"A Little Embellishment"

"How many rounds of searches has this been?"

"Since yesterday morning, this is the fourth round."

"Why don't they just dig up all of Yuguang and check under every inch of it?"

"If they could actually do that, they probably would've started with that."

Feng Zi answered Li Wei's rambling while pouring the boiled water into a thermos.

They were hiding in an old rental apartment in the 2nd District, not far from the Church.

Li Wei had rented the place before they entered the Church and paid three months' rent upfront, so it wasn't particularly conspicuous.

Even so, after the battle in the early hours of yesterday morning, Tian Yuan, the police superintendent, had rushed back to Yuguang from Yaoguang. He'd gone completely crazy, ordering his officers to search nearly every inch of the place for the audacious Li Wei and Feng Zi.

Every time they searched, the officers barged straight into the apartments without a word. Li Wei and Feng Zi pretended the place was empty and hid together in the ceiling above the front door.

They'd hidden like that four times now.

After dealing with the latest search, Li Wei slumped into a chair and picked up a cup of hot water Feng Zi had poured for him. He looked as though he wanted to drink it but thought it was too hot.

But the water in Yuguang had to be boiled before it was safe to drink. Because the city was at the very bottom of Sun City's underground water supply, the water here wasn't clean.

Yuguang had been turned completely upside down.

The laborers who had returned from the Barrier Field District that evening had heard that another incident had occurred at the Church. But no reliable information had come out. The police officers were the only ones making any noise, searching over and over like they were plowing the ground. Every district was in a state of panic.

Just as Li Wei and Feng Zi were hiding in the rental apartment, waiting for things to quiet down over the next few days, the Police Department finally held a press conference that afternoon and issued a statement about the incident across Sun City.

Since no one in Yuguang could afford a newspaper and the laborers had little time to learn what had happened, the officers had simply gone door to door handing out notices. They told the laborers who could read to spread the word about what had happened that night.

Even the rental apartment where Li Wei and Feng Zi were temporarily hiding—though officially unoccupied—had a notice slipped under the door.

At the time, Li Wei was holding a cup of hot water and staring blankly out the window at the rain. The game's mission had become a dead end. With the way into the Church completely blocked, they seemed to have no way to get into Yaoguang, let alone reach the White Tower.

Feng Zi, meanwhile, had found a box of needle and thread in a drawer and was trying to teach herself how to mend their tattered clothes.

They didn't dare go out to buy supplies. Fortunately, they had plenty of food and drink. Before Li Wei had been selected for the Choir and entered the Church, he'd bought some basic necessities and left them here just in case. He hadn't thought to buy clothes, though.

The two of them grew alert when the notice was pushed under the door.

They waited a long while, but heard nothing outside. Only then did Li Wei set down his teacup, walk to the door, and pick up the notice from the floor.

He skimmed it and let out an unsurprised "tsk, tsk," then casually handed it to Feng Zi.

When Feng Zi saw what it said, her face turned deathly pale.

"How can they twist the facts like this?!"

The Police Department's public statement about the incident had indeed been "slightly embellished."

To protect the Church's image, there was no way they would reveal the Bishop's disgraceful behavior or the evil things he had done.

In the Police Department's statement, he was still a good bishop: kind, fair, and benevolent. Naturally, all the blame and wrongdoing had been pinned on Li Wei.

The bioman who had escaped from Tian'en Company, biological patent number 626, was rotten to the core!

Not only had he lured and kidnapped the young lady who had returned from Central, he was also a sadistic murderer. He had committed the Coal Mine Field killings in the Barrier Field District, and he was responsible for all the brutal murders in Yuguang over the past year!

Worse, he had infiltrated the Church and emptied the graves in the cemetery, using evil biological research to turn himself into a monster!

In the end, the upright and benevolent Bishop Twilight had discovered the bioman's true nature, only to be brutally murdered. On that stormy night, he had died in the Church's backyard!

After reading the notice, not a single word of which was true, Feng Zi was beside herself with anger.

"This is blatant slander! They're pinning every bit of filth on you! You only escaped from that laboratory a week ago. How could you have committed any of these crimes? They don't even care about basic logic anymore. All they do is twist the facts!"

Li Wei didn't care at all. He waved a hand.

"What's the big deal? Don't get yourself worked up over it. They can say whatever they like. Didn't the Police Department already put out a notice saying I'd kidnapped you and eloped with you? I didn't see you get this angry then."

"That's different! Bishop Twilight had a very, very high standing in Yuguang. Nearly all the laborers saw him as Yuguang's representative! Now the Police Department is saying you killed him, and they've pinned the earlier brutal murders and the Empty Grave Case on you, too. That means every laborer in Yuguang is your enemy! They must hate you!"

Feng Zi's eyes were already turning red.

"You helped those laborers' families get their compensation back. You helped that boy get his eyes back. You helped the people of this land get rid of the real scourge! And now they're all going to curse you and hate you!"

Li Wei couldn't help scratching his forehead as he listened to her, wondering if he really was that great.

He handed Feng Zi an apple and tried to comfort her.

"Take it easy, take it easy. It really isn't worth it. A good reputation or a bad one doesn't matter to me."

Feng Zi took the apple, but her expression remained stubborn.

She pulled the recording pen she'd brought back from the Border Market out of her pocket and met Li Wei's eyes with a serious look.

"What if I anonymously mail the things Bishop Twilight said that night to a newspaper?"

Li Wei stared at her in surprise.

"You recorded it?!"

"As soon as he said he was performing organ fusion, I started recording. At the time, I just thought that if we got caught later, I could use the recording to ask my teacher in Central to clear your name and prove you were a good person."

After receiving a "good person" label, Li Wei shook his head nonchalantly.

"It won't help even if you send it to a newspaper. They won't publish the truth."

Feng Zi pressed her lips together and stopped talking about sending the recording to a newspaper. Instead, she lowered her head and fiddled with it, cutting out that section and saving it separately. Then she said softly,

"They won't be able to keep it hidden forever, either."