Hu Liena: Where's My Disguise?
In the class-A single room at Perching Swan Academy, Qin Zhaoye listened to the faint barking of dogs from the streets outside. He lightly tapped the host section of the bronze scroll with one fingertip, starting the second half of the special session.
[Group Owner: The second half starts now. @Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor, post the rest of the hard evidence about "Tang Hao taking his son into seclusion after severely injuring Spirit Hall's upper echelon." Let's bring this old case to a close.]
Once the floor was his, Lan Xuanyu's long-prepared research post for the second half appeared on the spot, with three pieces of ironclad evidence displayed side by side on the public screen.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Here's the hard evidence for the second half! Three lines of research from the official history come together to show exactly who the child Tang Hao took away back then was!]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: First, their birth dates match! The Official History of the First Era: Annals of Tang San clearly states that the day Ah Yin sacrificed herself was the day Tang San was born! Second, their Martial Souls match! Tang San's Martial Soul is Blue Silver Grass, which shares the same origin as Ah Yin's true form!]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Third, the place they settled matches! After severely injuring Spirit Hall's upper echelon, Tang Hao took his infant son south, concealed his name, and settled in Holy Soul Village in the southwest of the Heaven Dou Empire, where he worked as a blacksmith for six years! All three lines converge, so the "son" he took away was our First Era group member Tang San! And according to the official history's timeline, Tang Hao only left the village to protect him from the shadows. He's alive and well!]
In a Nuoding Academy dormitory, Tang San sprang to his feet and braced both hands tightly against the edge of the table.
Holy Soul Village, six years as a blacksmith, Blue Silver Grass!
All the clues fit together perfectly. Not only did he now know that his mother was Ah Yin, the Hundred-Thousand-Year Blue Silver Emperor, but he had also obtained the most crucial conclusion backed by hard evidence: his father, who had left the village and never returned, was still alive, watching from the shadows!
[Tang San: Thank you.]
After sending those two words, Tang San sat motionless on the edge of his bed, forgetting even to wipe away the dried writing on the back of his hand.
At the desk in the single room, Qin Zhaoye saw that the mystery of Tang San's origins had been resolved before the group. He tapped "End session and settle accounts" on the host panel.
[Group Hub: The archaeology and confrontation special session "The Old Case of Tang Hao and Ah Yin" has officially concluded. The researched evidence has been archived.]
[Gold-letter announcement: Final settlement for the concluded session. The group owner receives the host's sixty-percent share, credited with 2,000 talking points.]
The moment the payment landed in his account, Qin Zhaoye wasted no time. He switched to the cultivation exchange section with his right index finger, linked it to the newly concluded session, and tapped the plus sign three times in quick succession!
[Gold-letter announcement: The special session "The Old Case of Tang Hao and Ah Yin" has concluded and been archived. Linked session used to execute a three-level cultivation exchange, costing 600 talking points.]
The cultivation gauge on the scroll jumped three notches at once. Qin Zhaoye's Soul Power climbed in stages, leaping from level 24 past levels 25 and 26 before settling firmly at level 27, making him a Two-Ring Soul Grandmaster!
The Soul Power in his body had surged considerably. It felt good, but how could Qin Zhaoye have time to savor it? He glanced out the window; the firelight was closer again. Li Chuan, that mad dog, was probably almost at the academy gates by now, wasn't he? The mad dog was coming, but what about the fox? The one at the inn in the south of the city was still sitting there watching the show, and he couldn't let her keep watching like that.
He opened the group owner's storage and pulled out the Group Owner Nomination Voucher. He leisurely typed three characters into the nomination box, then, without much further hesitation, pressed confirm in front of the entire group!
[Group Hub: The group owner has used a Group Owner Nomination Voucher to recruit a specified new member. Connecting a new member from the First Era timeline... Connection successful!]
[Group Hub: A new member has joined the group. The first-day real-name policy is in effect. Current name card locked as "First Era · Hu Liena." Group rule number one: real names on the first day; do as you please from the second day onward.]
In the western room of the inn in the south of the city, Luo Tan had just burned the blackened note to ash. The ashes had yet to cool when a bronze screen of light suddenly appeared before her eyes. At the very top, the five golden characters "First Era · Hu Liena" dazzled her eyes.
The bronze fire tongs in her hand fell with a clang, landing squarely on her foot. But she didn't even have time to cry out in pain before blurting, "What kind of sorcery is this?!"
Before she could recover, the descendants who had been lurking in the group for ages had already swarmed in.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Holy shit! The group owner personally nominated a new member?! Am I seeing this right? I have to see just who this First Era · Hu Liena is, to get the group owner to call her out by name!]
His hands moved fast, and his next message appeared almost on the heels of the previous one.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Just checked the Official History of the First Era: Spirit Hall Volume, and found her! Hu Liena, Martial Soul Demon Fox, Pope Bibi Dong's personal disciple. And that's not all—she's also Night Owl Terrace's ace spy, codename "Crimson Sparrow"! As for where she is right now and what alias she's using on her assignment, the official history doesn't say. The records are unclear, so I don't know either!]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: Pfft, hahahaha! I can't, I can't! An undercover spy meets a first-day real-name policy? Her disguise hasn't even warmed up yet, and her real name's already plastered on the wall! I could laugh about this for a year!]
At the inn, Luo Tan stared at the lines on the public screen: "Hu Liena" and "Night Owl Terrace's ace, Crimson Sparrow." Her hand trembled, and she nearly swept the Duan inkstone off the table.
Where's my disguise?!
How much effort had it taken her to enter the city under an alias? And what was the result? She had been in the group for less than ten breaths, and her real name and codename were both plastered on the public screen! Since the group owner had nominated her by the name "Hu Liena," what was her "Luo Tan" disguise worth in the group? Not a penny. Investigate someone in secret? What was left to investigate? This assignment was as good as ruined in front of everyone. And worse was still to come: her teacher, Bibi Dong, was in the group too!
In the Pope's Palace in Spirit City, Bibi Dong stared at the "First Era · Hu Liena" name card and the post exposing her. Her five fingers tightened one by one around the armrest. Her personal disciple, Night Owl Terrace's number-one ace! They still hadn't figured out who the group owner was, yet he had already dragged her disciple into the group with a nomination voucher and laid her bare. In the group? She didn't send a single word.
At Nuoding Academy, Tang San was still absorbed in the words "Father is still alive." The screen was full of the new group member's names, but he hadn't paid any attention to that melon. He might not have eaten it, but others did: the message counters for the two descendants shot past fifty in the blink of an eye.
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Now that she's here, we've got to follow the old rules and give the newcomer a deluxe package of her life story from the Official History of the First Era! "The dignified Holy Maiden of Spirit Hall became a love-struck fool, throwing herself at someone from the enemy camp, only to have her love go unrequited and spend her life alone"!]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: It's hard evidence from the official history! This spy sister later fell for a sworn enemy, but he had no feelings for her at all. In the end, Spirit Hall was gone, and she grew old and died alone. She was the First Era's number-one sucker!]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: Hahahaha! I whipped up a set of "spy sister" stickers overnight for everyone to enjoy! After all, you don't get a melon like this every day!]
At the inn, Luo Tan looked at the screen full of "spy sister" stickers and posts about her "unrequited love and life alone." The tips of her ears burned as if they were on fire.
Humiliated and furious, she reached out and jabbed wildly at "Block group owner" in the upper right corner of the screen. A gray box popped up: "The group owner has the highest permissions and cannot be blocked."
Luo Tan bit her lip and opened the input box. She quickly typed a line of harsh words, but when she thought that her teacher Bibi Dong might be watching from behind the screen, she deleted it all. Twice more, she deleted what she had typed halfway through. She didn't dare send a single word that would only make things look worse.
After deleting three replies in a row, her fingertips trembled. In the end, she typed only one word on the public screen:
[Hu Liena: You]
In the class-A single room, Qin Zhaoye looked at that lonely "you" and replied with just one sentence.
[Group Owner: This part of history can be changed too.]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Well, well, well! Looks like the group owner's making a pretty good public recruitment pitch here. He just stripped away spy sister's disguise, and now he's painting her a big pie in the sky!]
[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: He's even taking his fate-changing business straight to the Holy Maiden of Spirit Hall. Group owner, you're awesome!]
The group erupted in laughter, and the popularity meter climbed another round. By lamplight at the inn, Luo Tan stared fixedly at the words "This part of history can be changed too." Her finger had already moved to "Leave group chat," but now it hovered in midair, and she didn't press it for a long while.
Just then, a sea of torches outside Perching Swan Academy lit half the long street red.
A clamor of iron boots rushed straight into the academy's rear courtyard. With a tremendous bang, someone kicked open the courtyard gate of the class-A single room!
Enforcement captain Li Chuan stepped over the threshold with a hand on his saber. Behind him, more than a dozen enforcers revealed their Martial Souls at once, their blade tips aimed straight at the young man inside. He shouted harshly:
"That's him!"