Chapter 8: If You Won’t Tell the Truth, I’ll See for Myself
A more sophisticated, ring-shaped instrument was wheeled over.
The technician motioned for Yun Sheng to sit back in the sensory chair. This time, she had to wear a spiritual-sensory helmet that covered most of her head.
"Please try to relax. Don’t engage in any form of spiritual resistance. It will affect the data’s accuracy and could potentially harm you," the technician recited mechanically.
Yun Sheng sat down stiffly as the cold helmet slowly lowered onto her head.
Her vision was obscured. The only sound was the low hum of the machine starting up, and her heart was hammering so hard it felt like it would burst from her chest.
The entire process, however, was surprisingly fast.
Yun Sheng hardly felt any intrusion or probing, just a faint, tingling numbness.
A few seconds later, the humming stopped, and the helmet lifted.
A new evaluation report quickly populated the display screen.
Spiritual landscape stability: Low. No abnormalities detected.
"Brother Bai," Lin Hao, who had long grown impatient, immediately piped up. "See? I told you they wouldn’t find anything! There’s no way she could be as lucky as she was at the Zhou Family’s yesterday. Just a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse..."
"Yesterday at the Zhou Family’s?" Bai Ye latched onto the keywords, his gaze instantly sharpening as he turned to Lin Hao. "What happened?"
"Zhou Lin went on a rampage," Lin Hao said, oblivious, pouting. "Even Sister Yue Yao’s soothing almost wasn’t enough to stabilize him. But then, this girl somehow got in the way and actually stopped his rampage... Anyway, it was just Sister Yue Yao’s soothing taking effect late. She just got lucky and took the credit."
’An S-class Guide’s soothing taking effect late?’
’How is that possible?!’
Bai Ye’s expression grew grim.
’Too many coincidences cease to be coincidence.’
He ignored the report and turned, his gaze landing on Yun Sheng with tangible weight as she got up from the sensory chair.
"Yun Sheng," Bai Ye’s voice was low but held an unquestionable note of command. "Come with me."
Yun Sheng stared at his tall, straight back as he turned and walked away without another word. She was speechless.
’I don’t think... I agreed to that, did I? How can he just decide things for me and walk off?’
But complaining inwardly was one thing; she could only resign herself to her fate and follow him in silence.
After all, he was the Star Alliance War God—someone she could not afford to offend right now.
Watching them leave, one after the other, Lin Yueyao struggled to maintain the smile on her face.
Bai Ye was always distant, even with her, his fiancée in name only. He rarely interacted with her in public more than was strictly necessary.
But from the moment he’d followed them in, had the technician run a spiritual landscape assessment on Yun Sheng, and now, calling her away alone... none of it fit Bai Ye’s character.
’Could something have happened on their way here from the Eighth Star Zone? Is that why Bai Ye is paying so much attention to Yun Sheng?’
Lin Yueyao subconsciously pressed her lips together, her fingers curling into a fist.
"Sister Yue Yao?" Lin Hao suddenly turned to her, his face a mask of impatience. "Why don’t we just go back? That good-for-nothing’s test is done. There’s nothing for us here. Let’s not waste any more time."
At his words, Lin Yueyao’s gaze drifted back to the corridor where Bai Ye and Yun Sheng had vanished. She then looked away, a faint, polite smile gracing her lips.
"Very well. We’ll leave it for Brother Bai to handle. Let’s go back now. Mother must be getting anxious."
With that, she turned and led Lin Hao away from the testing area.
「Meanwhile, in another corridor.」
Without breaking stride, Bai Ye led Yun Sheng directly into a small, vacant meeting room.
The room wasn’t large. It contained only a cold, metal table and two matching chairs.
The overhead light cast a cold, white glow, elongating Bai Ye’s imposing figure and pulling Yun Sheng completely into the sphere of his presence.
Bai Ye turned and looked down at her, his normally sharp eyes now deep and unreadable.
"What exactly happened during Zhou Lin’s rampage yesterday?" he asked, getting straight to the point. His voice was deliberately low, filled with pressure. "The spiritual shockwave from an S-Class Sentinel’s rampage isn’t something a guide who failed to awaken can withstand."
Yun Sheng’s fingertips curled. "It’s like Lin Hao said," she murmured. "Lin Yueyao’s soothing must have had a delayed effect. I was just lucky..."
"That wasn’t luck."
Bai Ye took a small step forward, closing the distance between them. He was so close that Yun Sheng could see her own miniature reflection in his eyes.
"The Zhou Family’s residential area has a military-grade monitoring network. I can pull the Spiritual Energy Field logs from that time."
Yun Sheng’s heart skipped a beat.
’Monitoring? Spiritual Energy Field logs?’
’Doesn’t that mean Bai Ye will find out the barrier I put up was created with the power of the Holy Light White Tiger?!’
Seeing the flicker of panic in her eyes, Bai Ye knew he was on the right track.
’She’s definitely hiding something.’
As for the monitoring, it was just a bluff to pressure her. High-end residential zones had basic security, but they couldn’t possibly record the subtle fluctuations of a Spiritual Energy Field in real time.
Bai Ye stopped waiting. He suddenly raised a hand, his fingertips hovering just in front of Yun Sheng’s forehead.
That was the location of the guide hormone gland—the most vulnerable entry point to her spiritual landscape.
"Since you won’t tell the truth, I’ll just have to see for myself."
The moment he finished speaking, a formidable surge of spiritual power, sharp as the finest needle, mercilessly pierced toward the weakest entry point of Yun Sheng’s spiritual landscape.
Yun Sheng’s pupils shrank, and the hairs on her arms stood on end.
’That’s a spiritual probe from a top-tier Sentinel. I can’t let him in!’
She acted on pure instinct, mustering all her willpower to close herself off and resist. An invisible wall instantly fortified her spiritual world.
In the split second before the two forces were about to collide, with a conflict imminent—
"WHOOP... WHOOP... WHOOP...!"
A deafening alarm blared without warning. The entire research institute was instantly bathed in the glow of crimson emergency lights as a cold, mechanical voice echoed on a loop.
"Warning: Outbreak of high-intensity, unidentified spiritual pollution detected. Source: Sub-level three, high-risk quarantine zone. Warning: Contamination levels have exceeded the threshold! All personnel, evacuate immediately! I repeat, evacuate immediately!"
Bai Ye’s probing spiritual power came to an abrupt halt. He forcibly retracted it, his brow instantly furrowing.
Sub-level three of the institute housed some extremely dangerous subjects, including... unanalyzed aberrant specimens captured on the frontier, as well as certain Dark Sentinels who had lost control of their powers and completely descended into madness.
If a contamination leak of this magnitude were to spread, the entire central district could be in jeopardy!
He didn’t have time to think. Acting decisively, he grabbed Yun Sheng’s wrist.
"Go!"
However, just as he pulled Yun Sheng and lunged for the door—
"ROAR!!!"
A low, savage roar suddenly erupted from the depths of the corridor.
The sound was filled with endless pain, brutality, and a world-ending madness!
Then, the very air before them seemed to twist and tear, warped by an unseen force.
A colossal, pitch-black Abyssal Giant Wolf appeared out of thin air in the middle of the hallway, as if stepping forth from the depths of hell itself, completely blocking their escape!