“So… is there anything you want to say?”

Dim firelight flickered in the ancient house in Lion Alley. Lu Nanzhi took out a red lantern from the old house. The old house was very old and seemed to have preserved many "old era" items.

Madam tiptoed and hung the lantern on the branch of the banyan tree in the yard.

The red string swayed in the wind.

The lantern scattered thousands of strands of weak light, and Gu Shen felt soothed by these rays… his spirit became much lighter.

This was no ordinary lantern.

The flickering firelight seemed to contain some kind of incredible spiritual element.

Hmm… was the principle similar to "Lion's Awakening Brew" in some way?

However… the owner of this old house was Lu Cheng, a pioneer of the Eastern Continent who studied and researched with Alan Turing. It would not be strange for him to develop any kind of item!

“What do I want to hear…” After hanging the lantern, Lu Nanzhi sat down under the tree, upright and proper, looking at Gu Shen, and said, “You should know very well.”

Gu Shen also sat down.

He said frankly: "As I said last time… I can push open that door…"

He paused.

Gu Shen looked directly at Lu Nanzhi, "And then, I pushed it open."

Lu Nanzhi did not realize that "spiritual exile" was a terrifying or dangerous thing… Everything that happened in the Liberty Auditorium was just a dream to her.

And when she woke up, the old dusty door in her mind had been opened.

The ancient characters sealed on the red door no longer existed, and the entwined spiritual shackles had also fallen away… So even if she didn't know what happened, she was very clear.

The red door was pushed open!

“What’s behind that door?” Lu Nanzhi's tone became urgent. When the red door opened, she was the unluckiest one. According to the powerful summoning rules, the spirits of all the Ancient Text Society members in the conference room would come to see the "key," but she was the only "exception”… her spirit was exiled and wandered outside the void, and could not be summoned at all.

In a sense, in the depths of the sea's perception, Lu Nanzhi was no different from a dead person.

So… she knew nothing about what happened in the conference room.

Find the key!

This was the goal her father had pursued for nearly ten years!

After Alan Turing "died," he left behind only a fragmented conference room and a vague "key" message. The remaining members of the Ancient Text Society from the five continents were all looking for this last hope.

Now, the key had finally appeared, how could she not be excited?

"Madam…"

Gu Shen said slowly: "Behind the door is a conference room. I think you know very well what this conference room means. Moreover… you are the one who should give more explanations."

He met the gaze of the woman who was about to become the third councilor of the Capital District.

"Many important figures in the council have seen my file, and I believe you are no exception…"

Gu Shen said in a deep voice: "Three months ago, I was just an ordinary citizen of Da Teng City. Because of a fire, I was involved in a series of extraordinary events, joined the Tribunal, became an adjudicator, and then became the so-called 'key'… Fate did not give me the power to choose. I need an explanation for all of this."

In the spiritual world.

Gu Shen had already heard an answer from the "source code" from Chu Ling.

And now, he wanted to get the answer of the material world from the carrier of the "Red Door."

Under the weak light of the banyan tree lantern, Lu Nanzhi's expression became calm. She stared at the boy and said softly and firmly: "The fire accident… it can basically be confirmed that it was done by the Evergreen Foundation. The origin of all this was a coincidence, but the subsequent… joining the Tribunal, coming to the capital, becoming an adjudicator, was the plan of the [Ancient Text Society]."

Gu Shen's pupils shrank slightly.

"Someone knew you were the 'key' earlier than I did. He is the boy with the code name 031 in the conference room. I don't know his specific identity in the real world, but he revealed the information about the 'key' to me." Lu Nanzhi said seriously: "In fact, it is reasonable for him to find you, because the remaining members of the Ancient Text Society, the survivors scattered across the five continents, are all looking for you. We have been working hard for this for nearly twenty years."

The boy with code name 031?

Gu Shen frowned slightly.

He thought of the familiar gaze at the end of the meeting…

031 locked onto his "key" identity earlier than Lu Nanzhi… If calculated from the fire accident, 031's identity was only one of two possibilities. One was a council bigwig who had not yet shown his face.

The twenty seats of the Eastern Continent Council, those who sat on the seats, and some who had great power but did not sit, needed to be categorized into the first type.

As for the second type… Gu Shen almost instantly thought of his teacher.

"Is it Zhou Jiren?"

This doubt appeared in his heart, and then took deep root.

Before the fire accident, Zhou Jiren extended an olive branch to him… He seemed to know the history of the [Ancient Text Society] very well, and he was also optimistic about his future. This was too unreasonable for an ordinary person who had not yet awakened his extraordinary abilities.

After he left the conference room, he met his teacher's eyes.

He didn't feel the slightest strangeness.

Was this old fox… hiding something, or?

Gu Shen silently suppressed this doubt. In his opinion, Zhou Jiren was the "biggest suspect" for 031. Since this old fox wanted to hide it, he didn't need to point it out.

He briefly explained what happened after he opened the Red Door.

Of course… he concealed Chu Ling.

It was not that he did not trust Madam, but because Chu Ling's existence was too special, and Gu Shen did not think that revealing the secret of the "source code" was a meaningful thing.

"Forcibly conducting spiritual links…"

Lu Nanzhi's furrowed brows slowly relaxed. When she heard the end, she breathed a sigh of relief, "After the spiritual gathering… directly announcing the adjournment of the meeting, although it seems to be bluffing and making a lot of noise with little rain, it is actually a very good solution."

It was better than forcibly convening a meeting.

“I have nothing to say.” Gu Shen said lightly: “And with that layer of spiritual veil… presumably everyone is very interested in the identity of the ‘key’. The more I say, the more I expose. At this stage, I don’t want to reveal my identity.”

“You did the right thing.”

"After more than ten years of successive blood changes… the Ancient Text Society has undergone many changes." Lu Nanzhi said softly: "At least in this conference room, everyone is a stranger to each other, gathered together because of the search for the 'key.' In a sense, we are all desperadoes looking for fire in the apocalypse… What we fear most is not the lack of hope, but how to continue to unite and move forward after we truly have hope.”

Sharing joys and sorrows, the difficulty lies in the former.