Chapter 3030 Love-Hate Relationship

'Is this the legendary love-hate relationship?'

No wonder so many people throughout history have been fascinated by romance. In just these few short seconds, the sheer volume of information was staggering.

Toying with the small weapon in his hand, Fu Qian watched the scene unfold before him with great interest.

His claim about the wound wasn't baseless nonsense. From a professional's perspective on forensic trace analysis, the injury didn't look like a cat scratch at all—no matter the size of the feline.

Furthermore, how could such a frail body possibly withstand a swipe from Old Man Henry?

Thus, it only took a single glance for Fu Qian to realize the true attacker was someone else.

As for Chief Yuan beside him, she likely knew without even needing to look.

No matter how anxious she was to save her teacher, an expert of the Demigod Realm could effortlessly perceive the movements of two mere mortals at such close range.

As for why she hadn't pointed it out despite clearly knowing the young couple was lying?

The answer was simple: Chief Yuan didn't know that Professor Fu didn't know.

To High-Tier Transcendents, certain abilities were as natural as eating or drinking.

Unless he brought it up himself, she would never assume Professor Fu was blind. Therefore, Yuan Shan could only interpret all his previous actions as completely deliberate.

Professor Fu clearly knew the truth but chose to play along, which meant he had to have some deeper motive.

In a way, her assumption wasn't entirely wrong.

Fu Qian was indeed playing along while knowing the truth, except his method of "knowing" differed slightly from what Chief Yuan imagined.

As for why he was doing this, it naturally tied back to his previous reasoning—it was all just part of the psychological pressure cooker, designed to torture the couple's brains.

At first glance, things might seem to have backfired. The young couple's stress hadn't been alleviated at all; instead, it had escalated into a bloody incident.

But one shouldn't just look at the surface. No matter how visually shocking the scene appeared, neither of them had their brains blown out yet, right?

Wasn't this seemingly bloody scene just an alternative way for them to vent their stress?

Moreover, they had even made slight progress in their search for The Abyss at the same time.

Wasn't a result like this ideal enough?

"...What do you mean?"

But it didn't stop there. This love-hate relationship was far from over. Faced with the Long-Haired Man's utter shock, his girlfriend seemed to freeze for a moment before her voice turned shrill.

"Why did you do this?"

Yet the man's voice was even more indignant than hers. He sounded completely unable to comprehend how his own lover could stab him in the back.

...

"Heh... Are you trying to say you didn't know anything, and you really thought the cat scratched you?"

After the initial shock, the Long-Haired Woman recovered quite quickly.

When she broke the silence again, she let out a string of cold laughs, acting as if she were seeing this scumbag's true colors for the first time.

"Are you saying... I conspired with you to intentionally get cut, and then pretend we ran into a cat to trick people? What benefit do I get from doing that?"

Looking as if he had just encountered a madwoman, the Long-Haired Man had a face full of sheer disbelief, completely forgetting the pain in his body.

Besides, his explanation seemed far more reasonable. Such an action really didn't appear to benefit him much at all.

Not to mention, the two of them had been scheming against each other just moments ago. Forced together by circumstances, they barely had any time to plot secretly, nor had anyone heard them exchange a single word.

Based on their exchange, what had just happened seemed clear—without the Long-Haired Man's knowledge, his girlfriend had suddenly lashed out, leaving a wound on his back with a weapon and tricking him into believing he had been attacked by a cat.

Then, after the gunner arrived, she lied, claiming she had really seen the cat.

All in all, her execution was very impressive.

As for the Long-Haired Woman's motive for doing this?

"It seems you really want to get out."

After their first round of debate, the Mad Cat Gunner seemed to have made his judgment. At that moment, the muzzle of his gun swept around and landed on the Long-Haired Woman.

"Why so anxious? Weren't you eager to come down here earlier?"

Regardless, she was the one who had personally faked the injury; there was no denying that.

And after all that earlier acting, her biggest achievement was nothing short of misleading the search back upstairs.

"I admit, I was really worried that we wouldn't find anything down here... and then your behavior would spiral out of control."

Being pointed at like this, the Long-Haired Woman looked like she was on the verge of suffocating.

But she still didn't disappoint. After taking a few deep, heavy breaths, she still showed no signs of mutation.

Instead, she chose to come clean. "If we could go back up, the complex terrain would make searching much harder, giving me more chances to slip away."

And sure enough, her motive was exactly as expected—to maximize her chances of survival.

One could only say she truly lived up to her tough psychological fortitude, the kind of person who would dare covet burial goods.

Rather than trying to behave well in front of an unreasonable madman, she had thought up this path to survival in the blink of an eye.

"But this wasn't my idea. He was the one who egged me on to do it."

Not only that, but in yet another blink of an eye, she had already pivoted to framing someone else.

Pointing at her boyfriend, the Long-Haired Woman revealed the other core purpose of her confession through gritted teeth.

"He told me that this way, his injury might make him lose his value and he'd end up being disposed of by you, but at least one of us would have a chance to escape."

...

Excellent. The backstabbing was still going strong.

Separated by just a wall, in a mere moment, they had actually managed to produce a full-blown Rashomon situation.

The Long-Haired Woman's narrative was rich in both voice and emotion—unwillingness, bitter hatred, absolute resolve... The complexity of her facial expressions could only be pulled off by a master actor. Unfortunately, even with such a brilliant performance, she couldn't seem to bypass the issue mentioned earlier: when did he tell you?

Even if they had enough tacit understanding to communicate via sign language, this level of efficiency was simply a bit too high.

Not to mention, trading "self-sacrifice for a lover's chance to escape"—judging by their previous interactions, it was hard to imagine the Long-Haired Man possessing that level of nobility.

"Aren't you thinking a little too highly of me?"

Sure enough, the party involved raised this very question himself.

At that moment, the Long-Haired Man's eyes seemed to say that she had truly gone mad.

"Yes... I did think too highly of you.

"Now I finally understand why the wound had to be on your back. It's far more than just looking authentic—it allows you to completely clear yourself of suspicion."

The Long-Haired Woman immediately let out a miserable laugh.

"There's no way you could inflict that kind of wound on yourself. And since the attack came from behind, it makes perfect sense that you wouldn't get a clear look at the attacker. That way, all the lies become mine alone."

Pointing a finger at Fu Qian, she looked as if she had attained enlightenment right on the battlefield, suddenly connecting all the dots.

"That way, if he believed us, everything would be fine, but if we were exposed, you could pin everything on me. It looked like you were sacrificing yourself to buy me a chance, but in reality, you were using me as your escape route all along... Truly worthy of the man I set my sights on!"