Before the Western-style church where the host had welcomed them upon their arrival, the crowd standing outside had dwindled considerably.
Charles Alphonse, the public face directing affairs for this generation of the Alphonse family, locked eyes with the blood-soaked Huaxia genius youth before him.
One gaze was warm yet laced with suspicion, a tangled murderous intent stirring beneath like sparks on the verge of erupting, buried in the deepest depths.
The other was earnest, tinged with undisguised greed.
This was a confrontation of a different kind.
As the host, Charles Alphonse naturally knew better than anyone how Han Qingyu had obtained the three metal blocks he held out in the open in the trial grounds:
One by using the estate guards to kill a Great Spike—though he had lured that Great Spike there himself;
One by using a Great Spike to rob Adubu;
And another by turning the tables on someone trying to kill him, taking it at the edge of his blade.
Aside from those, there was another metal block in the trial grounds whose whereabouts remained unknown. Even he, as the host, had no clue; perhaps it was in the youth's hands as well.
From Charles's perspective, this Huaxia youth's performance was simply too astonishing. That was precisely why he had previously suspected the boy possessed a special constitution, coveting the pure life source energy that likely far exceeded that of ordinary people, and worked behind the scenes to guide events, hoping he would die a plausible, accidental death inside the trial grounds.
To that end, he had pushed to the absolute limit permitted under the Alphonse family's principles of safety and secrecy, brushing against exposure and the brink of plunging the entire family into crisis.
Yet the boy had still come out alive.
To make another move now would carry extreme risk.
On one hand, hundreds of Azure personnel from various nations were gathered here. Unless the youth ran off on his own, staging a discreet, plausible accident would be exceedingly difficult.
On the other hand, this was a soldier of the Huaxia Front. He had delivered an exceptional performance and hacked his way through an encirclement, only to suffer an "accident" after leaving the trial grounds... Trying to brush that off as an accident would be impossible. The other side would investigate relentlessly, probing to the bitter end.
One had to remember that in recent decades, the Huaxia Front had essentially dominated almost the entire Azure system across Asia. Furthermore, that wretched Huaxia old man who also possessed a Starlight Azure Medal had always had an awful reputation—petty, overbearing, and fiercely protective of his own.
Even in the Alliance Council, he had flipped the table more than once.
Moreover, with a single stroke of his blade, he had once severed the head of a Red Shoulder, marking the most brilliant strike in all of Azure history to date. Rumors even had it he possessed another technique that brought instant death to whoever he slashed.
Therefore, whether Charles took the risk now—to kill or not to kill—no longer depended on greed. It hinged on whether the other side had noticed anything amiss, whether he needed to silence him. Compared to the terror of the family's secrets being exposed and losing everything, that greed no longer mattered.
Of course, deep down, Charles also believed the likelihood was low. Acting rashly on mere suspicion might only expose them when nothing was actually wrong.
From Han Qingyu's perspective, his deductions reached only this far:
The Alphonse family orchestrates plausible deaths in the trial grounds, and collecting corpses serves some purpose for them. Exactly how they use them remains unclear, but they want my body.
Beyond that inference, he lacked any concrete basis or evidence.
Nor did he plan to investigate here. That was not a matter he could tackle at his current level. Only a fool would attempt it; overestimating his strength would cost him his life.
He wanted to leave, but he could not show unease, panic, or any urge to flee. He could not let the other party realize that he had noticed anything or harbored any suspicions.
"The trial grounds have never issued two rewards before," Charles said.
"Isn't that because two craft had never arrived at the same time before either?" Han Qingyu smiled.
"In truth, both belong to you, don't they?"
"Heh heh... Just a coincidence, you know?"
"Yet one of them was earned by someone else who made the kill."
"Right, but he lost it to me. Otherwise, he would have come to claim it, and there would still be two rewards." Han Qingyu asked earnestly, "Gambling isn't forbidden in the trial grounds, is it? Even though the reality is he tried to kill me and steal mine."
"...Ahem." Charles looked up at Han Qingyu once more. "You are heavily wounded... On behalf of the family, I apologize for what transpired just after the trial concluded."
"Mm. In that case, how about compensating me with some extra source energy blocks?" Han Qingyu looked at him. "Or maybe metal blocks?"
"..." Does this bastard have nothing but metal blocks on his mind?!
*I'm debating whether to kill you...* Charles thought. He observed Han Qingyu's eyes again and reflected—right, after being besieged by over a hundred men, the first thing he had rushed to do when it ended was violate military discipline to strip source energy blocks off the captives.
In the end,
*Clack.*
Another metal block was brought forth by a servant and pressed onto the tabletop by Charles.
Han Qingyu happily reached out and took it. "Thank you."
Amid applause, Han Qingyu and Yin Caixin stepped down from the platform, beaming with delight.
*His joy and greed appear completely genuine, devoid of any performance born of panic or unease,* Charles thought, the lingering hesitation in his mind stretching thin until it finally snapped.
Of course it was genuine.
The moment that metal block hit the table with a *clack*, Han Qingyu had almost wanted to give him a hug.
***
From the Alphonse family's man-eating estate to the Nepal Front base, Han Qingyu's chest and body were wrapped in gauze, with only an unfastened coat draped over his shoulders.
Shen Yixiu brought over a bowl of rice, alongside a small plate of beef and a bowl of dried vegetable soup.
It was not mealtime; she had gone out of her way to request it.
"Thanks, Rusty Sister." Han Qingyu held the bowl, shoveling large mouthfuls of rice into his mouth before stuffing in a piece of beef. He chewed with deep satisfaction, resembling a farmhand who had returned home for a meal after a hard day's labor in the fields.
"I contacted home. The army will dispatch a plane from a nearby medical station to pick up the wounded—probably the 201 Medical Station where we stayed a night before coming here," Shen Yixiu said.
Han Qingyu nodded, his voice slightly muffled by food. "Mm, good."
Shen Yixiu's own body could currently only be nourished and healed by increasing her source energy supply. She hesitated for a moment before asking, "About the Alphonse family..."
"That," Han Qingyu swallowed his food and cut in, "for now, we should just consider ourselves fortunate to have walked out alive."
"We're not going to say anything? Not report it up?"
"There's no way to say anything right now," Han Qingyu said, lowering his head to take a sip of soup. "It's just my speculation—no evidence. Besides, we don't know who is safe to tell. The Alphonse family might be too important and complicated to Azure in many ways, while to us, they're far too massive."
"True," Wen Jifei agreed after some thought. "Right now we can only do what's within our limits. This matter is beyond our ability."
Han Qingyu looked at him, nodded, and then looked back at Shen Yixiu. "Maybe once I'm familiar enough with someone in the higher-ups, I'll say something... There are three years until the next trial. No rush."
Three years—how much could he grow? Han Qingyu was not sure. He had never taken his Grade A degree of fusion test result seriously. Under those circumstances back then, if he had to put it in words, he had simply gotten into a brawl with the source energy field.
His growth in strength had always been rapid. In particular, this time he had likely discovered a third combat engine besides the three-dimensional apparatus and liquid source energy, even if he could not yet control it.
If possible in the future, he would return to uncover all of this himself.
After all, at a glance, the Alphonse family clearly had plenty of metal blocks.
The matter was temporarily shelved.
Han Qingyu looked down once more at a note on the table.
The note came from Liu Shiheng. That fellow had indeed run off, just as Han Qingyu had anticipated.
*Qingzi, everyone, I'm sorry. I ran away.*
*I know this will make you take the blame, but I'm a bit different from you guys. For the past few months, my parents probably thought I was dead, or maybe they're still searching for me.*
*I just want to go back and see them, tell them I'm not dead, and tell my old man that I don't actually hate him that much, and that I really regret being so foolish and thoughtless back then.*
*I won't leak any secrets, and I will come back. Please believe me.*
They had actually discovered this the moment they boarded the vehicle out of the Alphonse family estate, and the initial wave of indignation had already passed.
"Do you believe him?" Wen Jifei asked.
Han Qingyu thought about it. "I don't know. Maybe he meant it when he left, but once he's really back, he might not be able to muster the resolve again."
"Then..." Wen Jifei began, intending to ask what they should do next.
Outside, Yin Caixin suddenly rushed in. "This is bad, Mister... that Wu Xu, he ran away too!"
"Too?!" If Liu Shiheng's escape was something they had long worried about, Wu Xu running off was completely beyond Han Qingyu's wildest imagination. In a rare moment of utter bewilderment, he shot to his feet, managing only a stunned, "Huh?!"
"You said it yourself—you said we didn't need to watch him like a prisoner," Yin Caixin said, anxious and slightly aggrieved. "So I didn't have the Nepal Front personnel guard him, and then he went out for a walk and disappeared."
Han Qingyu: "..."
He Tangtang: "Qingzi, didn't you say he was very honest and simple?"
Wen Jifei: "Useless. He claimed he was very honest too."
Shen Yixiu: "Seriously, this is maddening."
"Search!" Han Qingyu barked, furious. Not daring to alarm the Nepal Front, he led his own people to scour the entire base and its perimeter, yet found nothing.
Wu Xu was finally found that evening.
He was brought back by personnel from the Nepal Front. Upon returning, he sat there rather awkwardly, reeking to high heaven.
"At the time, I suddenly fell into that hole. Seeing that it branched out in all directions, very deep and wide, I thought it was an infiltration tunnel for external enemies, so I went in to investigate... Later, I got lost down there."
So the truth of the matter was: he had gone out for a walk and fallen into an uncovered sewer hole.
Chapter 146