Good deeds from bad intentions... or not?

Yet compared with the lively, flourishing atmosphere among the figurine girls in Chen Xiao's home, the mood inside the Anomalous Incident Management Bureau was rather strange.

The old man sent by the Gao family still had not given up.

After realizing that the Comic Exhibition had far too many attendees, leaving an ocean of information even after the Bureau screened out most ordinary people, he decided to visit the venue and investigate in person.

He also brought along the "gravely wounded" Qing Xuanzi.

Of course, the price was negotiable.

Qing Xuanzi: "I am gravely wounded, so I'm afraid..."

Old man: "Triple!"

Qing Xuanzi: "Slaying demons and vanquishing evil is the duty of all of us in the Mystic Sect!"

"What a disgrace to the Mystic Sect!"

Huang Qingque, standing nearby, was utterly disgusted.

To keep an eye on this representative of the Gao family and prevent him from causing trouble, Liu Yaowen had sent Huang Qingque and several Countermeasures Team members along.

Instead, she had ended up witnessing a cash transaction that dragged the Mystic Sect's reputation through the mud!

Unorthodox practitioners really were unorthodox practitioners!

After changing their clothes, the group arrived at the Magic City Exhibition Center and began investigating every suspicious location.

While accompanying the two men, Huang Qingque also secretly cast spells to view information about the area from several days earlier.

"No matter how powerful their mental abilities are, they couldn't possibly have left no trace at all."

In fact, the stronger someone's abilities, the more "dazzling" their presence appeared to a Diviner, just as Black Rock Shooter had been when Huang Qingque first saw her.

An ability this broken would guarantee a hundred-percent clearance rate if used in criminal investigations.

Hacks enabled?

That was the whole point!

Yet to Huang Qingque's surprise, she saw no traces left by that powerful individual.

They even entered the alley where Chen Xiao had cornered Gao Chen, but still found nothing suspicious.

Some might wonder: hadn't Chen Xiao unleashed a Tempest Kick earlier?

And surely the blood that dripped onto the ground would have left "traces" too!

That was because, before leaving the scene, Chen Xiao had used Sōten Kisshun to restore the ground split open by his Tempest Kick. It was as though nothing had happened, so naturally, there was nothing suspicious to find.

Besides, even pulling the venue's surveillance footage would have been useless. Jack the Ripper's Information Erasure was a conceptual skill.

In the end, they spent an entire day running around and found absolutely nothing. The already elderly Gao family representative was so exhausted that he sat on a public bench, looking pale and gray, as though he had "burned out."

"Mr. Gao, you should give up. If neither a Diviner from the capital nor a Mystic Sect practitioner like me, who cultivates the Soul-and-Spirit Projection Technique, can locate this powerful individual, then they are far beyond anything the Gao family can afford to provoke."

Qing Xuanzi shook his head as he tried to persuade him.

"Even if we cannot defeat that powerful being, we can still find someone connected to them! As long as that person isn't an ordinary civilian... we must reclaim the Gao family's lost dignity from him!"

Where did this moronic urban-fiction villain come from?

Although it was rude to think that, everyone present silently had the same reaction to the old man's words.

Still, it showed just how badly Gao Chen's publicly broadcast confession had damaged the Gao family's reputation.

Especially after being "brainwashed," Gao Chen had looked even more simple-minded on camera than Emperor Hui of Jin, like some Tang Family Third Young Master.

Even their public explanation that he had been mentally controlled proved useless. The entire Gao family had been branded with an invisible Down syndrome label, and people even suspected there was something wrong with their genes.

That was why the old man the Gao family sent was so desperate.

"But honestly, is the culprit really from Shenzhou? Could it have been a foreigner with superpowers?"

Just then, one of the Countermeasures Team members suddenly spoke up.

The Gao family's old man: -?!

Those words struck like a bolt from the blue, making his expression freeze.

His tangled thoughts were sliced clean through.

"That's right! The culprit might not be from Shenzhou!"

How did I only think of that possibility now?!

Having spent years dealing with the overt and covert attacks of other families within Shenzhou, the old man had grown accustomed to scheming against his own countrymen and instinctively overlooked foreign powers.

This was Magic City, after all!

Foreigners were the last thing it lacked, all year round!

"Maybe this really was the work of an outside force!"

The old man laughed as though he had grasped a lifeline.

"That is certainly possible!"

Huang Qingque agreed.

After Gao Chen turned himself in, the Bureau had discovered that, although the rest of his body was uninjured, his Demon Core had suffered severe blows and was completely ruined.

Such a vindictive attack on his manhood was almost certainly over a woman.

Given the explicit videos from Gao Chen's time studying abroad, one of the women in them might well have been someone's cherished first love.

"Yes, yes! That might really be the truth!"

The more they thought about it, the more sense it made. Everyone felt as though the fog had lifted.

And just like that...

Their investigation went off course, and they began thoroughly investigating every suspicious foreigner who had appeared near the Magic City Exhibition Center.

Well, what do you know!

They actually uncovered several foreigners who had infiltrated the country.

"That man is a follower of Evil Spirit Worship! He's carrying an Evil Artifact!"

Huang Qingque shouted after seeing through one foreigner at a glance.

"How dare you run wild on Shenzhou's soil! You truly don't know your place! And you're still here! Take my talisman!"

In his excitement, Qing Xuanzi forgot he was supposed to be gravely wounded and immediately hurled talismans at the foreigner.

As it turned out, although he had cut a sorry figure after Jack the Ripper stabbed him, Qing Xuanzi did live up to his role as the Gao family's handsomely paid "elite" when dealing with these evil outsiders.

Even Huang Qingque's opinion of him improved somewhat.

Of course, a moment later, Qing Xuanzi remembered that he was supposed to be gravely wounded. He promptly dropped to his knees, feigning pain, and declared with a noble, righteous expression:

"A mere fatal... cough, cough! A mere scratch is nothing worth mentioning!"

Huang Qingque: ...

I'm ashamed to be associated with this man!

As the old man kept searching for foreign visitors connected to black magic, the scope of this "undeserved disaster" continued to expand. Even members of a certain "Playing Cards" organization got run over by this group's "dump truck"!

Had their bad intentions actually led to good deeds?

"Has Mr. K's plan been exposed? Or is there a mole... damn it!"

The foreigner was just about to pull out a potion and drink it like the hooded man had when Qing Xuanzi rushed right up to him and slapped him to the ground.

"No drinking!"

The "orange juice" fell to the ground and shattered.

At that moment, the Gao family's old man abruptly came to his senses.

"What exactly did I come here to do?"

By the time he snapped out of it, he and Qing Xuanzi were already standing in the Anomalous Incident Management Bureau's lobby, reaching out to accept an honorary banner from Liu Yaowen.

There was even a crowd around them applauding the two men.

(Congratulations~ Congratulations~)

Even when the Gao family called him back to Guangdong Province, the old man still had no idea why he had done so much for Magic City's Anomalous Incident Management Bureau.

It was as though an invisible hand had been secretly controlling him...

Meanwhile, inside Chen Xiao's bedroom.

"My lady, are you going to materialize?"

The silver-haired attendant figurine in a maid outfit asked.

"No, it isn't time yet... I merely helped A-Xiao resolve a minor nuisance."

The petite figurine seated on her throne extended a hand, and the sphere of light threaded with red strands before her slowly dispersed.

"Shenzhou's local families may follow the rules and keep ordinary people out of supernatural affairs, but organizations from outside don't care about those unwritten rules..."

Besides, as the supernatural became increasingly integrated into ordinary people's lives, that boundary would inevitably keep shrinking.

Until it vanished altogether...

So, to ensure A-Xiao could live a happy, peaceful life in the future, they too had to gather strength in secret.

And prepare to sweep aside everything in their path!

The power to manipulate fate was only the beginning.