Intelligence

Translator: Cinder Translations

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Just as An Xuan had turned around and was about to leave, a voice suddenly sounded from behind. Due to the backlight, the first thing he saw was a pair of straight legs.

"I'll go with you," Zuo Jing stepped forward, "Mr. An."

An Xuan visibly paused, then his eyes swept over Zuo Jing's curvaceous figure before he nodded and said, "Then I'll trouble Miss Zuo."

"You're welcome."

After An Xuan and Zuo Jing slowly disappeared, the remaining four people didn't hesitate any longer and began to head towards the direction of last night's opera stage.

"Doctor," the fatty spoke while looking around, as if worried about ambushes or being followed. Only after ensuring nothing unusual did he continue, "That scared me to death earlier, I thought that blood..."

"Was Tang Shirou's?" Jiang Cheng replied indifferently.

The fatty nodded vigorously, "Exactly! Just now, seeing that girl's body... her body..." He gestured, roughly meaning that she had been skinned, how terrifying and horrifying it was.

Xia Meng had been following behind them, and since they left, her expression had become very strange, as if there was something she couldn't figure out.

"Don't you think it's strange?" Xia Meng suddenly spoke.

Although she addressed everyone, her gaze was fixed on Jiang Cheng.

The fatty blinked and grunted, "What a question. Tell me, what isn't strange here? Someone just died, and in such a manner, and those despicable things actually served us duck blood?!"

"Isn't that just deliberately disgusting?" The fatty said angrily, "I'll never eat duck blood again."

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng stopped walking, and the fatty, not paying attention, almost bumped into the doctor.

"What do you want to say?" Jiang Cheng asked her.

"Could it be..." Xia Meng looked up and asked tentatively, "That there was something else mixed in the duck blood?"

"Human blood," Jiang Cheng said.

Xia Meng nodded.

"That shouldn't be," the fatty licked his lips, seemingly still reminiscing, "At least when I ate it, it tasted like duck blood. There shouldn't be any other weird stuff mixed in."

Hearing this, Xia Meng glanced at the fatty, then turned her gaze back to Jiang Cheng's face, clearly questioning the reliability of the fatty's words.

"Regarding matters of eating, I think he's reliable," Jiang Cheng thought of the times he and the fatty had hot pot together and nodded.

Hearing the doctor's words, the fatty's neck also straightened up.

"Then it's strange, NPCs shouldn't do such boring things," Xia Meng sighed, "There must be something wrong here."

"Could it be..." Her pupils contracted, as if she had thought of something very important, and the matter itself was incredibly unbelievable.

When she met Jiang Cheng's gaze, Xia Meng suddenly narrowed her eyes, "You thought of it too, didn't you?"

Jiang Cheng nodded, "Just thought of it," he gestured, "Just a second faster than you."

The fatty looked at the doctor, then turned to look at Xia Meng, feeling his advantage had instantly vanished, "What did you guys see?"

"What was in that food box..." Xia Meng said with a grim face, "Might not all have been duck blood."

The fatty was stunned, then his eyes widened, "Are you saying that among those nine bowls of duck blood, there was a bowl of human blood?"

"Impossible, although the taste of human blood..." His expression became awkward, then he immediately said, "But the taste of duck blood is so distinctive, surely you can tell the difference?"

"Maybe the person who ate the human blood was a vegetarian, or had taste issues," Jiang Cheng said calmly.

Although the doctor spoke seriously, the fatty sensed another layer of meaning.

The doctor also thought these assumptions were unlikely.

Moreover, because the fatty was quite interested in food, he paid more attention to the dishes. Most of the dishes these days were meat-based, and he hadn't seen anyone deliberately avoiding them.

The fatty swallowed hard, "Then the only truth left is..."

Someone among them had tasted that the blood was off but didn't say anything, instead eating it all bite by bite.

After all, when the middle-aged woman collected the bowls, they were all empty.

What kind of godly teammates are these...

After the initial discomfort passed, the fatty began to suspect that it was because the doctor was too strong, which led to him always being matched with more abnormal teammates.

And this time, there was also Xia Meng.

In this high-difficulty mission filled with orphans, psychopaths, perverts, and impostors as teammates, the fatty felt he truly didn't belong.

He was afraid the doctor would lose points, and even more afraid that he might accidentally be taken out by a teammate.

The fatty looked around, feeling like he had stumbled into a den of orphans, "Give me a way out, family."

"Tap tap tap."

An Xuan squinted as he walked ahead, the leather-like soles of his shoes tapping pleasantly on the cobblestone path.

Zuo Jing followed behind him.

Along the way, the two had no communication.

After reaching the place where Young Master Huang lived, they chose a secluded spot and slipped in.

There was a discarded rockery, seemingly once intended to be a landscape feature but later abandoned, surrounded by waist-high weeds.

Even if someone did something inside, no one would notice.

Hidden behind the rockery, An Xuan stared at Zuo Jing. The strange expression on his face disappeared, replaced by a serious one, and he suddenly said, "You were too reckless."

He frowned, seemingly dissatisfied with the latter.

"You should have waited for me to leave, then pulled someone along, using suspicion of me as a pretext to follow me," An Xuan continued, "Then find a moment to pretend to be discovered while tailing me, lose me, and finally shake them off to meet me at the agreed location."

He paused, "This way, even if they suspect, they would only suspect me. You could then make up something to point the suspicion at me, ensuring no one would suspect us."

"I know," Zuo Jing said in a low voice, "But the intelligence said..."

"Ugh—" An Xuan pursed his lips, staring through the gap in the direction they came from, then looked back at Zuo Jing, saying in a serious tone, "The intelligence this time was wrong. The problem wasn't that girl named Tang Shirou at all, she was just an ordinary person."

"Indeed, it wasn't her," Zuo Jing nodded, "I thought so too at first, she had no warning about your methods, her instincts were too poor."

"Damn it," An Xuan clenched his fist, "The more she was like that, the more I thought she was hiding some trump card."

"It's already like this," Zuo Jing patted An Xuan's shoulder, comforting him, "Completing the mission is the priority. After all, it was the intelligence that was wrong, the higher-ups will understand."

"Do you have any suspects on your end?" An Xuan took a deep breath and asked, turning his head.

(End of the Chapter)

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