The Unveiling of Truth

To be frank, Xiang Qi had long suspected there was something amiss with the girl. However, due to her own need for discretion, she couldn’t expose her on the spot. She simply maintained an outward facade of having noticed nothing.

The reason, of course, wasn’t merely the point she had mentioned earlier; it stemmed from a deeper, more primal intuition.

In truth, they were two of a kind. Both were individuals who keenly recognized their own strengths and expertly leveraged them, willing to employ any means necessary to achieve their objectives.

With just a single glance, Xiang Qi had discerned that this person’s approach was entirely premeditated. Subsequent actions had only served to corroborate her suspicions.

The primary reason she had been able to persuade Gu Changqing was due to the talent she had activated at the time. It had effectively mitigated most of the perceived danger in Xiang Qi’s actions, making her persuasion efforts twice as effective.

However, the bespectacled Shu Xun was a different matter entirely. She had managed to completely bewilder Xiang Qi with mere rhetoric and a heap of fabricated analyses, ultimately leading her to willingly join Xiang Qi’s side.

Initially, Xiang Qi had attributed this success to her own improved rhetorical skills, believing she had reached a point where she could trick people into giving up something for nothing. Yet, her perpetually suspicious nature urged her to remain vigilant, prompting an unconscious test.

This test, though seemingly innocuous, indeed uncovered a problem.

Employing a subtle trick, Xiang Qi implicitly offered a hint, feigning an accidental disclosure of information. She then patiently waited, like a hunter by a tree.

Believing Xiang Qi had discovered nothing, Shu Xun fell into the trap. She found an opportune moment and quietly slipped away from the group.

Girls indeed took a long time to pack. The trio had already waited for Shu Xun once before they even reached a consensus. While Xiang Qi herself had taken a considerable amount of time rummaging under her skirt later on, it was still explainable.

Shu Xun, however, lacked such a plausible excuse, once again making the other two wait for a while.

These were mere conjectures, unsupported by concrete evidence, yet they did not prevent Xiang Qi from mentally labeling Shu Xun as suspicious.

After all, on the surface, the bespectacled girl maintained her persona quite well. Aside from her slightly deliberate demeanor, she hadn’t revealed any obvious flaws.

But this deliberate closeness alone had already stirred a killing intent within Xiang Qi.

She herself was not a person with a particularly clean conscience. She was especially resistant to inexplicable overtures of intimacy, fearing that the other party harbored ulterior motives or that she might have inadvertently revealed something crucial.

This inherent distrust meant that while the original Xiang Qi had a good rapport with others, she never had a truly close friend.

However, Xiang Qi didn’t care. Her childhood experiences had instilled in her a deep fear and aversion to the word ‘friend,’ making her particularly dislike others’ closeness.

Shu Xun likely never dreamed that the very ‘intimacy technique’ she consistently employed would be the cause of her exposure.

Had she known, she would probably have cursed Xiang Qi as a complete madwoman.

Of course, at present, she remained oblivious to this fact. She watched the girl’s excessively beautiful face with keen interest, feeling utterly certain of her victory, and thus relaxed her guard ever so slightly.

“Speak. What do you wish to know?”

After a prolonged silence, Xiang Qi was the first to concede, her tone tinged with a weariness.

“Everything you know…” When the serious topic arose, Shu Xun became much more earnest, her eyes fixed intently on Xiang Qi. “Don’t tell me you don’t know. I’m well aware you’ve definitely discovered something, and I happen to have some suspicions myself. If I find out you’re hiding or lying…”

She raised her arm, which possessed little physical strength, yet conveyed an undeniable persuasive force.

“The consequences will be dire.”

Once their cards were on the table, many things could be openly discussed. There was no longer any need to maintain their previous charades.

Shu Xun, concerned that Xiang Qi might still have a trick up her sleeve, dared not push too hard. She merely hoped to obtain the information she needed as quickly as possible.

‘Xiang Qi had already laid out her entire plan anyway. Even without her, Gu Changqing and I could still complete it…’ Shu Xun thought, a hidden killing intent stirring within her.

“Alright, I’ll tell you…” Xiang Qi sighed. Honestly, discovering crucial things through her own deduction, yet being unable to confide in anyone, had been an agonizing ordeal.

‘Now, even if I speak of it, it probably doesn’t matter,’ she mused.

“When we went out together earlier, did you notice the state of these streets?”

‘The streets? What’s wrong with them?’ Internally, Shu Xun was utterly bewildered, yet outwardly, she feigned comprehension.

“Of course I noticed. Didn’t some of the scenes just repeat? Is there some other issue?”

‘Is she trying to test me, or is she genuinely foolish?’ Xiang Qi narrowed her eyes, a faint purple glint flashing within her pupils, before she continued.

“Of course there’s an issue. In reality, it wasn’t just ‘some’ scenes that repeated. You can find identical versions of virtually every building in other places.”

“And?”

Shu Xun folded her arms across her chest, her expression noncommittal, signaling for the girl to continue.

“However, among these repeating buildings, there exist some unique structures. They only appear on this particular street and cannot be found anywhere else.”

“From the Number Three Church on the very first street to the Number Twenty-Seven Piano Room where we had our conversation, these buildings generally share a common characteristic…”

“Their street numbers are all multiples of three.”

Xiang Qi paused, a slight curve forming on her lips, her eyes gleaming.

“Well, go on. Why stop now?” Shu Xun, who had been listening intently to the exciting revelation, frowned slightly at Xiang Qi’s sudden halt, a hint of displeasure in her voice.

“There’s no longer any need to continue.”

Xiang Qi shook her head, picking up a canvas bag and lightly wiping it, smearing the blood from the short blade in her hand onto its surface, leaving a crimson stain.

‘What’s happening?’

Suddenly, Shu Xun felt a chill permeate her body. An unprecedented weakness emanated from her limbs, and the intense stinging sensation sharpened her mind with startling clarity.

‘When did this happen?’

It was then that she noticed Xiang Qi, sitting opposite her, had a forehead beaded with sweat, her entire body trembling slightly, and her beautiful eyes had, at some point, turned violet.

Shu Xun attempted to speak, but the words caught in her throat, ultimately dissolving into a sigh.

“I lost.”

From the moment she stepped into this room, she had been utterly defeated.

Xiang Qi’s talent was exceptionally unique, so much so that even she hadn’t fully grasped its true function. It was only through its manifestations along their journey that she vaguely surmised it could predict danger, though its deeper effects remained unclear.

Only after using it on Gu Changqing did she begin to grasp its true scope.

Predicting danger was merely its outward manifestation; it possessed a certain efficacy even without being actively engaged.

Its true power lay in altering danger.