Chapter 606 - 379: Culinary Scholar vs. Dark Martial Artist (2)

Chapter 606: Chapter 379: Culinary Scholar vs. Dark Martial Artist (2)

’The Four Symbols Meditation Technique wasn’t completely useless in this world, but its cultivation was still suppressed at Tier Two by some unknown force.’

The moment they entered the room, Xiaolian immediately shut the door. She then ran nervously to the window and drew the curtains with a SWISH.

In the hallway, Han Ning glanced at the camera overhead, careful to stay out of its line of sight. He hid in a secluded corner, listening to the conversation inside the room.

"Xiaolian... what are you doing?" Xu Ping asked, taken aback.

Xiaolian didn’t answer. She looked down, hesitating for a moment before finally speaking.

"Brother Ping, how confident are you about getting into the Foreign Affairs Team?"

"The Foreign Affairs Department?"

Xu Ping opened his mouth, wanting to be modest, but seeing the look of eager anticipation in Xiaolian’s eyes, he answered honestly.

"If I give it my all, I should be able to get in."

Hearing Xu Ping’s reply, an inexplicable glint appeared in Xiaolian’s tense eyes. She stared at his face and said, word by word,

"Sister Lu’s death is suspicious. It might be related to a ’sacrifice’ by a foreign organization."

"What do you mean?" Xu Ping’s expression turned serious.

’A sacrifice?’ Outside the door, Han Ning’s expression shifted.

"The authorities might be hiding something from us.

"Lulu seemed to have a premonition that something bad was going to happen. The night before she died, she told me a few things."

Xiaolian took a deep breath and said,

"She said that if something happened to her and she didn’t come back, I was to tell you to stay away from Yang Huaiyi. There might be something seriously wrong with him."

"She also said that if you were confident you could get into the Foreign Affairs Team, I should give this to you. Yang Huaiyi has been looking for it, and it seems to be related to the ’Hidden World’."

As she spoke, Xiaolian took a small, thumb-sized, dark-brown glass vial from her pocket and handed it to Xu Ping.

"What is this?" Xu Ping took the brown vial and shook it gently, noting it seemed to contain some kind of liquid.

"I don’t know." Xiaolian shook her head.

"Xiaolian, since Lulu told you all this, why didn’t you report it to the authorities or explain the situation to them?" Xu Ping asked, clutching the vial in confusion.

"I asked her the same questions..."

Xiaolian bit her lip, her voice trembling and thick with fear.

"Sister Lu said the less you know, the safer you are. She told me not to ask about her affairs. There were some things she just had to do. She said Yang Huaiyi had gotten her in too deep, and she didn’t want to drag anyone else down with her."

"And... she said not to report this to the authorities, no matter what. She suspected that Yang Huaiyi was colluding with some of them."

Xiaolian’s head shot up. She grabbed Xu Ping’s shirt with both hands, her expression agitated.

"Brother Ping, I don’t want to die! Please, don’t tell a single soul that I passed this message on from Sister Lu. I don’t want to get mixed up in any of her trouble."

"I... I understand. I won’t tell anyone."

"Was there anything else?" Xu Ping asked, steadying himself.

"That’s all... I don’t know anything else." Xiaolian shook her head.

"If I can get into the Foreign Affairs Team, I promise I’ll get to the bottom of this." Xu Ping nodded solemnly.

"Do her parents know about this? I mean... has her mother noticed anything suspicious?"

Xiaolian hesitated. "They probably only know about his personal life. After all, Yang Huaiyi is a notorious playboy in Ludao."

Xu Ping slipped the glass vial into his pocket. "Okay, this stays between us. We’ll keep in regular contact."

Hearing footsteps inside, Han Ning, who had been listening by the wall, slipped away first and returned to the courtyard.

...

When the pair came down from the second floor, Li Lu’s uncle and aunt were already awake. Overcome with exhaustion, Li Lu’s mother was fast asleep, slumped over a table.

Li Lu’s father sat smoking in the courtyard, staring vacantly at his daughter’s photograph in the living room through the thin wisps of bluish smoke.

Relatives from Li Lu’s maternal grandmother’s side and a few distant cousins were serving bowls of noodles to the people playing cards.

Xu Ping and Xiaolian sat back down at their table, acting as if nothing had happened.

Time passed, and before long, the night had grown deep.

The mourners at the wake had mostly scattered. Even the middle-aged men who had been playing cards were now slumped over the tables in a light sleep.

Only a few energetic young people were left, sitting in the courtyard and making idle conversation.

Han Ning pretended to play on his phone, his mind churning. ’What the hell did Xiaolian give to Xu Ping?’

Suddenly, a sinister chill washed over him from behind.

In an instant, the hair on his arms stood on end. A sudden tension gripped his heart as his Spiritual Power automatically radiated outward.

’Who’s there!’

Acting on instinct, he whipped his head around, his gaze sweeping to his left. A flash of red glinted in his eyes.

Above the gray-white courtyard wall, the air shimmered faintly with the telltale sign of an Energy fluctuation.

’My Spiritual Power is warning me. Something’s here!’

Han Ning’s brow furrowed, and he quickly walked over.

He walked out the gate of the Li Family’s villa to a deserted, secluded corner.

The air beside him warped, and Frost Jade leaped out from the Soul Beast Space.

He sent out his Spiritual Power and detected a faint trace of an elemental fluctuation lingering on the wall. He sent a telepathic command: "It went that way! Frost Jade, after it!"

"ARF!"

Frost Jade shook out its pale fur, its eyes glowing with a faint blue light, and took off at a sprint in the direction Han Ning had indicated.

Han Ning raced after it.

Outside the Li Family’s three-story villa was a scenic residential area. Han Ning was now sprinting down a path that wound between the houses.

Ever since overhearing Xiaolian and Xu Ping’s conversation, he had been on alert. He used his extraordinary Spiritual Power to consciously avoid the security cameras along the path.

He skidded to a halt beside a tranquil, man-made lake.

Not far away, Frost Jade was wreathed in intense flames, illuminating the surrounding darkness.

A calico cat with patchy fur had its claws dug into the ground, its eyes, which glinted with an eerie green light, fixed on Frost Jade.

Han Ning sensed the same familiar elemental fluctuation coming from the calico cat.

"Take it down!"

Frost Jade obeyed. The flames on its body flared violently, and in an instant, an egg-sized, eerie blue fireball materialized.

The fireball streaked through the air.

Unexpectedly, the calico cat didn’t even try to dodge. It lunged straight into the fireball.

BANG!

With a shower of black ash, the strange fireball incinerated the cat to dust.

「At the same time.」

Far away from the residential area, in a secluded rental apartment.

A cat-like creature covered in jet-black fur slowly opened its eyes.

"What’s the situation?" a voice asked from within the dark apartment.

"Meow..." The black cat’s pupils flashed with green light as it let out a low cry.

"Another Extraordinary Being? I thought the area was supposed to have been cleared... Good thing I’m cautious," the person muttered, then said no more.

The pitch-black apartment once again fell into a deathly silence.

...

’It didn’t seem to be a Soul Beast, just an ordinary stray. Was that some kind of Soul Technique?’

Han Ning stared at the charred residue on the ground, his brow furrowed in deepening confusion.

’I can’t believe there was so much complicated business going on behind the scenes with a rich girl like Li Lu.’

’Either way, I need to get out of here.’

He had barely taken a step.

The Spiritual Power deep within his mind flared again with an automatic warning.

A blurry image surfaced in his mind: something was rushing toward him from the shadows of the houses ahead.

’Someone else?!’

Han Ning’s eyes narrowed. Gathering his Wind Type Spiritual Energy, he vaulted backward.

THUD!

In that instant, a deep gash scarred the ground where he had just been standing.

The moonlight shone down.

A dark figure was already right in front of him.

"HISS!"

Egg Pancake scrambled out from his collar, baring its tiny fangs in a fit of impotent rage.

Frost Jade was still just a cub who had recently become a Soul Beast; its sense of danger was nowhere near as sharp as Egg Pancake’s.

It was only just now reacting, letting out a ferocious howl as it charged the dark figure.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

Three eerie blue fireballs spiraled through the air toward the target.

The dark figure seemed extremely wary of the fireballs. It stopped dead in its tracks and backflipped several times before landing steadily on its feet.

In the analytical view provided by his Spiritual Power,

he saw a coldly beautiful woman in a white t-shirt and shorts that revealed a pair of long, pale legs. She stood silently in the shadows, her form flickering in and out of sight.