“Look at this camera angle. It’s too perfect—so perfect, it’s as if someone deliberately held the camera up, afraid you might not get a clear look at the guards’ uniforms in the background.”
He turned to Liu Feiyu and analyzed it word by word. “This doesn’t look like evidence. It looks more like a trap prepared specifically for you—one designed to force you to believe it.”
Liu Feiyu’s mind was in turmoil. An Changqing’s words happened to align with the last shred of reason in his heart.
But the irrefutable proof that his own brother had been murdered was right before his eyes. The fury nearly consumed what remained of his rationality.
Just then, his phone rang.
It was Southern Dipper.
Liu Feiyu immediately answered. On the other end of the line was that same emotionless voice.
And his very first sentence left everyone present frozen in place.
“Liu Feiyu, put away that pathetic anger of yours.”
“You’ve been played for a fool.”
There was no mockery or contempt in Southern Dipper’s tone, only the same coldness as always.
“I’ve just compared the video you sent me against more than thirty-seven thousand data points in my database.”
“The conclusion is that the video contains clear signs of post-production editing.”
“There are seventeen instances of forgery, three flaws in the composited background, and an abnormal 0.02-second fluctuation in the frame rate used to conceal the overwritten footage.”
Liu Feiyu listened to the string of technical terms coming through the phone and went completely rigid.
“An existence capable of wielding the power of a demon god and remotely detonating a ninth-tier powerhouse to ensure a perfect cover-up would use such crude, amateurish methods to frame your elder brother?”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“So the purpose of this video isn’t to make you believe that Liu Chengjun is the murderer.”
“Its purpose is to test your reaction.”
“To see whom you would turn to for help when you got your hands on this so-called irrefutable evidence.”
“In other words, this video was aimed at me. Your enemy wanted to use you to draw me out of hiding.”
“And you walked straight into the trap.”
The color drained from Liu Feiyu’s face. A chill washed over him—the icy sensation of having been seen through and toyed with like a pawn.
Southern Dipper’s voice continued. To be honest, he was somewhat disappointed. Liu Feiyu’s performance had been worse than expected. In the end, he was still just a child.
“The real murderer is hiding in the shadows right now, enjoying the spectacle of you brothers turning against each other and tearing one another apart.”
“He knows every one of you extremely well. He anticipated your impulsiveness, and he anticipated your elder brother’s arrogance.”
“He may even have predicted the arrival of An Changqing and the others. Every step you’ve taken has been within his calculations.”
An Changqing, Long Ao, and the others exchanged looks, deep shock visible in each other’s eyes.
This man, known only by his voice and never seen in person, had taken a single forged video and deduced the entire game to this extent.
Chen Guan had remained silent in the corner the entire time. He recognized Southern Dipper’s voice.
If the machine-brain guy had spoken, what more was there to say?
Although Chen Guan wasn’t particularly familiar with Southern Dipper, he knew very well that the man had an exceptionally sharp mind.
At that moment, the mocking ghost face Thousand Faces had formed just before detonating flashed through his mind.
He stepped forward and quietly said a few words to Liu Feiyu.
A supercomputer delivered right to their doorstep was too useful to waste.
A flicker crossed Liu Feiyu’s eyes. He immediately spoke into the phone. “Wait. There’s one more detail.”
“Thousand Faces detonated himself in the end, but after his body exploded, it gathered into a ghostly face made of black mist. It even smiled at my elder brother and said that Astaroth wouldn’t let him go.”
The faint sound of data processing on the other end paused for a moment.
After a while, Southern Dipper spoke again. This time, there was actually a hint of fluctuation in his voice.
“Black mist, a ghost face… That isn’t something you see often. It doesn’t feel like the work of a contract-bound servant of Astaroth. Baal would be a more likely possibility.”
“But set that aside for now. By analyzing a distortion of light and shadow in one frame of your video—a distortion caused by a failed overwrite—I managed to restore part of the footage.”
“It points to an elemental attribute completely opposite to the fire symbolized by Liu Chengjun.”
Southern Dipper’s voice suddenly became exceptionally clear, every word striking at the hearts of everyone present.
“Find out who, among your Liu family—or rather, among everyone in the Liu family who could be considered a suspect—has an ability related to ice.”
“That’s all the help I can offer.”
Southern Dipper’s voice vanished, and the call was disconnected from his end.
The only sound left in the room was the faint busy signal after the line went dead.
“Ice.”
An Changqing repeated the word.
His gaze swept over Liu Feiyu’s grim face, and he already had an unbelievable suspicion in mind.
“That narrows things down considerably.”
Hong Yuan was the first to speak. She was straightforward and quick to get to the point.
“Liu Feiyu, whose ability in your family is ice-based?”
Liu Feiyu thought for a moment. “The Liu family is a hereditary clan of fire ability users. Most of our members awaken abilities related to fire.”
“Ice-type ability users are considered outcasts—a sign of impure blood—and the family rejects them.”
“So there are very few of them, and I know almost all of them.”
Liu Feiyu himself was an outlier as well, possessing a water-element ability.
An Changqing pressed him. “Who are they?”
Liu Feiyu closed his eyes and searched his memory for those names.
“I have a distant paternal uncle named Liu Zhen. His ability is Ice Spear, but he’s only third tier.”
“He was sent to a branch company in the north more than a decade ago to handle cold-chain logistics. He has no right to return to the main residence.”
Long Ao spoke in a low voice from the side. “A third-tier ability user couldn’t have killed someone under the noses of so many high-tier experts, let alone done it with the power of a demon god.”
“Exactly.”
Liu Feiyu nodded and dismissed the first possibility.
“There are also a few members of the collateral branches, but they’re in much the same situation. Their strength is poor, and they’ve long since been pushed to the fringes. They can’t even get through the gates of the main residence.”
His brow furrowed even more deeply.
“Among the direct descendants of my father’s generation, there’s one aunt named Liu Ruoshuang. She was born with an ice-type talent, supposedly an exceptionally powerful one.”
“But because of her ability’s attribute, Grandfather disliked her from childhood. She severed ties with the family more than twenty years ago and disappeared. No one knows whether she’s alive or dead.”
An Changqing analyzed the situation calmly. “Someone who disappeared for twenty years suddenly returning to take revenge on the family would make sense in terms of motive, but we don’t have enough evidence.”
Liu Feiyu agreed with that assessment.
“She can’t be the murderer. If she really had this kind of power, she would have acted long ago. Why wait until now? Even if Aunt is still alive, she’d be in her forties by now.”
The trail had gone cold again.
Everyone fell silent.
[Holy crap, this is some serious rich-family intrigue. Being cast out for having impure blood? That’s painfully realistic.]
[This aunt named Liu Ruoshuang sounds like she has quite a story. Could she be the one behind it?]
[Unlikely. The timeline doesn’t fit, and the motive is way too clichéd.]
[People who kill often know this: the real murderer is usually hiding in the least conspicuous place.]
[“People who kill often,” hello. Open up. This is the water meter inspection.]
In Chen Guan’s mind, Baal lazily yawned.
“Heh heh heh… What a bunch of adorably stupid fools.”
The clues have practically been handed to you on a silver platter, yet you’re still going around in circles.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
