"Qingyu?" Lin Qiye froze. "What happened to him?"
"King Mask from the future traveled back through time to the present. You should know about that."
Lin Qiye nodded. "Yeah... what does that have to do with him?"
"Before coming to this point in time, he had gone even further into the past. He found the Primordial Celestial Venerable and delivered a warning... telling us to beware of someone in the Nightfall Squad. In the future, he would become this world's nightmare.
That person was An Qingyu."
Hearing this answer, Lin Qiye's brow furrowed tighter and tighter.
An image suddenly surfaced in his mind: back on the sea shrouded in mist, the elderly King Mask had appeared in a tiny boat and blocked the Nightfall Squad's path... It had been then that the Nightfall Squad was scattered, drifting into Japan's Human Circle.
Could An Qingyu have been his target even then?
"Impossible." Lin Qiye shook his head. "He's my vice-captain. I know him. How could he possibly become that kind of person?"
"I didn't believe it at first either, but King Mask had no reason to lie to us... Besides, who could say for certain what the future holds?"
"Just because of that vague prophecy, the Celestial Venerable put us under house arrest on that island?"
"The process behind this was far more complicated than you imagine." Zuo Qing shook his head. "Do you think the Celestial Venerable is the sort to believe every rumor he hears? For a long time, he investigated An Qingyu... I don't know what the Celestial Venerable discovered, but he must have found some decisive factor before taking these actions."
Lin Qiye frowned deeply. "I've known An Qingyu for years. If there were something wrong with him, he couldn't possibly hide it from me."
"Is there