The River Snail Maiden

Zhong'er told Li Banfeng that the so-called special mission was to apprehend someone surnamed Han. As for this person's background, that remained unknown. Li Banfeng asked, "Did the arrest go smoothly?" Zhong'er nodded. "Very smoothly. It barely took any effort at all. The scene of the arrest was a villa. By the time we arrived, this Han fellow was already trapped inside." "How was he trapped?" "There was a dark-energy carrier in that villa that makes people lose their sense of direction. We watched the surveillance footage on the way over. The suspect, Han, wandered around inside the villa for more than two hours and could never find the exit. The door was actually right near him, but he just couldn't locate it. In the end, he decided to jump out a third-floor window. But the moment he opened the window, he triggered another dark-energy carrier and was bound tight from head to toe. Only after he was tied up did Bureau Chief Shen order us to make the arrest. With so many of us going, all we really did was clean-up work." Li Banfeng said, "Why did Bureau Chief Shen know this Han person would go to that villa? And why have you all assemble ahead of time to prepare for the arrest?" Zhong'er replied, "I heard from the other team members that this Han fellow had shown up near the villa many times, probably casing the place. But Bureau Chief Shen was never in a rush to make a move. He waited until the fish had truly taken the bait before letting us make the arrest." Li Banfeng sank into thought. Suddenly, he heard Haitangguo shout down the corridor, "I caught a big one!" "A big what?" Li Banfeng stepped out of the room and asked. Haitangguo hurried to apologize. "Sorry, Bureau Chief Li. I just caught a centipede and made a bit too much noise. The bureau ordered us to catch bugs, and if I don't catch anything, I won't have anything to show for it." Lightbulb watched from the side with quite a bit of envy. "She caught a centipede. The prize for the strongest bug will probably be hers." Li Banfeng recalled the bug-catching mission. Find the strongest bug, feed it poisoned bait, let it spread the toxin, and wipe out the entire infestation in one sweep. Seeing Haitangguo holding the centipede, Mingxing went over specifically to flatter her. "Sis, that bug you caught is really something! It's even bigger than that house centipede Big Head caught. That bonus is definitely yours this time!" Haitangguo looked at the centipede in her hand. "Hard to say. I still think that house centipede was bigger. I'm going to find Big Head and compare. Where'd Big Head go?" *** "Big Head, listen to me. You don't know me—or rather, you can't say you don't know me at all. You know who I am, but we have had no dealings whatsoever..." In the newland of Huahu Park, He Jiaqing, his face covered in festering sores, was looking at Big Head. Big Head asked in astonishment, "Jiaqing, what happened to you?" He Jiaqing shook his head. "Don't call me Jiaqing. You don't know He Jiaqing." "What kind of talk is that?" "Big Head, I've ended up like this, completely different from the He Jiaqing you knew. Do you still recognize me as your brother?" "I do!" Big Head's gaze was resolute. "No matter what you've become, I'll always consider you my brother!" He Jiaqing nodded. "I'm different from before. I'm no longer He Jiaqing. Since you recognize me as your brother now, He Jiaqing is not your brother. Do you understand?" Big Head looked completely at a loss; he couldn't make heads or tails of it. He Jiaqing was getting anxious too. Fool Cultivator techniques were potent, but notoriously tricky to use. When it came to Fool Cultivator techniques, He Jiaqing truly didn't possess much natural talent. "Big Head, you must remember my words. If you're willing to go to Puluo Province, come with me right now. I'll find a way to bring your wife and son over too. But if you don't want to go to Puluo Province, you must listen to me: you aren't close with He Jiaqing. The brother you're close with isn't named He Jiaqing." The more Big Head listened, the more confused he became. "If you're not named He Jiaqing, then what's your name?" *** "Is your name Han Mingqi?" In the interrogation room, Shen Jingye was questioning the suspect. "Yes." Han Mingqi nodded. Having already been captured by the Dark Star Bureau, there was no point in concealing his name. Shen Jingye continued, "What were you doing at Villa No. 9 in Tiancheng Residential Area?" "Stealing. Money's been tight lately, so I wanted to hit a wealthy house for a score..." Before he could finish, Han Mingqi felt as though his throat were being throttled, suffocating on the spot. No one around him had touched him. His face turned purplish-blue and his eyes bloodshot, looking as though he would die at any second. Shen Jingye shook his head slightly and tapped a finger on the tabletop. The constriction around his throat vanished. Han Mingqi managed to draw a breath and coughed violently for a long time. Shen Jingye said expressionlessly, "You lied." Han Mingqi glanced around, suspecting there was a numinous object in the room. Shen Jingye was straightforward enough: "No need to look around. There is a dark-energy carrier of the Judge here—what you people commonly call a Virtue Cultivator numinous object. This dark-energy carrier is of a very high tier, far above your own. You have no ability to resist it. Its trait is that it continuously escalates the punishment. This time was suffocation; next time will be harsher still. Are you ready?" Han Mingqi kept his head down and remained silent. Shen Jingye smiled. "I'll ask you once more: what were you doing at Villa No. 9 in Tiancheng Residential Area?" Han Mingqi still did not speak. Shen Jingye shook his head. "Silence will be interpreted by this dark-energy carrier as resistance." No sooner had the words left his mouth than Han Mingqi convulsed, as if an electrical current were coursing through his body. A few minutes later, drenched in sweat, Han Mingqi spoke: "I went to that villa to look for the Healing Cultivator Kang Zhenchang." "What did you want with Kang Zhenchang?" "Medical treatment." "Treatment for whom?" Han Mingqi didn't want to answer. Less than a minute passed before he felt as though a layer of his skin were being flayed off. "He Jiaqing! It's He Jiaqing! He's my friend! He's helped me so much! He caught an illness—a terribly severe illness—and only the Healing Cultivator Kang Zhenchang can cure it!" As he said these words, Han Mingqi suffered no harm from the dark-energy carrier. That proved he was telling the truth—the truth within the scope of his own cognition. Shen Jingye continued to press, "Where did you get Kang Zhenchang's address?" "He Jiaqing told me." Han Mingqi's answer was clever. Within the realm of his knowledge, this was indeed the truth. And since He Jiaqing was already wanted by the Dark Star Bureau, tacking on one more crime made no difference. Yet while this trick could fool the dark-energy carrier, it couldn't fool Shen Jingye. "Did He Jiaqing tell you directly?" Han Mingqi's lips trembled. That was difficult to answer. Shen Jingye asked once more, "Did he tell you directly, or did someone pass the message?" Faced with a binary choice, Han Mingqi could only answer honestly: "Someone passed it along..." "Who passed it to you?" "It was..." Han Mingqi hesitated slightly, and instantly felt another layer of skin peel away. "It was Zhu Junlong!" Han Mingqi was forced to tell the truth. "What does this person named Zhu Junlong do?" "He... he's the owner of Chashan Hotel..." With this phase of the interrogation concluded, Shen Jingye walked out of the room and issued orders: "Arrest the general manager of Chashan Hotel, Zhu Junlong, immediately! Seal off the hotel! All staff and guests must remain on the premises for questioning!" For this raid, Shen Jingye brought Li Qi along. In the car, Shen Jingye asked Li Banfeng, "Bureau Chief Li, back when you were in Puluo Province, what was your relationship with He Jiaqing like?" Li Banfeng shook his head slightly. "I didn't have much contact with him in Puluo Province. I don't know him all that well." Inside this car, there was also a Virtue Cultivator numinous object that compelled people to speak the truth, around the eighth tier. Li Banfeng could sense its power. Unfortunately, this numinous object could do nothing against a cultivator above the clouds. Furthermore, what Li Banfeng said was indeed the truth; in Puluo Province, he had barely interacted with He Jiaqing at all, and he truly didn't know much about him. The object's spiritual awareness was limited, still far from that of a magic treasure. Using his Discern Numinous Sound technique, Li Banfeng could tell that the thing couldn't even distinguish who its master was. Shen Jingye nodded. "Fair enough. I heard from Chief Commissioner Liao that when you rose to the ranks of the nobility, He Jiaqing spent most of his time in Yuezhou. His roots run deep in Yuezhou, and Chashan Hotel is one of his key strongholds. We've reaped quite a haul this time; we should be able to sweep up the whole lot of them." Li Banfeng asked pointedly, "How did you track down Chashan Hotel?" "It was the result of joint efforts across the entire bureau..." As he spoke, Shen Jingye's right hand felt toward a switch beside the car door. It was an exquisite little switch that looked like it was meant to control the car window. In reality, the switch had nothing to do with the window; it was used to control the Virtue Cultivator numinous object. He wanted to switch off the Judge's dark-energy carrier, or else he too would be affected by the dark ability and forced to speak only the truth. Before he could touch the switch, Li Banfeng shoved a bottle of water into his right hand. "Little Shen, there's no need to brag about achievements. Let's talk specifics. How exactly was the lead on Chashan Hotel uncovered?" "It was an important fruit harvested through our long-term investigation and screening..." Shen Jingye grew slightly anxious. He set down the water bottle and reached toward the switch by the window again. He successfully toggled it off, but with lightning speed, Li Banfeng flipped it back on. Because Li Banfeng moved so fast, Shen Jingye didn't notice a thing. He continued his nonsense: "To prepare for this operation, the bureau began making thor-thor-thorough arrangements targeting Chashan Hotel three months ago..." An electric current surged through Shen Jingye's body. He shuddered for a moment, glanced at the switch by the window, and then looked at Li Qi beside him. Li Qi sighed. "Little Shen, there's no need for boilerplate. Explain the operation a little more specifically." Shen Jingye wiped his sweat. "Bureau Chief Li, let's discuss the specifics once we're back at the bureau. Some details involve confidential matters." Li Banfeng nodded. "Fine. Once the operation is over, come to my office." Even without Shen Jingye telling him, Li Banfeng could deduce seventy to eighty percent of it. Earlier, Big Head had left the archives and gone straight to Chashan Hotel, clearly delivering a message to He Jiaqing. The message he delivered was an address, telling He Jiaqing to look for a certain person. He Jiaqing dispatched the man surnamed Han to find this person, which led directly to Han being caught. The reason he was caught was simple: the address Big Head stole from the Dark Star Bureau was a trap from the start, just like the magnetic resonance cannon blueprints. This Han fellow had gone to the villa, casing it frequently at first without spotting anything suspicious, only to step right into the trap and end up locked inside—practically handing himself over to Shen Jingye on a silver platter. Shen Jingye captured Han, interrogated him rigorously, and followed the trail to Chashan Hotel. Tracing outward from Chashan Hotel, He Jiaqing's subordinates in Yuezhou would be completely rounded up, dealing a heavy blow to the Brotherhood Alliance's power in the Outer States. The twelfth-floor archives really ought to be renamed the twelfth-floor fishing pond. It was just like the bug-catching activity Shen Jingye had organized: through a moderately challenging filter, bait an inside mole of decent capability to bite, and use that mole to uncover the adversary's entire network. Li Banfeng was quite interested to see how vast He Jiaqing's network in the Outer States was, but when they arrived at Chashan Hotel, Zhu Junlong was nowhere to be found. Shen Jingye had sent people to case the place beforehand. Zhu Junlong had been at the hotel for the past few days, so why had he suddenly vanished today? Not only was Zhu Junlong gone, but several key staff members of the hotel had disappeared as well. He Jiaqing had moved faster than Shen Jingye. Shen Jingye announced the immediate closure of the hotel, detaining all staff and guests for questioning one by one. The staff and guests were terrified. Fortunately, they weren't primary suspects; after filling out survey forms and undergoing questioning, the others were allowed to leave. But Big Head's wife was held back. She had no idea why she was being detained, nor what had actually happened to the hotel. It was getting late. She wanted to call Big Head to pick up their child from school, but her phone had been confiscated. She pleaded repeatedly, just wanting to make a phone call, but the people around her wore cold expressions, and no one answered. What she didn't know was that contacting Big Head wouldn't have helped anyway. Big Head was currently held at the bureau, in a situation far worse than hers. Li Banfeng said to Shen Jingye, "Little Shen, arrange for someone to pick up Big Head's child from school, take him home, and get him something to eat." Shen Jingye frowned. "Many issues concerning Zou Guoming haven't been clarified yet. The focus of our work right now is—" "Until they're clarified, Big Head is still a member of the Dark Star Bureau. When someone from the bureau has trouble at home, it's your job to take care of it. That is your duty." As he spoke, Li Banfeng looked Shen Jingye in the eye, his expression calm and his tone genial. Yet a cold shiver ran through Shen Jingye from head to toe. He called over Chen Changrui and gave him a few instructions. Chen Changrui arranged for Tangkuai to pick up the child. The leads here at the hotel seemed to have gone cold; the people in the know had fled. Shen Jingye returned to the Dark Star Bureau, turning his sights on his next target: Big Head. Had he known all along that Big Head had broken into the archives? Then why hadn't he taken action earlier to detain Big Head? Shen Jingye's moves were hard for Li Banfeng to understand, though Shen Jingye couldn't really be blamed—he hadn't suspected Big Head in the first place. The main suspicion now hanging over Big Head was simply that his wife worked at Chashan Hotel. Back at the bureau, Shen Jingye interrogated Big Head in person. "Guoming, you're an old hand here. I don't need to lecture you on the rules. Explaining everything clearly as early as possible will be good for you and good for your family. If you deliberately conceal anything, you know the consequences." Having spoken, Shen Jingye pressed the switch on the underside of the table, activating the Judge's dark-energy carrier. He asked the first question: "Do you know this person named Zhu Junlong?" Big Head nodded. "Yes. He's the boss of Chashan Hotel. My wife works there." That was the truth. Shen Jingye followed up with a second question: "How did you get to know him?" "He and I worked as day laborers together on a construction site." Before joining the Dark Star Bureau, Big Head had lived through a period of hardship. Shen Jingye knew this as well. "Can anyone vouch for that?" Big Head thought for a moment. "Back then, construction sites hired day laborers without even checking IDs. I don't know if that foreman can still be found, or if he'd even recognize me." Shen Jingye didn't pursue the matter of the construction site and continued probing their relationship: "Have you and Zhu Junlong always been close?" Big Head reminisced for a moment: "When we were doing labor, we got along very well. He sent all his money to pay for his mother's medical treatments and couldn't bear to spend on food, eating just two steamed buns each meal. Every few days when I bought meat to eat, I brought him a portion too. Later, I stopped working construction and basically lost contact with him. Early last year, my wife lost her job. Chashan Hotel put up a notice hiring a lobby manager, so I paused by the door to take a look. Zhu Junlong happened to be at the entrance and recognized me. I had no idea he'd made it big and become the hotel's owner. He said he would reserve the position for my wife, so I had her take the job. He even allocated a dormitory apartment for my wife and helped arrange school admission for my son, saying it was to repay my past kindness." Shen Jingye stared intently at Big Head. Not a single change manifested on Big Head. He was telling the truth—the truth within his own cognition, word-for-word taught to him by He Jiaqing. Shen Jingye looked over his prepared questionnaire, skipped past the page on Zhu Junlong, and turned to the questions regarding He Jiaqing. "Do you know He Jiaqing?" "Yes." "How did you get to know him?" "Captain Chen introduced us." "What does this have to do with Chen Changrui?" Shen Jingye thought he had stumbled onto an unexpected breakthrough. Big Head answered calmly, "While He Jiaqing was hospitalized, Captain Chen ordered me to regularly monitor his condition." Shen Jingye said, somewhat displeased, "I'm asking about matters outside of work. What interactions did you have with He Jiaqing outside of work?" "None." "Repeat that." Shen Jingye checked the status of the dark-energy carrier. Big Head remained calm. "None." This was not the result Shen Jingye wanted. Reasonably speaking, having a subordinate possess no ties to the suspect was a good thing for the Dark Star Bureau. Yet the bomb in the archives had already detonated, and in the end, aside from Han Mingqi, nobody else had been caught. This outcome was far from ideal. Naturally, a single interrogation could not prove Big Head's innocence. There were many questions to verify regarding Big Head's wife as well, so she couldn't be released just yet. But what about Big Head's child? Chen Changrui returned to the squad, gathered his team members, and arranged for them to take turns looking after the kid. *** Shen Jingye came to Li Qi's office and described the process of capturing Han Mingqi. He didn't mention the archives, but did speak of the ambush they had prepared in advance: "That villa was a trap we laid. Anyone who set foot in it got what they deserved." Li Banfeng asked, "How many more traps like that are there?" Shen Jingye shook his head. "I haven't tallied the exact numbers yet. Our deployments and preparations cover every aspect—there are no blind spots..." There was no Virtue Cultivator numinous object in Li Qi's office, so Shen Jingye believed he could be appropriately vague. But as Li Banfeng set down his teacup, he reached under the rim of the desk and made a clicking motion. *Click!* Shen Jingye faintly heard the sound of a switch. What switch did he just press? Could it be there was a Judge carrier in this room too? Who installed it for him? Did he bring it himself? Did Puluo Province have something like that? Shen Jingye instantly tensed up. Li Qi said calmly, "Little Shen, no need to be nervous. I want to hear about the specific operations. Aside from Han Mingqi, did you have any other gains this time?" "For now, there are no other—" "Little Shen, be honest." Li Qi gazed fixedly at Shen Jingye and gave a solemn warning. That warning sent a chill down Shen Jingye's spine. After a moment's thought, Shen Jingye offered a different answer: "If we're talking about gains, there were some on the Puluo Province side. Xiao Zhenggong has been captured." With that, he looked at Li Qi. Li Qi's reaction was genuine. He was startled. "Which Xiao Zhenggong did you say?" "The very Xiao Zhenggong you killed," Shen Jingye said with a faint smile. "Isn't it strange? He clearly died at your hands, and everyone said he died at your hands, yet now he's come back to life." "Where is he now?" "At Garrison Headquarters, in Chief Commissioner Liao's hands." *** Liao Zihui asked, "You're saying you entered the Dark Star Bureau's archives and found the method to build a magnetic resonance cannon?" Xiao Zhenggong dug his nostril with his thumb, his expression tinged with disdain. "Everything I've said is the truth. I have special magic treasures and numinous objects that can block security cameras and open the doors of the archives." "Do you know how to search the files?" "Not much. It was all the magic treasure finding things on its own." "Magic treasures that can search for things are rare. What's the origin of that treasure of yours?" "It's a black glove. Supposedly, it was transformed from the previous sect master of the Ghost Hand Sect, Yu Zhongbao." "Yu Zhongbao..." Liao Zihui thought for a moment. "Yu Zhongbao only served as sect master for less than two years, didn't he?" Xiao Zhenggong propped his feet up on the desk and said lazily, "In the second year after taking over, the Ghost Hand Sect was about to pull off a big deal, but word leaked out. Yu Zhongbao was ambushed and died during that job. The old boss, Xie Juncong, had already retired, but had to come out of seclusion to shoulder the sect once more." Liao Zihui looked at Xiao Zhenggong, sensing something was off. This man was certainly arrogant, but the real Xiao Zhenggong would never answer questions so smoothly. Seeing Liao Zihui remain silent, Xiao Zhenggong continued, "That black glove of mine is exceptionally useful. It opened the Dark Star Bureau's archives without breaking a sweat. But now the glove is gone—most likely fallen into Li Qi's hands..." "Are you Xiao Zhenggong?!" Liao Zihui suddenly bellowed, cutting Xiao Zhenggong off. Xiao Zhenggong flinched and hurried to pull his feet down from the desk. "I... I am!" "Are you or aren't you?" "I am." Liao Zihui pondered for a moment, then asked, "Weren't you beaten to death by Li Qi? How did you come back to life?" Xiao Zhenggong couldn't explain it clearly, so he could only describe what he personally experienced: "I just felt like I took a nap. When I woke up, I was alive again. It's an Inner States technique used by Spider Bin." "The Inner States have techniques like that?" Liao Zihui was intrigued. "I imagine you must know a bit of this technique yourself, don't you?" Xiao Zhenggong shook his head repeatedly. "I don't." "Besides Spider Bin, there must be others who know it, right?" "I don't know." Liao Zihui was displeased. "Since it's an Inner States technique, there must be people from the Inner States who know it, right? You were once a Balancer yourself; you can at least point out a path, can't you? Back then, I asked you which Inner States people you knew. You had a bad temper and refused to say. Now I see your temper has improved quite a bit. Can't we discuss this? If you're in a tight spot, invite a few Inner States people out for a chat. We won't take their technique for nothing—we'll give them good things. If I talk with them properly, we might actually strike a deal." Did Liao Zihui really want to do business with people from the Inner States? Matters were hardly that simple. Back then, Liao Zihui had wanted to use the Balancer to establish a stable communication channel with the Inner States. In the end, two successive Balancers were gone, and the channel was never established. Now Liao Zihui was eager to test whether his original line of thinking had been right. Hearing this, Xiao Zhenggong's arrogance flared up again. Leaning against the backrest with his head cocked, he said, "Chief Commissioner Liao, I always contacted people from the Inner States through Sage Peak. If you trust me, let's take a trip to Sage Peak right now..." Liao Zihui was silent for a moment, then pointed his gun straight at Xiao Zhenggong's forehead. "What did you just say to me? You said go to Sage Peak? Do you think you're hilarious, and that I just love bantering with you?" Xiao Zhenggong shuddered, doing his best to pull his forehead away from the muzzle. He had no idea what had happened to Sage Peak. Liao Zihui looked at Xiao Zhenggong's smug expression. Making a face that practically begged to be slapped truly was Xiao Zhenggong's signature specialty. Yet looking at his constantly trembling body, this level of courage fell far short of the real Xiao Zhenggong. Just what state was Xiao Zhenggong in after his resurrection? It was a very peculiar state. The real Xiao Zhenggong had been a frequent visitor to the Garrison Office and held garrison commissioners in complete contempt. The mountain bandit Yu Dacheng, however, had never entered a Garrison Office in his life and trembled at the sight of a garrison commissioner. The "Xiao Zhenggong" before him was a hybrid of the two. Liao Zihui asked, "Besides Sage Peak, do you have no other way to contact people from the Inner States?" Xiao Zhenggong gave a disdainful sneer. "No other way." Liao Zihui barked, "Think again!" Xiao Zhenggong flinched again, though his expression remained defiant: "There's also Qishuiyao. There's an entrance leading to the Inner States there, and a gatekeeper at the entrance who's a pure-blooded Inner States person. I don't know where that place is, but Spider Bin has been there. Chen Weixin took him." "You've seen Chen Weixin?" Liao Zihui was pleasantly surprised. "Yes. He went out with Spider Bin, and when they returned, only Spider Bin was left. Spider Bin even had the famed general Zhao Xiaowan in his hands." "The famed general Zhao Xiaowan as well?" Liao Zihui didn't know how to describe his mood right now. He was worried the clerks wouldn't have enough pen and paper. "Write it down! Write down every single word! And you folks recording video, taking photos, pressing records—don't spare a thing! Record every bit of it without missing a detail!" Two hours later, the interrogation concluded. Humming a little tune, Liao Zihui strolled toward his office. Deputy Chief Commissioner Wei Yingsen stepped forward. "Chief Commissioner, we've gathered so many leads this time. Shouldn't we take action immediately?" Liao Zihui paused. "Take action on what?" Wei Yingsen said, "Arrest Daboynes immediately, interrogate him for Zhao Xiaowan's whereabouts, and find the entrance to the Inner States." Liao Zihui frowned. "Arrest what? Interrogate what? Find what?" Wei Yingsen was dumbfounded for a long moment. "No, well... we caught Xiao Zhenggong. With such a rare opportunity, we surely must—" "What opportunity?" Liao Zihui snapped. "Have you finished writing your report?" "The report? Not yet..." "If you haven't written the report, what are you babbling to me for? Finish the report, hand it in tomorrow for my review, and after I review it, we'll submit it upward before talking about anything else!" Humming *Roses Everywhere*, Liao Zihui walked into his office. "*Roses, roses bloom everywhere, youth, youth is found everywhere, the unstoppable spring breeze blows into our hearts...*" Wei Yingsen glanced at Tang Huanjie. "Huanjie, matters regarding the Balancer have always been your responsibility. Shouldn't you be the one writing this report?" Tang Huanjie looked at Wei Yingsen, let out a faint smile, and sang, "*Roses, roses bloom everywhere, youth, youth is found everywhere...*" Humming the tune, he headed back to his own office. That evening, Tang Huanjie accompanied Liao Zihui to Xiaoyaowu to listen to songs, while Wei Yingsen was left at the Garrison Office writing the report. The secretary wrote a first draft and handed it to him for review. After reviewing it, Wei Yingsen revised it personally. Back and forth it went until half past three in the morning. Wei Yingsen told his secretary to go rest. Holding the report, he read through it once more, confirming there were no omissions, then turned to look in the mirror. In the mirror, his face was sallow and his eyes bloodshot. Wearing a smile, he slapped himself across the face, pointed at the mirror, and cursed, "That'll teach you to run your fucking mouth!" Looking back at the report, all they knew was that the Inner States people were in Qishuiyao. Qishuiyao was enormous—where were they supposed to find them? *** Shi Gongxing held a wrench, crouching motionless behind a machine tool. He was the only person in the vast workshop. At the far end of the workshop, bubbling sounds surged upward from time to time. Was it that crucian carp skeleton? No, it didn't need to breathe; it couldn't make so many bubbles. *Gurgle, gurgle...* Under the pool, a gigantic river snail burrowed out from the silt. She wriggled over to the crucian carp skeleton. A pair of tentacles atop her head carefully touched the carp's bones. "Who did this to you?" the river snail asked, her voice sounding like a gentle woman's. *Whoosh!* The carp suddenly whipped around and took a vicious bite out of the river snail. A piece of flesh was bitten off the river snail. She was furious. She wasn't angry at the carp; she was intensely enraged at the culprit. She took off the shell on her back and brought it to her mouth. Burrowing into the silt, she blew the spiral shell, sending out a signal of vengeance to her kin. PS: This move by City Lord Sun is going to stir up big trouble.