Muse temporarily closed the entire salon reading room, citing a need for some simple renovations.
“Won’t this kind of reason rouse suspicion among the observant? ” Yang Zicang asked with slight worry while following Muse and Little Muse to the VIP room.
“Indeed, many people are paying close attention to every move here, but don’t worry; this sort of thing is quite common. “
After speaking, Muse flashed a courteous smile and continued, “Moreover, the situation here has been a bit special lately. Let alone us, even government departments closing for a day or two is perfectly normal. “
Yang Zicang responded with a slight nod.
This old fox was dangling a hook for him.
“So, has anything happened recently? ” Yang Zicang asked with a look of interest.
“Well, many of your fellow countrymen have been coming to me to fish for information, but… “
This time, the elderly gentleman showed a genuinely puzzled expression:
“To be honest, I can sense that something is brewing, yet what exactly it is, I’m not sure. Ah, ” he sighed, “or perhaps it’s already happened, and we’re all still in the dark. “
Little Muse confidently stared at Yang Zicang’s expression from the side, then gave a slight shake of his head.
It seemed they were trying to confirm something from him, but they didn’t succeed.
Reflecting on it, Yang Zicang realized he indeed hadn’t heard any whispers of anything brewing in this country.
An usher pushed open the door to the reception hall. The first thing that caught Yang Zicang’s eyes was the wall of wine cabinets and bookshelves on the left side, followed by the massive nautical chart on the right side of the long table, a map of an irregular rectangular continent surrounded by sea. It was marked with detailed waterways and simple markings of important cities across various nations.
Lu Yang was silently escorted in by two security personnel who had just re-entered.
“Do we need to put the earphones on him? ” the head of the security team asked in a low voice.
Yang Zicang saw a helpless smile spread across Lu Yang’s face.
“What do you think, sir? ” Yang Zicang asked the man.
“What, me? “
“Yes, you haven’t revealed the whereabouts of the original document. Even if the person who took it really left as you guessed, all details should have been disclosed by now. Let our experienced Mr. Mius take a look and see where he might have fled, ” Yang Zicang turned his head. “Right, Mr. Mius? “
“Well… that’s true. ” Mius understood instantly that this man before him wanted to make him an ally here.
If it was the real material regarding the Blood Shell, this kind of thing would be a piece of cake. That is, if it were real.
“This truly is a matter that cannot be delayed. ” Mius’s aura shifted in an instant, turning somewhat cold and solemn as he looked toward Lu Yang.
-｛Distributor Rocky·Tata Ming once again actively lowered his perception of my current experience.｝
-｛Distributor Tata Ming Qi marked a new node for the glorious prelude I am conceiving.｝
“But, ” Mius withdrew his gaze and turned to look at Yang Zicang, “you’ve said so much, yet I haven’t even truly finished reading a single piece of material. ” He spread his hands.
-｛Tata Ming Qi raised his perception of my current experience to the 70% I had set.｝
-｛He is angry, he is ashamed, as if ‘expressing’…｝
-｛He lowered the perception to 50%.｝
Yang Zicang lifted the handwritten pages from the road, selected one, and held it out.
“With just these scattered fragments of data, I’m afraid I can’t trust you. ” After reading carefully, Muse looked at the complete set of photocopies in Yang Zicang’s hand. “And as I said, I was already skeptical about this from the start. Sorry, it’s not that I doubt Mr. Lu’s abilities—I just have to be responsible for my shop’s reputation. “
“If you’re really selling intel on the Blood Shell, our Muse Salon could share some exclusive future data with you, and we’d provide top-tier services here in Crowstown. Every kind of service,” Little Muse chimed in from the side.
“Sir, if you—or you all—can prove this data is real, I can offer you a piece of exclusive information. “
Muse raised a hand to cut off the sales pitch Little Muse was aiming at Yang Zicang—words the man clearly had no interest in—and said solemnly:
“The key is, it has to be genuine. Otherwise, we’ll just handle this as likely forgery according to our rules. As for finding someone… we wouldn’t take that kind of risk on an unconfirmed story, not if it means the Steffen might savage us in revenge. You have no idea what it’d cost us. “
Lu Yang watched Yang Zicang with a faint, silent smile across his face.
It was as if he was saying,See? We’re on the same side now.
After a moment’s thought, Yang Zicang said,
“I can provide a fragment of the Blood Shell to prove it. “
“What! ” Muss seemed crazed as he looked at the young man before him. His breathing became rapid as he stepped forward and raised his hands to grab Yang Zicang by the shoulders. “How is this possible? Who… just who are you? ” The cold, sharp light in his eyes re-emerged.
In this unconcealed emotion, undisguised doubt towards the person before him was revealed.
Lu Yang on the sofa stared at the figure standing there like he was looking at a madman. The person looked over and said, “Troublesome. Put the earphones on his head. “
It was at that moment that Lu Yang struggled to turn around. A ring gleamed on his chest, and silver-white threads dispersing outward became visible to the naked eye.
Yang Zicang’s gaze turned cold as he swiftly charged to Lu Yang’s front. The man’s arm lit up with an orange flame, and with a crisp crack, he shattered the red-glowing belt at his wrist, shouting, “Did you really think I would surrender everything… “
Bang!
A fist slammed into his stomach.
“You damn good-for-… “
Slap!
Another palm pressed against his mouth. “Who are you contacting! ” Yang Zicang’s face was full of solemnity.
“Pah! ” Three swiftly forming radiance rings rapidly lit up in Lu Yang’s eyes. Blood lines, pulsing with distorted indistinguishable overlays, emerged from his body as phantom patterns. Then, beyond the third ring, starlight gathering with painstaking efforts coalesced into a fragmented purple halo.
{Free Radiance! }
Yang Zicang seemed to hear such a voice. He felt that what his palm pressed against was not a man’s warm skin, but already dried leather!
Can illusions even affect the mind?
His heart suddenly turned ruthless, and he forcefully grabbed, crushing what was under his hand. Instantaneously, it burst into a thick mixture of white pulp and blood.
With a bang, the slightly manic Yang Zicang felt a kick aimed at his crotch, but at the same time, as his unfolding stance extended, he could not find the entity of this foot.
“It’s an illusion. ” Yang Zicang looked back down at his hand, finding he had only grabbed the leather armrest cover of a sofa.
“Goodbye, sir. To put it as your common saying goes, thank you for the colors you added to our schedule today. Consider that eleven thousand years of chronology your farewell gift for the effort you’ve expended. “
A faint, indistinct voice drifted from beside him.
“That sword you carry is very interesting. So-called missions are merely incidental encounters along the river of time for you and me. Though we are foes here, when we meet again, let us hope we can be friends. “
The “Musing Night, ” spread outward, could locate neither Lu Yang’s specific position nor the speaker of this extra voice amidst the chaotic torrent laced heavily withStellar Yuan.
“They’ve vanished! ” Mr. Muse’s faintly panicked voice sounded.
Hearing this similarly faint and elusive voice, yet one whose location he could still pinpoint, a faint smile curled on Yang Zicang’s lips.
So it seems this method could truly work.
His fist coiled up strength, pointed in the direction where the door should be, as fixed in his memory.
“Break! “
｛I initiate resonance with the Source of the Holy Spirit. Five Elements Force Field activated.｝
｛I activated “Explosive Wind Fist “!｝
BOOM!
The fist wind, carrying a phantom white light, intensified by the Five Elements Force Field, spread and surged outward in a spiral momentum, bearing the force of a gale!
The illusion covering the entire entrance trembled but did not vanish. Yet, near the staircase where a gentle breeze swayed, a relatively denser aura of the Five Elements Force Field finally emanated.
The elemental presence on Lu Yang’s stomach, left by the force field attached to the knee, finally responded within the perception.
｛Trajectory Master!｝
｛Dispatching, Ten-thousand-rank position.｝
The young man’s figure briefly appeared as a hazy silhouette among the gazes of those around him, then flickered into an ethereal afterimage that charged into the wavering illusion.
Pulled along by a boy tugging his hand, Lu Yang suddenly turned his head in terror.
“Watch out! “
“How is this possible! ” The young man beside him also looked back in disbelief at the figure charging from behind. “You… Ah! “
The White Shadow Thought-Dragon instantly crashed into the boy’s body. Facing this new opponent with unknown abilities, Yang Zicang dared not act as recklessly as he had against Lu Yang, who primarily used “Illusion Arts. “
Of course, his target remained Lu Yang.
“It’s a psychic body! Damn it, where the hell did you come from, ugh! “
The surface of the boy’s body was coated with a film of Stellar Yuan energy. The White Shadow Thought-Dragon tore at it frantically, yet couldn’t tear it open for the time being. Instead, the boy’s constantly swinging hands caused the Thought-Dragon’s body to begin staggering as well.
Meanwhile, under Yang Zicang’s martial arts, which were clearly more than a cut above, Lu Yang was knocked to the ground again with just a few blows, a fresh black eye now adorning his face.
“Drop your weapons! Hands in the air! “
Armed security team members once again appeared at both ends of the hall, their shadowy figures completely surrounding the place. Seeing dozens of guns of various sizes aimed at him, and aware of a psionic force that could catch him off guard at any moment, the boy with shoulder-length black hair raised his hands quickly: “I surrender! “
The two of them meticulously split a total of two hundred and eighty thousand years of temporal sequence and invested it in Yang Zicang through several transactions.
In a small room beside the living room, the security team tied the two with ordinary ropes and threw them together, a dozen guns aimed at them.
“We’re screwed. ” The boy’s face was full of chagrin. “How can you be so stupid? You actually got caught messing around where even Ming Hui Guang operates so easily. And by someone who didn’t even use any bloodline ability. “
“Am I the only one who got caught? “
“Both of you, stop arguing. ” A crew-cut man in sunglasses crouched beside the two, holding a document sheet on a small clipboard in his hand.
“Start confessing. Talk about everything you can remember, including the time and place of your bowel movements over the past two days. Everything. All of it. “
“I-I’ll confess! ” the boy immediately shouted. “My name is Justin Hughie. “
“I told you to change that crappy name. ” Lu Yang sighed.
……
In the room, Yang Zicang watched the small recording machine in Little Muse’s hands, which was still replaying: “…Consider that hundred and ten thousand years of chronology as the reward for the effort you have put in… “
“Sigh, even with the recording, some of the words here are hard to make out. “
They invited Yang Zicang to sit back down and placed the recording machine on the table.
“This is a gang operation. Everything that guy just said was fake. Hmph, messing with our salon— even without any intel, we would have traced them all down and uncovered everything. Consider this a small gesture of gratitude to Mr. Ziggle for helping us save face this time. “
The group hashed out the rough outline of their upcoming transaction, waiting only for Yang Zicang to bring that damaged artillery shell.
“As for the different versions of the documents you need us to modify, Mr.,I don’t mind saying this: with our involvement, this material can end up on the desks of various powers—big and small, or even royal courts of nations— with perfect efficiency and potency, and in a perfectly measured way. “
With the data’s authenticity already half-believed, Muse proposed tentatively.
Yang Zicang knew this was a very prudent and sensible proposition.
But this meant that the Republic of Waldestadt, or more precisely, the city of Krostiten—which held economic and military advantages within this nation—might gain access to the data on Blood Shells even before “Heaven’s Judgment. “
What should he do?
Yang Zicang sensed a growing unease within him; if he agreed now, this incident might instantly escalate from a “Radiance-Level ” to a “Flash-Level ” crisis.
He scanned the glimmer in Mr. Little Muse’s eyes, where confidence and hope had gradually bloomed amid Yang’s hesitation, along with a trace of ambition.
“Mr. Ziegler, ” Little Muse tilted his head slightly, striving to appear as earnest as a trusted confidant offering heartfelt advice:
“We’ll prepare a magnificent feast for you—rich and dazzling. I understand your deepest delights; it will satisfy your appetite for upending this world. “
Should he really do this?
Yang Zicang’s eyes twitched gently. He glanced at Little Muse, who returned a pure and expectant gaze, tinged with nervousness.
If he truly took this step…
Yet a “Flash-Level ” impact could bring nothing less than a glimmer of hope to those close to him, a chance to survive the looming peril.
Yang Zicang turned his gaze back to Little Muse, whose expression radiated warmth and affability.
The man smiled with the sincerest goodwill, speaking softly:
“Mr. Ziegler, you know as well as I do—this place is just one stop along your journey. Your true calling lies elsewhere. Isn’t that so? Even our very identities are but masks. Who’ll ever know who you truly are, right? “
The light in Yang Zicang’s eyes dimmed. “Yeah… true. You’re right. “
A look of joy lit up Muse’s face. “Then, let us join hands and use this information… “
Yang Zicang tore the mask from his face with one swift motion. The exposed visage startled the little Muse beside him, who stumbled back a step. Under the stunned gaze of the Muse ahead, he said,
“This is the mark left behind when I saved your continent’s people. “
“Such severe burns… You? “
A complex emotion flickered across Muse’s face—admiration, mingled with anxiety about obtaining this information he so desired.
“My words just now were indeed somewhat harsh… Alright then, let’s proceed as we initially agreed. Mr. Ziegler, do you need any help with those wounds? ” he asked, his tone filled with genuine concern.
“It’s nothing. “
Yang Zicang raised a hand, reaching behind his ear to the area near his jawline, where he gently lifted a tiny corner of the ‘Skin of Lament.’
“This injury is also just borrowed from someone else, but someone like that really exists. “
“Uh… ” Muse was left utterly stunned, frozen in place.
A smile that sent chills down one’s spine curled at the corner of the lips of the man whose face was now a ruin of severe burns.
“I agree to your plan. But… let’s take that damaged cannonball as a starting point and restart the research on the data’s analysis. “
“Huh? “
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