Lin Xing tentatively reached out a hand, because, in theory, this Fufu before him was most likely his Martial Soul.
Then, according to the rules of the Douluo Continent, he should be able to put her away.
Sure enough, with a thought from Lin Xing, his outstretched right hand began to emit a faint blue glow.
Fufu, who had been standing with her arms crossed, pretending to be cold and aloof, couldn't help widening her eyes.
"Hey, what are you..."
Before she could even finish her sentence, she vanished from the spot with a whoosh.
With Furina gone, the slight weakness Lin Xing had been feeling in his body instantly improved considerably.
"Looks like she really is my Martial Soul."
"Lin Xing!"
"Hurry up and let me out! I don't want to stay in here!"
Fufu's voice exploded inside his head, making Lin Xing's brows knit tightly.
"All right, all right, stop yelling. I'll let you out now."
As he spoke, Lin Xing followed that initial sensation again. Power surged through his body, and with a flash of blue light, the vanished Fufu reappeared in the same spot.
"Hmm?"
"Wait."
Lin Xing suddenly spotted a crucial detail.
"How did you know my name?"
The Fufu before him definitely wasn't just a simple Martial Soul, or she couldn't possibly behave like this. As for Grandmaster's Luo Sanpao... sorry, but Lin Xing wasn't about to compare Luo Sanpao to Fufu.
Besides, judging by her tone just now, she clearly knew him. That was wrong, very, very wrong.
Furina, who had only just emerged, was stopped in her tracks.
"Well, about that..."
She really wasn't any good at lying. She hemmed and hawed for ages without managing to give an explanation.
Lin Xing silently backed away a little. He smelled a conspiracy.
"Hey, are you seriously taking two steps back?"
Furina seemed to have found a way to change the subject.
But Lin Xing wasn't buying it.
"Don't try to change the subject. You may be a star actress, but your acting just now was really, really bad. At least, that's how it looked to me."
"So how did you know my name?"
"And judging by your tone in that second sentence, you must know me, right? This probably isn't my first transmigration. I must have been to Teyvat before, right?"
The barrage of questions left Furina a little dizzy.
"Stop, stop, stop!"
"Fine, fine, I do know you, but you don't need to know how we met. I'm not telling you anyway!"
"As for your other questions, don't bother thinking about them. I don't know anything."
Fufu chose the most basic tactic of playing dumb. He couldn't lie, but surely she could play dumb?
As long as she stubbornly insisted she knew nothing, no matter how capable Lin Xing was, he couldn't possibly pry anything out of her.
"So you really were pretending to be cold and aloof after dealing with that Soul Beast?"
"Let me guess. I've met you before, and barring any surprises, we traveled together for a while. And my impression of you should be that you're silly and a bit dazed."
"But things ended up this way for reasons I don't know yet, and you were acting cold and aloof just now to change the image I had of you. Am I right?"
Fufu's expression stiffened.
Oh no, oh no! How is Lin Xing still so smart now?!
Is my disguise plan going to be exposed before it even begins...
No, no, no. Calm down, Furina. You were once the Hydro Archon. You can't panic now. You absolutely mustn't panic!
After screaming madly inside, Furina forced herself to calm down.
"Of course not. Do you know that standing before you is the Hydro Archon, revered by everyone in Fontaine? That aloofness was no act. I have always carried myself this way."
Furina crossed her arms and turned her back to Lin Xing quite naturally.
Then she raised her head at a forty-five-degree angle to gaze up at the sky.
Someone who didn't know Furina might actually have believed her, because her words had sounded quite convincing, and at that moment, her demeanor and bearing had perfectly matched the cold and aloof persona.
Unfortunately, however, he was facing Lin Xing.
Lin Xing had originally intended to expose her act outright, but on second thought, how boring would that be? This was Fufu, the genuine article! How could he pass up the chance to tease her a little?
"Ahem..."
Lin Xing gave two light coughs to draw the attention of Fufu, who was still pretending to be cold and aloof.
"Yes, Miss Furina, I think you're absolutely right."
The moment those words left his mouth, Furina grew wary. Lin Xing wasn't someone who would suddenly change like this. If he did, it could only mean one thing.
Lin Xing was about to stir up trouble.
And since she was the only person nearby, she could only be the target of that trouble.
Naturally, Lin Xing hadn't expected Fufu to actually wise up. He had barely gotten halfway through what he wanted to say when his body went weak.
He nearly toppled to the ground. Fortunately, he was reasonably nimble and twisted around to sit straight down instead.
For a moment just now, it felt as though half his stamina had been drained away.
No, it wasn't just his stamina. In that instant, half his vitality, Qi, and spirit had all been drained away.
What followed was a new power appearing within his body.
"What's wrong with you?"
The slow-witted Fufu hadn't yet realized that Lin Xing had nearly fallen over. She had thought he was putting on a talent show for her.
Lin Xing gave Furina a strange look, then held out his right hand.
At some unknown point, a peculiar device resembling a set of scales had appeared in his palm.
The Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale.
Lin Xing gave Furina another strange look, having digested the information that had suddenly appeared in his mind.
"So you're the extra that came with it, Fufu."
Furina's expression stiffened.
"What do you mean by that? How could I possibly be an extra!"
Lin Xing shook his head and pointed at his palm.
"You should recognize what I'm holding. The Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale. Strictly speaking, this is my real Martial Soul, and you're just another Martial Soul that came along with it."
The reason Lin Xing thought this was that, when this thing appeared, instructions for its use, along with some special connections and information, had automatically appeared in his mind.
So Fufu really was an extra. The Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale in his hand was his true Martial Soul.
Moreover, Soul Rings couldn't be added to this Martial Soul, and its effect was very simple: essentially, judgment.
A Pro Max version of Let the Mighty Be Humbled.
It forcibly dragged an opponent into a tribunal. At present, it could only drag in one person at a time, and everyone except him was completely forbidden from fighting inside.
If anyone used violence inside the tribunal, Neuvillette, summoned by the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale, would forcibly suppress them.
And this judgment was pretty absurd, too. Unlike Let the Mighty Be Humbled, it didn't require charges. Inside the tribunal, he could make the charges up.
Alternatively, he could skip the trial altogether and convict them directly, with culpability divided into five levels.