Hearing Qiu Tu's words, the young woman visibly grew more agitated. Slapping the table, she yelled, "Who are you talking about?! Who are you talking about?!
"How could I, Shen Lingshuang, ever lie?!"
Qiu Tu gave her a suspicious look. He might not be skilled at interrogation, but he was certainly an expert at deceiving people.
To a master swindler like him, the girl's expressions and movements were riddled with flaws.
First, she was habitually maintaining eye contact with him. That was a common mistake made by rookie liars, who falsely believed it enhanced their credibility.
Second, she repeatedly dwelled on specific phrases, like "Shen Yuzhou" and "Who are you talking about?" That was actually a telltale sign of a guilty conscience.
Lastly, shouting and dramatically slamming the table were pure bluster, born of an utter lack of confidence.
So... this girl was lying?
With that thought, Qiu Tu slowly withdrew the smile from his face and watched her in silence.
At first, the girl kept up her bravado, but her gaze grew weaker and weaker until she simply lowered her head and went back to eating.
Seeing this, Qiu Tu reached out and dragged the table aside. Her chopsticks remained outstretched. "Hey? Hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?!"
Keeping his face cold, Qiu Tu pointed at his black uniform and asked in a low voice, "Do you know which department this uniform belongs to?"
The girl looked utterly blank.
Qiu Tu stated with absolute certainty, "The Political Department!"
With that, he asked again, "Do you know what the Political Department does?"
She shook her head, bewildered.
Qiu Tu said, "We handle espionage, counter-espionage, internal supervision, and all sorts of dark business!"
Then he pressed on, "And do you know what methods we use to interrogate prisoners?"
The girl's attitude softened considerably. Hunching her shoulders, she shook her head pitifully.
Qiu Tu pulled a stack of slightly blurry color photographs from his pocket and slapped them firmly into her hands.
She took the pictures and wanted to look, but finding it awkward while holding her chopsticks, she hesitated for a moment, held the chopsticks in her mouth, and flipped through the photos.
These were pictures Qiu Tu had specifically requested from someone at the Political Department that afternoon; every single one depicted torture scenes or gruesome corpses.
Even Qiu Tu had found them chilling to look at, let alone a young girl like Shen Lingshuang.
After looking at just two, her face drained of color, and her eyes went somewhat glazed.
Seeing this, Qiu Tu knowingly asked, "What are you trembling for?"
Shen Lingshuang stammered, "Wh-who's trembling?"
By the end, her teeth were chattering in a steady rattle.
At the sight, Qiu Tu chuckled internally: *A complete weakling. And here I thought she had real backbone, yet she folded the moment she was scared.*
Seeing that the pressure had done its job, he didn't push her any harder. Reaching over to take back the photos, he reassured her, "Don't worry. As long as you behave, I won't hurt you.
"You wouldn't want to go through something like this, would you?"
Shen Lingshuang shook her head frantically. Perhaps terrified that Qiu Tu wouldn't believe her, she shook it like a rattle-drum.
Satisfied, Qiu Tu gave a nod and began a new round of questioning. "Then speak. Who are you, really? How did you end up in Xinjie City?"
Shen Lingshuang looked at him with puppy-dog eyes. "I'm a refugee from a zone pending planning under the Third Sanctuary. A sudden catastrophe hit my family, so I had no choice but to flee to the Eighth Sanctuary..."
Qiu Tu took out a notebook and casually began recording the interrogation. "Don't be so vague. Be specific. Which zone pending planning under the Third Sanctuary?"
Shen Lingshuang shrank her neck. "Seventh City."
Qiu Tu jotted it down, then asked, "Then how did you become a potioneer?"
Shen Lingshuang said timidly, "Family heritage..."
"Family heritage?" Qiu Tu asked curiously.
Shen Lingshuang nodded. "My family has practiced medicine for generations, so I learned how to compound medicine from childhood and gradually figured it out."
Frowning at her, Qiu Tu said, "Then was the formula for the Cataclysm potion passed down through your family as well?"
Shen Lingshuang gave him a surprised look. "You actually know about Cataclysm potions?"
Qiu Tu was at a loss for words.
"What a novelty! Don't you even know why you were arrested?"
Shen Lingshuang blinked, a look of complete bewilderment on her face. "Wasn't I arrested for selling counterfeit medicine?"
Qiu Tu stared back, equally baffled.
The two exchanged blank stares.
After a moment, Qiu Tu tapped his notebook and snapped, "Stop joking around!
"Do you think I'm playing games with you?!
"Let me make this clear: this is an interrogation, an interrogation!"
With that, he glared fiercely at her and reframed his question. "Let me ask you: can you make Cataclysm potions?"
Shen Lingshuang shrank her head and said cautiously, "I can only make inferior Cataclysm potions.
"As for the exact effects, I wouldn't know..."
She lowered her voice. "The medicine I make has always been weird. It always produces strange side effects.
"For example, when I was little and my father had a fever, I prepared a fever-reducing medicine according to the recipe.
"His fever went down, all right, but his entire body went completely cold, too..."
Qiu Tu stared in utter disbelief.
"Another time, I was testing a new medicine and realized it was poisonous, so I had to take an antidote.
"But several antidote pills didn't work. Having no other choice, I had to gnaw on raw antidote herbs while vomiting green foam.
"I ended up chewing through every stash of antidote herbs in the house. By the time I was cured, my entire face had turned green..."
Qiu Tu was speechless.
He felt as if three thick black lines were dropping across his forehead.
What kind of freak was this girl in front of him?
Was she joking, or was she serious?
If she was serious... would he even dare consume any Cataclysm potion she concocted?
At that moment, perhaps noticing Qiu Tu's sour expression, Shen Lingshuang tilted her head and looked up at him with curiosity. "Why aren't you smiling anymore? Are you just naturally averse to smiling?"
As she spoke, a flash of quirky cunning darted across her eyes.
Qiu Tu's eyes widened.
In that instant, he was certain of one thing: she had been faking it! From the moment she saw those photographs, she had been putting on an act, and all those ridiculous stories were made up just to mess with him!
She was utterly lawless!
With that realization, Qiu Tu completely lost his temper. He hauled the girl up and pinned her against the chair.
Reaching behind him, he drew the dagger from his waist, intending to show Shen Lingshuang something vicious to intimidate her!
Whether in the fraud syndicate of his past life or the Political Department of this world, there were plenty of brutal, agonizing torture techniques that inflicted immense pain without causing permanent disability!
Yet just as his fingers closed around the dagger's hilt, he suddenly remembered the dense fog surrounding her true identity. In that split second, he cooled down.
He glared at Shen Lingshuang, unable to let her off the hook, yet unable to carry out torture either. Caught in this dilemma, his gaze dropped to her slender waist and perky curves as she sprawled over the desk.
The next second, his hand came down hard!
*Smack! Smack! Smack!*
Chapter 20