“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.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
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...
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
