesitation whatsoever and couldn't help but feel afraid. Thus, when he heard Xiao Yu's question, without any hesitation, he endured his pain and stammered out the words.

These people were like this; they would be ruthless towards ordinary civilians, cutting tendons as if it was nothing, but when faced with someone more ruthless than them, they would be like mice seeing a cat—daring not to resist at all.

Xiao Yu said nothing and just looked at the person quietly.

The man glanced at Xiao Yu; though his expression was calm, he couldn't see any emotion in his eyes. In fact, there wasn't even a trace of compassion when looking at them wailing pitifully—more like how one would look at pigs and dogs.

Seeing himself under Xiao Yu's gaze, the man shuddered inwardly and dared not slacken for a moment; he hastily said, "These things were purchased from a Taoist while we were traveling on Qingcheng Mountain. We helped him with something and bought them from his hands. A hundred talismans cost us one million yuan. He told us that each talisman could be used for a month and if we wanted more after using up our supply, we could go back to him to purchase more. He said these talismans can confuse people's minds, causing them to lose their rationality!"

After hearing his words, Xiao Yu saw that the man was telling the truth from his appearance and couldn't help but think: So they were bought on Qingcheng Mountain. No wonder he hadn’t detected anyone with fluctuations of heaven and earth primordial energy nearby. The person must have been thousands of miles away.

Xiao Yu looked at these people as he stood up, his hands moving about in a dance-like manner. With the movement of Xiao Yu's hands, each mysterious symbol floated into midair.

In an instant, over ten mysterious symbols floated up and hovered above their heads.

When these golden-hued symbols drifted above them, all their faces showed expressions of twisted pain.

If practitioners of the Art of Qimen were here, they would have noticed that the golden symbols seemed to exert a pulling force, gradually drawing out the souls of these people from their heads.

Soul-summoning Talismans — These are the simplest soul-summoning talismans. That's why Xiao Yu doesn't find it too strenuous to control a dozen of them.

Suddenly, a streak of white lightning shot out from Xiao Yu’s embrace and quickly headed towards those lying on the ground. However, instead of targeting the people themselves, it aimed for their floating souls.

Every time this white flash passed by a soul, that soul would lose a piece of itself. Furthermore, these souls emitted wailing cries in excruciating pain; this agony was truly agonizing to the core. Very soon, all the souls lying on the ground had been visited by this streak of white lightning.

After visiting each soul, the white flash returned to Xiao Yu's shoulder. This streak of white lightning was actually the 'Soul-eating Rat' that Xiao Yu found in Northeast China.

The Soul-eating Rat now stood on Xiao Yu’s shoulder and stuck out its tongue to lick its lips. A satisfied smile appeared on its face, accompanied by a series of squeaking sounds as if it were communicating with Xiao Yu.

Seeing the Soul-eating Rat's human-like behavior, Xiao Yu couldn't help but feel surprised; he didn’t expect that this rat had gained some degree of sentience.

Gazing at these souls, all of which now appeared incomplete and emitted mournful cries. As a result, their forms gradually became more ethereal.

Upon witnessing the fragmented soul states, Xiao Yu couldn't help but chuckle bitterly; however, this expression quickly vanished from his face. His original intention was to summon these souls and place an imprint seal on them. But he hadn’t anticipated that they would be devoured by the Soul-eating Rat into such a state.

Nevertheless, Xiao Yu soon thought that perhaps this was the just punishment for their evil deeds. He had intended to give these people a chance but it didn't come to fruition.

Xiao Yu carefully observed the fragmented souls of those present and noticed that all the missing parts were from their heads. In light of this situation, Xiao Yu no longer felt inclined to seal them; his hands, which were fluttering in the air, gently clenched together, causing the golden talismans floating above to burst into a shower of golden sparks before dissipating into thin air.

With the disappearance of these golden talismans, the partial souls that had emerged reentered their respective bodies instantly.

The people regained consciousness after their souls returned, but they were in an unconscious state, wailing aimlessly with saliva dribbling from their mouths. Xiao Yu observed their eyes and noted there was no trace of consciousness; instead, their expressions were vacant and dull.

When Xiao Yu saw their state, he thought to himself that indeed, they had all become demented! When Xiao Yu noticed that the damaged parts of their souls were all in the head area, he understood the result and thus gave up on sealing their souls.

Xiao Yu observed that the bleeding wounds on their hands and feet had gradually stopped. He no longer paid them any attention; as long as they didn’t die, it was none of his concern.

Ignoring these people, Xiao Yu turned around and walked into a small room inside. There was a bed, a computer, a desk, and a safe in the room.

Xiao Yu looked at the open safe; it seemed that these people had left in such a rush that they hadn’t even locked it.

After opening the safe and taking a look inside, he saw stacks of money, IOUs, and yellow papers. There was a faint aura emanating from those yellow sheets of paper.

Xiao Yu’s heart stirred as he looked at the yellow papers—‘Aggregation of Evil Spirits Talismans’ Xiao Yu walked over to pick up that stack of yellow papers for closer inspection.

After looking through these yellow papers, Xiao Yu nodded inwardly; they were indeed Aggregation of Evil Spirits Talismans. The amount of aura on those talismans was pitifully small, and he wasn’t sure if the Taoist priest had deliberately done that or just lacked sufficient mana.

But this Taoist priest couldn’t have been a good person, knowing they ran a casino and still providing them with these talismans to bewitch people’s minds. It was clear that he made money from selling these talismans.

Xiao Yu put the stack of talismans into his backpack, then picked up the IOUs. Looking at those IOUs, Xiao Yu saw that they were mostly for five or ten thousand yuan. Some had mortgaged their houses due to financial difficulties and written agreements on these IOUs.

Seeing over a hundred such IOUs, Xiao Yu sighed lightly and put them into his backpack. He thought about it and also picked up the talismans left on the desk, then put them in his backpack as well. Then he looked at the money inside the safe. After taking a rough look at the money, he estimated there was over one million yuan.

Xiao Yu packed all of this money into his already bulging backpack. Remembering that cameras were installed in this casino, Xiao Yu thought it best to take out the hard drive for safety reasons; even though he wasn’t afraid of any trouble, he believed less is more.

After checking and ensuring there was nothing else left behind in the room, Xiao Yu stood up and left. In the main hall, these people were still screaming but with blank stares on their faces—no spark of life remained in them at all.

Xiao Yu lifted his leg and walked out, coming to the outside of the casino. It was already past 3 AM; this small city in Tong Shi had long been silent with no passersby or vehicles on the roads.

Xiao Yu slowly made his way towards home, and everything that happened tonight didn't cause any waves within him.

An hour later, Xiao Yu returned to his house where his mother and sister were already asleep.

He entered his room, took out the IOUs and talismans from his bag, looked at them, shook his head, clenched them in his hands, and crumpled them up with great force. After doing this three times, Xiao Yu managed to turn all of these items into confetti.

Xiao Yu put his schoolbag in the cupboard, threw away the confetti, then sat down cross-legged on the floor to meditate.

Regarding how he wanted to handle the money he won from gambling and that which was given by the casino, Xiao Yu had already thought of a way. Given that many places were currently suffering from natural disasters, he planned to donate this money to them. However, considering Tong Shi as a small place, such a large sum would be too conspicuous; hence, Xiao Yu could only make his donation after arriving in Beijing.

Xiao Yu always held onto the belief that 'a gentleman loves wealth but acquires it through proper means'. Besides, he wasn't attached to money at all. Thus, for ill-gotten gains, he would put them towards their rightful place and considered this as doing good deeds on behalf of those involved.

The next afternoon, Xiao Yu was attending patients at his family's clinic along with his mother and sister. Since there weren't any patients to attend to, Xiao Yu was playing around with his little nephew.

"Xiao Yu! Xiao Yu!" At this moment, someone outside of Xiao Yu’s clinic called out.

Hearing the voice, Xiao Yu froze for a second before realizing it belonged to Er Zhu. He stood up and walked out to the door.

Outside, Er Zhu was standing by the side of the road with an excited look on his face. Upon seeing Xiao Yu emerge from the house, he quickly got off his bicycle and rushed over towards him, saying excitedly: "Xiao Yu! Xiao Yu! The people at that casino and the loan sharks must have made some powerful enemies because last night someone crippled their limbs by severing their tendons, and left them as fools!"

"Uh, how did you find out about this" asked Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu hadn't expected news to spread so quickly. It had been such a short time since it happened; even Er Zhu knew the details (To be continued)nment, so they were expected to send their own leadership soon."What's going on here Why aren't you saving people This is dereliction of duty!" Mayor Zhou ignored everyone’s greetings and said with a...