Realm Walker

Zhang Yuanqing swept his gaze across the detectives.

"You're all skating past one detail," he said easily. "Me, your suspect. I'm Li's ghostwriter. It’s not a flattering arrangement, so he'd never have breathed a word about the meeting to anyone. That meant me showing up was an unexpected occurrence, something the killer could never have accounted for.

"This changes the whole shape of things. He shoves Professor Li's body under the bed and lets me in not because it's part of some grand design, but because he's got no choice. It was improvised, not planned. He wasn't betting on me looking past his disguise. Odds are that he'd already decided to do me in as well. The curtains, the mask—that's not him trying to play the part of Professor Li. That's just to keep me from recognizing his face as he takes a swing.

"It's then that he realizes that I never saw through his disguise at all. And then it hits him. Why not pin it on the sucker instead? That's why he offers to have a drink with me."

None of the detectives spoke. Something seemed to shift behind their eyes.

With the Eye of the Observer feeding him more information, Zhang Yuanqing's voice only got smoother. "So he pours me a drink, waits, and then drops me the second I'm loose. Then he runs it as planned. He hauls Professor Li out from under the bed, presses the fruit knife into my hand to make sure my prints are on it, then puts the fruit knife through the professor's heart.

"I took a blow to the back of my head, and the force came from behind. Therefore I either pitch forward or fold sideways when I go down. That's why there's blood on my back and down the backs of my trouser legs. I went down face-first."

"I'll admit what you're saying makes sense," Earth God said as he mulled it over, "But you need to put evidence on the table, kid. And you're nearly out of time."

Two minutes or so. That's plenty of time. Zhang Yuanqing laughed under his breath. "Now everyone gets to watch the next half of the video."

He tapped play. The video picked up from when Professor Li got to his feet, and continued until the professor came back with the kettle-shaped bottle of foreign liquor.

"Young, foolish detectives," Zhang Yuanqing said, "you've seen the clip. Now look round the study. Do you notice anything missing?"

"I'm all for debating, but there's no need to smuggle in your little grudges," said Green Pine sourly. "Hmph. The whole study's been turned over, but if you want me to name something missing... The keyboard. The keyboard's gone."

His eyes cut to the liquor cabinet by the window. "That bottle's gone too."

Zhang Yuanqing snapped his fingers. "The killer had to take both the keyboard and the bottle with him, because those were the two objects he handled while he was pretending to be Professor Li. His prints were all over both of those objects. The wreck of the room, the struggle—all of it is staged. It was all to cover up the missing keyboard and one missing bottle.

“Take a look at the crime scene photos. The bottle and keyboard were already gone by the time the officers showed up, but they're here, in the footage taken by the suspect—me. That clearly means they were taken away by the killer when he left, which was after he'd dropped me and done the murder. The missing bottle and keyboard are proof that the killer was already in this room."

It was a seamless defense.

【Ding! The detectives must prove the suspect is the killer within ten minutes. The countdown begins now.】

The expressions on the seven detectives' faces twitched. The dungeon had bought Yuanshi Tianzun's defense. They were the ones who had to construct a new accusation. Only, they had nothing left to build with.

The witness testimony, prints, autopsy—every card had been played, and it was still not enough to put Yuanshi Tianzun away.

The board had flipped. The ready-made evidence had been their whole edge. No brainwork had been required. All they had to do was lay the cards down, and the accused was finished—or so they thought. Of course, all of this came with a downside, and a bad one. The second the suspect flipped the script, the detectives had nothing to stand on.

There was no time to dig up new evidence. They had to break Yuanshi Tianzun's argument. That was the only move left when the cards ran out.

Sun Miaomiao's eyes ticked from side to side. "There's a hole in that logic. So what if there were fingerprints on the keyboard and bottle? The killer could have just wiped them clean. There's no reason to carry them off."

She waited hopefully for the Spirit Realm chime.

Zhang Yuanqing smirked. "Sure, cleaning it was an option too. But that doesn't touch my argument, though. I'm building it off the fact that the keyboard and bottle are gone, full stop. You're arguing for argument's sake. There’s nothing substantial to back it up."

No chime was heard. Sun Miaomiao's rebuttal was dead on arrival.

Zhang Yuanqing grinned. "Honestly, you could just ask Old Wang next door who else came by that morning or around noon and you'd have your killer. But that's outside the sandbox we're playing in."

Finding the real killer wasn't the objective of this round. Old Wang was just set dressing, and might not even exist in the dungeon.

He continued, "Also, I'm quite certain there's something off about that bottle. Professor Li died from just one stab to the chest, and there were no other wounds on his body. If the killer knocked him out physically, he would have left marks. How did he knock Professor Li out, then? Perhaps there was something in the drink. That would mean there was another reason for removing the bottle from the scene."

World Ablaze, Zhao Chenghuang, Tone Deaf and the rest were frowning, racking their brains for anything that could knock down his argument. Seconds ticked away as the detectives tried their best, but they kept coming up empty-handed, hating it and feeling hobbled at the same time.

Zhang Yuanqing said, "Come on. Seven of you, and you can't take on one of me? You're all well-known powerhouses at the Transcendent tier. If you lose here, where will you hide your faces? The whole crowd's out there watching. I should name this match, give our colleagues something to call it later. 'Yuanshi Tianzun and the Seven Dwarves.' How does that sound?"

Tides always turned. It was now his turn to stoke the flames of panic, crack their nerves.

Yuanshi Tianzun and the Seven Dwarves? Even Earth God's lips twitched.

"Kid, your face is begging to be hit right now," he said through clenched teeth.

The expressions of the other six looked no better. They were getting the trash talk full in the face now, a variation on the goading Yuanshi Tianzun had done earlier. They knew it for exactly what it was. A deliberate poke, trying to provoke them into seeing red. But knowing didn't stop it from landing, nor did it stop the anger. It didn't stop it getting to them.

"Yuanshi Tianzun and the Seven Dwarves. Yuanshi Tianzun and the Seven Dwarfs," he kept on chanting, and one after another, veins began to bulge on the foreheads of the seven detectives.

There, in the midst of that stiff, ugly atmosphere, with frustration and animosity churning below the surface, the chime came.

【Ding! Time is up. The detectives forfeit their case. The suspect is not guilty!】

【Ding! Every detective loses ten points. The suspect gains thirty points. This stage is now over. You have three minutes before the next stage.】

***

The colosseum exploded with noise.

"That was gorgeous! Not a single punch and I'm sweating. I love a turnaround like that, it rips. Yuanshi Tianzun straight-up took all seven down. The man's a monster."

"You see? That's what a dungeon-clearing genius looks like. That's the sort of brain that can clear two S-rank quests."

"Lucky he was the suspect. Any other guy in that seat, and he'd have been out ages ago. Even he almost ate it just now."

"Tianzun's eternal!"

It was peak concert energy.

Mama Xie beat her little hands together, thrilled. "Wonderful, just wonderful, better than any of those idol dramas I’ve watched. Baby, your eye's sharper than your mama's. The man you picked runs rings around your father. Let's bring Yuanshi Tianzun in as a live-in son-in-law."

The young mother's face had gone pink, her eyes lit up and bright as anything.

Xie Lingxi opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden chill ran up her spine. Years of combat experience had honed her danger sense.

Bro Yuanshi runs rings around Dad? If she agreed, that witch's very next line would likely be something like, "Oh? So you also think Yuanshi Tianzun runs rings around your father? I'm telling him."

Xie Lingxi smiled sweetly. "I think Daddy and Bro Yuanshi are both amazing."

Mama Xie glanced at her and nodded slowly, pleased with herself.

Fu Qingyang pulled his eyes off the arena and turned to his cousin. "I told you. He's the type that only blazes when backed into a corner. The worse it gets, the fiercer he burns."

He caught the expression on his cousin's face, saw the joy on it, saw those pretty eyes fixed on the projection, and something in his own face seized up. That little punk Yuanshi Tianzun. Maybe it's better to just cut him loose, and cut the connection between him and Guan Ya while I'm at it.

Off to the side, Zhu Rong's eyes narrowed, her long lashes drawing a curtain over the light in them. If she meant to put a leash on Yuanshi Tianzun, it had to happen at the Transcendent tier. Once he hit the Saint tier, there'd be no holding him down.

Setting his combat abilities aside and counting only the brains, this Yuanshi Tianzun reminded her of Demon Lord. That man had been twisted through and through, but he'd also been unreasonably brilliant. Even at the Transcendent tier, he'd already pried loose a piece of the Spirit Realm's secret.

Demon Lord. The moment the name surfaced, her legs went soft under her, a bodily reflex that triggered before she could stop it, and it only drove the hook of wanting Yuanshi Tianzun broken and hers a little deeper.

In the elders' row, Elder Hongying clapped. "Good. Very good."

A contest this size was never going to genuinely stir an elder, but it didn't stop her enjoying the show.

One seat over, Elder Teddy lifted his little poodle head and slid a sideways look at Elder Sun. "Not bad. He wasn't washed out with the first wave, at least."

"If you've got something to say, then say it. Why are you looking at me like that?" Elder Sun snapped. He was dead sure that dog's face had “you fool” written across every line of it.

Elder Teddy ignored him. "I suppose the next round will involve some fighting. I wonder what rules they’ve drawn up, and how many they plan to ignore."

***

None of the cheering from the crowd reached the contestants inside the tournament dungeon.

Three minutes went by quickly, and then they heard the announcement.

【Round two is about to begin. This round is called: The Great Reporting Era!】