Chapter 783: Storm Clouds Gather from All Sides (2)

"The last time we'll meet? I didn't go through all that trouble to come to Jinghai just to hear you say that." With my aura retracted, I looked no different from an ordinary person, save for the Good and Evil Asura Mask on my face, which looked somewhat out of place.

"It seems you still haven't realized how dangerous your situation is." The tall, thin man in the black robe kept his voice low. His vocal cords sounded damaged. "You've brought massive trouble to me and all of Jinghai!"

"Then you really think too highly of me." I chuckled and walked toward him. "When we last met, your attitude wasn't like this."

Seeing me approach, Black Robe subtly retreated a few steps to maintain the distance between us. "Jinghai is my territory. I've been operating here for ten years and only just managed to establish a firm foothold, but the moment you arrived, you ruined more than half of the situation I worked so hard to build!"

"Just because I tried to open Hongqiao Port earlier?" Noticing Black Robe's wariness, I crossed my arms and stopped in my tracks.

"That's only part of the reason." To my surprise, a hint of helplessness laced Black Robe's dry voice. "Late last night, a murder involving a fire fox occurred in the Northern Suburb. The police officers who went to handle the incident still haven't returned. No bodies were found at the scene—only bloodstains and fiery red fox fur. And the location of this incident was right on the other side of the urban village where you're staying. I don't know if you have anything to do with it, but that fox very likely followed you into Jinghai."

"Blood Fox Dry Corpse..." My expression remained unchanged. I had encountered it back in Henshan Suolong Village, and the Fox Immortal Desiccated Corpse was by no means easy to deal with. "I don't know. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I knew you'd be stubborn." The black-robed man continued, "Also late last night, a night walk of a hundred ghosts took place in the Northern Suburb. Someone saw countless Ghost Infants crowding around a beautiful woman as they entered Jinghai."

"A Great Completion Ghost Mother?!"

I interrupted Black Robe, but rather than getting angry, he nodded. "It would be one thing if this once-in-a-century ghost appeared in Jinghai, but in the latter half of the night, a major murder occurred in the Western Suburbs. In a residential building in the urban village, all the tenants in the odd-numbered apartments were brutally dismembered and drained of every drop of blood. The scene was like hell on earth, and the entire block was cordoned off. If I hadn't been there at the time, I probably wouldn't have even known it happened."

"You were at the scene? Did you see what the killer looked like?" I touched the edge of my mask; the killer's methods felt vaguely familiar.

"Of course. Not only did I see it, I even fought it." The tall, thin man lifted the black robe draped over his arm to reveal a large chunk of flesh gouged out of his pale limb. The wound was pitch-black and exuded a putrid stench. "The corpse poison of an Uncorrupted Bone truly is extraordinary."

My heart skipped a beat as I finally understood where that bad feeling came from. "Why would it come all the way to Jinghai?"

"You're asking me? Shouldn't I be the one asking you?" The tall, thin man dropped his black robe and snorted coldly.

I knew perfectly well that the Uncorrupted Bone had likely tracked me all the way here to find the bone I'd stolen. Missing a piece of its spine, it could never reach a perfect state; it would always have flaws and vulnerabilities. Naturally, I wasn't going to mention this to the live show streamer standing in front of me.

"It might just be a coincidence. Certain events in Jiangcheng caused the Five Great Upper Sects to dispatch their forces in full, so it probably fled to Jinghai to seek refuge," I said casually, my expression completely unchanged.

"According to my investigation, whether it's the fire fox, the Great Completion Ghost Mother, the Uncorrupted Bone, or the matters concerning the Five Great Upper Sects—all of them seem connected to you." Black Robe didn't give me a chance to refute; his voice gradually rose. "Fine, even if they have nothing to do with you, how do you explain the next person I'm about to mention?"

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed two photographs at me. The first photo showed a rather chubby middle-aged man dragging a suitcase as he walked out of the airport. He had dark bags under his eyes and looked like he hadn't slept well in days.

"Wu Youde? What is this guy doing in Jinghai?" Wu Youde was the livestream viewer who had once tipped me a Paper Boat—the King of Bad Movies. He had a special Fate Pattern, a kuigang noble. In decline, he would suffer bone-deep poverty, but at his peak, he would enjoy unparalleled prominence. Back when I visited him in Xinhu, I had Blind Liu read his fortune over the phone. Old Liu had said that his destiny this year was highly volatile, making it the most critical year of his life.

I shifted my gaze to the second photograph, and with just one glance, my expression darkened.

The subject of the second photo was still Wu Youde, but it was taken from a different angle that perfectly captured the alleyway a few meters behind him.

From the photographer's vantage point, I could clearly see a person in the alley wearing a baseball cap and a face mask. Most of his face was covered, but even so, I recognized him at a glance. "Lu Xing!"

"Our live broadcasts have a taboo: never interact too much with the audience. Obviously, you failed to heed that." Black Robe didn't ask for the photos back and simply continued, "Lu Xing is a Class-A wanted criminal in the south, and his true identity is a Fate Usurper. You should know this better than I do. For him to follow an ordinary person all the way to Jinghai at such a critical juncture, he's obviously searching for an important person or item. Who do you think he's looking for?"

The only people who knew my exact location were the livestream viewers who had watched last night's broadcast. But I had been inside the Red Building at the time. The environment there was complex, so very few people should have recognized it. But it was useless to dwell on that now. The situation had already unfolded, and I just had to face it.

Seeing my silence, Black Robe sneered. "The situation is far more severe than you imagine. I'm somewhat aware of what happened at the Jiangcheng Three Yin Sect. Faking your own death to escape certainly took a lot of nerve, but unfortunately, you left behind too many loose ends that weren't cleaned up properly. Now, various factions have converged on Jinghai, and you are the center of this storm."

"What is a blessing is not a disaster, what is a disaster cannot be avoided. We're both live show streamers, so there's no need for this scaremongering. If the situation had truly reached an irreversible point, you definitely wouldn't have come to meet me; you would have hidden far away. Am I right?" Those who managed to become live show streamers largely prioritized their own interests above all else. The fact that Black Robe dared to show up here proved that things hadn't reached the worst-case scenario yet.

"As expected of the only newcomer to pass the assessment in recent years, you're quite calm." Black Robe suddenly changed his tone. "Thanks to you, the Five Great Upper Sects have begun fully investigating Xinhu and Jiangcheng. That Fate Usurper in Xinhu is too busy to fend for himself, so he hasn't chosen to come to Jinghai to find you personally. He merely sent a few underlings and disciples. I suppose that's a blessing in disguise."

"You know about the Two-Faced Buddha, too?" A glint flashed in my eyes. Back in the Deep Dream Layer, A had told me that there was a live show streamer who absolutely despised Fate Usurpers. Black Robe, standing right in front of me, perfectly matched A's description. "I'm very curious to know what you think of Fate Usurpers."

"Plundering the Fate Patterns of others, stripping away people's destiny, and forcibly extending their own lives—they are nothing but a pack of despicable, shameless thieves! They deserve to be slaughtered! They deserve to die!" Black Robe's tone had noticeably shifted, though I had no idea why he harbored such intense hatred for Fate Usurpers.

"Since you hate Fate Usurpers that much, and you clearly knew there was one hiding in Xinhu, why didn't you go kill him and set things right?"

"That Good and Evil Buddha in Xinhu is someone even the Live Show isn't willing to provoke lightly. Right now, I don't have the strength to go up against him." Black Robe's words startled me. It wasn't until today that I finally gained a relatively clear gauge of the Two-Faced Buddha's strength. He was far more powerful than I'd thought. Even if he couldn't match the Live Show, the gap couldn't be too large—or at least, that was how Black Robe saw it.

The sound of police sirens drifted in from outside the alley. More and more traffic cops and police officers were arriving at the port square to handle the incident, but the black-robed man didn't panic in the slightest. Strangely enough, this alley wasn't exactly secluded, but the people walking past always seemed to subconsciously ignore it, almost as if a concealment spell had been cast over the area.

"I have no interest in how chaotic Jinghai will get in the future. So what if I was the one who drew in these demons and ghosts? Don't tell me you expect me to help you chase them away?" Even though my strength had skyrocketed, I wasn't arrogant enough to think I could do that. Whether it was the Two-Faced Buddha, the Uncorrupted Bone, the Blood Fox, or the Great Completion Ghost Mother, taking on any single one of them would be enough to give me a major headache. "Do you still remember what you promised me at the port earlier? Right now, I only want information regarding the Live Show."

"Don't be in such a rush. I will definitely tell you about the Live Show and the First Anchor, but before that, I want to make a deal with you." Black Robe pulled an irregularly shaped Mirror Fragment from his pocket. "This thing should be very important to you, right?"

"A Reincarnation Mirror Fragment!" My gaze was instantly drawn to it. The Mirror Fragment Black Robe had pulled out was about the size of half a palm.

"As long as you agree to do me a favor, I'll give this Mirror Fragment to you. It's not of much use to me anyway." Black Robe lightly tossed the shard into the air, treating it as though it were something completely inconsequential.

"I'm puzzled. What could possibly be something even you can't resolve that requires me to lend a hand?" As one of the few surviving live show streamers, Black Robe's strength was unfathomable. If even he didn't have full confidence in pulling it off, it was clear that this matter was extremely dangerous.

"What I'm about to do is crazy. It's an almost impossible task." The black-robed man flicked his wrist and threw the Mirror Fragment straight to me. "I plan to hunt down another live show streamer—the Butcher."

Seeming to anticipate my reaction, he proactively walked toward me. "Do you know why I had you go to the Red Building last night? That is the Butcher's territory. He raises obsessions there like pigs and dogs just so he can devour them all one day and refine them into his own power. My original plan was to have you clash with the Red Building Obsessions and trigger a conflict between you and the Butcher. But you ended up being far more ruthless than I imagined. Not only did you completely destroy the Red Building, but you actually absorbed all of those obsessions into your own body. To dare snatch something from the Butcher... aside from the First Anchor, no one has ever managed such a feat."

Hearing him say this, my face instantly darkened. Without even realizing it, I had already forged an enmity with one of the most formidable and dangerous streamers in the Live Show.