Cursing, Zhang Yuanqing swore in his heart.
At this moment, within his sea of consciousness, a halo radiating a gentle, warm light slowly pulsed.
This halo originated from the lie-detecting tool in his hand.
The principle behind lie-detecting tools is actually quite simple: first, observe you through mental fluctuations, micro-expressions, breathing, pores, and even adrenaline secretion, to determine if you are lying.
Second, control you, using a higher level of power to force you to be truthful.
The former is representatively embodied in the Scout's Insight skill.
The latter is represented by the Tiger Talisman, which Zhang Yuanqing had encountered before.
The lie-detecting tool before him belonged to the first type, but unlike Insight, it entered the sea of consciousness to observe the spiritual body.
Therefore, this situation could not be transferred to Little Fool; only the second type of mental control ability could be transferred.
Essentially, the halo wasn't doing anything to you; it was simply observing you.
Zhang Yuanqing now had to face a problem: avoiding the Dean's question would reveal a flaw through Insight.
Lying would be detected by the small brown horn.
The consequence would be that all his gains would have to be handed over to the White Flower Society, to headquarters, in exchange for rewards and merits.
Just as thoughts raced through his mind, a cold voice said, "Last night, I was with him the entire time. We can vouch for each other."
It was Zhao Chenghuang who spoke.
This second-generation spirit from the Taiyi Sect, with an expression and tone of utter indifference, seized the small horn from Zhang Yuanqing's hand amidst the gazes of everyone present, and said:
"Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me. Her death has nothing to do with me."
The students and teachers immediately looked at the small brown horn.
It was dull, ancient, and unchanged.
Not Yuan Shiqing, nor Zhao Chenghuang… Everyone present looked at Yuan Ting and the Stargazer, their eyes filled with ambiguous wariness.
Zhao Chenghuang, still holding the small brown horn, said:
"Dean, Yuan Shiqing has already proven his innocence. Why are you still asking him if he was in the dormitory all night? Do you have any new leads?
"The students here are all front-line staff. Our ability to solve cases surpasses that of the faculty. If you have any leads, please don't hide them. Tell us."
He stared at the Dean with cold, calm eyes.
Well done!!!
Zhang Yuanqing praised in his heart.
He thought, as expected of the brightest spark of the Taiyi Sect, although he likes to act cool and show off, he is reliable at crucial moments.
Zhao Chenghuang not only resolved his crisis but also turned the tables.
If the Dean were the Armored Man, he would not be able to give a reason, and a problem without a reason, if repeatedly questioned, would certainly be suspicious.
The official Saints were not fools.
The Dean frowned and shook his head:
"The information I received is the same as yours."
Zhao Chenghuang nodded expressionlessly and handed the small brown horn to Yuan Ting beside him.
The students' gazes instantly sharpened, staring at him intently.
"Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me, her death has nothing to do with me at all," Yuan Ting said loudly.
The small brown horn remained unresponsive.
Yuan Ting breathed a sigh of relief and habitually began to ramble: "I'm not familiar with Xia Chaoxue at all. There's no gossip about her either. Um, I'm not saying I like gossip, but...
The small brown horn in his hand suddenly emitted a bright, pure light.
The crowd, who had just been disappointed, all looked over at once, their eyes sharp, as if they were looking at a heinous criminal.
The Dean shouted:
"Yuan Ting, stand where you are! Don't move!"
As he spoke, he summoned a three-foot-long sword.
The students and teachers quickly retreated, adopting a defensive posture.
Yuan Ting, holding the small brown horn, was somewhat at a loss.
The Dean shouted, "Did you kill Xia Chaoxue? Answer me!"
"No!"
The crowd glanced at the small horn. The Dean shouted again, "Are you familiar with Xia Chaoxue?"
"No!"
The crowd looked at the small brown horn again, still no reaction.
Hmm? The reason the small horn glowed just now was...
In the crowd, Zhang Yuanqing said impatiently, "Do you like gossip?"
"No."
The small brown horn emitted a dazzling light.
The scene suddenly fell silent.
Yuan Ting was a little embarrassed.
Everyone else was also embarrassed.
The Dean, not expecting this result, was stunned for a long time before changing the subject without changing his expression, saying, "Next."
Zhang Yuanqing seized the opportunity and said:
"Dean, don't ask irrelevant questions. Everyone, don't say irrelevant things."
Yuan Ting breathed a long sigh of relief and tossed the lie-detecting tool to the Stargazer not far away.
"Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me, her death has nothing to do with me," the Stargazer said calmly.
The small brown horn did not react.
Seeing this, the crowd erupted in an uproar once again.
The killer wasn't a Star Official?
"If it wasn't a Star Official, then it was a crime committed using a tool," said Lin Su, the cool, forest-like Alchemy teacher:
"Everyone is a possible suspect, including the girls."
"How could a girl have sex with Xia Chaoxue?" a female student questioned.
Lin Su, with her cool temperament, said:
"We didn't find any male fluids in Xia Chaoxue's body at all, did we?"
The crowd fell into contemplation.
If they had found fluids, my Red Dancing Shoes would have locked onto the killer directly. There would have been no need for so much trouble… Zhang Yuanqing thought.
Next, under the Dean's witness, everyone underwent a round of lie detection.
The situation from the first day repeated itself: they couldn't find the killer.
Everyone passed the tests of lie detection and Insight.
This meant that the killer had a special ability to conceal themselves, making lie detection and Insight ineffective.
This result undoubtedly deepened the students' suspicion and anxiety. The gazes they gave each other were subtly filled with wariness and distrust.
After pondering for a long time, the old Dean slowly said:
"Everyone immediately goes to the library and writes down everything that happened from last night until this morning. From now on, you will be in pairs. Eating, sleeping, even going to the bathroom, you cannot leave each other's side by more than three meters until the real killer is found or the training period ends."
Today was the fourth day of entering Qin Feng Academy. There were three days left until the end of the training.
"Wait!" Zhang Yuanqing's voice interrupted the crowd's march to the library.
He stared at the gray-haired old man, "Dean, you also need to take a lie detector test."
Without waiting for the old Dean to respond, Zhang Yuanqing turned to look at Guo Hezu and Ren Junzi, "You two are responsible for keeping an eye on the Dean."
The pressure immediately fell on the Dean.
"Alright!" The Dean nodded, raised the small brown horn in his hand, and said in a deep voice, under everyone's gaze:
"Xia Chaoxue was not killed by me, her death has nothing to do with me."
The small brown horn was old and archaic, and did not glow.
10:30 AM.
A coffee shop.
Zhang Yuanqing picked up his coffee and took a sip, his gaze drifting to the flower garden outside the window. The sun was bright, the flowers were vibrant, colorful butterflies fluttered among the blossoms, and bees worked tirelessly day after day.
He pressed the earpiece in his ear, "From now on, all discussions must be done through the earpieces. Everyone, remember that."
Across from him sat the handsome Xiahou Aotian.
At the table to his left were Zhao Chenghuang and Sun Miaomiao, and at the table to his right were Tianxia Guihuo and Hongjige.
Six people, three groups.
Because of the Dean's rule that everyone must be in pairs, Zhang Yuanqing weighed the pros and cons and decided that if he had to add one more person, Hongjige was the most trustworthy.
"Understood!"
The replies of the other four came through the earpiece.
"The situation is not optimistic. There's something wrong with Xia Chaoxue's death. I suspect the killer is targeting us," Zhang Yuanqing said.
"Our preliminary suspicion is the Dean," Zhao Chenghuang's voice rang in the earpiece. "The question he asked Yuan Shiqing downstairs in the girls' dormitory has already exposed his identity."
"Are you trying to say that the Dean is the Armored Man?" Tianxia Guihuo cut to the chase.
Xia Chaoxue's death was ill-timed and illogical. Everyone felt it was unreasonable.
But after the Dean asked that question, the dungeon team had realized it.
They knew that the Armored Man wasn't Yuan Shiqing, and they knew that the Armored Man was coveting the treasure behind the stone gate.
Zhao Chenghuang nodded silently.
"I don't think so."
It was Xiahou Aotian who spoke. This alchemist, with his severe personality flaws, stirred his coffee as he thought of his own reasons. "First of all, how did the Armored Man know that the stone gate had been opened? Was he monitoring from the bottom of the lake all along? If so, then he wouldn't have needed to kill Xia Chaoxue at all; he could have come straight for us.
"Secondly, it wouldn't make sense for the Dean to kill Xia Chaoxue. He's the Dean appointed by the White Flower Society. If he discovered that the stone gate had been opened, he could have reported it directly to headquarters.
"We're all respectable people with names and identities. It wouldn't be too difficult for headquarters to find us and investigate afterward. Are we supposed to become wanted criminals because of this?"
Sun Miaomiao agreed with this. "The Dean killed Xia Chaoxue, creating such a scene, just to find out who broke into the dungeon? That reason doesn't make sense."
Xia Chaoxue was an official Saint, assigned to Qin Feng Academy for training, which meant that her branch intended to promote her to a Director.
Killing a Director is unacceptable, no matter how big the reason.
Zhao Chenghuang and Tianxia Guihuo frowned deeply. The incident was becoming increasingly confusing.
"Yuan Shiqing, what's your opinion?" Sun Miaomiao looked over with her watery, bright eyes.
Zhang Yuanqing chose his words carefully, thoughts flashing through his mind. "At first, I also thought that the Dean was the Armored Man, but Miaomiao's words made me dismiss that suspicion. Her analysis is correct."
Sun Miaomiao chuckled, proudly revealing her two small tiger teeth.
Actually, Zhang Yuanqing had thought of this a long time ago.
He said it to give Sun Miaomiao a little preferential treatment.
"I've seen the Armored Man. He (or she) is most likely a student. That night, I personally watched him clumsily search for the stone gate. It didn't seem like he had scouted it out beforehand. If the Dean were the Armored Man, he would have scouted it out after being in the academy for so many years, right?"
Zhang Yuanqing's voice rang in everyone's ears. "Before the operation last night, I said that the Merman tribe, the academy teachers, and the giant tiger on the island were all guardians of the hidden mission. How could the Dean not know the location of the stone gate?"
Tianxia Guihuo took a sip of his coffee, his gaze sweeping around the empty coffee shop, lingering slightly on the clerk working behind the counter before retracting it:
"There are three forces in the academy: one is the guardians of the hidden mission, one is the Armored Man, and the other is us. The Armored Man discovered that the stone gate had been opened, so he killed someone to create a disturbance, hoping to find us through it.
"It's logically consistent, but in that case, we have to face three doubts: first, why was it Xia Chaoxue who died; second, why did the Dean ask that question; third, which force does the Armored Man belong to; and fourth, how did the Armored Man know that the stone gate had been opened?
"The last question is the most important. I can't feel at ease until I figure it out. I always feel like I'm being monitored at any time."
One thing is certain: the Armored Man doesn't know who entered the stone gate, but that contradicts his killing behavior this morning, because our guess for his motive is to create a disturbance and find the person who entered the stone gate...
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Zhang Yuanqing pondered for a few seconds, then a thought struck him. He stood up and said, "I'm going to the restroom."
He passed the coffee tables and entered the restroom, locked the door, closed the toilet lid, sat down, closed his eyes, and visualized his father's appearance in his mind.
Before long, his brain was in turmoil, and all sorts of meaningless noises howled in his ears, with fragmented, chaotic images flashing by one by one.
This time, the chaotic state lasted for a long time, until blood oozed from Zhang Yuanqing's nose and he broke out in a cold sweat from the pain. Only then did this state stop.
The first thing that appeared in his mind was the scene of him leaving the dormitory for the first time and sneaking into Merman Lake.
He directly rewound to four days ago.
Images flashed by one by one. Soon, he saw the Armored Man who had appeared that night.
He saw himself hidden in the protruding rock beneath the cliff.
The Armored Man, as he had been that night, swam and searched beneath White Beast Island. Because the stone gate was very conspicuous, he quickly found it.
The Armored Man stopped in front of the stone gate, gazing at the round hole carved with the Black Bird pattern.
Zhang Yuanqing still remembered this scene.
Next, he was discovered by the Mermen… he thought.
In the next second, a group of Mermen swung their fishtails and quickly swam closer.
It was at this moment that he saw the Armored Man reach out, gently wipe the round hole, and then turn around to face the Mermen.
In that instant, Zhang Yuanqing saw, through the flowing frames of the image, that his palm was slightly closed, with something seemingly clamped in the palm.
The next scene was the Armored Man escaping from the Mermen's pursuit.
"Hiss…"
Zhang Yuanqing held his forehead, enduring the splitting pain in his brain.
He sat on the toilet lid with his head down, blood dripping from his nose.
After a long while, the headache lessened. He wiped the blood from his nose with a random piece of paper and leaned back against the toilet, as if he was exhausted.
"So that's how it is. It must be a kind of material, a material invisible to the naked eye, that he smeared on the 'keyhole'. The Armored Man analyzed that the stone gate had been opened by the traces being destroyed…"
"He doesn't know exactly who it was, so he killed Xia Chaoxue?"
"He sneaked into Merman Lake that night, not just to scout it out. He's a cunning enemy… There's a problem, the Armored Man seems to know that someone can open the stone gate, which is impossible."
"We just came out, and he discovered it, which means he sneaks into the bottom of the lake every night to check the traces."
Zhang Yuanqing pulled out a roll of paper, wiped the bloodstains on the floor, and flushed them into the sewer.
He pushed open the door of the cubicle, washed his face, walked out of the restroom, and returned to the coffee table.
"Why did you take so long?" Sun Miaomiao complained when she saw him return. "Are you constipated?"
ps: I will update the wrong words first and then revise them later. The follow-up content is a bit difficult to write, because it needs to bury the lines and collect the lines, which is very consuming.