Chen Mo did not expect the result of his waiting to be so terrible—

The Great Adjudicator's holy wood locked him in.

If he couldn't break free, this place would be both his prison and his coffin.

And even without the holy wood's confinement… he didn't have the confidence to escape the entanglement of this mysterious man. His time-slowing field seemed to have no effect on the man before him.

Because the other party's voice did not slow down.

This seemed to be a direct mental interrogation.

When did the Capital add such a transcendent being above the twelfth level of the deep sea?

"You're crazy…"

Chen Mo gritted his teeth and said, "If we're caught in the explosion head-on, we'll both die."

The shadow remained unmoved.

Clearly, he didn't care about the explosion, only Chen Mo's answer—

"I don't know…"

Chen Mo took a deep breath and gave this seemingly weak answer through gritted teeth.

But it was the truth.

He hadn't had many interactions with Owl.

The two had established contact through a mental link… and this man did indeed possess extraordinary abilities, successfully imparting top-tier body refinement methods to Chen Mo with just a few exchanges.

Aside from cultivation, they didn't have much other communication.

"I really don't know his location… but I saw his face in a dream, the same as that photo…"

As he spoke, Chen Mo judged the correct direction to escape the explosion in the slowly passing time domain.

The glass outside the interrogation room shattered, and he saw the approximate scene outside. As long as he was fast enough, he could crash out of the nearest corridor and escape this abandoned building… As for which floor this was, he no longer cared. The most important thing now was to escape this explosion.

Having received Chen Mo's answer.

The shadow lowered its head, lost in thought.

In the next moment, the holy wood chair that had been tightly binding Chen Mo seemed to loosen slightly.

Chen Mo gritted his teeth and moved a distance horizontally, crashing out along with the red and silver glass of the interrogation room.

His ability reached its limit—

Time slowed, and the flow of time returned to normal.

"Bang!"

The sound of an explosion rang out.

At the last moment, Chen Mo crashed into that corridor. His planned escape route was correct… When he crashed out of the sea of fire, he cast his gaze in the direction he had come from, only to see the white shadow still calmly sitting in the fragmented interrogation room within the raging sea of fire, with his hands propped on his elbows, seemingly deep in thought.

The next moment.

The entire abandoned building was blown to pieces.

Raging flames engulfed the building, and a mushroom cloud rose.

The violent shockwave swept across the sky. Chen Mo grunted, feeling a fishy sweetness in his throat.

With his bone density, he could barely withstand the impact of the aftershocks.

One wave had just subsided.

Another wave rose again.

In mid-air, amidst the still-unsettled, deafening roar, a second explosion rang out.

Chen Mo's eyes widened as he watched the surging flames that were chasing after him, rushing out of the building with great momentum.

He roared and raised his hands, blocking them in front of him. This was his last line of defense… Time Slow could not be activated twice in quick succession, and he could only withstand the second explosion with his physical body.

But in the instant that countless flames were about to engulf him.

Everything froze.

As if… someone had pressed the hands of the clock.

Or perhaps, all of this was a dream.

"Do you… want to live?"

The white shadow's voice rang in Chen Mo's mind.

Without waiting for Chen Mo's response.

The white shadow's voice rang out one last time: "Then join the Special Investigations Team."

Not a question.

Not a request.

But a demand.

The shackles of the holy wood unraveled on their own, and countless flames rushed towards him… This massive explosion, the raging wind and sound waves it stirred up, almost swept across every inch of land within a ten-mile radius.

Only… no one knew.

Because this ten-mile radius was all barren.

Countless thick smoke and dark clouds rolled across the dome.

Buildings collapsed.

A bird with a broken wing fell, landing on a thick pile of straw.

…

…

With a "snap."

A muffled sound came from the window.

Gu Shen saw a bird with a broken wing collide with the window.

Was it enveloped by his ominous aura?

He thought self-deprecatingly as he slowly got out of bed. The dizziness brought on by the illusion dream had basically disappeared. Before he could open the window, the trembling bird was startled, desperately moved, and finally fell off the edge of the windowsill, falling towards the ground below…

At the critical moment.

A scabbard stretched out, catching the bird with the broken wing.

The power of Lanqie could be sharp, but also gentle.

Lu Nan Jin, sitting by the window, slowly gathered the bird into her palm, gently soothing it.

"Huff…"

Gu Shen breathed a sigh of relief.

He had wanted to lend a hand.

But it had caused the bird with the broken wing to fall.

Gu Shen withdrew his palm awkwardly. Ever since the meeting at the Hall of Freedom, he felt that the things he had been experiencing recently had not been going smoothly. The theory of luck might be true… In any case, he didn't want to see the Grave Ghoul again.

"Don't get close to the Grave Ghoul."

Nan Jin teased in a low voice, "You'll become unlucky."

"I thought the 'New World' project team was a popular thing, but I didn't expect it to be a deep pit…" Gu Shen rubbed his head, sat back on the bed, and frowned, "This sentence sounds familiar. Did you say something similar before?"

"Did I?"

Nan Jin raised her eyebrows and said calmly, "Maybe you're too weak, so you remembered it wrong. After the explosion in the alley, you fainted a few steps after walking out of the cordon and have been sleeping until now. I haven't said much to you."

"???"

Gu Shen looked at the light screen.

The election ceremony for the alternate councilors had ended, and Madam's "I object" must have caused a huge uproar within the council.

A complete reversal.

The Southern Bay had given up the fight, but the real war had just begun.

Judging from Nan Jin's expression, she didn't seem surprised by all of this.

"Senior Sister, these… were you planning them in advance?"

Gu Shen slowly opened his mouth, "Opposing the Awakening Law."

Lu Nan Jin sat on the window sill with her saber, watching the injured bird return to the window sill. She watched it spread its wings and fly away from the ward, and it was indeed out of danger.

"Mm."

She didn't refute it.

Instead, she admitted it directly.

"Is it because of… the Lion Lane case?"

Having been to the old city and investigated the case files… Gu Shen believed that he was now one of the few people who still cared about the truth of the Lion Lane case.

This case had been going on for too long.

So long that, apart from Crow, Nan Jin, and Nan Zhi, no one else would care anymore.

The balance of the Capital now, in a sense, was all "thanks" to Lu Cheng's death… The word "thanks" sounded bloody, but it was actually very appropriate.

"Have you ever experienced something like this?"

Senior Sister opened the window, and a breeze blew across her face.

"No evidence, but you just believe… this is the truth."

Gu Shen was silent.

Since joining the Adjudication, he had only truly solved two cases, and they were both sent to him by Cui Zhongcheng after his calculations… But he could understand Senior Sister's feelings.

Before a special event, a person's intuition is very accurate.

Especially a woman.

"You think Zhao Xilai is the murderer…" Gu Shen said softly.

"It's not thinking, but being sure."

"No evidence, but I just have this intuition. That's why I practice the sword desperately. My enemy is a man standing at the highest point of the Capital. I must be strong enough."

Lu Nan Jin said calmly, "This time I came back to the Capital to restore the truth of the Lion Lane case."

"Then… after finding the truth?"

This question should have been thought over a thousand times in her mind.

But the sword practitioner seemed to have neglected it.

She only cared about practicing the sword, only cared about moving forward… As for finding the truth, it was placed at the final destination.

After a long time.

Senior Sister spat out four words.

"A life for a life."