Chapter 180: Interrogation
The relationship between Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu still couldn't be made public, so putting on this little act was necessary.
Fortunately, Nan Yu's acting skills were fairly convincing.
Yu Lanfeng simply gave a slight nod.
"Mm."
He then looked at Yao Anyang, who had just escorted the prisoners over.
"Bring in the first one."
"After he leaves—or when I tell you to bring in the second one—bring the next person."
"Understood?"
Yao Anyang's current demeanor was completely different from the one he'd shown inside the office after regaining control of himself.
Now he wore a flattering smile, bowing and scraping like a servant.
The people standing behind him, however, didn't find anything strange about it.
They looked completely accustomed to it.
Nor did they appear dissatisfied.
Perhaps, because they were all spies, they simply didn't care what kind of person commanded one of the legion's military bases.
If they had truly belonged to the Empire...
If they had genuinely been stationed here...
Then seeing their commanding officer acting like an obsequious sycophant would certainly have filled them with disgust.
Every one of them would probably have wanted to tear him apart.
Yet these people acted as though nothing was wrong.
That alone exposed something suspicious.
Normally, mixed among countless ordinary soldiers, their reactions weren't obvious.
But once they were gathered together...
Their behavior became painfully conspicuous.
Nan Yu followed Yu Lanfeng into the interrogation room.
Very soon, the first prisoner was escorted inside.
Without saying anything, Yao Anyang turned around, left, and quietly closed the door.
The first person brought in was exactly the Mental Power User Yao Anyang had spoken about earlier.
He was the one Yao Anyang least wanted to believe was suspicious.
That was why he had been sent in first.
Nan Yu pointed toward the chair opposite them.
"Have a seat."
The man looked at the chair, twitched at the corner of his mouth, hesitated briefly, then sat down.
"Marshal."
Yu Lanfeng remained silent.
Instead, he shifted his gaze toward Nan Yu.
Nan Yu nodded before speaking.
"There's no need to be nervous."
"I only have a few simple questions."
"They're simple questions, but I'd still like you to answer honestly."
"Don't hide anything."
"That shouldn't be a problem, right?"
Nan Yu thought his approach was perfectly reasonable.
This was how he'd handled similar situations before.
Everyone had cooperated.
"No problem."
"Go ahead."
"What's your name?"
"When did you join the legion?"
"Why did you choose this legion?"
Nan Yu asked several ordinary questions.
Anyone could have looked up the answers in the personnel records.
The man answered smoothly, almost as though he had practiced them countless times.
Still...
They were only the most basic questions.
There was no reason for anyone to hesitate.
Nan Yu didn't pursue the matter further.
"My name is Shuang Qingyue."
"Please take good care of me, Doctor Nan."
Nan Yu already knew that very few people inside the legion were unaware of his existence anymore.
So hearing someone recognize him no longer surprised him.
Nan Yu continued,
"You know about the soldiers who were attacked after returning victorious?"
Shuang Qingyue nodded.
"I do."
"Everyone at the base knows."
Nan Yu nodded slightly.
"In that case..."
"Where were you during the attack?"
"Or..."
"If we include one or two hours before and after the incident..."
"Where were you?"
Shuang Qingyue smiled faintly.
"I spent the entire day inside the medical center treating wounded soldiers."
"Everyone working there can testify for me."
"The patients I treated can also confirm it."
"If you don't believe me..."
"You can investigate."
Nan Yu nodded.
"Of course."
"That'll be easy enough to verify."
Then he extended his hand.
"You're wearing a Mental Power suppression cuff."
"But using a little Mental Power shouldn't be a problem."
"Gather some Mental Power in your hand."
"Then give me a high five."
Shuang Qingyue agreed without hesitation.
"Certainly."
He cooperated immediately.
The moment their palms met...
Nan Yu sensed his Mental Power.
Unexpectedly...
Its aura was completely different from the Mental Power sphere extracted earlier from Yao Anyang's Mental Sea.
They didn't share the same origin.
Which meant...
The person controlling Yao Anyang wasn't Shuang Qingyue.
Someone else had planted that Mental Power sphere.
Yet...
Shuang Qingyue's records genuinely didn't match those stored within the Empire's central archives.
How should that be explained?
Nan Yu thought for a moment.
Someone this talented had remained here all this time.
That could only mean...
He probably had another reason to stay.
Nan Yu asked casually,
"You and General Yao Anyang are very close, aren't you?"
Shuang Qingyue nodded.
"We are."
"He must have pleaded for me."
"But unfortunately..."
"I'm not the person you're looking for."
"I'll only say one thing."
"As long as he stays here..."
"...I'll stay here forever."
"I won't cause you any trouble."
Nan Yu raised an eyebrow.
"So..."
"You've decided to speak frankly?"
Shuang Qingyue smiled.
"That's right."
"I'd rather talk openly."
"I hate going around in circles."
"And if it's the two of you..."
"I know straightforward conversation is possible."
"If it were another Marshal..."
"I'd never dare speak this way."
Nan Yu nodded.
"In that case..."
"You should already know why your name appeared on the suspect list."
"Explain it yourself."
Shuang Qingyue smiled.
"Because you discovered my identity was fake."
"My name, gender, and age are real."
"Everything else is fabricated."
Nan Yu asked,
"Where are you actually from?"
Shuang Qingyue quietly named a country.
Nan Yu froze briefly before suddenly remembering.
"Wasn't that country..."
Shuang Qingyue lowered his eyes.
"Destroyed?"
"Yes."
"It no longer exists."
"But I'm still alive."
"I believe many of my countrymen survived."
"They scattered all over the world."
"Some were assimilated into other societies."
"Others began new lives elsewhere."
"I..."
"I found someone I cared about."
"So I willingly stayed."
"My original plan had simply been to immigrate legally."
"The Empire treats Mental Power Users very generously."
"No..."
"Actually, every nation does."
"Some smaller countries even worship Mental Power Users because they're so rare."
"I wonder how they're doing now."
He smiled faintly.
"So..."
"Falsifying my identity isn't exactly an outrageous crime."
"I never intended to wander around."
"When I applied for my assignment, I specifically requested permanent placement at this military base."
"And fortunately..."
"My wish came true."
"I've remained here ever since."
Nan Yu blinked.
"So..."
"You stayed entirely because of Yao Anyang?"
"You even spent a fortune purchasing a fake identity?"
Shuang Qingyue nodded without hesitation.
"That's right."
"I survived because of him."
"Back then..."
"He just happened to pass by with his unit."
"Saving me may have been nothing more than a convenient act."
"But I've remembered it ever since."
"I want to stay with him."
"I just don't know whether the Empire will allow it."
Nan Yu frowned slightly.
This situation...
Could be either very simple...
Or extremely troublesome.
First...
Everything Shuang Qingyue had said needed to be verified.
If he were lying...
And they trusted him so easily...
Even helped him obtain legal Imperial citizenship...
What if everything had been part of a carefully prepared disguise?
What if he only intended to gain their trust before revealing his true intentions?
If that happened...
Nan Yu would regret it for the rest of his life.
Apparently sensing Nan Yu's hesitation, Shuang Qingyue spoke again.
He genuinely loved Yao Anyang.
Every word he'd spoken was true.
Suddenly, Nan Yu thought of something.
"Yao Anyang became this overweight..."
"It wasn't because someone controlling him made him that way..."
"It was because you've been feeding him, wasn't it?"
Shuang Qingyue froze.
He stared blankly at Nan Yu before awkwardly smiling.
"Actually..."
"I never meant for that to happen."
"At first, whenever I cooked for him..."
"He always found excuses not to eat."
"I felt pretty discouraged."
"But recently..."
"He started accepting my meals."
"I accidentally kept cooking more and more every day."
"He finished everything."
"And gradually..."
"...he became like this."
"Of course, I also realized he stopped exercising."
"But there wasn't anything I could do."
Nan Yu quietly nodded.
"That really is a problem."
The instant he said those words...
Shuang Qingyue became visibly restless.
He hesitated several times before finally asking,
"Can you tell me what's happening?"
"For quite a while now..."
"He hasn't attended special training."
"He barely speaks to the other Ability Users."
"He hardly even visits the training grounds anymore."
"He used to spend most of his time there."
"He wanted the soldiers here to adapt to this place..."
"To grow attached to it."
"But lately..."
"He's completely different."
"I admit..."
"Part of the reason he gained weight is probably my fault."
"But it can't all be blamed on me."
"Anyway..."
"He hasn't been acting like himself."
"He keeps treating me warmly one moment..."
"And coldly the next."
"He was practically about to accept my feelings..."
His voice gradually filled with confusion and grievance.
Only then did Nan Yu truly realize...
The man in front of him had absolutely no idea that Mental Power could be split into tiny spheres and implanted inside another person's Mental Sea to control them.
Nan Yu said quietly,
"The more honest you are..."
"...the harder it is for me to trust you."
...
While Nan Yu spoke with Shuang Qingyue...
Yao Anyang had already begun gathering everyone listed by Yu Lanfeng.
To accommodate them all...
The base's largest training ground had been emptied.
Nearly twenty thousand people.
Only that enormous field could barely hold them.
Everyone looked around at one another.
Many had never met before.
Those who did recognize acquaintances merely exchanged brief glances.
No one dared speak.
The entire training ground remained strangely quiet.
A few Ability Users chatted softly about meaningless subjects.
Everyone else remained silent.
They were all Ability Users.
Their senses were far too sharp.
Any whisper...
Any suspicious movement...
Could easily be noticed.
So remaining silent was the safest option.
Gradually...
The more intelligent among them noticed something disturbing.
Although there were many unfamiliar faces...
Almost everyone from their own side was present.
Little by little...
They realized the truth.
Had every single person gathered here been identified as suspicious?
Impossible.
They had already replaced all the investigated files with clean records inside the approved database.
Could those files have undergone another review?
A second investigation...
Far more thorough than anything conducted inside this military base...
One capable of exposing every falsified identity at once?
The smarter ones had already begun calculating escape routes.
Those who still hadn't figured anything out...
Were almost certainly going to die here.
...
Meanwhile...
Nan Yu and Shuang Qingyue continued talking.
The interrogation room almost resembled an ordinary reception room.
Both sides remained surprisingly relaxed.
Shuang Qingyue himself didn't even think of himself as a criminal.
He knew...
As long as Yao Anyang genuinely cared about him...
As long as he continued showing that concern in front of Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu...
Even if they were eventually separated...
The outcome would still be relatively favorable.
Nan Yu believed perhaps thirty percent of what he said.
The remaining seventy percent...
He couldn't trust.
A true spy was naturally an excellent speaker.
And many deliberately attached themselves to influential people.
Even if Shuang Qingyue hadn't done anything wrong yet...
There was no guarantee he never would.
After all...
He hadn't been born in the Empire.
If he betrayed them later...
No one could call it impossible.
If he were truly a spy...
The solution was simple.
Arrest him.
Put him on trial.
But if he escaped suspicion this time...
Then Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu would knowingly be allowing a foreigner with an uncertain identity to remain inside the legion.
The consequences would be severe.
Disbanding the legion might be the mildest punishment.
More radical people might even accuse the entire legion of treason.
If that happened...
They would become sinners in the eyes of the Empire.
Shuang Qingyue seemed to understand their dilemma.
"I only want to stay with Brother Anyang."
"It doesn't matter whether I remain at this military base."
"I could live in one of the cities behind the front lines."
Nan Yu twitched at the corner of his mouth.
"Even if you left the military..."
"As long as you stayed beside Yao Anyang..."
"You could easily obtain highly classified information through him."
Shuang Qingyue neither admitted nor denied it.
"So..."
"What would it take for you to trust me?"
Before Nan Yu answered, he continued,
"Forget it."
"I'll accept any condition you set."
"As long as I can stay with him."
"Oh..."
"How is he now?"
"He looked healthier earlier..."
"But I couldn't be sure."
Nan Yu replied flatly,
"No comment."
Shuang Qingyue's eyes dimmed immediately.
But he quickly pulled himself together.
"If..."
"I accept every condition..."
"...then what?"
"My Mental Power can be examined."
"You can investigate everything."
"I've spent years treating Ability Users at this military base."
"I still have value..."
Nan Yu nodded.
"I won't deny that."
"You are valuable."
"So..."
"Are you really willing to accept every condition we impose?"
Shuang Qingyue looked nervous.
But soon...
His expression became determined.
"If I accept..."
"...can I stay with him?"
Nan Yu exchanged a glance with Yu Lanfeng before nodding.
"Yes."
"As long as you accept our conditions..."
"You can remain at this military base exactly as before."
"Nothing else needs to change."
Shuang Qingyue was stunned.
He hadn't expected things to turn around so suddenly.
Although he realized they must possess extraordinary methods to agree so confidently...
None of that mattered.
He would be allowed to stay.
Nan Yu stood up and walked over.
He removed the Mental Power suppression cuff from Shuang Qingyue's wrist.
Then he placed both hands beside his head and looked directly into his eyes.
"Close your eyes."
"And remember."
"Absolutely do not resist."
"Otherwise..."
"I have no idea what you'll become."
"Perhaps..."
"...an idiot."
Shuang Qingyue immediately froze.
He tightly shut his eyes.
He didn't dare use his Mental Power to defend his Mental Sea.
Very quickly...
An unfamiliar yet overwhelmingly powerful Mental Power entered it.
The sensation was terrible.
He felt nauseated.
But he had no choice except to endure it.
Nan Yu carefully inspected every corner of his Mental Sea.
Everything inside was astonishingly clean.
Even his Mental Power was remarkably pure.
From a talent perspective alone...
Shuang Qingyue truly was an outstanding Mid-Tier Mental Power User.
If he were given the Nianshen Grass...
And cultivated according to the proper method without damaging it...
Then in perhaps ten years...
He could steadily advance into a High-Tier Mental Power User.
Unfortunately...
Nan Yu still couldn't trust someone who wasn't born in the Empire.
Even genuine love for Yao Anyang wasn't enough.
Besides...
The next owner of the Nianshen Grass had already been decided.
Nan Yu intended to help Yang Zhou become a Mid-Tier Mental Power User.
Even if Yang Zhou still couldn't quite match Crown Prince Yuan Qiyang afterward...
No one would be able to criticize him anymore.
A Mid-Tier Mental Power User already met everyone's expectations.
By then...
Nan Yu himself would probably have become a High-Tier Mental Power User.
At that point...
Even if he openly gave the Nianshen Grass to Yang Zhou...
No one would object.
After all...
High-Tier Mental Power Users were practically above criticism.
Unless...
They committed treason.
While Shuang Qingyue's thoughts wandered...
Nan Yu quietly withdrew his Mental Power.
He returned to his seat.
"That's enough."
"You may leave."
"There's nothing wrong with you."
Shuang Qingyue wanted to ask something.
But he quickly realized...
He shouldn't.
Stiffly rising to his feet...
He awkwardly walked out of the interrogation room.
Only after the door closed behind him did he finally recover his senses.
What exactly had Nan Yu done inside his Mental Sea?
He wasn't sure.
But he felt he should eventually be able to discover it himself.
Ignoring everyone's curious gazes...
He walked toward the exit.
Near the final doorway...
He nearly collided with Yao Anyang, who had just hurried back after finishing his work.
Fortunately...
Yao Anyang reacted quickly.
He stepped aside and caught Shuang Qingyue before he stumbled.
"Qingyue."
"Are you alright?"
"The Marshal released you?"
Shuang Qingyue had no intention of explaining what had happened.
He still hadn't figured out what Nan Yu had left inside him.
That was the truly important matter.
"Yes."
"I'm innocent."
"I've done nothing wrong."
"So they let me go."
Yao Anyang suddenly laughed.
"I knew there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with you."
"Alright."
"You're tired."
"Go get some rest."
"I still have work to finish."
"Once everything's done..."
"I'm going back to serious training."
"I'll definitely become the handsome, dashing man I used to be."
Shuang Qingyue smiled.
"Alright."
"I'll be waiting."
"You'd better hurry."
Shuang Qingyue still had no idea...
That he was now carrying a very special little "gift."
Watching the surveillance feed, Nan Yu twitched helplessly.
"Can't they change the camera angle?"
"It's filming upward from below."
"All I can see are people's nostrils."
"It's awful."
Yu Lanfeng leaned over for a look.
"...You're right."
"It's awful."
"Let's stop watching."
Nan Yu nodded.
"It's just a bunch of lovey-dovey scenes anyway."
"No need to envy them."
"We have our own."
Yu Lanfeng narrowed his eyes at him.
"A little over one more year."
"Then we can announce our relationship."
"And officially get engaged."
"What day do you think would be best?"
"What about the wedding?"
"When should we get married?"
"I'm fine with anything."
"If you don't mind..."
"We could skip the engagement entirely and get married right away."
Before Nan Yu could answer, Yu Lanfeng shook his head.
"No."
"We still need an engagement."
"Our relationship will definitely cause quite a stir."
"The engagement is the perfect opportunity to explain everything."
"Then the wedding will be much easier."
Nan Yu stared blankly.
"Married...?"
"M-married?!"
The first thing that entered Nan Yu's mind wasn't the engagement.
Nor was it the wedding.
Instead...
"When the time comes..."
"Which one of us is wearing the wedding dress?"
Yu Lanfeng was rendered completely speechless.
After a long silence...
He could only smile helplessly and shake his head.
Nan Yu continued,
"So..."
"Are you wearing it?"
"Or am I?"
Yu Lanfeng remained silent for nearly two full minutes.
Fortunately...
Before the second person entered for questioning...
He finally gave Nan Yu his answer.