Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
It was June 29th on the tenth Thursday of the semester.
At three o’clock this morning, there had been a major incident on Songhai city’s Night Market Street. According to eyewitnesses, a student in uniform had been shuffling down the street like a zombie when his body had promptly started to burn with fire, and he started shooting flames around him like crazy.
The roaring blaze had engulfed the entire street and burned everything completely to ash; even the zebra crossing had been wiped off the ground. With billows of thick smoke over everything, it looked like a scene from a movie.
The cultivation fire department had immediately set up barriers to prevent the fire from spreading, but after everything had settled, it had already been too late.
The fire had truly been horrifying; Night Street Market could no longer be saved. Luckily, however, almost all the shops had already been closed at three o’clock in the wee hours of the morning, so there hadn’t been any major casualties.
Only four people happened to suffer minor burns and smoke inhalation from the incident.
Reports said that these four had been pulled into it because they had gone out together to buy snacks in the middle of the night…
So the lesson was to go to bed before midnight; staying up late and eating midnight snacks weren’t good for one’s health.
Many people could guess the outcome of this incident: the district chief couldn’t get away from being sacked, and the Songhai city government had to bear the costs of the four victims’ medical fees as well as the damage to nearby shops.
In some sense, this incident was no less serious than a terrorist attack.
And as the instigator of this terrorist attack, that fire-breathing student in the end had disappeared. According to the accounts of those four witnesses who had gone out to buy midnight snacks, while that student had been spewing flames, he had been knocked out by a black figure which had then taken him away.
And so that morning, this incident was the new topic of discussion during the morning self-study period.
Super Chen frowned and crossed his arms with a solemn expression on his face. “I heard that this incident was caused by that emerging dark force, Shuigou Sect. They’ve targeted many students on the way home after school, and after these students were forced to eat their product, they lost contact with their families and schools.”
Suddenly, someone recalled Fang Xing. “Student Fang Xing in Class Two asked for a week’s leave. Do you think it has something to do with Shuigou Sect?”
“Shuigou Sect only started acting up these two days. Fang Xing’s parents called the school themselves to explain the situation, so this probably isn’t the reason why he took leave.”
Little Peanut also shook his head, very certain on this point. “When I handed in the homework in the morning two days ago, I heard the teacher-in-charge of Class Two Meng Kaiming and Teacher Pan talking about it; there’s definitely no mistake.”
Wang Ling couldn’t help laughing in his heart. Given Fang Xing’s abilities, if this bunch targeted him, they would be the ones to meet a bad end.
Fang Xing was still recovering on Immortal Toya’s Chrysanthemum Island. Wang Ming had told Wang Ling that he didn’t have to worry too much about that strange substance that could suppress his strength; it would break down of its own accord after a few days, and Fang Xing would regain consciousness in his own time.
Frankly speaking, Wang Ling had previously been on constant guard against Fang Xing. After all, he hadn’t known anything about Fang Xing’s origins, and hadn’t bothered to know either.
For Wang Ling, the biggest gain from the matter with Immortal Mansion this time had been learning everything about Fang Xing’s identity, which was a huge relief to him.
While Wang Ling was thinking about this, Dopey Guo suddenly came back to the main topic. “Have you seen the video from this morning?”
“What? There’s even a video?”
“Mm, a friend risked his life to film it: a student in school uniform turned into a living, burning man, then shot fire everywhere,” Dopey Guo told them honestly.
“What dark art was this student cultivating? Is it possible that it was some evildoer deliberately disguised as a student to create havoc?”
“Probably not.” Dopey Guo shook his head and said, “In the video I watched, this student was spouting fire and roaring at the same time; it looked like he’d gone crazy. Besides, my uncle told me that based on an investigation of the scene, the flames the student was shooting out were as hot as ten thousand degrees at one point.”
Wang Ling frowned. An expert at the late Soul Formation stage could release a fireball as hot as ten thousand degrees. But if this person truly was a student, this temperature would be somewhat of an exaggeration.
This reminded Wang Ling of the Mo Immortal Water incident with Mo Immortal Castle. But he had stumbled upon it when it had still been in the trial stage, and he had directly stifled the entire plan in the cradle.
Shuigou Sect this time was employing a different method for the same sort of outcome as the mutation potion which Mo Immortal Castle had produced back then. The only difference was that most of Mo Immortal Castle’s mutation potions had been failures, while Shuigou Sect this time was clearly well prepared.
It had developed an item that could boost a Foundation Establishment student’s destructive power to the Soul Formation level. Whether it was a pill or a potion, this plan definitely had been in the works for a very long time.
This was a premeditated conspiracy.
Of course, there were some things that puzzled Wang Ling.
For example, of all the names to use, why did this new dark force decide to call itself Shuigou Sect 1 ? Each time he said this name in his heart, it felt like his lifespan was being shortened bit by bit.
…
It was safe to say that as a newly established dark cultivation force, this Shuigou Sect wasn’t an ordinary one. The Songhai city government had gone all out to mobilize all the police they could in order to shut down this dark force as soon as possible. Most unfortunately, however, Shuigou Sect hadn’t left any sort of evidence behind to prove that it was responsible for the events that had happened.
Without any leads to investigate, things were very difficult for the police.
In the office of the General Administration of 100 Schools, Odd Zhuo was scratching his aching head, feeling like it was four times its size. The Immortal Mansion incident had yet to be completely sorted out and they hadn’t finished interrogating the Master of Immortal Mansion Cheng Yu, but now this Shuigou Sect crisis had cropped up…
The worst thing about it was that it was targeting students in particular.
There were currently twelve students from seven different high schools in Songhai city that had gone missing. The fire that morning had been caused by a Grade One student from God Vision High School who was also missing.
If Odd Zhuo couldn’t settle this matter properly, the higher-ups would definitely take it out on him, no matter how good his relationship with Secretary Dakang was.
He was frowning when the phone rang. Seeing that it was the deputy director, he instantly picked up. “What’s the situation? Have you made any progress?”
“Reporting, Director. Based on all the information we gathered on the twelve missing students, they don’t appear to have anything in common.”
Odd Zhuo’s eyebrows creased. “Were they randomly picked then?”
Deputy Director: “That might not be the case either… when it comes down to it, these students are all very good-looking.”
Odd Zhuo: “…” So it was true — ugly looks could save your life!
