Interrogation

Li Mei had been judging and waiting for the right moment, and now the opportunity had arrived. The Q&A session went smoothly; Han Chen answered every question perfectly and even pointed out a few errors in the study materials.

Li Mei leaned back in her chair, her fingers kneading the base of her neck. She sighed audibly, her eyes flicking to Han Chen. With an expectant look in her eyes, Li Mei said, "You are doing very good. Can you do me a favor? I've been having terrible neck and shoulder pain. Could you give me a massage?"

Han Chen hesitated. "Ah... well, it's not really appropriate for me to do, and I don't know much about massage..."

"I don't mind, the pain has been bugging me recently." she insisted.

"Teacher, I really don't know, but if you're okay with it, I'll give it a try," he offered.

In that moment, a system view flickered in his mind:

  Li Mei

  Body: Mortal (Human)

  Realm: Transform Jin [mid]

  Status: Teacher; suppressing cultivation—her dazhui acupoint and meridians overflow with Qi, causing neck pain.

  Favorability: 25 ↑ (Professional curiosity)

  Compatibility: 89%

  Age: 26

  Skills: Complete mastery of Li Family Soaring Falcon Art, Hidden Falcon Glide, Sky Talon Strike; proficient in literature, ancient texts, and teaching.

  Background: A member of the renowned Li family, tasked with preserving their martial and family lineage; also a Level 6 agent of the Supernatural Event Investigative Agency, disguised as a teacher to monitor students like Han Chen and Lu Dong.

  Traits: Elegant, disciplined, keenly observant, adept at blending her roles as an agent and a cultivator.

'Ah so she really has neck pain' Han Chen stepped forward, his movements deliberately clumsy. He placed his hands on her shoulders, applying light pressure. His touch was hesitant.

"Is this… okay?" he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

Li Mei hummed in response, her eyes half-closed. "A little harder, perhaps."

After a few minutes of a rather half-hearted massage attempt, Li Mei suddenly spun around and punched. Time seemed to slow down. Watching her strike with full force, Han Chen quickly determined that, with his body refinement and hidden Qi, the blow wouldn't even budge him.

As various thoughts raced through his mind.

He finally concluded that she was testing him. Attack hasn't been delivered yet, but he saw multitude of flaws and escape routes with minimal movement and even the impact if she didn't pull the punch back with his spiritual sense.

The strike stopped just short of his face, the air displacement ruffling his hair.

"Teacher!" Han Chen stumbled backward, his voice cracking with a student's practiced alarm. His heel caught on the edge of a desk, sending a stack of papers fluttering in a calculated accident. "What was that for? "

Li Mei lowered her fist, her gaze narrowing. "A reflex test," she said with an interrogative voice. "Your file claims you've trained in martial arts since fourteen. Yet you froze like a rabbit." She gestured to the chair. "Sit. Now."

Han Chen obeyed, slumping into the seat with exaggerated weariness. "I… I have practiced," he muttered, avoiding her eyes. "But what 'profile' are you talking about?"

" Well, I am indeed a martial artist. I am from a highly secretive investigative agency of state CSMA, I was just testing you. You just had no internal qi nor its fluctuation and behavior is consistent with a normal person. " He eyed him up and down then said in full seriousness.

" But our report says you are at least ming Jin." Li Mei leaned forward; a tablet device was in her hands. Which she slid across the desk. A hologram flickered to life "The CSMA keeps files on everyone with cultivation potential. Yours is… curious." She tapped a page labeled Han Chen – Suspected Ming Jin Stage. "Our sensors detected energy spikes near your apartment last year. Care to explain?"

" Oh you are undercover as over teacher, cool. Look...maybe your sensors caught my neighbor's faulty microwave."

Li Mei gave him a scornful look, as if asking who he thought he was fooling.

"Why are you even testing near my apartment in the first place? I did nothing wrong, in fact I never exposed it in public even." With a sigh, Han Chen let a wisp of Ming Jin-level aura ripple through his meridians—weak, unstable, deliberately flawed

" See you are a martial artist of first level why did you just stand there like an idiot when I tried to attack you? and why can't I sense your aura normally?" 

" I just want to have a normal life. Hiding realm, it's for being low profile. If you have investigated me, you probably know about my family situation.

And your strike just now is more powerful than ming jin realm. At least dark jin or more, you would strike me before I could react. What's the point? "

Li Mei's lips twitched, "Noted... Now can you explain these." She showed me a document showing my profile and finally stopped at surveillance footage of leaving metro station and loosing tracking multiple times last year...my smile stiffened.

' yeah, thanks to practicing outside... This damn surveillance.'

" I have been a law respecting citizen, 'hehe'. You can't possibly suspect me, for just loosing track, right? I just visited some scenic spots. "

"I never said I was suspecting you. Why are you afraid?"

She slid a grainy photo across the desk: Han Chen exiting a metro station, his face hidden but posture unmistakable. "You vanished from six cameras this night.

Similarly, this evading continues for a series of other explorations.

But our machine learning algorithms picked up your suspected paths from undisclosed sources and you are here now: "

She is now genuinely teasing.

Han Chen crossed his arms, his tone dry. "So, is your organization so free as to go around meeting people and 'testing' them? Anyway, you haven't said what the relevant incident is yet."

Li Mei's expression turned serious. "Zhao Wenkang. This person disappeared, and suspects are unidentifiable. The possibility of his disappearance coincides with your losing surveillance too. Considering you're a martial artist, there's indeed some evidence in the timing."

"Your information online and activities on your phone is very untraceable but it took our most advanced systems many months to crack? What are you hiding? "

'Damn I should have bought more computing servers' Han Chen thought, but he kept his face neutral.

"Don't tell me I am only the suspect, and you think with my pitiful realm I harmed him"

" No, besides you there are more than 40 people elsewhere. Decrypting your online call records cost us over millions and months of time only to see nothing except family talk. Just why? " She expressed with a frustrated look.

"Anyway, enough about that, extend your internal energy into the device." She motioned to the table showing a inconspicuous mat. 

I didn't bother talking with her, with a glance I felt everything about the primitive technology behind it and spiritual sense revealed it's internals. 'How much is the regular martial realm to my current energy pool?... It would be around 0.1%.'

I channeled the internal energy responding to our family's crane style martial arts and reduced its original quality and spiritual nature.

These computations and change happened within the span it took me to extend my hand over with my heaven defying innate wisdom root so, she didn't see any hesitation on my part as she was studying my every movement from the moment I entered inside.

Within my expectation it showed Ming Jin peak and captured the qi signature of martial art. "Hmm. keep it there. Now answer the following truthfully or you will receive a beating from me:"

"Did you know this person? " She showed me a profile of Zhao Wenkang.

"Yes"

"How do you know other than reading or hearing about his disappearance?"

"I saw him."

"When did you see and where did you see?"

"About 6 or 7 months ago same time it is reported his missing at the abandoned factory complex."

She showed no surprise as if aware of it already. So Han Chen asked " Why are you not surprised? Isn't it a big breakthrough for you?"

" We obtained scattered genetic data and with some extensive effort already traced back to yours, this person and some others. You just confirmed your involvement as a prime suspect. Cooperate with the questioning."

Her eyes sharp as if she is going to eat him alive, intending to intimidate.

"Did he tell you anything?"

"Fuck Off "

...

She almost lost composure in anger.

"I swear it's what he told me"

'I'm able to interfere with device sensing now using spirit will and bioelectric changes. If it were possible from the beginning, I could've said I didn't meet him at all. Pity. Anyway just see how this will progress, I have already brought the item anyway.'

"What were you doing over there at the abandoned factory complex?" 

"....Practicing secretly" I said with a sigh.

"Do you know why he disappeared?"

"Yes."

"Yes?!"