Chapter 180 A Troubled Devil

Combining previous information with recently discovered details, Zhang Yuanqing's mind raced, and many bold, chaotic conjectures flooded his thoughts.

In distant, unknown ancient times, a cataclysmic upheaval occurred, a consequence of the confrontation between two major factions (perhaps with other contributing factors).

Subsequently, spiritual energy began to wane, and the world descended into disorder and chaos. Later generations relied on spiritual energy for cultivation, giving rise to various professions.

They were all free, with no factional conflict. Evil professions and Lawful professions could coexist peacefully, but this was not the norm. As spiritual energy gradually dried up, ancient cultivators perished, and an era came to an end.

Then, the Lingjing was born, the confrontation between the two major factions was re-established, and a new cycle began with the birth of the Lingjing.

That's why the Compass of Light made such a prediction!

"It fits logically, but there are too many loopholes and details. If I let my imagination run wild, I could even think that each mass extinction is a major cycle. The world has gone through countless cycles since its inception... Feels like I could write a book," Zhang Yuanqing mused.

There were too many mysteries, and without evidence, a single wrong guess could lead to vastly different conclusions.

For example, the reason for the world's end was that humanity's evil thoughts had twisted into terrifying monsters. In fact, evil professions were humanity's emotional garbage bins, bearing the karma for humanity. Lawful professions were the real villains; they wanted to eliminate and destroy these garbage bins, allowing the garbage to flood human society, leading to human extinction and the world's destruction, plunging it into utter nothingness.

This was the ultimate meaning of Lawful.

When the world no longer needs order, that is the most stable order.

Well, this kind of fantasy can't be written into a book; it's not positive enough and would be destroyed. The imperial court has always done things like that. Zhang Yuanqing suddenly paused.

Lawful, destroy!!

He froze for a few seconds, then shook his head vigorously, banishing the thoughts that had just arisen.

Then, he replied to Eagle of Freedom with a "Thanks, let's keep in touch," and put down his phone, focusing on finishing his meal.

During this process, he glanced at Guan Ya and thought of his teammates Queen, Green Tea, and Li Chunfeng. They were all intelligent individuals with intellect, capabilities, and vision far superior to ordinary Spirit Possessors.

If he could bring them in for discussion, he might be able to arrive at more reasonable conjectures.

But these things were destined to remain a secret, even from Qian Gongzi. He and Qian Gongzi maintained a delicate, unspoken balance.

This was the balance that intelligent people should maintain; it was not suitable to break it or make it explicit.

"Ling Jun was looking for you earlier!" Guan Ya said, eating cold beef salad. "He said he lost a box of cigars. Did you steal it?"

"Steal? What a scholar does can't be called stealing; it's borrowing," Zhang Yuanqing scoffed.

"I saved him and Teng'er's lives. What's wrong with him repaying me with a box of cigars? I take Fu Qingyang's things, and he never says anything. Ling Jun has a small mind."

Guan Ya looked jealous. "Fu Qingyang treats you better than he treats me. That brat."

Zhang Yuanqing quickly explained, "We have a purely male-male relationship." Guan Ya didn't argue with him and sighed.

"He's probably too lonely. He sees any genius as trash. He thinks you're different from other trash. Although you always act lazy and exaggerated, you've been struggling in adversity, never stopping, never slacking off. He thinks you're alike in that regard, so he treats you as a confidant."

"Is that so? I thought it was because I flattered him well." After dinner, in the large villa's lounge.

"Ah, um, um, lighter, don't use so much force," Zhang Yuanqing moaned drunkenly. "Can you not make a sound? How can a dignified Star Official not handle this little bit of force?" Ling Jun chuckled.

"Nonsense, this is my first time. Unlike you, you enjoy it every day. Lighter, lighter," Zhang Yuanqing gasped. "You have sensitive skin," Ling Jun clicked his tongue.

Inside the softly lit hall, three wide, soft sofas were lined up in a row. Three men in bathrobes lay leisurely on the sofas, with fruit platters, fine wine, and cigars at their sides.

The aroma of cigars floated in the air, and soothing, melodious music played from the speakers.

Each sofa had a bunny girl assigned to it, wearing jade-green wooden bracelets on their snow-white wrists, focused on massaging the three gentlemen's feet.

The wooden bracelets were props of the Wood Sprite profession. Wearing them granted immense strength, allowing them to massage the three gentlemen's feet.

After all, even the skin toughness and muscle strength of a Star Official, who wasn't known for physical defense, could easily withstand bullets. Zhang Yuanqing had never had a foot massage before, and when the bunny girl exerted force, he cried out.

Ling Jun, with a cigar in his mouth, gloated and made fun of him, while Fu Qingyang closed his eyes, his handsome, chiseled face calm, full of masculine beauty.

"Oh, right, Yuanshi, are you free next week? Teng'er wants to treat you to a meal to express her gratitude for saving her life," Ling Jun said lazily.

"Next week?" Zhang Yuanqing glanced at Qian Gongzi. "My boss wants me to enter Qin Feng Academy next week."

"Qin Feng Academy? That's a good place. It has a forest rich in resources where you can hunt and gather valuable herbs. It has a smelting room where you can learn how to refine tools, and a refining room where you can learn to identify herbs. There are many good things," Ling Jun put down his cigar and forked a piece of cantaloupe into his mouth.

"These are minor matters," Fu Qingyang said blandly. "There might be a secret hidden in Qin Feng Academy."

"What secret?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.

Fu Qingyang pondered for a moment and said, "Qin Feng Academy was originally a guild dungeon of the Zhong Ting, a Dominator-level dungeon with a Qin Dynasty background. After being conquered, it became the current academy. But I heard the Marshal mention that the hidden mission of this dungeon was not completed."

"Why wasn't it completed?" Zhang Yuanqing was surprised. Although Dominator-level dungeons were high-end, the Zhong Ting had demigods.

Fu Qingyang glanced at him. "That's why it's a secret. By the time I realized it, it was too late. I didn't have time to gather clues and complete the mission, but you can try. After all, you're different from trash like Ling Jun."

Ling Jun swallowed the cantaloupe and said, "Never mind the secrets. Those things are too far away from us. I'll tell you, there's a good place in Qin Feng Academy." As he spoke, he gave a smile that Zhang Yuanqing immediately understood.

"There are pretty female teachers?" Zhang Yuanqing chuckled.

"Pretty female teachers are a necessary element of any academy, but what I want to talk about is not that. There's a lake in Qin Feng Academy called Jiaoren Lake."

Ling Jun revealed a look of yearning. "Beautiful jiaoren live there. In terms of appearance, even the most outstanding beauties among humans are only the average of the jiaoren. There isn't a single ugly jiaoren."

"Jiaoren?" Zhang Yuanqing immediately became interested.

"They are exotic beasts that lived in ancient times. They are equivalent to a level 1 water ghost at birth, reaching level 3 when they mature. A small number of elites can reach the Saint level, and the most powerful Jiaoren Queen is a Dominator-level.

There are no males in their clan. After the females mature, they will lay eggs and give birth to the next generation. They can also mate with water ghosts among Spirit Possessors to give birth to mixed-blood offspring, without reproductive isolation.

These exotic beasts, like ancient cultivators, are on the verge of extinction as spiritual energy dries up, but the Lingjing provides them with a habitat, allowing their race to continue." Ling Jun spoke eloquently.

"After the Grand Elder of the Water God Palace cleared the Jiaoren Lake dungeon, he introduced this race to Qin Feng Academy, but there are no Dominator-level jiaoren in Qin Feng Academy. I remember the strongest Jiaoren Queen being level 5, right, Fu Qingyang?"

Fu Qingyang kept his eyes closed and said blandly, "Good memory. It seems the Jiaoren Queen left a significant psychological shadow on you back then."

"How so?" Zhang Yuanqing became interested.

"Ling Jun thought the Jiaoren Queen was beautiful, so he secretly sneaked out of the dormitory and into the lake, but he was almost killed by the Jiaoren Queen. It was the academy's teacher who saved him," Fu Qingyang said. "Alas, exotic beasts are just exotic beasts. They only know how to admire the strong. They don't understand romance, and their choice of mate is too twisted." Ling Jun wasn't embarrassed.

Zhang Yuanqing thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Wait, jiaoren are half-human and half-fish, right? Their lower body is a fish, right? Instructor, how did you become sexually interested in the Jiaoren Queen?"

Ling Jun said lazily, "Isn't the upper body human?"

Zhang Yuanqing was shocked. "Though it's a fish body, it's still head-to-toe?"

Ling Jun paused for a moment. "What the hell are you thinking? What I mean is, although they are jiaoren, they have angelic looks and fair, delicate skin. It's romantic to fall in love with such beauties, not necessarily to do that kind of thing. You're a vulgar person whose mind is filled with lust."

Zhang Yuanqing protested. "If you're not lewd, how did you understand it?" Ling Jun was speechless.

Fu Qingyang's face twitched. "Stop this topic."

Zhang Yuanqing and Ling Jun looked at him together and said loudly, "Oh, you understood too, oh~."

Fu Qingyang was silent for a second, then looked at the three bunny girls and said coldly, "You guys go out first!"

Eight o'clock in the evening, living room round table.

Guan Ya, Xie Lingxi, Queen, and Yin Yao Junzhu surrounded the round table, playing mahjong.

Yin Yao Junzhu bit a small horn with her cherry lips, her hands lingering and groping on the mahjong tiles. Each time she played a tile, an elder sister's voice came from the small horn, "Nine of Bamboo," "Three of Wan," and so on.

Queen had lost half a month's salary tonight, gnashing her teeth and saying:

"I suspect Yin Yao Junzhu is cheating with astrology. Jili Ka should cover her eyes."

"She's not cheating," Guan Ya said.

Queen was unconvinced: "Then why is it always me who loses money?" Xie Lingxi glanced at her and said tenderly:

"Queen Jie-jie. Is there a possibility, that your skills are just too bad?"

Queen was about to retort when she suddenly saw Yuanshi Tianzun enter from the door, overjoyed and saying, "Captain, you're back. Eh, what happened to your face?"

The three women turned their heads to look. Yuanshi Tianzun's nose was bruised and swollen, turning into a pig's head.

"My Xiao-jiuzi beat me up. Lingxi ah, come and pity Ge-ge, I need ice packs and a massage." Zhang Yuanqing lay down on the sofa, sighing and groaning.

Xie Lingxi wrinkled her nose at him, unhappy that he called Fu Qingyang Xiao-jiuzi.

"Captain, I'll do it, I'll do it!"

Queen, who had lost half a month's salary, was extremely proactive, trying to earn back the money she had lost from the captain by serving him as a slave.

But Yin Yao Junzhu held her shoulders down, unable to move.

"Disgraceful!"

Yin Yao Junzhu's elder sister voice came from the small horn: "Now is the new era of female superiority and male inferiority, do not disgrace women."

"You're clearly just not having enough fun, and you don't want the mahjong game to end."

Queen muttered in her heart. —Yin Yao Junzhu proposed a solution: "Let the family's longgong serve you."

"Then I'll pass." Zhang Yuanqing said righteously, "I've told you, they're not longgong, they're beloved friends." He muttered, turning into dreamlike starlight and disappearing.

After showering and washing up, the bruises and swelling on Zhang Yuanqing's face and body dissipated. With a Star Official's self-healing ability, even if an arm was severed, it could heal within half an hour. Of course, it could not regenerate.

"Before entering Qin Feng Academy, I'll go home and see, then stay at Xiaoyuan's place for a few days. After the recent crackdown, the evil professions in the Songhai area have become much more honest. To accumulate prestige, I can only look forward to the next dungeon being a confrontation dungeon."

"The investigation into the Xiaoyao organization can be put on hold for now. The gains are not small, but mainly there are no more clues. Chen Shu has blacklisted me. To continue the investigation, I can only take the risk of inquiring with the Zoo Spirit."

He lay on the bed, thinking aimlessly.

Before entering Qin Feng Academy, he could probably live a few peaceful days.

He used to think that university life was boring and monotonous, attending classes, playing games, accompanying Little Aunt shopping, and occasionally being a craftsman. Now, he suddenly missed the old days. He sighed in his heart, took out the Mao Wang speaker from the drawer, and said, "I want to know about the Demon Lord's understanding of the Compass of Light."

After speaking, he opened the music playback software on his phone and played the song "Loving You Walking Alone in the Dark Alley."

When the song ended, the Mao Wang speaker emitted a "buzzing" electrical sound. After a moment, a familiar hoarse voice sounded:

"Today, I heard about the prophecy of the Compass of Light from the Terror Heavenly King of the Soldiers Church. Do the sun, moon, and stars represent the ultimate power of the Night Wanderer?"

At this moment, Zhang Yuanqing entered the Night Tour. A man's voice replied.

"As you expected."

Zhang Yuanqing had heard this voice before. After a brief recollection, he remembered that it was the mysterious person who told the Demon Lord about the prophecy of the Compass of Light. He invested in the Demon Lord.

"Why the Night Wanderer? What's so special about the Night Wanderer?" the Demon Lord asked.

"This question is beyond the scope. Even I don't know the reason. But I can give you a thought. Why is it that among all the Lawful professions abroad and at home, only the Night Wanderer is a peak combat power profession? Have you ever thought about this question?" "Do you know?"

"It's not that I know, I just want to tell you that the Night Wanderer has always been special."

The mysterious man said, "By the way, you just said that you met the Terror of the Soldiers Church? He didn't kill you, but instead told you the prophecy of the Compass of Light?"

"My companions were all killed by him. Naturally, he wanted to kill me too. I told him: Killing me is your freedom, but living is my freedom. You shouldn't stifle a life's freedom. He admired my understanding of freedom and wanted to be friends with me. We chatted for a long time. I told him that I was a servant of the Tricky Eye Judge, controlled by the Holy Grail, and could never be freed."

"And then?"

"Then he said he was going to kill Tricky Eye, I hope he succeeds."

The Heavenly Kings of the Soldiers Church all have mental problems. So, you can escape death in the hands of the Heavenly Kings by relying on rhetoric? I'll write it down, it might be useful in the future, Zhang Yuanqing muttered in his heart.

The Demon Lord said again, "It seems you don't know either. Then, answer me another question. In a confrontation dungeon, if you encounter acquaintances in the opposing camp, how do you break the situation?"

"What happened?"

The mysterious man smiled. "Last month, I encountered a friend in a confrontation dungeon. I didn't want to kill him, but I had to kill him. I couldn't disobey the Lingjing mission. He was an evil profession, but a kind-hearted person who actively sought self-salvation. He told me that as long as you sincerely repent and yearn for the light, even the most heinous person can start over." The Demon Lord said in a low voice.

"You saw a reflection of yourself in him, and you also want to redeem yourself?" the mysterious man said. After a long while, the Demon Lord said

"Recently, I listened to audio recordings of myself from the past. I'm becoming less and less like myself, more and more like a madman. I hate who I am now, but I can't control the evil thoughts in my heart."

"I befriended him, observed him, scrutinized him. I wanted to see if there really was a way back for the most heinous person. But in the end, I had no choice but to kill him."

"Before he died, he told me that he didn't blame me, he was free."

The mysterious man sighed:

"When you advance to Dominator, I will tell you how to get rid of the Fallen Holy Grail, but the risk is very high, the probability of death is extremely high, you must be prepared to die."

"As for the way to break the situation in a confrontation dungeon, it's very simple, just leave the dungeon."

"That's nonsense."

"Heh, what I mean is, leave the dungeon voluntarily, not let the Lingjing send you out. You need a prop from the Void profession, I don't have one on hand, but I can find one for you," the mysterious man said.

"But forcibly leaving the dungeon will deduct a certain amount of experience points, or even drop a level. Think it over yourself." The audio stopped abruptly.

A prop of the Void profession, the Teleportation Jade Box?

So that's where this prop came from… Zhang Yuanqing chewed over the contents of the conversation, finding that the amount of information was enormous.

First of all, he understood the origin of the Teleportation Jade Box.

Secondly, he suspected that the Demon Lord's friend was from Master Wuhen's team.

Finally, it turned out that the battle in which the Demon Lord perished with the Tricky Eye Judge was orchestrated by this mysterious person.

Could the person who disguised himself as the Demon Lord and took away the Little Sun that day be this mysterious person?

Compared to the Demon Lord not being dead, Zhang Yuanqing was more inclined to this guess. After all, the Demon Lord's death had been "endorsed" by the Sect Leader of the Taiyi Sect, the Demigod of the Five Elements Alliance, and Master Wuhen.

The Soldier Church's Shura invested in the leader of the Dark Night Rose, the Five Elements Alliance invested in the Sect Leader of the Taiyi Sect, and this mysterious person and the Beauty God Association invested in the Demon Lord.

The mysterious person hid his head and tail, not revealing his identity, which was very consistent with the persona of a conspirator.

After the Demon Lord died, he took away the Little Sun, planning to find the next investor? I'm also a Night Wanderer, why not invest in me? Am I, Yuanshi Tianzun, not worthy!

The direction of exploring the Demon Lord's line has been found, investigate this mysterious person, sigh, I'm really busy… Zhang Yuanqing thought. At this moment, the phone rang.

Zhang Yuanqing looked at the screen, the caller was Asano Ryo, who was living a good life. She actually contacted me proactively. Zhang Yuanqing answered the phone:

"Moshi Moshi?"

A clear voice of a high school girl, but with suspicion, gravity, and nervousness, came from the speaker:

"Yuanshi-kun, I'm sorry to disturb you late at night, I, I have something I want to ask you to help with."

As the voice fell, Zhang Yuanqing heard a muffled "thud" from the phone, as if her head had hit the tatami.