One Piece of Good News, One Piece of Bad News (Part 1)

"Good morning, friends. Today is Wednesday, June 8. Pigeon News brings you the latest Suzhou briefing."

"At approximately four p.m. on June 5, a serious traffic accident occurred near the three-way intersection on Suhui Road. According to a report from the traffic police corps of the Suzhou Public Security Department, heavy rain and fog and slippery road conditions caused a vehicle's tires to skid, triggering a thirteen-car pileup."

"Immediately after the accident, multiple departments, including the Suzhou traffic police corps, fire services and emergency responders, arrived at the scene to handle the situation and promptly evacuated the crowd. Some roads reopened at around six thirty in the evening. The accident has so far left six dead and fifteen seriously injured."

"Pigeon News reminds you: of all the roads you take, safety comes first. With the college entrance examinations currently underway, traffic has increased considerably on all roads. Drivers, please exercise caution and arrive safely at..."

Li Ming switched off the television, cutting off the news report, and tossed the remote onto the sofa. His brow relaxed slightly.

If he had guessed correctly, the news report was Section Seven's handiwork.

Speaking of Section Seven, one had to start with the National Intelligence Bureau.

The National Intelligence Bureau's full name was the "National Intelligence Security Bureau." It had thirteen sections in total, and the two most involved with the supernatural were Section Six and Section Seven.

Whenever a supernatural incident had a certain impact on society, personnel from Section Six and Section Seven would be dispatched on an emergency basis.

Section Six was mainly responsible for collecting blood samples, genetic information and the like from all kinds of supernatural creatures. Section Seven was mainly responsible for manipulating and guiding the direction of public opinion within the country.

A little girl had eaten people in the street, and Chu Ning had gone on a rampage with a sword.

The incident had taken place at a busy three-way intersection, and news of it should have been flying everywhere. But after Section Seven intervened, the major event that could have set public opinion ablaze had naturally turned into an ordinary traffic accident.

They had really worked hard, truly hard.

Li Ming let out a long breath, turned to look at Gu Jiuge, who was standing by the window, puffing out clouds of smoke, and asked, "Have you made any progress on the task I gave you a few days ago?"

"Not yet." Gu Jiuge waved a hand and continued, "I went to Heavenly River International a couple of days ago and had just smashed up their place when Sister Yan called, before anyone from the Hunters' Guild could show up. I had to go to Star Sea Middle School and deal with 'The Contaminated Novelist.' Then that business with Su Bai came up, and I wasted another few days fooling him. With one thing and another, I had to put the task you gave me on hold."

In fact, the real reason the task had been delayed was that after Gu Jiuge confiscated Su Bai's phone and extracted the evidence from it, he had spent several nights playing Defend the Carrot on it.

The game-how to put it? It was fun, but it got harder the further one went. Gu Jiuge had been stuck on level 130 for three whole days and had evidently lost his mind. Just yesterday, he had picked up a knife and said with a sinister grin that he was going to chop up the designer of the damn game. Fortunately, Qingxue had stopped him.

Li Ming thought nothing more of it. He walked over and sat down beside the coffee table, then reached out and rapped on its surface. "The Hunters' Guild hiding behind Heavenly River International is no small problem. Since you've beaten the grass, you should startle the snake too. Only then can you lure it out of its hole."

"I know what I'm doing." Gu Jiuge stubbed out his cigarette and pulled up a chair opposite Li Ming, then added, "But I need to finish what I'm working on before I have time to complete the task you gave me."

"How long will it take you to deal with what you're working on?"

"Soon."

That morning, Sister Yan had already given Gu Jiuge the game designer's name and address.

He was supposedly in Jingzhou City, not far from Suzhou, only a few hundred kilometers away. A round trip by car would take half a day at most.

The poor game designer might not understand how much damage the casual little game he had created with his own hands had done to Gu Jiuge's tender young heart until Gu Jiuge stuffed him into a sack, hung him from a tree and whipped him.

For a bastard like Gu Jiuge, violence might not be the only way to solve a problem, but it was certainly the quickest way to get results.

"Oh, right." Gu Jiuge suddenly remembered something. He raised his chin toward Li Ming and deliberately lowered his voice. "On to serious business. Have you read the 'filing report' Crazy Girl wrote?"

In all of Suzhou, there was one and only one person Gu Jiuge would call "Crazy Girl": Chu Ning.

"I have."

"What did you think of it?"

"What did I think of it?" Li Ming repeated the last words Gu Jiuge had said. After pondering for a while, he said casually, "Her handwriting was pretty good."

The Oracle possessed by "The Little Match Girl" was Time Freeze, ranked ninety-seventh in the sequence.

Time Freeze could distort light, space, kinetic energy, microscopic particles and the like within an x (unknown) range. Every living creature within that x (unknown) range would have its perception slowed, producing an effect similar to stopping time. Rather than changing time, it was more accurate to say it distorted space.

For low-tier Transcendents, Time Freeze was an utterly absurd Oracle that could even be called unbeatable. Used well, it could allow the sixth-tier Little Match Girl to toy with a fifth-tier Transcendent in the palm of her hand.

However, Time Freeze also had two obvious shortcomings. In professional terms, they should be called two obvious "variables."

Variable one: time was merely a vague concept that existed relative to the motion of matter, not something that existed absolutely. As long as one could perceive the direction in which microscopic particles flowed, one need not fear having one's perception slowed, even inside a Time Condensation Domain.

Variable two: the x (unknown) range of a Time Condensation Domain changed according to the user's condition, whether strong or weak. The user could not transcend the x (unknown) range.

Simply put, there were two ways to force open a Time Condensation Domain: distort space by colliding streams of microscopic particles, which required mastery of the body of knowledge concerning kinetic energy in the supernatural field, or severely injure the user of Time Freeze with overwhelming force, which required either an extremely destructive Oracle or a bloodline rank far above the user's.

As Chu Ning was about to reach the scene, she had keenly discerned "The Little Match Girl's" identity and decided to use the first variable to break Time Freeze.

However, just a few seconds later, she suddenly discovered that Time Freeze had been forcibly broken by a powerful force.

Chu Ning realized that this powerful force was an extremely destructive Oracle that had never appeared before.

Su Bai was the only Transcendent trapped in the Time Condensation Domain at the time.

Thus, Chu Ning's analysis of the whole affair was that Su Bai, a ninth-tier Transcendent, had used some unknown high-tier Oracle to severely injure, and nearly kill, "The Little Match Girl."

Strictly speaking, the filing report Chu Ning had submitted was quite absurd.

But what was even more absurd than the filing report was that it was the truth.

Anyone with some knowledge of the supernatural could guess that since "some unknown high-tier Oracle" had allowed its user to severely injure "The Little Match Girl" across a tier gap, that Oracle had to rank extremely high in the sequence and be exceptionally dangerous.

Then, "Wrath" would be laid bare before everyone.

After that, Su Bai would become a target for "erasure."

Yet Gu Jiuge and Li Ming had long since agreed to hide Su Bai's Oracle, and even Su Bai himself.

So Li Ming's assessment of Chu Ning's report could only be: her handwriting was pretty good.

"Her handwriting was pretty good" meant that only the writing was correct; everything else was wrong.

Even if it was right, it was wrong.

Gu Jiuge understood the meaning hidden in Li Ming's words, and a look of surprise crossed his face. "Captain Li, have you really decided to wallow in the mire with me?"

"Wallow in what mire? Why make it sound so awful?" Li Ming patted the table and scolded him with a stern face. "We're clearly just working hand in glove as villains!"

Gu Jiuge looked up at Li Ming, looked away, then looked at him again.

Li Ming was a fucking idiot, no doubt about it. But how had he himself been so easily fooled by this fucking idiot seven years ago?

Could it be that I'm a fucking idiot too?

P.S. There was too much to take care of over the New Year, so I took a few days off. I'll be working overtime lately to get the update speed back up as soon as possible. If this has inconvenienced you, please don't forgive me-just curse me out. I've got thick skin and don't mind. Love you!