A Cunning Enemy

"Fuck," Zhang Yuanqing cursed inwardly. At that moment, within his sea of consciousness, a halo radiating a gentle warmth was pulsing slowly. This halo originated from the lie-detecting item in his hand. The principle behind lie-detecting items was actually quite simple: First, observe you—detecting whether you were lying through mental fluctuations, micro-expressions, breathing, pores, and even adrenaline secretion. Second, control you—forcing you into honesty through a higher level of power. The classic ability representing the former was the Scout's Insight. The classic ability representing the latter was the Tiger Tally Zhang Yuanqing had encountered before. The lie-detecting item before him belonged to the first category. Unlike Insight, however, it penetrated the sea of consciousness to observe the spirit body. Therefore, this effect could not be redirected to Little Doubi; only the second type—mental control abilities—could be transferred. Fundamentally, the halo did nothing to you; it merely observed. Zhang Yuanqing was now forced to confront a dilemma: dodge the dean's question, and the flaw would be caught by Insight; lie, and he would be exposed by the little brown horn. The consequence would be having to surrender all his spoils to the Baihui Association and headquarters in exchange for merits and rewards. Just as thoughts raced through his mind, an aloof voice cut in: "I was with him the entire night. We can vouch for each other." The speaker was Zhao Chenghuang. This scion of the Taiyi Sect spoke with an utter lack of emotion. Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, he snatched the horn from Zhang Yuanqing's grip and declared, "Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me. Her death has nothing to do with me." Students and instructors immediately looked at the little brown horn. It remained dull and primitive, showing no reaction whatsoever. It wasn't Yuanshi Tianzun, nor was it Zhao Chenghuang... The gathered crowd turned their gazes toward Yuan Ting and Stargazer, their eyes laden with veiled suspicion. Still holding the little brown horn, Zhao Chenghuang spoke up, "Dean, Yuanshi Tianzun has already proven his innocence. Why must you press him on whether he stayed in his dorm room all night? Do you have some new lead? "The students here are all frontline operatives. When it comes to investigating and solving cases, even the academy instructors lag behind us. If you have information, please don't withhold it. Tell us." His gaze was cool and level as he stared at the dean. 'Brilliantly done!' Zhang Yuanqing cheered inwardly. He thought to himself that this really was the coolest kid in the Taiyi Sect—fond of acting aloof and looking cool as he was, when push came to shove, he was undeniably reliable. Zhao Chenghuang had not only defused his crisis, but turned the tables with a counterattack. If the dean was the armored figure, he definitely wouldn't be able to provide a justification. And if a question without justification was pressed repeatedly, something was clearly amiss. The official Saints were no fools. The dean frowned and shook his head. "The information I have is no different from everyone else's." Zhao Chenghuang nodded expressionlessly and handed the little brown horn to Yuan Ting beside him. The students' gazes sharpened instantly, locking onto him. "Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me! Her death has absolutely nothing to do with me!" Yuan Ting proclaimed loudly. The little brown horn still showed no reaction. Yuan Ting breathed a sigh of relief and habitually began to ramble: "I barely even knew Xia Chaoxue, and there was no gossip around her anyway. Er, not that I like gossip, it's just..." Suddenly, the little brown horn in his hand emitted a bright, pure light. The crowd, who had just been disappointed, snapped their heads around, glaring at him with razor-sharp eyes as if looking at a heinous criminal. The dean shouted sharply, "Yuan Ting, stay where you are! Don't move a muscle!" As he spoke, he summoned a three-foot sword. Students and teachers scrambled back, falling into combat stances. Clutching the little brown horn, Yuan Ting was completely flustered. The dean barked, "Did you kill Xia Chaoxue? Answer me!" "No!" The crowd glanced at the horn. The dean barked again, "Were you close with Xia Chaoxue?" "Not close!" The crowd looked back at the little brown horn. Still no reaction. Huh? Then the reason it lit up just now was... From the crowd, Zhang Yuanqing asked exasperatedly, "Do you like gossip?" "No." The little brown horn blazed with dazzling radiance. Silence fell over the crowd. Yuan Ting looked embarrassed. Everyone else looked equally embarrassed. The dean hadn't expected this outcome either. Stunned for a good while, he changed the subject with an impassive face: "Next." Taking the opening, Zhang Yuanqing chimed in, "Dean, don't ask irrelevant questions. Fellow students, don't utter irrelevant nonsense." Yuan Ting let out a long breath and tossed the lie-detecting item to Stargazer not far away. "Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me. Her death has nothing to do with me," Stargazer stated calmly. The little brown horn did not react. At this, the crowd stirred into a commotion once more. The killer wasn't a Star Official? "If it isn't a Star Official, then an item was used to commit the crime," Lin Su, the cool and ethereal alchemy instructor, spoke up. "Anyone could be the killer—including the women." "How could a woman have sex with Xia Chaoxue?" a female student questioned. The aloof Lin Su replied, "We didn't find any male bodily fluids in Xia Chaoxue's body at all, did we?" The crowd fell into deep thought. 'If bodily fluids had been found, my Red Dancing Shoes would have locked onto the killer directly. There wouldn't even be a need for all this hassle,' Zhang Yuanqing thought. Next, under the dean's supervision, everyone underwent a round of lie detection. The same situation from the first day happened again—no killer could be found. Everyone passed both the lie-detector test and Insight. This meant the culprit possessed some special concealment method that rendered both lie detection and Insight useless. Such a result undeniably deepened the suspicion and panic among the students. The glances they exchanged grew quietly guarded and distrustful. The old dean pondered for a long time before speaking slowly: "Everyone proceed to the library immediately and write down everything you did from last night until this morning. Starting now, pair up in groups of two. Whether eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom, you are not to be more than three meters apart from each other until the true culprit is found or the training period concludes." Today was the fourth day since entering Qinfeng Academy, leaving three days until the end of the training. "Wait!" Zhang Yuanqing's voice halted the crowd on their way to the library. He stared at the white-haired elder. "Dean, you must undergo the lie-detector test as well." Before the old dean could respond, Zhang Yuanqing turned to Crossing-River Pawn and Ren Junzi. "You two keep an eye on the dean." The pressure was instantly thrust onto the dean. "Very well!" The dean nodded, raised the little brown horn in his hand, and under everyone's watchful eyes, said in a deep voice, "Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me. Her death has nothing to do with me whatsoever." The little brown horn remained old and unadorned, completely unlit. *** 10:30 AM. The café. Zhang Yuanqing took a sip of his coffee and looked out the window at the flower garden. The sunlight was bright, the blossoms vibrant. Colorful butterflies danced among the blooms, while bees went about their daily toil. He pressed the earpiece in his ear. "From now on, all discussions must go through the earpieces. Keep that in mind, everyone." Sitting across from him was the handsome Xiahou Aotian. At the adjacent table to the left were Zhao Chenghuang and Sun Miaomiao; at the table to the right were Tianxia Guihuo and Brother Red Chicken. Six people, three pairs. Due to the dean's mandate that everyone had to be in pairs, Zhang Yuanqing had weighed the pros and cons and decided that if an extra person had to be included, Brother Red Chicken was the most reassuring choice. "Understood!" came the replies from the other four over the earpieces. "The situation isn't looking good. There's something fishy about Xia Chaoxue's death. I suspect the killer is targeting us," Zhang Yuanqing said. "Preliminary suspect: the dean," Zhao Chenghuang's voice sounded in the earpiece. "Outside the female dorms, the question he asked Yuanshi Tianzun already gave away his identity." "You mean the dean is the armored figure?" Tianxia Guihuo cut straight to the point. Xia Chaoxue's death was ill-timed and illogical; everyone found it irrational. Yet after the dean posed that question, the underground palace team had caught on. They knew the armored figure wasn't Yuanshi Tianzun, and they knew the armored figure was coveting the treasures behind the stone door. Zhao Chenghuang nodded silently. "I don't think so," said Xiahou Aotian. The severely flawed Fangshi stirred his coffee as he laid out his reasoning: "First off, how would the armored figure know the stone door had been opened? Has he been staking out the lake bed non-stop? If so, there was no need to kill Xia Chaoxue—he could have just come straight for us. "Second, it makes no sense for the dean to kill Xia Chaoxue. He's the dean appointed by Baihui; if he discovered the stone door had been breached, all he had to do was report it to headquarters. "We're all respectable figures with reputable names. Headquarters investigating us afterward would be as easy as pie. Are we really going to become fugitives over this?" Sun Miaomiao agreed. "The dean killing Xia Chaoxue and staging such a scene just to root out who entered the underground palace? That reason doesn't hold water." Xia Chaoxue was an official Saint selected for training at Qinfeng Academy, which meant her branch intended to promote her to deacon. Killing a deacon candidate was impermissible no matter how grand the justification. Zhao Chenghuang and Tianxia Guihuo frowned deeply. The matter was growing more and more baffling. "Yuanshi, what do you think?" Sun Miaomiao turned her limpid, watery eyes toward him. Zhang Yuanqing weighed his words, thoughts flashing: "Initially, I also suspected the dean was the armored figure. But Miaomiao's words dispelled my doubts. Her analysis is spot on." Sun Miaomiao giggled, smugly baring her two little canines. In truth, Zhang Yuanqing had already considered this point. He said it merely to give Sun Miaomiao a little taste of favoritism. "I've seen the armored figure before. He—or she—is most likely a student. That night, I watched in person as they clumsily searched for the stone door, not at all like someone who had scouted the location beforehand. If the dean were the armored figure, after staying at the academy for so many years, how could he have never scoped it out?" Zhang Yuanqing's voice sounded in their ears. "Before our operation last night, I mentioned that the Jiaoren, the academy instructors, and the giant tiger on the island are all guardians of the hidden quest. How could the dean possibly not know the location of the stone door?" Tianxia Guihuo took a sip of coffee, swept his gaze across the empty café, lingered briefly on the staff working behind the counter, and retracted his gaze: "There are three factions in the academy: the guardians of the hidden quest, the armored figure, and us. The armored figure discovered the stone door had been opened, so they murdered someone to stir up trouble, hoping to identify us in the process. "Logically, that works, but it leaves us facing four questionable points: First, why was Xia Chaoxue the one who died? Second, why was it the dean who asked that question? Third, which faction does the armored figure belong to? Fourth, how did the armored figure know the stone door had been opened? "The last question is the most critical. Until we figure that out, I won't feel at ease. I'll always feel like we're being monitored around the clock." 'One thing is certain: the armored figure doesn't know who entered the stone door. But that contradicts his murderous act this morning, because our theorized motive for the killing is stirring up trouble to find who went past the door...' Zhang Yuanqing pondered for a few seconds. A thought struck him, and he stood up. "I'm heading to the restroom." Weaving past the coffee tables, he entered the restroom, locked the door, put the toilet lid down, sat down, closed his eyes, and visualized his father's face in his mind. Before long, his mental faculties surged. Pointless noise howled in his ears, and fragmented, chaotic images flashed past one after another. This time, the chaotic state lasted for a very long time. It didn't stop until blood seeped from Zhang Yuanqing's nose and the pain broke him out in a cold sweat. The first scene that surfaced in his head was the memory of the first time he left the dormitory to dive into Jiaoren Lake. He had rewound back four full days. The images flashed by in sequence, and soon, he saw the armored figure from that night. He 'saw' himself, cloaked in invisibility beneath the protruding ledge of rock. The armored figure, just as that night, swam and searched beneath Hundred Beasts Island. Because the stone door was quite conspicuous, it was quickly located. The armored figure paused before the stone door, gazing at the round hole engraved with the Black Bird pattern. This was a scene Zhang Yuanqing still remembered. 'Next came being discovered by the Jiaoren,' he thought. The next second, a school of Jiaoren swished their fish tails, swimming rapidly toward him. It was precisely at this moment that he saw the armored figure reach out, gently wiping the round hole, and using the momentum to turn and face the Jiaoren. In that split second, through the flowing frames of memory, Zhang Yuanqing noticed the figure's palm closing slightly, seemingly pinching something within. The ensuing scenes were of the armored figure fleeing under pursuit by the Jiaoren. "Hiss..." Zhang Yuanqing clutched his forehead, enduring a splitting headache. He sat on the toilet lid with his head hung low, blood dripping continuously from his nose. A long time passed before the headache subsided. Drenched in sweat, he casually wiped away the blood from his nose and leaned back against the toilet as if utterly drained. "So that's how it is. It must have been some kind of material—invisible to the naked eye—that he smeared over the 'keyhole'... The armored figure deduced that the stone door had been opened because the trace had been disturbed... "He didn't know who it was specifically, so he killed Xia Chaoxue? "His dive into Jiaoren Lake that night wasn't just to scout out the area; he's a cunning enemy... But there's a problem: the armored figure seemed to know that someone could open the stone door. That shouldn't be possible. "He noticed right after we came out, which means he dove down to inspect the trace every single night." Zhang Yuanqing pulled out toilet paper, wiped up the blood on the floor, and flushed it down the toilet. Pushing open the cubicle door, he splashed water on his face, exited the restroom, and returned to the coffee table. "What took you so long?" Sun Miaomiao teased when she saw him return. "Are you constipated?"