Ten seconds later, Huai Shi sat calmly in the guardhouse, extinguished the fire in the furnace, and pulled the glittering sacrificial knife from the dried corpse.
My Little Pony came in and took a look around, clicking his tongue in amazement at Huai Shi's knife work.
Huai Shi studied the passage behind the guardhouse and casually asked, "Old Liu, what are they hiding back there?"
"That should be their Chastity Circle..." My Little Pony replied offhandedly, then jumped in fright. "Fuck, how did you know it was me?"
Huai Shi glanced back at him. "Just a casual guess. There aren't many people I know who are that flamboyant."
"Ahem, I was just speaking casually too." My Little Pony looked at him innocently. "Who's Old Liu?"
"A bald guy."
"That's enough!"
The two stared at each other in the guardhouse. After a long while, Liu Dongli helplessly looked away.
"Who exactly are you?" Huai Shi asked.
"As you can see, a male escort." Liu Dongli shrugged. "I also hold a bunch of miscellaneous positions, like Fourth-Class Peacekeeping Officer for the Astronomical Society..."
"Huh?" Huai Shi was dumbfounded. "What the hell?"
"Think of it as a double safeguard set up to get around the rules."
The male escort wearing My Little Pony's face sat in a chair and sighed. "In certain sensitive regions, the Astronomical Society uses a dual oversight system. Two inspectors, one overt and one covert. The former handles disputes, while the latter keeps an accurate record and conducts secret investigations when the former is unable to... just like with the Purified People this time.
"On one hand, I'm Ai Qing's examiner, responsible for judging whether she can exercise an inspector's authority impartially. On the other, I'm her bodyguard and muscle. But directly deploying an Ascender could raise sensitive issues,