Eldritch Horror Theatre

One had to admit, Classmate Liushuang was well versed in the art of extreme pressure.

In just a few short sentences, she pushed the emotional tension to its absolute limit before falling completely silent, staring at him with a scrutinizing gaze.

Anyone else likely would have folded under the immense pressure and spilled everything they knew.

Unfortunately for her, Fu Qian wasn’t just anyone, and he genuinely didn’t know.

Faced with her ultimatum, Fu Qian’s response was to keep his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, adopting a posture of complete detachment as he genuinely counted out the thirty seconds.

”I’m sorry. I wouldn’t mind helping you, but I really don’t know the answer to your question.”

After finishing the count, Fu Qian spoke slowly, facing Ji Liushuang’s perfectly unbroken expression.

”I joined recently. Most of the time, I’m just here to make up the numbers, just like in today’s operation.”

”You can make your move. The circumstances of life are just that unpredictable, aren’t they?”

He didn’t even bother to stand up after saying this, looking entirely resigned to his fate and ready for the slaughter....

Fu Qian’s reaction was clearly unexpected. Ji Liushuang stared at his face, in no rush to speak, though her grip on her sword tightened a fraction.

”Excuse the intrusion.”

A long while later, amid the suffocating silence, Ji Liushuang lightly flipped her hand. The Rapier was already sheathed, and she stood up.

She had clearly given up on attacking.

Whether her motive was a genuine belief in Fu Qian’s ignorance, or if she had simply lost this contest of wills, was hard to say.

”This meeting will remain strictly confidential. No one else will ever know about it.”

With a faint, almost imperceptible sigh, having failed to achieve her expected results, she didn’t press the matter any further. Looking somewhat despondent, she got up to leave.

Whether it was Fu Qian or the other objects in the room, everything seemed to have lost all meaning to her. She couldn’t even be bothered to take a second look.

...

What a clever girl!

Watching her retreating figure, Fu Qian sighed in admiration, his hand lightly rubbing the Lantern resting beside him.

The next moment, he pulled out the Pope-Bestowed Mask, slipped it onto his face, and called out to her.

”Please, wait a moment.”

In that instant, Ji Liushuang—whose hand was already on the door, half her body out of the room—suddenly went rigid.

After holding that posture for several seconds, she ultimately refrained from making any strange movements and accepted the suggestion.

”I thought our conversation was already over.”

Turning back to look at the elegant, pristine white mask on Fu Qian’s face, Ji Liushuang took a deep breath, closed the door, and stepped back into the room.

”I almost thought so, too. When did you figure it out?”

Fu Qian tapped the mask on his face, his voice gentle.

”When I first sat down.”

Gritting her teeth slightly in the face of this strange question, Ji Liushuang finally answered.

”That early? You put on quite the performance!”

Fu Qian offered a sincere compliment, pointing beside his hand.

”Because of this Lantern?”

”Yes.”

Ji Liushuang nodded.

”When I glanced over at it earlier, my intuition was screaming at me not to look—that it was extremely dangerous.”

”That was when I realized it was a transcendent item of a considerably high Rank...”

”So the person controlling it must be an even more dangerous figure.”

Fu Qian let out a low chuckle, finishing the thought for her.

...

There was naturally a reason why he commended Classmate Liushuang for her quick wits.

No matter how one looked at their prior exchange, it appeared as though she had gone to great lengths to track him down, only to fail in her attempts at coercion and retreat in total defeat.

And Ji Liushuang’s emotional performance throughout the entire encounter had been absolutely flawless.

The only flaw was her lack of curiosity—she had seemed just a little too uninterested in the bizarre Lantern resting on the table.

Even when she turned to leave at the very end, she had deliberately kept her gaze fixed straight ahead.

While her reaction was perfectly natural under the circumstances, he had, after all, deliberately placed the Lantern there. It would have been perfectly normal for her to pay a little more attention to it.

...

In reality, there was an entirely different interpretation for Ji Liushuang’s behavior just now.

After using the face-to-face meeting to lock onto the relevant personnel, she had successfully tracked down his address, arranged this private encounter, and even prepared her negotiating terms in advance.

However, just as everything was proceeding smoothly, an unexpected discovery had made her realize that the person sitting before her likely wasn’t some ordinary gospel evangelist. Rather, he was a mysterious transcendent possessing absurdly profound strength.

He was hiding his true power, infiltrating their ranks, and harboring an unknown motive.

It was highly probable that he had noticed her tailing him from the very beginning. His willingness to play along was merely to observe her and test exactly how much she actually knew.

Operating completely in the dark, any random action that made him perceive her as a threat could have easily resulted in her being wiped out without a trace.

Truly living up to her reputation as a top student of the Academy, Classmate Liushuang didn’t shrink away in denial upon realizing she had stumbled into such lethal peril. Instead, she instantly resolved to perfectly play her original role.

She suppressed her terror, ensuring there wasn’t a single flaw in her movements, and even managed to execute her aggressive coercion to perfection.

Ultimately, picking the perfect moment, she feigned a failed interrogation and left in apparent disappointment.

This convinced the dangerous figure that his cover remained entirely intact.

Her response was nothing short of brilliant, making Fu Qian’s praise completely sincere.

However, keeping distinct matters separate, if this were any other time, Fu Qian would have gladly played along and finished the act just to humor her.

But on one hand, this mission was obviously connected to the Ji Clan. On the other hand, given the situation just now, there was no guarantee that Ji Liushuang wouldn’t fall into a state of Overthinking and run back to her clan to call for backup... or perhaps even call the Night Watchers.

If things devolved into that kind of situation, his mission would become incredibly troublesome.

In fact, it was almost a certainty. A member of the Gospel Team who had visited the exact scene where her Mother fainted was actually a dangerous entity hiding his true strength.

Faced with such information, she absolutely wouldn’t take the matter lightly, if only to guarantee her Mother’s future safety.

In light of all this, Fu Qian decided it was better to simply expose the charade. This would allow him to communicate with her from a much more honest position, and perhaps even establish cooperation.

”Mister 233, my only concern is my Mother’s safety. Nothing else matters to me. If I’ve caused you any trouble, I sincerely apologize.”

”What I said earlier remains true. No one will ever learn the contents of this meeting. I swear it on my Mother’s name.”

Fu Qian’s silent scrutiny undoubtedly brought an immense, oppressive pressure upon her.

Ji Liushuang hastily gathered her words, attempting to convey her sincerity to the greatest possible extent.

She didn’t blindly launch a desperate attack. Her decision to return instead of instantly attempting to flee made it clear that she had already weighed her options. She knew that any attempt to resolve this through non-verbal means was utterly hopeless.

Of course, words were equally pale and powerless in a moment like this. Such hollow promises were incredibly difficult to trust.

”I believe you.”

To her utter surprise, the man behind the mask agreed with incredible straightforwardness the very next moment.

”And there’s no need to be tense. While I admit I didn’t pay any attention to the details of that incident, today is clearly your lucky day, because I’ve decided to help you investigate it.”