Playing Cards and Sewer Combat Arts

Le Yu had only triggered the ability "Rebirth Through Death" once so far.

After all, the activation conditions for this skill were too stringent. There was a great terror associated with life and death. The first time, Le Yu successfully transmigrated from his original body into Qian Yuliu's body, but what about next time? Would the skill fail to activate? Were there other hidden requirements? Any other side effects? Was there a limit to how many times it could be used?

Because the activation condition was death, Le Yu didn't dare to test it casually. Moreover, his fundamental instinct as a normal human was to survive; how could he actively seek death? This skill itself went against human nature.

Furthermore, "Rebirth Through Death" explicitly stated that Le Yu could only transmigrate into the body of his killer. Without other examples, Le Yu could only trust this skill description.

This meant that if there was no killer, or if he died by suicide, illness, or old age, Le Yu would truly be dead.

In his final confrontation with Lin Xue, Le Yu certainly could have twisted Lin Xue's neck, but Lin Xue's scabbard light could also pierce Le Yu's body.

If Le Yu killed Lin Xue first, and then Lin Xue's scabbard light caused Le Yu to bleed out and die, could Le Yu's "Rebirth Through Death" still activate? He would still be dead if he transmigrated into a corpse with a broken neck!

Although "Rebirth Through Death" stated that the ability could be triggered by indirect killers in addition to the final killer and direct killer, Le Yu wasn't sure how broad this "indirect" scope was.

For example, the mastermind behind Revenge Severance was actually Yin Yinyin. If Le Yu died in Revenge Severance, could that be attributed to Yin Yinyin? And the reason Yin Yinyin requested Revenge Severance was because Lin Xue'en was an insider in the Lin family. So, would that be attributed to Lin Xue'en? And the reason Lin Xue'en became an insider was definitely because...

If it kept nesting like Russian dolls, the indirect scope would be infinitely vast. Le Yu would rather ensure he could transmigrate into the final killer's body than believe his soul could trace back along the nesting doll path to possess and replace.

Therefore, even if Lin Xue had truly used her scabbard light to kill him back then, he wouldn't have tried to kill Lin Xue.

Are you kidding? This body will be mine soon. How could I damage her?

He just hadn't expected Lin Xue to suddenly have a change of heart, and Le Yu's plan to possess the beautiful girl naturally fell through. He still felt a tiny bit of regret... just a tiny bit.

However, he naturally couldn't tell Lin Xue this reason.

In fact, Le Yu didn't need to answer Lin Xue.

"You just said you had a question for me, and this is the second one," Le Yu chuckled, signaling for the female medical officer to push him away.

This time, Lin Xue didn't stop him. Only after seeing Le Yu's figure on the wheelchair disappear around the corner did she turn and leave.

"Captain Qian, you need to take care of yourself."

"Captain Qian, I brought fruit."

"Captain Qian..."

After 4 PM, the first team from the Statistics Department came together to the Medical Officer Department to visit Le Yu. Le Yu, who was lying in bed contemplating Battle Cards decks, raised an eyebrow slightly. "You're allowed to leave work early today?"

"The director specially approved us to leave early today to visit you, Captain!" Ai Lili's eyes were full of stars. "It's really great!"

Is your 'great' referring to leaving work early today, or to Lan Yan's 'greatness'... Le Yu looked at Chen Fu, who shrugged. "Our job today is to quell the commotion from your Revenge Severance incident. Oh, this is my visiting gift. Drink it quickly."

Chen Fu placed a wooden bottle on the bedside table. Le Yu picked it up and felt it was ice cold, with a layer of moisture on the outside. He opened it, took a sip, and licked his lips. "Oh, it's iced Honey Five-Flower Tea."

Zhou Guangshi asked curiously, "Does Captain like sweet tea too?"

Le Yu smiled. "I like many things, you just don't know about them."

"Yeah, if it weren't for the internal Battle Cards competition in the Statistics Department these past two days, who would have known Captain was a master of the Wolf-Eagle Deck?" Zhu Junjie laughed.

These past few days, Le Yu had let loose and was no longer constrained by Qian Yuliu's identity. Although others felt that Qian Yuliu had suddenly become a different person, few found it strange—after all, Qian Yuliu had killed his mentor a few days ago, so a personality change was quite normal.

And how could normal people think of transmigration, possession, or reincarnation? At most, everyone secretly grumbled that Captain Qian looked so aloof on the outside, but was so fragile on the inside, that killing his teacher with his own hands would directly cause such a drastic personality change.

Some female agents in the Statistics Department who quite liked Qian Yuliu's handsome face secretly gave up on their romantic aspirations after hearing about Qian Yuliu's change, feeling that Qian Yuliu had the potential to be a yandere; but other female agents became more proactive in approaching Qian Yuliu, because they found the yandere trait very cute.

Le Yu realized he had overthought things when he first transmigrated. As long as he acknowledged Qian Yuliu's identity and worked normal hours to send money home, others wouldn't actually care much about Qian Yuliu. They would even come up with many reasons to rationalize Qian Yuliu's changes.

Everyone chatted for a while and then left. Only Chen Fu stayed behind to play Battle Cards with Le Yu.

Chen Fu's card-playing skills were not bad. His deck, like his combat arts, was based on Ethereal Combat Arts.

What did "Ethereal" mean? Moving without a trace in the snow and riding on the wind was Ethereal.

Ethereal Combat Arts was also one of the rare combat arts that primarily focused on leg techniques. Its evasion, movement, and footwork were all top-notch, and its kicks were incredibly powerful. If the Pouncing Combat Arts' kicks were "continuous," then the Ethereal Combat Arts' kicks were "earth-shattering."

However, Ethereal Combat Arts used to be a "Sewer Combat Arts"—martial artists would at most supplement their training with the movement techniques from Ethereal Combat Arts, rarely specializing in it. It wasn't until Firearms became the mainstream weapon that Ethereal Combat Arts suddenly gained popularity.

After all, martial artists who practiced Ethereal Combat Arts before could only use short knives as auxiliary weapons, which had limited lethality. Their professional role leaned towards scouts and assassins. Now, martial artists could wield Firearms with both hands, and their accuracy wouldn't suffer even when shooting rapidly at close range, with enough lethality to severely injure unarmored opponents. The weaknesses of Ethereal Combat Arts were suddenly compensated.

Times had changed. What was once popular could decline, and what was once obscure could rise.

The Ethereal Deck also gained strength with the times. The Royal Academy assumed that anyone using Ethereal Combat Arts would also use Firearms. Therefore, the Ethereal Deck's characteristic was "additional damage can be dealt with a direct hit card after a successful counterattack." At the same time, the Ethereal Deck's critical hit cards were also very powerful (specializing in kicks). Combining various factors, the Ethereal Deck was considered one of the current strong decks.

Chen Fu started by covering a face-down card. The strong points of the Ethereal Deck were face-down counterattacks and face-down direct hits. If you played a direct hit, the opponent would hit you with a counterattack and follow-up attack. If you played a critical hit, the opponent's critical hit would deal more damage to you.

But Le Yu was using the Wolf-Eagle Deck. If his direct hit card was counterattacked, the damage of his next direct hit card would increase, so playing a direct hit in the first round was absolutely not a loss!

After several back-and-forth rounds like this, Chen Fu suddenly said, "The bullet caliber is 5.66, one of the three standard firearm calibers. Based on your position at the time, the firing position was probably in a building about 150 meters away, but after questioning, no one nearby heard the gunshot. However, that area was noisy, so it's possible no one heard it, or..."

"It had a sound disruptor installed, scrambling the gunshots," Le Yu said, covering a face-down card. "Were there any Light Burst traces on the bullet?"

Chen Fu played the direct hit card 'Ethereal Flying Kick' and said, "No. If we rule out deliberate concealment, then the shooter shouldn't be a Flying Flower Combat Arts martial artist."

"A firearm capable of precise shooting at 150 meters, with a bullet caliber of 5.66..."

Le Yu flipped over his face-down card, which was the 'Hawk-eyed Wolf-gazing' counterattack card, dealing 3 damage to Chen Fu.

Chen Fu raised an eyebrow. He only had one health point left, while Le Yu had four. He simply covered his cards and stopped playing, saying seriously, "There are only three types of Firearms with that kind of range, and all three of them... must be standard Firearms that require identity verification!"

Not all Firearms required identity verification. In fact, apart from Firearms officially produced by the Radiant Court, other privately manufactured Firearms were ready to use. The principle of Firearms was not complicated, and while gunpowder acquisition was troublesome, it wasn't impossible. Self-made Firearms were not uncommon; in fact, wealthy households or rural villages would definitely have self-made Firearms to protect against bandits.

The court couldn't prevent civilians from owning Firearms, but they could control their own products. Official Firearms, in addition to requiring Radiant Stone authentication for each use, also had extremely tricky rifling and bullet sizes. This ensured that civilian Firearms couldn't use official bullets, and official Firearms certainly couldn't fire civilian bullets.

Moreover, the quality of civilian-made Firearms was generally poor. Firearms with a range of over 100 meters and reliable accuracy could only be produced by official Radiant Court factories.

Even during chaotic times, when prefectural governors ruled their own territories, none of them canceled the identity authentication feature for factory-made Firearms. It was a joke—they also relied on weapons to control their subordinates, so how could they allow powerful Firearms that didn't require authentication to circulate freely?

The investigative findings Chen Fu mentioned were actually just to lead to one conclusion:

The person who shot Le Yu didn't use an unknown, self-made firearm, but rather a standard-issue firearm used by an official agent!

"There are only three types of people in Star Engraving Prefecture who are authorized to pass identity verification for Firearms with an accurate range of over 150 meters," Le Yu said, showing Chen Fu his hand of Battle Cards. Both were direct-hit cards. Chen Fu looked at the two counterattack cards he had just played and slammed his thigh in regret.

Le Yu held up one finger. "The first possibility is a sniper from the Riverside Army. However, every one of these snipers practices Flying Flower Combat Arts. If it were them, my entire body would definitely have been torn in half."

Flying Flower Combat Arts are a throwing weapon combat art that can 'implant' Light Burst into an object and detonate it once the object hits the target. Like Ethereal Combat Arts, Flying Flower Combat Arts used to be Sewer Combat Arts, only truly shining after the advent of Firearms. All army snipers are required to practice Flying Flower Combat Arts; legendary snipers can even make a bullet hit with the force of an artillery shell.

"The second possibility," Le Yu continued, holding up two fingers, "is a mobile agent from the Judicial Department. However, ever since the Statistics Department was established, the Judicial Department's mobile unit was merged into the Statistics Department. I don't know if the Judicial Department has re-established a mobile unit."

"And the third possibility is..."

"Is a special agent from our Statistics Department."

A voice suddenly answered from the doorway. Le Yu and Chen Fu turned their heads to see a heroic man in a purple and blue uniform smiling at them. He pushed up his silver-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and said gently, "Good evening, Captain Qian, Deputy Captain Chen."

It was Lan Yan!