"Hm?"
Meng Chao stared at him. "You just said you didn't know."
"I—I haven't seen their true faces, but I can roughly guess their identities."
Shen Yulin explained, "I have a list of people I suspect. It may not be one hundred percent accurate, but there must be Blood Alliance members on it. There definitely are!"
"Guess?"
Meng Chao asked, "How?"
"Ever since the Blood Alliance coerced me and branded the 'Crossed Cross Eye' mark onto my neck, I'd been constantly tossed back and forth between anger and fear. Being treated like a puppet and fish on the chopping block, left for others to manipulate at will—it was an awful feeling."
Shen Yulin said, "I figured that even if I really joined the Blood Alliance, I couldn't just be the lowest-ranking pawn. If I were, I could be used up and discarded at any moment.
"I had to seize some bargaining chips, some capital that would let me keep climbing.
"At the very least, I needed to know the identity of the person who first dragged me into this and contacted me directly. Only by having the ability to perish together with him when necessary could I make him fear breaking the rat-throwing taboo and refrain from acting rashly.
"Although he acted cautiously and left no drops of water leaking through, I still narrowed down a group of suspects.
"After all, someone who could secretly place letters and gifts inside my desk and on my bedside cabinet had to be from within Cosmos Group. He might even have been a member of the Shen Lineage, someone close to me.
"For all I knew, this person might have openly entered and left my office during the day, seriously discussing business with me, while secretly issuing orders to me as a 'Blood