All the strength suddenly drained out of me, and I sank back onto the sofa.
I rubbed my face with both hands and ran them through my hair, struggling to keep my emotions in check.
"You knew they were going to go after Wu Ling and the others, didn't you?" I asked.
There was no answer.
"They were going to target me. They thought of Wu Ling and the others, and they thought of you. Tang Yu was part of it too. They were planning to wipe us all out. But something went wrong on your end. Is that right? They didn't use Tang Yu. Or maybe they did, but you didn't take the bait. Only Wu Ling and the others died... You knew they were dead, didn't you? They... knew too, didn't they?"
Things I'd ignored, things I'd deliberately forgotten, surged up from the depths of my memory.
Those few phone calls, Wu Ling's vague words and evasive attitude...
"Wu Ling knew," I continued. "She knew. Nangong Yao probably guessed too. He'd figured it out long ago. He'd suspected Nantian for a long time."
And Nantian.
Nangong Yao's younger brother, one of the heirs to Four Seas Wealth, had become a celebrity...
"...That was all part of the plan, wasn't it? He probably wasn't very clever himself. He was good at acting, but that was all. Becoming a celebrity was for his own sake, right? Taking over Nangong Yao's younger brother's body and impersonating him was for the sake of all the Ghost Kings' plan. Becoming a celebrity was how he wanted to build up his own power. Without revealing his identity as a Ghost King or using his Ghost King abilities, becoming a celebrity was the fastest way to gather his own people. Tens of thousands, even hundreds