Chapter 163

Yao Shunyu stared at him, not daring to relax in the slightest. He was badly injured now, his left eye almost blind. If they really fought, he and Li Bai might not be a match.

"Don't be nervous. If I wanted to attack, you wouldn't have had a chance to cross the bridge," Lü Zhangyuan said calmly, looking at the two of them.

The statement sounded arrogant, but Li Bai and Yao Shunyu tacitly did not deny it, after all, the method of leaving was proposed by Lü Zhangyuan.

"I have no intention of harming you. I come from a secret unit under the Night Watchers, specializing in handling some tricky events. I just can't understand, with your abilities, why you don't choose to serve the country, but instead associate with the Crimson beasts."

Yao Shunyu was stunned by this statement, but he quickly realized that Lü Zhangyuan might also have been deceived. No, that's not right, his memory was altered, just like their experience in the Water Granny mission.

Li Bai pondered for a moment, then suddenly opened his mouth: "Lü Zhangyuan, what is the code name of your secret unit in the Night Watchers?"

"We don't have a code name, only numbers. My number is 1."

Lü Zhangyuan did not hide this. He really wanted to persuade the two people in front of him to turn over a new leaf. People with such ability and kindness should serve the country.

Shao Tong, who was parasitized by the Night Watchers' president, had the code name Zero, while this Lü Zhangyuan had the code name 1, which meant he was second only to the president in the Second Generation Crimson. Even Yao Shunyu and Li Bai in their prime might not be a match for such a person.

"Lü Zhangyuan, do you believe me?" Li Bai asked.

Lü Zhangyuan nodded. "Tell me."

"Have you ever wondered why your code names are the same as Crimson's?"

"Because we are trained according to the methods of those Crimson devils. Our highest goal is to kill all the Crimson," Lü Zhangyuan took a deep breath. "To kill devils, you must first become a devil. While we have good intentions, our methods must be even more ruthless than the devils."

"But you've been deceived. You are also Crimson, Second Generation Crimson. That's the real code name the Night Watchers gave you!"

"The high-level Night Watchers have betrayed us. They are just using you to achieve their ulterior secrets!"

"You are tools, tools that can be discarded at any time. We have seen Zero among you. His name is Shao Tong. He sacrificed himself to save us and died together with the president," Li Bai paused, and Shao Tong's last words and a pale face flashed in his mind. "Of course, it was also to save himself. He didn't want to be a puppet anymore, he wanted freedom."

Lü Zhangyuan frowned. What the other party said felt unfamiliar to him. "I don't know what you are talking about. We don't have a Zero. My code name is the earliest."

Li Bai explained quickly, "All of your memories have been altered by the president. You are Second Generation Crimson. Wang Fugui and the others in Jiang City are the original Crimson, that's right, but they are also pitiful people, and they are also good people. The information you received and your memories are all fake!"

Yao Shunyu didn't have much hope that Li Bai could persuade Lü Zhangyuan. It was basically impossible to change Lü Zhangyuan's inherent memories in a short period of time. He slowly reached his hand behind his back. Just in case, he had hidden a dynamite. If things changed, he decided to pounce on Lü Zhangyuan, at worst, they would die together.

Thinking of this, Yao Shunyu's patience was about to run out, and his expression became more and more ferocious. "What exactly do you want?"

Lü Zhangyuan was silent. He looked at Li Bai, with a complex look in his eyes. "I don't know why, although what you said is absurd, I have a kind of inexplicable trust in you."

"Someone among us must have been deceived. I will go back to find evidence."

Even Li Bai was stunned when he heard this. "Go back?"

"Yes, I will go back to report the encounters in this mission to my superiors, including the information you provided. There must be a mistake in some part of the intelligence," Lü Zhangyuan's expression became serious. "They also portrayed you as merciless demons, but as far as I can see, you are by no means evil people."

Thinking of Shao Tong's experience, Li Bai couldn't help but become nervous. "No, you can't go back. If the Night Watchers know that you have seen through their conspiracy, they won't let you go!"

"Enough, Miss Li. The Night Watchers are serving the country after all. There is absolutely nothing as unbearable as you imagined inside. On the other hand, Wang Fugui and the other Crimson remnants in Jiang City, I advise you not to get involved with them, lest you get caught in the crossfire." It could be seen that Lü Zhangyuan had also reached the limit of his tolerance for Li Bai's slander of the Night Watchers.

After saying that, Lü Zhangyuan cupped his fists at Li Bai and Yao Shunyu. "Goodbye, everyone. We will meet again!"

"Goodbye, everyone. We will meet again!" Li Bai also cupped his fists in return.

However, it was much more embarrassing when it was Yao Shunyu's turn. He had a broken arm, and his other hand was hidden behind his back, grabbing the bomb, and he couldn't pull it out for a while.

"That... we will meet again, bon voyage!" Yao Shunyu pretended to bless loudly. He didn't hate Lü Zhangyuan, but he rejected his identity as Second Generation Crimson.

Fortunately, Lü Zhangyuan didn't care. After saying goodbye, he turned and left. He drilled into the forest, and disappeared in a few breaths.

It wasn't until Lü Zhangyuan's figure completely disappeared that Li Bai and Yao Shunyu breathed a sigh of relief. The two of them understood that according to Lü Zhangyuan's personality, he would never bother to ambush them for a sneak attack.

After a moment of silence, Li Bai retracted her gaze and looked at Yao Shunyu with a complex and regretful look in her eyes. "Do you think... do you think Li Maochun was also deceived? Until the end, he was thinking about killing us. I remember his eyes. He was not afraid of death, he just regretted not killing the two of us before he died."

Recalling Li Maochun's last performance, Yao Shunyu didn't know what to say for a while. The Night Watchers really deserved to die. Those Second Generation Crimson whose memories had been altered thought they were punishing evil and promoting justice, but they were just tools, and they were being deceived until their deaths.

Shaking his head, he temporarily suppressed the complicated things in his mind. They still had more important things to do. "By the way, how do we leave here?"

The bridge was broken, and now in front of them was a mountain forest in the night.

"Let's go. Since the Goddess of Childbirth has fallen into the water and died, this dead end has been solved. I think we can find Wang Fugui and the others in Jiang City no matter which way we go. Let's meet up first," Li Bai didn't worry too much about this.

As soon as she finished speaking, Yao Shunyu suddenly turned his head to look at the river. The river was dark, very calm, and a crescent moon was reflected in the water.

"What's wrong?" Li Bai suddenly became alert.

"I... I feel like something is staring at me, just for a moment," Yao Shunyu explained hastily, his eyes still searching inch by inch on the river, and he didn't let go of those broken bridge piers.

Looking at the dark river, Li Bai also had a bad feeling. She pulled Yao Shunyu's sleeve and urged, "Don't dawdle any longer, let's leave here first and then make plans."

Then the two of them went into the mountain forest together and soon disappeared.

The river, the river bank, and the vicinity of the bridge piers were all quiet. After Li Bai and Yao Shunyu left, this place seemed to have lost all living things for a while, and it was very deserted.

But after about 10 minutes, Yao Shunyu slowly poked his face out from under a big tree. He stared at the lake, his expression becoming more and more strange, "There's nothing..."

Naturally, Li Bai was under another tree. She pulled Yao Shunyu towards the depths of the mountain forest. "Okay, don't think too much. Let's go find Wang Fugui in Jiang City. To be honest, I'm still quite afraid of that guy named Wu, but I panic if I can't see him in the mission."

Wu's combat index was obvious to all. For so long, none of those who could fight him back and forth were not top-level ghouls, and there were only a handful of them. As long as Wu woke up, their lives would have a strong guarantee.

"I don't know how Wang Fugui in Jiang City is doing, and Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie, they correspond to Wang Fugui's intelligence in Jiang City, but they..."

As Li Bai and Yao Shunyu trudged through the mountain forest, neither of them would have thought that a crescent moon was floating on the Blackwater River at this moment.

The crescent moon was like a reflection of the moon in the sky, but slowly looking up at the sky, there was no moon in the sky. Large swaths of dark clouds were pressing down very low, covering the stars and moon. Looking at it for a long time, it even made people feel depressed, as if something big was about to happen.

Pulling the perspective away and higher, not far from the crescent moon in the water, there was a place in the dark lake that was obviously different in color from the surrounding area. It was a dark cyan color, and the dark cyan color was motionless, as if a huge monster was lurking.

......

In the former Jiejie Temple, now the Qingyun Temple, night had already fallen. This was the first time the three of them had seen the temple at night, and they couldn't help but feel novel in their hearts.

Jiang Cheng, Fatty, and Ye Qiutang were walking on the path in the Qingyun Temple, and the atmosphere was very depressing.

"What's the matter?" Fatty couldn't help but complain, "You guys see that Xuan De Taoist, that is, Hui De monk before he was affected. I think both of them are the same kind of people. How can they explain so many great principles but can't explain it clearly!"

The encounter just now kept flashing in Fatty's mind, making him breathless with anger.

Just now, they had sneaked to the Taoist's residence where they had come during the day. Monk Huicong, now should be called Monk Xuancong, was recuperating here, and Xuancong was said to be the only closed disciple of Lingxiao Taoist who survived the disaster.

Lingxiao Taoist's explanation for this was that Xuancong had a demon-suppressing map tattooed on his back, which saved Xuancong's life in times of crisis.

And just now, they also took advantage of the monks guarding them to go to the toilet and sneaked into the room, but before they could ask questions, they were caught by Taoist Xuan De and others who happened to come to check the room. It was also a coincidence that Xuanming and his old acquaintances were also there, and the scene was very chaotic.

Just like what Ye Qiutang had just said, there was no such a coincidental thing in the world. They had observed for a long time before they found an opportunity to sneak in, and they had scouted the surroundings in advance, and there was no one at all. Xuan De and Xuanming seemed to have drilled out of the ground.

Even Fatty could see that there was something wrong with it. Xuan De and Xuanming seemed to be guarding them specifically. He turned to look at Jiang Cheng, only to see Jiang Cheng frowning slightly, his fist clenched slightly and then loosened. Having been with Jiang Cheng for a long time, Fatty knew that he was thinking about a problem, and this process was not going smoothly. To a large extent, there were differences, and he was making a decision.

"Don't think about it yourself, talk to us about it." Ye Qiutang was also anxious. After all, there were only three of them left tonight, and if nothing unexpected happened, this would be the last night they stayed in Qingyun Temple.

After thinking for a while, Jiang Cheng looked at Ye Qiutang, "Did you see the picture on Xuancong's back?"

Ye Qiutang became angry when he thought of this, "No, only you could see it a little bit clearly at that time. I was just about to go and see, but Xuan De and Xuan Ming came out and drove us away."

The scene was tense at that time. As soon as they entered the door, they saw Xuancong disheveled, and the most important thing was that Jiang Cheng was pulling Xuancong's clothes hard. Xuan De and Xuanming exploded at that time. No one expected that they would be so angry. The two sides almost clashed.

"Doctor, if you hadn't stopped me, we would have fought just now. Do you remember that Xuanming? That kid is not a good thing. He had a knife in his arms. It was not big, but I saw it when he reached in and touched the knife," Fatty emphasized.

Jiang Cheng frowned, and his voice became louder, "I'm not talking about this. The angles you were standing at just now were wrong. I saw the tattoo on Xuancong's back. Although I didn't see it clearly, that tattoo has definitely changed."

After thinking for a while, Jiang Cheng continued to recall, "That Taoist tattoo has become bigger than before, and I vaguely saw a symbol under that Taoist tattoo."

"Yes, that's right, it's that symbol!" Jiang Cheng nodded very surely.

"What symbol?" Ye Qiutang widened his eyes and asked.

"It's the Buddhist swastika pattern, just below the Taoist demon-suppressing map," Jiang Cheng recalled.

As soon as these words came out, Ye Qiutang's face changed in an instant. Xuancong was a Taoist, and it could be explained that there was a Taoist demon-suppressing map on his back, but it was strange that there was a Buddhist swastika pattern.

"Could it be that this Xuancong converted to Buddhism before he joined Lingxiaozi?" Ye Qiutang's tone was strange, and obviously she also felt that this statement was untenable.

However, Ye Qiutang couldn't figure it out, but Fatty seemed to understand a little bit. He slowly opened his eyes wide, then looked at Jiang Cheng with disbelief, and the latter nodded to him with a grimace.

Fatty's heart "thumped". If this was the case, then tonight would be complicated. None of the monks and Taoists were credible.

"Do you think this is like a competition?" Jiang Cheng said, "Whether it's Abbot Fuji or Taoist Lingxiao, they are all vying for Monk Huicong's body."

"And the means they use to compete is to gain our trust," Jiang Cheng added.

"So... so Taoist Lingxiao and Abbot Fuji are all fake. They are actually two ghosts!" Following this line of thinking, Fatty suddenly felt that everything made sense.

Shaking his head, Jiang Cheng corrected solemnly, "Not ghosts, but two ghouls that have become powerful."