Olive Branch

Luofan Kingdom and Dongli Kingdom had been embroiled in territorial disputes for years, and relations between the two countries were poor. If Dongli Kingdom wanted to send experts to receive Liu Wenyin, the entry procedures alone would likely take some time.

Before then, they could only wait for Aunt Yun to recover her Combat Strength before continuing their journey.

Otherwise, with only Su Ze and Liu Wenyin, two Pupal stage evolvers, their safety would be completely unassured.

Thus, Su Ze strongly approved of Liu Wenyin's plan as well.

"Big sister, help me contact Dongli Kingdom and arrange an identity for me," Su Ze said. "I can't use my old identity anymore. The Zhao Family has probably already turned me into a wanted criminal."

"That won't be difficult, but you should think it through. I can only help you obtain a Dongli Kingdom ID. From then on, you will be a Dongli citizen."

There was an implication behind Liu Wenyin's words, and Su Ze caught it.

He smiled. "I'm an orphan, with no father or mother. It doesn't matter which country's citizen I become."

Hearing Su Ze say that, Aunt Yun and Liu Wenyin's gazes softened somewhat.

"Besides, you two are the only family I have now. You're both Dongli citizens, so naturally, I'm a Dongli citizen too."

Su Ze had picked up on the probing and recruitment hidden in Liu Wenyin's words, and he responded to her overture in a half-joking manner.

As both a clone and a transmigrator, Su Ze felt no sense of belonging toward any country in this world. He simply wanted a legal identity; it made no difference which country's citizen he was.

Now that he had provoked powerful enemies, Dongli Kingdom might be relatively weak, but it was still one of the six nations. It was also sheltered by a Dominant Nation. He understood the principle that it was good to seek shade beneath a great tree.

Moreover, with his relationship to Liu Wenyin and Aunt Yun, joining Dongli Kingdom would give him a relatively high starting point.

At this point, Su Ze had made his next goal clear: return to Dongli Kingdom with Liu Wenyin.

Seeing Su Ze agree to become a Dongli citizen, Liu Wenyin smiled. "Then accompany me to look at apartments tomorrow. Aunt Yun will probably need another half a month or so to fully recover her Combat Strength. Staying in a hotel every day isn't convenient, so let's rent an apartment first."

"Okay."

After watching Su Ze leave the room, Aunt Yun, lying in bed, looked at Liu Wenyin and asked, "Dr. Liu, do you believe what he said?"

"I do, but I still need to verify it."

Liu Wenyin picked up her phone, opened her messaging app, found a contact, and sent a message: Help me investigate Mu Kingdom's finance minister Zhao Yuanyi's son, Zhao Lingxiao, as well as the full details of Princess Zhuzhi's rape and murder case.

Princess Zhuzhi's death had caused a huge uproar some time ago, so related information was not difficult to find.

Before long, Liu Wenyin received a large number of pictures and text files on her phone.

Looking at the handsome, sunny young man on the phone screen, whose appearance completely overlapped with the Su Ze in her mind—even the finer details were identical—Liu Wenyin could not help frowning.

She did not believe there could be two people in the world who looked so alike. Even twin brothers could not possibly be exactly identical.

Her first reaction was that Su Ze had deceived her—that Su Ze was Zhao Lingxiao.

But when she saw Zhao Lingxiao's atrocious record, she could not reconcile that rich young scoundrel with Su Ze's image. Su Ze did not feel like that sort of person to her.

"Perhaps it was some kind of disguise skill..." Liu Wenyin muttered. As far as she knew, there were at least a dozen disguise skills that could make one person look completely like another.

Liu Wenyin continued scrolling through her phone and carefully read the information on Princess Zhuzhi's case. Before long, she noticed something was wrong.

This case could be said to be full of suspicious points.

First, the motive did not hold up under scrutiny. Furthermore, after committing the crime, Zhao Lingxiao escaped and was not captured by Zhao Yuanyi until half a month later. There was plenty of room for manipulation in that period as well.

Most suspicious of all was that, the day before the execution, two prisoners at Pebble Prison had attempted a jailbreak and killed Zhao Lingxiao.

Although DNA comparison had confirmed that the deceased was indeed Zhao Lingxiao, Liu Wenyin still felt that there had to be some hidden secret involved.

Liu Wenyin's brows were tightly furrowed. She lacked some crucial information and could not deduce the truth, but the stranger the entire matter seemed, the more she felt that Su Ze had been telling the truth.

Finally, Liu Wenyin asked the person on the other end of the phone about the Zhao Family's recent movements. She learned that the Zhao Family had recently launched a massive anti-pornography and anti-crime campaign in Black Rock City, conducting a carpet search of the entire city.

"That matches what he said. It seems the Zhao Family really is hunting him down, so he probably isn't Zhao Lingxiao."

Aunt Yun found this somewhat strange. "Dr. Liu, you've seen plenty of gifted people of all kinds, especially at Gu'an University. What kind of genius haven't you seen? Why are you so concerned about this kid?"

"Among all the geniuses I've seen, I'm afraid there really isn't anyone who can compare to him."

"Why do you say that?" Aunt Yun had not expected Liu Wenyin to rate Su Ze so highly.

Liu Wenyin said, "First, he possesses a skill that even the Netherworld Organization values greatly. The Netherworld Organization's standards are not low.

"Also, do you remember that he had only just entered the Pupal stage? The Immortal Salamander Extract was the first extract he absorbed after reaching the Pupal stage, yet when he defeated Li Gaojie, if I wasn't mistaken, he used the Rock Scorpion's Needle Strike skill. The Rock Scorpion is a Tier 2 Exotic Beast."

Aunt Yun froze. Many skills looked similar when used, so she had not noticed what skills Su Ze had used at the time. But she trusted Liu Wenyin's professionalism and knew she would not be mistaken.

"So this kid wasn't actually newly in the Pupal stage? He had absorbed Rock Scorpion Extract before that?" Aunt Yun asked.

"No, he truly had only just entered the Pupal stage. My Evolutionary Eye would not be wrong," Liu Wenyin said. "He absorbed Rock Scorpion Extract across tiers while still at the Mortal stage!"

"Absorbing extracts across tiers? No, that's impossible!" Aunt Yun said in disbelief. "As far as I know, there has never been such a precedent in history!"

Liu Wenyin said, "A very small number of top geniuses in history have managed to absorb extracts across tiers, but that was usually during the Pupal stage or Cocoon Breaking Stage. He truly is the first to absorb a Tier 2 extract across tiers while still at the Mortal stage."

Aunt Yun remained utterly shocked. "A Mortal Lifeform that has not undergone evolution has a frail constitution. It simply cannot withstand the pressure of absorbing across tiers. How did he do it?"

Liu Wenyin shook her head with a light laugh. "That is why I said that, among all the geniuses I've seen, perhaps no one can compare to him."

"Still, Blue Star has only entered the Evolutionary Era for a thousand years. It is normal for things we cannot understand or explain to occur."

After a moment of silence, Aunt Yun nodded in agreement. "In that case, Su Ze really is worth recruiting."

"Come to think of it, Dongli has not produced a new Saint-level expert in seventy years. We have always relied on the older generation to hold things up, with a gap between generations."

At this point, Aunt Yun sighed before continuing, "Dongli's younger generation does not lack hardworking people, and there are plenty of so-called geniuses. But they are all too cautious. They follow their predecessors' experience, obey their teachers' arrangements, train and grow stronger step by step. It always feels as though they lack a bit of inspiration and drive. As a result, most of them are like me—they reach the Butterfly Transformation Stage, and that is the end of the road.

What Dongli truly lacks are peerless prodigies capable of dazzling an entire era!"

"I hope Su Ze's arrival can stir up some ripples in this stagnant pool."