The mastermind behind the scenes had spent a thousand years planning and reaping the benefits. Naturally, he would never allow his chessboard to go to waste and his painstaking efforts to be completely destroyed.
“So, he broke his own thousand-year-old rule.”
Bai Ci looked up, a cold, sharp glint of insight flashing in her eyes. Every word she spoke was laced with absolute certainty.
She briefly explained her analysis to the others. Time was starting to get a bit tight.
Because of this, they could appropriately abandon the slow, guiding approach they had taken at the beginning.
“So, he made an exception.”
Bai Ci pointed out, “Before this, he always remained hidden behind the scenes, only fanning the flames and never personally stepping onto the field.”
“But during the Republican Era, when the sole survivor of the Li family died and the chess game was on the verge of collapse, he had no choice but to personally intervene to save it.”
After that, the mastermind likely gathered all the remnant souls of the last generation of the Li family. He forcibly fused the resentment and obsessions accumulated over several generations, creating a malevolent spirit to carry all of that karma.
To keep this malevolent spirit under control, he used other spells to forge chains that bound it.
To keep the malevolent spirit alive, he created the Foetal Feeder to regularly supply it with blood energy.
With this, the explicit feud that had driven the two clans to slaughter each other for generations was completely sealed away and transformed.
It was no longer a cycle of mutual slaughter and revenge between two families. Instead, it had turned into an unsolvable curse that fell entirely upon the Zhao family.
The true face of the curse that prevented descendants of the Zhao family from living past thirty-five was actually the Li family's thousand years of hatred and entanglement.
As Bai Ci spoke, everything suddenly clicked for everyone.
All the scattered clues that they couldn't connect before were now seamlessly linked together.
Looking at the logical chain on his panel—which had been completed by Bai Ci and verified as accurate by his skill—Zheng Gang felt a mixture of excitement and gravity.
The excitement came from the fact that this completion had pushed their instance background exploration rate up to 95%. With this exploration rate alone, they could secure an A-rank evaluation.
If they could deal with the mastermind smoothly, even if his class prevented him from participating in key combat, striving for an S-rank was still within the realm of possibility.
The gravity was also easy to understand; when a storm was brewing, no one could remain lighthearted.
“This is his greatest—and our only—touchable flaw.”
“Even if this wasn't the only time he personally acted, it is absolutely the one with the clearest traces left behind.”
As long as they tore open this crack, they could drag out the entire truth of how he cultivated through resentment and shifted his sins, allowing the Heavenly Dao to clearly see this man-made deception that had spanned a thousand years.
Wu Daoqing nodded. With a somewhat dazed yet earnest expression, he was the first to speak.
“So, what do we do next? Should we focus all our efforts on investigating the Li family's past during the Republican Era? Will it be enough if we just find evidence of him binding the souls to create the malevolent spirit back then?”
The goal was clear, but the path to get there was not.
Wu Daoqing's idea was simple and direct: trace the origin, then look for physical evidence.
However, Mi Ke gently shook her head. After careful consideration, she rejected this approach.
“It's useless.”
“The Republican Era was a very long time ago. With all the chaos of war and nearly a century having passed, ordinary traces have likely vanished long ago.”
“Not to mention, we're dealing with an old ghost who has stayed hidden for a thousand years. Even if we're lucky enough to find something left behind, it probably won't be direct evidence. It would only support our case, rather than deliver a decisive blow.”
“So, my idea is to find the malevolent spirit he personally created. What do you think?”
“If we're going to accuse him, even without direct physical evidence, a witness would do.”
“That malevolent spirit carries the remnant souls and generational grudges of the Li family, and it personally experienced the entire process of that evil refinement. It is an indestructible piece of ironclad evidence.”
At this point, she paused slightly, her tone turning a bit playful.
“And when you think about it, this is actually incredibly interesting.”
“A malevolent spirit is a malevolent spirit because it lacks rational control. Its hatred is far more extreme and irreversible than that of an ordinary person.”
“Those poor members of the Li family... They all thought their lives were just victims of the unpredictable world. They never imagined they were merely props on someone else's chessboard, nourishment to feed another. Their entire lives of love, hatred, and slaughter were nothing but a customized script...”
“No one could accept something like that.”
Ou Li, who had been listening in a complete daze, suddenly had an epiphany. She blurted out, “Exactly! It's just like The Truman Show.”
“If it were a script of innate wealth and stability, maybe they could bear it. But who could tolerate a tragic script of eternal suffering?”
“If it were me, I'd flip the table too. Being harvested like leeks crop after crop... going mad would actually be considered having a strong mental constitution.”
Beside them, Wu Daoqing had been able to follow along initially, but now he was confused again.
He asked in a low voice, “Who is Truman? Is he also a cultivator? Or is it some artifact left behind by a predecessor?”
Mi Ke's expression froze slightly. This instance likely didn't have that movie.
To cover for Ou Li, she immediately glossed over the matter.
“Who Truman is doesn't matter. You just need to understand the meaning. The core point is that no one wants to accept that their destiny is a carefully orchestrated deception from start to finish.”
“Especially a tragic destiny like this.”
Wu Daoqing nodded half-comprehendingly and stopped asking.
After sorting through all the clues, Zheng Gang came up with an idea. “How about this? You guys go investigate the Foetal Feeder. Do it openly and aggressively. I'll stay here and organize the evidence.”
When Zheng Gang said this, Wu Suowei and Mi Ke understood completely. Wu Daoqing also grasped some of the deeper meaning, and they all voiced their agreement.
Only Ou Li looked completely blank. She looked left and right, scratching her head. “Wait, wait, wait. What did you all understand? Why am I completely in the dark? Why do we need to investigate the Foetal Feeder, and why does it have to be with such fanfare?”
To ensure Ou Li wouldn't ruin their plans due to her lack of understanding, Wu Suowei spoke up to explain the key point to her. “We need to buy time.”
“From the mastermind's perspective right now, we are highly likely just a group of outsiders who stumbled into this game, only accidentally discovering the loophole of the Foetal Feeder being kept and harvested.”
“In his estimation, we will stop at most at the shallow branch line of the Foetal Feeder and the malevolent spirit. He would never expect us to uncover the thousand-year feud between the Zhao and Li families, which is the core secret of his cultivation through resentment.”
After all, even a thousand-year-old ghost couldn't have anticipated something as logic-defying as an Archaeologist's class skills. A normal person couldn't possibly process information this quickly.
This was precisely the key to the cognitive time gap.
“Our high-profile investigation of the Foetal Feeder right now is a deliberate attempt to feed him an illusion. We want him to mistakenly believe we are still trapped in the side-quest trap, so he lets his guard down completely.”
“Under the cover of this misdirection, we will secretly find that malevolent spirit and coordinate with it.”
Ou Li slapped her thigh. “Oh! I get it! A diversion, right!”
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