It took Zhang Ping a while to look at Situ Shibai. He could not help asking, "Mr. Situ, is making special equipment always this cruel?"
Situ Shibai did not answer. He simply held his teacup, closed his eyes, and savored the tea.
With his strength, he could have copied Zhang Ping's ability by force, regardless of what Zhang Ping wanted.
But he had not. He had respected Zhang Ping's choice.
Zhang Ping knew that.
When he asked the question, he had remembered that Situ Shibai's offer was two pieces of equipment plus answers to anything he asked. He had not agreed to the deal yet, so Situ Shibai naturally would not answer his questions so readily.
He looked at the Fear War Scythe and the Golden Treasury, deep in thought.
If he had not told himself to stay calm, he knew he would have accepted on impulse.
Those two pieces of equipment were simply too tempting.
The Fear War Scythe was undoubtedly the weapon best suited to him right now.
The Golden Treasury was a spatial storage item money could scarcely buy, a strategic treasure to any faction.
Time passed. Neither Zhang Ping nor Situ Shibai spoke. Like a grandfather and grandson who understood each other without words, they sat together and quietly drank tea.
When they finished the pot, Zhang Ping got up to add water, then poured Situ Shibai another cup.
"Mr. Situ, your offer is too good. I accept."
Zhang Ping set down the teapot, having finally decided to agree to Situ Shibai's terms.
First, Situ Shibai was offering too much.
Second, Situ Shibai had no reason to deceive him.
Through Wind Whisperer, he knew quite a bit about the Cleanup Team. Situ Shibai had copied every ability in the entire team, so the chance that copying an ability would harm him was extremely low.
What truly worried him was the unknown. Situ Shibai had never copied an Infinite Tier ability. No one could say what would happen when their two abilities came into contact.
But as he had already thought, Situ Shibai was offering too much—enough for him to take the risk.
Situ Shibai set down his teacup and smiled. "Good. They're yours from this moment on. Hold out your hand."
He raised his hand and pressed his palm against Zhang Ping's. The whole thing lasted only about a second. When it was over, he sighed softly.
"Mr. Situ, that's it?" Zhang Ping withdrew his hand, baffled.
Was touching palms all Situ Shibai needed to copy an ability?
Situ Shibai nodded. "That's it. I couldn't copy your ability, or even any of the abilities derived from it. It seems your ability is exceptionally unusual. Every one of your abilities may have the potential to reach Infinite Tier."
The abilities he copied had no such limitless potential. At best, he could train them to their inherent limits.
If he copied a Nation Guardian Tier ability, for instance, it would remain Nation Guardian Tier even when trained to perfection. It could never advance to Infinite Tier.
In his early years, he had not realized his potential was limited and had spent it on many abilities with little room to grow. Now that his potential was exhausted, he could barely improve his Proficiency even if he gained a new ability.
That was why Zhang Ping's ability interested him.
If he obtained the Contract Gem ability, he could slowly restore his potential and eventually advance to King-level.
Unfortunately, the experiment had given him his answer: an Infinite Tier ability could not copy another Infinite Tier ability.
Though disappointed, Situ Shibai was not surprised.
He had expected this result.
Even when he made his decision, his intuition had faintly given him the answer. He had tried anyway because he could not quite let go of the possibility.
Next, he helped Zhang Ping bind the Fear War Scythe to himself.
The process was simple.
Situ Shibai, its original owner, transferred it to Zhang Ping. Without that transfer, no one could take ownership of the Fear War Scythe.
After putting the Fear War Scythe into the Golden Treasury, Zhang Ping asked again, "Mr. Situ, was all special equipment made in such a cruel way?"
"Two hundred years ago, more or less. Later, after hundreds of reforms and crackdowns, large and small, Mingzhu City gradually banned the practice of using people as sacrifices to make equipment. Only condemned prisoners are treated that way now," Situ Shibai explained.
Two hundred years ago?
Zhang Ping suddenly realized that school lessons had said very little about that period.
"What was Mingzhu City like two hundred years ago, Mr. Situ?" Zhang Ping asked curiously.
Situ Shibai glanced at the bracelet on Zhang Ping's wrist. "Two hundred years ago, Mingzhu City wasn't called Mingzhu City. It was called Zhu City, and the family that ruled it was the Beast-Taming Zhu Family."
"The Beast-Taming Zhu Family? What did they do?" Zhang Ping asked.
Situ Shibai sank into memory. "What did the Zhu Family do?"
His gaze seemed to reach across more than two hundred years to scenes from the past.
"In the Zhu City they ruled, everyone was a slave to the Zhu Family. No one could see a future. No one had hope."
"Men toiled day and night for a scrap of food. Any woman with a little beauty was taken as a servant of the Zhu Family and made a plaything for its spoiled sons."
"All children were gathered together and indoctrinated day and night to be loyal to the Zhu Family. The elderly who could no longer work were fed to Mutated Beasts."
"Back then, anyone who became an Awakened was either controlled and enslaved or turned into material for making equipment."
"That's why so many Awakened fled beyond the city. Some settled outside it, while others quietly built up their strength, hoping to overthrow the Zhu Family one day."
"I see."
Zhang Ping could picture the situation. Perhaps the Awakened had suffered even more back then than they did now.
"Any other questions?"
Situ Shibai sighed wistfully. It was some time before he spoke again.
He had plenty of time to answer Zhang Ping's questions.
In fact, when Liu Sishan first made contact with Zhang Ping, Situ Shibai had observed the change in her flame of luck and confirmed that Zhang Ping was not a Mutated Beast.
Once he learned that Zhang Ping's ability was Infinite Tier, he had wanted to meet him.
Only a fool would send an Infinite Tier Awakened to work undercover.
Any faction with a talent that precious would guard him as carefully as it could.
Sending him undercover would be unthinkable.
Even for an ordinary mission outside the city, several powerful people would surely be assigned to protect him in secret, lest they lose him before he had a chance to grow.
Situ Shibai had come this time to give Zhang Ping treasures and answer his questions. Trying to copy his ability was incidental.
The situation in Mingzhu City was unclear, and Zhang Ping knew only fragments of it. He could easily stumble into an enemy trap.
Take the little Heavenly Fox in the park, for example.
Under normal circumstances, how could a child be on a park swing in the middle of the night?
To Liu Sishan and the others, it was an obvious trap. Zhang Ping, however, had nearly walked right into it.
Situ Shibai had therefore come specifically to answer Zhang Ping's questions and explain the situation in Mingzhu City, so he would not fall for an enemy scheme without realizing it.
"Mr. Situ, you're so powerful. Why don't you deal with Prince Yue yourself?"
Zhang Ping had many questions, but after careful thought, he decided to start with the one that troubled him most.
He was certain Prince Yue was no match for Situ Shibai. If Situ Shibai acted, Prince Yue would die, and more people in the city would not have had to die over the past two days.
But Situ Shibai had not acted. He had stood by while the Heavenly Foxes captured and ate people.
Situ Shibai shook his head. "It's not that I won't act. I can't."
He rose and walked to the window, looking toward a distant street. "You may think Mingzhu City's defenses are so weak that no one even noticed the Heavenly Foxes infiltrating it. But that's wrong!"
Wrong?
Zhang Ping was even more confused.
"Mingzhu City actually has an exceptionally thorough defense system. Outside the city, the Investigation Team investigates and drives away newly appearing Mutated Beasts, while the Patrol Team regularly clears out those that pose a threat. Inside the city, the King's Divine Artifact, the Sun-Moon Pearl, suppresses all nonhuman races.
"It's a treasure left behind from Zhu City. If a King-level Mutated Beast invades, it activates automatically.
"Within the Sun-Moon Pearl's domain, a King-level Mutated Beast is automatically reduced to a Top-Tier Mutated Beast. And among those at the top tier, I am unquestionably the strongest," Situ Shibai explained earnestly.
That meant any king who entered Mingzhu City would die.
"But now..."
Zhang Ping started to speak, then stopped. He had realized where the problem lay.
His face darkened as he looked at Situ Shibai. "Mr. Situ, you mean... there's a traitor in the city?"
"Yes. Since the Zhu Family's rule was overthrown, only the city lord, I, and the remnants of the beast-taming family have known how to control the divine artifact," Situ Shibai said.
Zhang Ping clenched his fists. Scenes he had witnessed flashed through his mind: the human skin Su Jingyao had worn, streaming bloody tears; the girl Prince Yue had torn apart; the hands and feet the Heavenly Foxes had gnawed...
His eyes seemed ready to spit fire.
"Why didn't you wipe out those monsters back then?"
Zhang Ping clenched his fists tighter. The Zhu Family had committed countless atrocities. He could not understand why they had not all been killed.
Situ Shibai gave a bitter smile. "The Zhu Family had spent centuries entrenching itself in Mingzhu City. Its resources ran deeper than we could fathom. Besides, right after we overthrew them, the city was in chaos. Many people had been indoctrinated since childhood and hated us for what we had done. Under those circumstances, there was very little we could do."
The situation back then could not be explained in a few words.
Though they had defeated the Beast-Taming Zhu Family, many indoctrinated people remained secretly loyal to them.
Those people could not threaten the Awakened, but they could secretly conceal the whereabouts of the Zhu Family's descendants. Some even killed their own children so that Zhu children could take their places.
They were beyond saving, yet they hid among the ordinary population. By the time Situ Shibai and the others had the means to investigate, all the evidence had long since been destroyed.
For the past two hundred years, the remnants of the beast-taming family had remained active in Mingzhu City's shadows.
They kept a low profile and worked in secret. They had also inherited many of the Zhu Family's treasures and possessed a great deal of special equipment. Even after repeated investigations, the Cleanup Team had found no trace of them.
There were too many unanswered questions about the Heavenly Foxes' invasion.
Why had the Sun-Moon Pearl failed to activate?
Was the city lord alive or dead?
What did the Beast-Taming Zhu Family want?
What ability did the king of the Heavenly Fox Clan possess?
Until those questions were answered, Situ Shibai had to be extremely cautious about acting. If he fell into an enemy trap and died, Mingzhu City truly would have no hope left.
It was like warfare in Zhang Ping's previous life.
Nuclear weapons were a deterrent, not something to use before the decisive moment.
After calming down and thinking it over, Zhang Ping understood how important Situ Shibai was.
Situ Shibai truly could not act rashly now. No matter how Prince Yue provoked them or how many people he killed, anyone else could afford to lose their temper. Situ Shibai could not.
The situation in Mingzhu City gradually came into focus for Zhang Ping, as though the fog of war were lifting.
The most important thing now was to find the traitor and learn more about the Heavenly Foxes—especially what ability Moon King possessed.
But Moon King was resting in the City Lord's Manor, guarded by countless Heavenly Foxes. There was no way to investigate him directly.
All Zhang Ping could do was investigate Prince Yue. As Moon King's offspring, Prince Yue might have attributes that indirectly revealed his father's abilities.
Other people with the Appraisal Technique could not see through the Heavenly Foxes' disguises. Only Zhang Ping could do that.