But now, things had taken a turn for the worse. While he was unconscious, that man surnamed Su had taken the opportunity to mess around, and now the label of “fraud” was firmly stuck on his head. At this point, even if he wanted to go to Sesame Thompson and explain the truth, even if the latter didn’t hold him accountable for intentional deception, the other commanders of the Red Turban Army would never let him off!

Because he was furious, just like in his previous life, he grabbed Mr. Sullivan by the collar and started cursing loudly. Who would have thought that the body he now inhabited after transmigrating was much stronger than that of the twenty-first-century homebody. In the blink of an eye, he had Mr. Sullivan in a chokehold, eyes rolling back. Mr. Sullivan kept making “ugh, ugh” sounds, but his hands stayed tightly clamped over his buttocks, refusing to move even an inch, even if it meant death.

White and the Little Jailers, who had been eavesdropping outside the door, sensed something was wrong and rushed in, trying to rescue Mr. Sullivan. But Chris Brooks was in no mood to be controlled by them any longer. He lifted his leg and kicked each of them to the ground. “Don’t move! If you dare move again, I’ll strangle him right here! You bunch of heartless bastards, how dare you all gang up to fool me!”

“Mercy, Buddha!” The White and Little Jailers, who usually relied on the power of the authorities to throw their weight around, were actually not much good in a fight. After taking a solid kick from the butcher Albert Brooks, they immediately clutched their stomachs and rolled on the ground, crying out, “Mercy, Buddha! We—we didn’t mean it, we didn’t mean to deceive you. We—we were forced, we had no choice!”

“Still say it wasn’t on purpose!” Seeing their pathetic state, Chris Brooks grew even more enraged. With one hand holding up Mr. Sullivan, he used his much larger foot to kick these guys hard. “Still say it wasn’t on purpose! You’ve pushed me this far, and you still say it wasn’t on purpose. If you really meant it, wouldn’t you have just beaten me into an idiot, tied a rope around my neck, and made me your puppet?!”

“No, no, Buddha, we really wouldn’t dare! You’ve misunderstood, Buddha, we really wouldn’t dare!” The White and Little Jailers didn’t dare fight back, lying face down on the ground, sticking their butts up, begging bitterly, “Last night you were possessed by Maitreya Buddha, we all saw it with our own eyes. Even if we had the guts of a leopard, we wouldn’t dare manipulate the earthly avatar of Maitreya Buddha!”

“You wouldn’t dare? Is there anything you wouldn’t dare do?” Chris Brooks wouldn’t listen at all, continuing to kick their stomachs. “You even dared to fool Sesame Thompson, what wouldn’t you dare do in this world? Just look at yourselves, you can’t even fool me, and you think you can fool Sesame Thompson?!”

“That Sesame Thompson is much easier to fool than you!” Who knows which one, unable to bear the pain, blurted out the truth. “He heard you fainted from exhaustion after inviting the spirit, and immediately ordered this house to be cleared out for you, and arranged for the best doctor to treat you!”

“You bunch of…” Upon hearing this, Chris Brooks’s mouth dropped open, and the foot he had raised in midair couldn’t come down.

Sesame Thompson actually believed the lies of this group of swindlers so easily? He was supposed to be a commander of the Red Turban Army! So careless—no wonder, no wonder he ended up as a wave on the beach, leaving no trace in the middle school history books!

While Chris Brooks was stunned, the White and Little Jailers scrambled up from the ground, knelt in two rows, and kowtowed to him with loud thuds. “Buddha, please see the truth! We—we really didn’t mean it. We—we had no choice! At first, we thought you were just the head of the Great Wisdom Hall and wanted to follow you for safety. But the lie got bigger and bigger, and by the time Sesame Thompson entered the city, it was too late to confess, so we had to grit our teeth and keep going!”

“Buddha, please see the truth! We really had no choice! Last night, when the Red Turban Army entered the city, who knows how many people they killed, how many streets they burned. In the whole city, only this area of Xie’er Lane was spared, all because we used your name.”

“Father Brooks, please have mercy and bear this for all of us! At dawn, to keep the marauding soldiers from entering the alley to kill and burn, Mr. Sullivan even led the neighbors to use real weapons! If you expose this lie now, it won’t just be you and us who die—Xinan Xie’er Lane, Xie San Lane, and Xie Wu Lane, over a dozen streets and thousands of households, none of them will escape!”

As they kowtowed, everyone explained in a jumble of voices. The more Chris Brooks listened, the colder and softer his heart became. In the end, his hand unconsciously loosened from Mr. Sullivan’s collar, letting the latter collapse limply to the ground.

Was this really the Great Wisdom Hall of the Maitreya Sect? It was more like the Great Lie Hall of the Great Deception Sect. An old swindler leading a bunch of little swindlers, putting this brain-damaged fool on the altar, and yet, in last night’s chaos, they actually managed to protect over a thousand households from harm! No doubt, those extra twenty-some corpses were either killed by Mr. Sullivan directing her followers, or they were secretly picked up from nearby streets. In the end, all the credit was counted as theirs, becoming their bargaining chip with Sesame Thompson!