"Huh?" Fang Yuan and Xiao Zhang froze. "Great King, they're suspecting someone else is behind the kidnapping right now. If we go collect the money now, isn't that... a bad idea?"
"That's what you don't understand!" Chun Xiaobai waved a hand and declared smugly, "This is called muddling the false into truth!"
"Muddling the false into truth?"
The two stared blankly. "You mean passing the false off as true?"
Chun Xiaobai asked them outright, "Let me ask you this. Didn't both sides initially suspect someone else was behind the kidnapping?"
"Yes!" Fang Yuan nodded.
"I know the Great King's plan!"
Just then, Bai Jin'er, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly spoke.
"Hm?" Fang Yuan and Xiao Zhang turned to look at her curiously.
Their gazes made Bai Jin'er a little self-conscious, but to prove she wasn't merely a decorative vase, she cleared her throat and began explaining.
"Think about it. At first, both groups were sharp enough to suspect a third party had intervened."
"But the second Image Recording Stones the Great King sent were meant to deliberately enrage them, making them lose their cool and throwing them into disarray!"
"When people are angry, they're most likely to crawl into a dead-end ox horn."
"Here on the Mountain of Ten Thousand Spirits, who besides each other has both the strength and the motive to do this?"
"But the Great King kept playing coy, making them realize that an outsider would have no reason to drag things out like this."
"Only the Heavenly Baleful Valley or the Hundred Sects Alliance would do that to conceal their identity!"
"The news we just brought back proves they no longer suspect a third party. They're convinced the other side is the culprit!"
The more Bai Jin'er spoke, the brighter her eyes grew