Cat Language

By the usual rules, the Adjudication Court's assessment of newcomers mainly examined four aspects—

Strength, speed, mental power, and control.

This fifteen-day special training was designed to improve those four areas. Nan Jin was responsible for "strength," Zhong Wei for "speed," and Senior Apprentice Sister Luo for "mental power" and "control," which happened to correspond to the three of their Transcendent Abilities.

"I'm back..."

Late at night, half past eleven.

After finishing a day of training, Gu Shen returned to the apartment. He pushed the door open weakly, leaned against the wall, and barely managed to stay on his feet.

Today's special training had been utterly brutal.

After the Awakening of Insects Dream Realm ended, Nan Jin had dragged Gu Shen onto the Boxing Ring. It was supposedly strength training, but in reality, it was a beating. Nan Jin was a top-tier close-combat fighter, skilled at targeting vital points and tormenting him in every possible way. Gu Shen had been battered black and blue like a sandbag, yet somehow still had enough breath left to get back up.

Doing the math, that wicked woman had drilled him for a full six hours... and the scattered breaks in between had added up to less than twenty minutes.

Those six hours had felt as long as a century.

By the time he came back, his legs were still trembling nonstop.

"Meow!"

The moment the Orange Cat heard Gu Shen's voice, it let out a delighted cry and scampered out of the room.

"Here... food."

Gu Shen had no energy left to deal with the silly cat. He tore open a huge bag of cat food, tossed it into a corner, and hurried off to wash up.

Then he collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion.

Every bone in his body felt ready to fall apart... and it was hard to imagine that, in Nan Jin's words, this had only been an "appetizer" and a "warm-up."

How terrifying would tomorrow's training be?

Gu Shen was not actually afraid or timid. On the contrary... every time he was knocked down in the Boxing Ring today, he immediately got back up.

He got back up not to show off, but because he did not want to lie there and stay down.

He let out a long breath.

Gu Shen stopped dwelling on it and stretched out his hands, studying the calluses on his palms with satisfaction.

Today's training had still produced good results.

He had already started growing accustomed to using "Awakening of Insects" in place of normal breathing, and every breath took away some of his mental exhaustion.

Many times, Gu Shen only felt that he truly existed when he was in an extremely quiet, confined space...

For instance, right now.

There was not the slightest sound in the sealed room.

Not even the sound of wind.

Gu Shen slowly closed his eyes and slipped into a light doze as the events of the past few days flashed through his mind.

They were real, yet dreamlike.

At some point, he had pushed open the doors to the transcendent world.

Feeling vaguely unsettled, as if something were missing, Gu Shen reached beneath his pillow and felt around. Once his fingers touched the Truth Ruler, his heart settled considerably.

Mm... now he felt safe.

He should still bring the Truth Ruler with him whenever he went out. Just in case something happened... after all, he was the lucky guy who could encounter A-009 just by taking a train. Nothing would surprise him anymore.

"So you got your wish and became dead last... how does it feel?"

Big Orange nudged the door open, rose onto its tiptoes, and slowly jumped onto the bed, its eyes gleaming.

Chu Ling had come online.

Gu Shen gave a bitter smile. "Honestly... I regret it a little. Senior Apprentice Sister Luo said that if the comprehension time was under two hours, I would be directly rated S-class. If I'd known, I would've broken the record. Maybe the Adjudication Court's assessment results would have come out by now."

"No..."

"Looking at it now, your choice back then was actually correct."

Chu Ling said slowly, "Someone within the Adjudication Court has already set their sights on you. Standing out too much is not a good thing."

Gu Shen immediately became alert.

"Someone inside... has their eye on me?"

"Yes. His name is Han Dang."

The Orange Cat licked its paw. It came to Gu Shen's side and raised a paw. The bedroom projector automatically switched on, displaying page after page of files in blue light.

From somewhere far away, Chu Ling controlled the system here and projected Han Dang's information.

Gu Shen frowned as he looked through it.

He had already vaguely guessed that there were struggles and divisions within the Adjudication Court.

When his previous trial had ended, Qinghe Tribunal Head Yan Shicheng had mentioned a name—

Zhu Wang!

Even then, he had felt that there would be more twists ahead.

"Han Dang is Zhu Wang's prized disciple. His status and strength are comparable to Senior Apprentice Sister Luo's, and he is also a Mental Affinity Transcendent."

Within Deep Sea's archive, Chu Ling had retrieved every detail of Han Dang's records, from his date of birth to his medals of honor... After reading through them all, Gu Shen clicked his tongue in admiration.

This man named Han Dang had an outstanding record. He truly was a brilliant member of the Adjudication Court's younger generation.

No wonder he was someone who stood on equal footing with Senior Apprentice Sister Luo.

But when Gu Shen saw Han Dang's latest operation notice, everything suddenly became clear.

All traces of sleepiness vanished.

"He came to Da Teng City, and the first place he went was the Old Building from the Fire Disaster Case..."

Gu Shen sat upright, all physical exhaustion swept away. He quickly flipped through the electronic file. In the distant cloud, a packaged video was still shown uploading.

He knew very well that Mental Affinity Transcendents could often develop the ability of "Profiling." The truly exceptional ones, such as Senior Apprentice Sister Luo, could even profile the scene of the Fire Disaster Case a day after it had occurred.

Senior Apprentice Sister Luo had reconstructed his Transcendent Ability and had nearly seen through the Truth Ruler.

This Han Dang was the foremost disciple of Mr. Shu's mortal enemy. Why he had come all the way to Da Teng... went without saying.

He was coming for Gu Shen!

He had come to investigate the Fire Disaster Case, as well as Gu Shen's Transcendent Ability!

"This is the footage of his operation that I captured."

The cloud video finished downloading and immediately popped up.

Dust and smoke filled the footage, blurring the view. Gu Shen saw a helicopter arriving over the Fire Disaster Case site... What happened next was deeply shocking. After Han Dang dropped from the sky, all the security personnel immediately prepared to counterattack. Yet for some unknown reason, they all froze in place and abandoned their weapons like puppets.

"Were these people hypnotized?"

Gu Shen felt lingering fear as he recalled what had happened that afternoon.

He had been completely unable to resist Senior Apprentice Sister Luo's Enter Dream... and every security officer at the Fire Disaster Case site had been suppressed by Han Dang's transcendent power.

"He went into the Old Building to investigate... Since there was no surveillance coverage, we don't know what happened inside," Chu Ling said in the same calm, composed tone. "Fifteen minutes later, Han Dang erased those people's memories."

"That's a little too terrifying..."

After watching the video, Gu Shen asked warily, "Han Dang's transcendent power can manipulate people's hearts so easily. Who could possibly stand against him?"

"Han Dang is indeed formidable."

Chu Ling paused. "But perhaps... he is not as powerful as you imagine. Without question, only the transcendent can defeat the transcendent... but no one is perfect. Everyone has weaknesses, and in a life-and-death confrontation, that weakness becomes a fatal flaw."

Gu Shen noticed an extremely conspicuous red document among the files that had been retrieved.

Was this Han Dang's classified file?

Gu Shen was curious. He moved the cursor over it and clicked with a crisp tap—

The file did not open. Instead, a harsh alert sounded.

Then strings upon strings of garbled characters appeared.

In the end, the screen was filled by a huge red X and four bold, eye-catching words.

"Insufficient authority."

Gu Shen was stunned.

All this time, he had believed Chu Ling could do anything... connect to Deep Sea Authority, provide comprehensive surveillance, analyze real-time data, plan strategic deployments... She was practically another Deep Sea holding the Highest Authority.

But this time, she had hit a wall.

"You seem surprised?"

The Orange Cat calmly licked its paw. "I don't recall ever saying that I could do everything."

"Yes..."

Gu Shen spoke instinctively. "But... this is only Han Dang's file..."

"You're thinking that this is only Han Dang's file. Above Han Dang is Zhu Wang, above him are the members of the East Continent Council, and above them is the Highest Seat..." The Orange Cat turned its head. "I am not omnipotent. There are still many things I cannot do right now. Perhaps I will be able to accomplish them in the future."

She suddenly asked, "If you could open the Five Continents Speaker's file right now, would you want to take a look?"

"I'd want to... but I wouldn't dare. How many heads would I need to lose before that was enough?" Gu Shen understood the sarcasm at once. He immediately chickened out and muttered, "Have I already boarded a pirate ship?"

It was rather ironic.

At the very beginning, he had been the one urging Chu Ling not to do such illegal things.

Now he was also the one who had gotten used to it and found it irresistible.

"You boarded the pirate ship long ago. Want to regret it?" The Orange Cat counted on its paws and seriously suggested, "If you regret it now, life imprisonment should be enough. If you're discovered later, it will probably be the death penalty."

"Pah, pah, pah! Why are you saying such unlucky things?" Gu Shen solemnly lifted the Orange Cat. "We are upright, exemplary young citizens. We have never done anything illegal or immoral... As long as nobody finds out, who would know?"

The Orange Cat was not quite used to being lifted up.

It struggled in protest.

To no avail.

So it gave up.

"In any case... you need to know that someone is watching us, and we must remain vigilant at all times." Chu Ling sighed. "That Han Dang is no pushover. He traveled all the way to Da Teng probably to sabotage your assessment, then use the Amnesty Decree to make trouble and further bring down Zhou Jiren."

Gu Shen fell into thought.

"The worst-case scenario is that he profiles the existence of the 'ruler' and becomes suspicious of your Transcendent Ability. If you come into contact with him in the future, he will definitely test you. You need to think of a response."

The Orange Cat swished its tail, and the glow in its eyes slowly faded.

"All right, this emperor is tired. Court is dismissed unless there is further business."

A cat's cry jolted Gu Shen out of his deep thoughts.

Big Orange, which had been halfway through eating when it found itself held aloft, was first horrified, then furious. It let out a low growl, pounced onto Gu Shen's face, and released a cloud of yellow gas with a series of puffs before stalking away in a huff.