"Someone is searching Zhou Zong's corpse?"
Inside the tent, the vigilance in Su Chen's eyes gradually faded. When Hu Xiang had suddenly sought him out earlier, he had assumed the man had finally put two and two together and was ready to make a move against him.
Instead, looking as guilty as a thief, Hu Xiang informed him that someone was rummaging through Zhou Zong's body.
"Yes, there's something very wrong about this," Hu Xiang said, his expression solemn.
Su Chen stared at him. "Two things. First, why did you come to me with this information?"
"Second, didn't you say you were going to personally patrol the perimeter? How are you so well-informed about what's going on inside the camp?"
"What does that have to do with the corpse?" Hu Xiang frowned. But looking at Su Chen's guarded posture, he quickly understood.
This kid still didn't trust him. Left with no choice, he explained, "I came to you because Zhou Zong's death is at least somewhat related to you..."
"Don't go slandering me," Su Chen said, his face deadpan.
Ignoring the remark, Hu Xiang continued, "I originally intended to patrol the perimeter, but I wasn't entirely at ease leaving the camp unmonitored, so I've been keeping an eye on both."
Su Chen begrudgingly accepted the explanation. A thought stirred in his mind, and realizing a few possibilities, he ordered, "Let's go take a look at the corpse."
"I brought it over for you." Hu Xiang turned around and hauled the body bag in from right outside the tent.
Su Chen: "..."
"You head out first," Su Chen said, rubbing his chin as he unzipped the bag and stared down at Zhou Zong's corpse.
Hu Xiang hesitated, but seeing Su Chen staring at him fixedly, he could only step out of the tent.
"Walk a bit farther..." Su Chen called out. Hu Xiang was forced to shuffle a bit farther away. A moment later, he saw the light inside the tent switch off, plunging it into total darkness.
"Fuck, what a sneaky bastard..." he cursed under his breath.
Meanwhile, relying entirely on his heightened mental perception, Su Chen began precisely running his hands over Zhou Zong's corpse.
Before long, his hands paused, and his eyes narrowed slightly. "There really is something."
Pulling out a small knife, with a soft tearing sound, Su Chen ripped a thin, paper-like object out from the inner lining of Zhou Zong's clothes near his left chest.
Su Chen's expression became highly animated. This was the exact item that contained the information regarding the 【Spatial Storage Adept】, the very same object that had been stolen from Nanfeng Academy.
"He just brought it out perfectly fine like this?" A myriad of thoughts raced through Su Chen's mind.
Yuan Chenyang's supervision was notoriously strict. Under normal circumstances, there was zero chance this item could have been smuggled out of the city.
However, the routine patrol beyond the city walls had provided a perfect loophole. On the very day the patrol had left the city, Yuan Chenyang had just so happened to be away pursuing the thief. And the person who had seen the patrol off had been none other than Zhou Zong's father.
'Zhou Zong probably didn't even know what this was, otherwise he wouldn't have kept it on him until now. There's also one of their people hidden among the City Patrol guards...' Su Chen realized this situation was extremely thorny. This was clearly a massive political vortex.
"But..." he muttered softly, "it's also an opportunity."
He was just about to turn his portable light back on when his gaze fell upon Zhou Zong again. He murmured, "Still, out of all the students, why did it have to be planted specifically on Zhou Zong...?"
As he spoke, he extended his demonic hands once more, conducting an even more thorough search this time.
"Woah, there's actually something else..."
Su Chen looked astonished as he stared at the two small, black metallic cubes resting in his palm.
Zhou Zong had basically been turned into a pack mule.
These items had been hidden within a secret compartment hollowed out in the heels of Zhou Zong's boots. They were barely the size of fingernails—definitely not something that had been casually stashed on him.
With a slight twist, the metallic casings popped open, allowing a faint, iridescent light to spill from the seams. Shielding the glow with his clothes, Su Chen carefully revealed the contents.
Inside were two small, irregularly shaped, multi-colored crystals.
The panel didn't provide any prompt, indicating they weren't finished products.
"These things..." He furrowed his brow. Looking back at the thin metal sheet, a sudden hypothesis formed in his mind.
He immediately pulled up his panel, located the 【Spatial Storage Adept】 profession, and expanded its advancement requirements.
Just as he suspected, the requirement for a 【Spatial Crystal】 had just been marked as completed.
He had simply operated on a gut feeling. Since these crystals had been hidden along with the metal sheet, there was a high probability they were related to the 【Spatial Storage Adept】.
"So these are Spatial Crystals?" Su Chen stared intently at the crystals in his hand, unable to suppress a wave of sheer excitement.
Just like that, the profession's most bafflingly obscure requirement had been completed?
And two of them right off the bat?
Yet, after the brief surge of excitement, a sobering reality hit him: acquiring these items probably wouldn't do him much good in the long run.
Given that these items had been hidden on Zhou Zong, his father was almost certainly aware of them. With his son dead and the items missing, everyone in the group would inevitably be subjected to a rigorous search—especially himself.
"Looks like I have no choice but to hand them over." Su Chen absentmindedly rubbed the metallic cubes. "I can't exactly just throw them away."
He was incredibly reluctant to part with them. Who knew when he'd ever lay eyes on such items again?
【Detecting the host's intent to discard the Spatial Crystals. The Spatial Storage Adept profession is willing to accept the two Spatial Crystals as a toll to allow the host to undergo a Partial Advancement.】
【By completing the remaining advancement requirements later, the profession can be gradually made whole.】
Hmm?
Staring at the prompt flashing across his panel, Su Chen froze. Partial Advancement?
"Not bad, not bad at all! Look at how understanding this profession is! Since the advancement requirements are so stiff, it's willing to accept a Partial Advancement first. Boarding the train first and buying the ticket later—how very reasonable..."
A massive grin split Su Chen's face as he effusively praised the thin air. The panel didn't offer any further prompts.
He curled his lips. The normal advancement only required a single crystal, but this Partial Advancement demanded two.
The two Spatial Crystals in his hand suddenly erupted with a brilliant, blinding light. They began to melt like ice cubes, causing fine ripples to distort the surrounding space. Merging together, they abruptly vanished into thin air.
【Spatial Storage Adept Partial Advancement successful. Acquired Profession Ability: Storage Space (A hidden, portable dimensional space layered within spatial folds).】
【Please complete the remaining advancement conditions to unlock other profession abilities.】
Storage Space?
Su Chen swallowed hard. Focusing his senses, he sent ripples through his mental energy, and surely enough, he faintly sensed a small, vacant pocket of space. It was only about one cubic meter—not overly large.
Su Chen casually picked up the empty metallic cubes and attempted to pull them in with his mental energy. The iron cubes vanished from his hand without a sound, reappearing within that small pocket dimension.
"It even consumes mental energy... No wonder the advancement prerequisites demanded a top-tier, 2nd-tier mental-oriented profession." Su Chen carefully felt the lingering sensations.
"Haa... not bad, not bad at all." He couldn't help but grin broadly. Suddenly, even the half-crushed corpse of Zhou Zong lying on the ground seemed rather pleasing to the eye.
After conducting one final, meticulous search to ensure he hadn't missed anything else, he ruthlessly destroyed the boots beyond all recognition. Only then did he turn on the portable light and call Hu Xiang back inside.
Hu Xiang glanced at the corpse on the ground; the zipper was only pulled down far enough to expose the torso. Noticing nothing visibly different, he couldn't help but ask, "Did you figure out what's going on?"
"Perhaps..." Su Chen replied vaguely.
Dissatisfied, Hu Xiang pressed, "What do you mean, 'perhaps'?"
"Are you absolutely sure you want to know?" Su Chen asked in return.
Hu Xiang paused, staring at him suspiciously. The way Su Chen phrased that question made his heart palpitate wildly.
"Forget it," he shook his head decisively.
"Make sure you keep a very close eye on the guy who was rummaging through his corpse," Su Chen stressed once again.
Hu Xiang nodded, asking uneasily, "Is it a major issue?"
"Hard to say," Su Chen replied meaningfully.
After a brief hesitation, Hu Xiang headed off toward Tang Chen's location, intending to tighten the man's restraints. Meanwhile, Su Chen left his tent and sought out Bai Fengxi.
"Can I help you?" Bai Fengxi had just stepped out of her tent. Su Chen gestured toward the inside with his chin.
After a moment's hesitation, Bai Fengxi led Su Chen inside. The two sat cross-legged, a rather short distance between them.
"I need to ask you something..." Su Chen leaned in closer, staring directly into Bai Fengxi's eyes. "What kind of person is Old Yuan?"
Bai Fengxi's bright eyes stared back at him with suspicion. "Just to ask about that, is it really necessary to be so secretive and cautious?"
"Yes," Su Chen affirmed solemnly.
Speechless, Bai Fengxi began to recount, "He is..."
...
In the shadows outside, Hu Xiang had just finished securely tying Tang Chen up. He had even taken precautions to eliminate any possibility of the man committing suicide. Turning his head, he coincidentally caught sight of the young boy and girl slipping into the same tent together.
"What a shame. She's such a good girl," he sighed regretfully.
He had asked around among the students and confirmed that Su Chen really had been brought into Nanfeng Academy by Jiang He—it wasn't just baseless rumors.
He was well aware of that woman Jiang He's notorious reputation.
The image of Su Chen as an unscrupulous schemer who would stoop to any depths to climb the social ladder was now firmly etched in his mind.
That girl called Bai Fengxi had probably already fallen for him completely. And rumor had it that she was even Yuan Chenyang's personal student.
'Truly impressive.'
However, he still felt there had to be more to the story. Given Su Chen's demonstrated strength, there was no way he would need to rely on someone like Jiang He to get ahead.
As he was lost in thought, his expression suddenly turned deadly serious, and his head snapped up.
From the darkness, a City Patrol guard on night watch came sprinting toward him in a frantic rush.
With a flash of movement, Hu Xiang intercepted the guard, urgently demanding, "What is it?! Another attack?!"
"No, n-no..." The guard shook his head frantically, pointing toward the darkness behind him.
A low, mechanical rumble began to draw near. Several exceptionally bright, spectral-blue light sources pierced through the dense fog. Soon, several massive, crimson tracked combat vehicles, towering five or six meters high, emerged from the haze. The slightly rusted armor plating covering their chassis was engraved with glowing blue runic patterns.
Hu Xiang's eyelids twitched violently as an oppressive aura washed over him.
Walking at the very front of the convoy were a few figures. Hu Xiang's grim expression instantly morphed into utter shock. "C-City Lord?!"
The arrivals were none other than the team of Nanfeng City big shots led by Zhang Hongbo, who had rushed over as quickly as possible.
"Inspector-General Yuan..." he instinctively swept his gaze over the others before his expression changed drastically once again. Swallowing hard, he asked, "D-Director Zhou... Director Zhou, what brings you here?"
Zhou Xian remained entirely deadpan. Let alone greeting the City Lord first, Hu Xiang actually seemed more shocked to see him than Zhang Hongbo, and had even directed his very first question at him. Wasn't he just pointlessly making Zhang Hongbo suspicious?
'You're just a City Patrol captain; what's with the excessive reverence toward me?'
Hu Xiang's mind raced. Zhou Zong's corpse was still in Su Chen's tent. It was already going to be a massive headache to explain, and now Zhou Xian was practically guaranteed to lock onto Su Chen with a death glare.
'Such a pain.' He sighed inwardly. 'Why did this group of big shots have to show up so suddenly?'