Exposed?

Half an hour after Annie had been reduced to ashes.

On the other side of the night, Gu Bei was hardly in a better situation than Annie.

"...To set me up, you were even willing to sacrifice your companion?"

It was not that Gu Bei had suddenly developed a sense of justice and wanted to stand up for Annie. It was just that, aside from condemning Michelle morally, he had no idea what else to say.

And he had to keep talking. Keeping silent was no different from waiting to die. After all, he and Michelle were still "negotiating," though the course of those negotiations had long since gone completely off the rails from what Gu Bei had imagined.

But this was his only chance to survive.

"What's so hard about that?" Michelle's attitude began to worsen as well. "Lord Riser, for the sake of a pleasant partnership, it seems I was a little too friendly toward you. I gave you the mistaken impression that we could speak casually."

Friendly my ass.

Gu Bei felt the pressure mounting. Clearly, Michelle had torn off her hypocritical mask and was preparing to end this "negotiation." That was not good news for Gu Bei.

Whether he was trying to find a way out or merely buying time, he had to keep Michelle talking.

So, he tried to toughen up.

"Lady Michelle, only I can open the Treasure Vault, and I can change my mind at any moment. Don't forget—I can make sure you never get what you want."

However, Michelle's counterattack came faster than he had expected.

"My lord is getting anxious. I'll treat you to my finest whip shortly. I believe you'll soon understand what choice you ought to make."

"..."

Gu Bei had to admit that this soft-spoken threat was far more oppressive than a vicious tone.

The unspoken meaning behind that tone was: I can see through every little scheme of yours. No matter how many tricks you try, you will never escape my grasp.

Contempt! Utter contempt!

Seeing that Gu Bei did not answer, Michelle pulled another jet-black whip from her sleeve. She waved it before him, and the moonlight made it gleam with an oily sheen.

"Do you like what you see?" she asked.

Fuck you. Gu Bei said inwardly.

Michelle tugged at the whip.

Gu Bei immediately forced out a smile.

"Pleasure doing business with you!"

"Pleasure doing business with you."

Michelle nodded and slowly put the whip away again.

Gu Bei felt utterly humiliated.

Thinking back on it, the main reason Michelle had managed to deceive him was that he had only just transmigrated here and knew nothing about this world. He was like a migrant worker fresh in the city, fumbling around in the dark. Even a three-year-old could run circles around him.

This damn transmigration. Didn't protagonists in other novels inherit their predecessors' memories? Why did he get absolutely nothing?

If only he had known sooner that there were no pursuers. If only he had known more...

Everything would definitely have been different.

"Purifiers are Paladins specially used by The Church to deal with heretics," the system suddenly appeared and said in a grave, serious tone. "The selection process for Purifiers is extremely strict. Every year, two thousand Paladins participate, yet only two successfully become one of them. It is said that every Purifier receives the Pope's blessing and possesses extraordinary combat power. When they gather together, they become even more terrifying."

"What the hell? Could you not suddenly pop up and scare me at a critical moment like this?" Gu Bei furiously said to the system in his mind.

"This is information on the Purifiers."

The system clearly could not sense even a trace of Gu Bei's anger. Its tone still sounded as irritating as ever.

"You..." Gu Bei had just been about to say something when he suddenly came to his senses. "Where did this information come from?"

"I don't know. It suddenly appeared in the database," the system replied.

"Is there anything else? Give me something useful—about mages! How do mages in this world learn new spells?"

Hope flared up in Gu Bei's heart once more. Information! Data! He had no idea whether the system had somehow upgraded or simply malfunctioned and obtained this information, but it was exactly what he lacked most right now—damn this transmigration. He knew far too little about this world.

He needed information about mages.

He had to learn the Binding Spell. It was his only chance of survival.

"There is nothing else. Aside from the terrible speech draft you wrote, this is the only information in the database."

Gu Bei grew extremely agitated. "I'm not in the mood to joke around. Give me something useful. We're tied to the same rope—only if I live can you keep existing. If I can't learn the Binding Spell, we'll both be finished."

There's nothing means there's nothing. The system never jokes."

"..."

Gu Bei did not even know whether he should press it about the first sentence or mock the second.

"Really nothing else?" He still refused to give up.

"Really nothing else."

"Really, really nothing else?"

A burst of static came from the system. Then, a translucent numerical interface appeared before Gu Bei again. "For customer service, please press zero."

"..."

This time, Gu Bei finally gave up.

He would have to rely on himself.

That was right—Gu Bei had not given up yet. The situation had become a dead end. In other novels, this was when a miracle should have happened, when some master descended from the heavens to save him. But life was not a novel. When trapped in a desperate situation, the more likely outcome was not a sudden rebound, but lining up on a rooftop and saying goodbye until the next life.

Besides, if he really was in a novel, then judging from everything that had happened to him, the author must truly hate him.

But...

Ever since Michelle's attitude had worsened, Gu Bei had felt a strange sense of incongruity. He did not know where that feeling had come from, but his instincts told him something was wrong. Michelle was deliberately hiding something from him, something she did not want him to know.

What could it be...

Under the crushing pressure of death, Gu Bei vaguely sensed a sliver of hope.

Like suddenly feeling a faint breeze inside a sealed cave.

He had to seize that breeze.

Bringing his attention back to reality, he and Michelle were still hiding in the tree. Michelle did not seem ready to move yet. Perhaps she was afraid of being discovered by the Purifiers and wanted to wait until they had gone farther away.

Purifiers...

Michelle seemed very wary of them, and the system had just provided quite a bit of information about them. He might as well use that as a breakthrough. He could not get intelligence from the system, but at least he could probe Michelle indirectly.

After thinking it over, Gu Bei spoke again. "They aren't here for Annie. The person they truly want to purge is you."

Michelle replied coldly with a single sentence.

"Talkative nobles don't live long."

Whether talkative people lived long or not, he did not know. But if he said too little, he would definitely not survive.

Gu Bei did not want to be a chatterbox either. Heaven had forced him into it.

"Purifiers are Paladins The Church specially uses to deal with people like you. The Church does not have many Purifiers, and every one of them is a battle-hardened Paladin. For more than ten Purifiers to move out together, you must have already caught The Church's attention."

Gu Bei deliberately spoke slowly, hoping to use the information he had just obtained from the system to test Michelle's reaction.

Michelle did not react.

Gu Bei was not discouraged. "Do you really think you can open the Treasure Vault under The Church's nose? Every family's Treasure Vault has guards. Even if you can kill them without anyone noticing, it would be difficult to avoid making any noise at all. The Purifiers are so close. They will definitely notice."

His tone was calm, but inside, he was already as anxious as if he were on fire.

Please... Please... Give me some kind of reaction!

He felt as if he were taking a politics exam, rambling on about a bunch of things he did not even understand himself, hoping one sentence might accidentally hit the mark and crack a sliver of life into this flawless dead end. He had racked his brains until they were nearly dry.

Fortunately, Michelle finally moved.

She turned to look at Gu Bei. It was the first time Gu Bei had seen what Michelle looked like. The moonlight was dim, and her hood covered her tightly, leaving her whole face blurred and indistinct. Yet those pale golden eyes were like an owl's, painfully bright.

Her gaze was like that of a beast—sharp and utterly without warmth. It made Gu Bei's scalp tingle.

"Who are you?"

"What?" Gu Bei did not understand at first.

"You are not Grant Riser. Who are you? When did you switch him out? Where is he?" Michelle suddenly drew a dagger and held it to Gu Bei's throat, her tone becoming aggressive.

Gu Bei's heart skipped a beat, and a bad feeling surged up within him.

"I don't understand what you're talking about."

Michelle's eyes were like those of a leopard, vicious and cold. "Stop pretending to be stupid. Purifiers always deploy in groups of fourteen, yet you seem not to know that. That alone would be one thing. But the Riser Family has always taken pride in the secrecy of their Treasure Vault and its special method of opening it. They have never stationed guards there, yet you said there would be guards. As someone from the Riser Family, there is no way you could not know that."

After a brief pause, she stressed her words. "Who are you?"

Gu Bei's palms were drenched in sweat.

He had screwed up. Completely screwed up.

Politics exams were still better. At least wrong answers did not cost you extra points.

He had never been Grant Riser. He was only Gu Bei, an unlucky transmigrator. He did not know what the Riser Family even was, much less how to open this so-called Treasure Vault. He knew nothing.

Once Michelle realized that, he would have no value left.

She would kill him.

Super-advanced, ultra-precise intelligent system, save me!

Gu Bei shouted inwardly.

"Shutting down. Ding ding ding ding..."

Fuck you.

Back in reality, Michelle's move had been so sudden that Gu Bei had been frightened into total stillness, without even a change in expression. That, at least, meant he had not revealed any flaws. So Gu Bei followed up on his poker face and put on a calm expression.

"I am Grant Riser."

Michelle's gaze was like a scalpel, as though she wanted to cut open Gu Bei's organs and inspect every cell one by one.

At the critical moment between life and death, Gu Bei forcibly calmed himself and stared back at Michelle with indifference.

It felt like being back in elementary school, with his homeroom teacher glaring viciously at him and asking, "Didn't you do your homework?" He would answer, "I really did it, but I accidentally forgot to bring it." Then the teacher would ask, "Are you lying?" and he would reply, "I really am not lying!"

Fortunately, he rarely did his homework, so he had practiced this expression enough to hold steady beneath Michelle's terrifying gaze.

Time seemed to stretch on for an entire lifetime.

Gu Bei was even starting to feel hungry.

Suddenly, Michelle withdrew her dagger and reined in her aggressive aura. She returned to her previous statue-like posture, crouching on the branch.

What was going on? Gu Bei was still immersed in his perfect "forgot my homework" expression and had not reacted yet.

He was a little dazed.

"Give up. I won't fall for it," Michelle told him.

What the hell... Gu Bei felt like he had accidentally skipped a chapter while reading a novel and could not keep up with the plot. Give up on what? Fall for what? Had he done something without even knowing it himself?

He did not even know how to react.

Of course, he would not show his confusion. After thinking it over several times, he came up with a safer way to test her without revealing a flaw: repeat what he had just said, then judge the situation from Michelle's reaction.

"I am Grant Riser."

Michelle seemed a little impatient. "You talk too much. Shut up!"

Gu Bei stared fixedly at Michelle's motionless figure, recalling every detail from before. Michelle's strange attitude, and the hope he had inexplicably felt amid his despair... That subtle sense of incongruity was like a single white hair among a head of black hair. He had to pluck it out.

Suddenly, inspiration flashed through his mind.

"I am not Grant Riser."