Chapter 195: Something Suspicious
Yu Lanfeng wasn't worried in the slightest that they might attack him, because he had absolute confidence in his own strength. There was simply no one who could defeat him. He could even protect his lover and partner while under attack from numerous people at once, and it wouldn't be a problem even though Nan Yu was currently unconscious.
Besides, there was no way Zhou Changwu didn't know how powerful he, the Marshal, was. There weren't many people outside either, so Zhou Changwu probably wouldn't do something like that.
And so what if they tried to catch him off guard?
After being Marshal for so many years, could it be that Yu Lanfeng had never experienced this kind of assassination attempt before?
He had long since become thoroughly accustomed to them.
However, Nan Yu was still unconscious. If they really started fighting here, Yu Lanfeng would have to keep the disturbance to a minimum. He could simply burn them all to death. There was no need to make a huge commotion.
Still, judging from Zhou Changwu's appearance, he didn't seem to have come here for a fight to the death, so there was probably something else going on.
Yu Lanfeng had come this far in life; naturally, he couldn't completely believe the one-sided claims of those two people who had secretly infiltrated his room last night.
He had to investigate it himself.
In the past, Yu Lanfeng would never have believed that there could be a problem with someone he had personally selected. But after learning what had happened with Yao Anyang before, he was no longer so certain.
Deep down, however, he still felt that Zhou Changwu was a good man.
An outstanding soldier!
But according to the evidence on that chip, Zhou Changwu was a capable and ambitious man who coveted Yu Lanfeng's position as Marshal. Everything he showed in front of Yu Lanfeng was merely an act.
His true desire was to get Yu Lanfeng killed.
As for the people who had once competed with him for promotion, those Zhou Changwu could surpass were simply defeated by him. But when he couldn't defeat someone fairly, he secretly resorted to despicable methods, leaving them dead, crippled, or unconscious.
Only those who performed worse than him were left untouched.
That way, Zhou Changwu could naturally continue climbing higher and higher.
Now, he had already climbed all the way to the position of general and leader of a Border Region military base. Logically speaking, that was already an extremely good position.
However, the contents of the chip, including the photographs and other evidence, all indicated that Zhou Changwu was planning something enormous and had already begun putting his plan into action.
As for why so few infiltrators and spies had managed to infiltrate this particular military base, there was actually a reason for that as well.
Zhou Changwu had been vigorously cultivating his own trusted subordinates because he wanted to turn the entire military base into something that belonged to him.
So he continuously drew people over to his side.
Later, he had them recommend capable friends and relatives who fell just slightly short of certain requirements.
As long as those people were sufficiently capable, they could pass the assessment, enter the legion, and join his military base.
They would begin at the bottom, then, with Zhou Changwu secretly promoting them from behind the scenes, they would advance relatively quickly.
However, he was extremely careful about transferring them to different departments, so not many people became familiar with them. Before long, everyone would forget that they'd ever had such a colleague.
After not seeing that person for several months, they might suddenly discover that he had become their direct superior.
Then, after another period of time, he would be transferred elsewhere again.
In short, Zhou Changwu repeatedly used this method.
The records even showed that the woman who constantly followed Zhou Changwu was his relative. She had entered the military base less than a year ago and had already risen to the position of Zhou Changwu's adjutant.
It was equivalent to Qin Wenxing's position beside Yu Lanfeng.
But frankly speaking, she couldn't possibly compare to someone like Qin Wenxing.
The difference between them wasn't something that needed to be explained.
Anyone could see it at a glance.
Yu Lanfeng casually sat down on the sofa.
Zhou Changwu sat somewhat nervously to one side and said, "Marshal, I'm truly sorry. Someone probably came to disturb you last night..."
Yu Lanfeng was somewhat surprised.
"How do you know?"
Zhou Changwu looked somewhat regretful. "Yes, Marshal, but we only discovered what happened this morning. In any case, Marshal, please don't believe their nonsense."
"Those people have completely lost their minds. They simply refuse to accept me. At first, they constantly opposed me over minor matters, but now they've begun spreading rumors throughout the base. Fortunately, everyone refuses to believe them. Still, when certain things are repeated often enough, it's inevitable that some people will be incited."
Yu Lanfeng nodded.
"That's true. So how do you intend to deal with this? They actually managed to silently infiltrate this building through the window. That means they're extremely familiar with the base, and they're also very powerful."
Compared with Yu Lanfeng himself, the fact that they had managed to evade everyone and enter through the balcony did indeed mean they were already quite formidable.
Naturally, in terms of strength, Yu Lanfeng could still crush them without question.
But they...
Zhou Changwu suddenly said, "There's something I believe I need to tell you, Marshal."
Yu Lanfeng said, "Go ahead."
Zhou Changwu said, "What we publicly announced to the people below was that separate rooms had been prepared for you and Doctor Nan, so..."
In other words, apart from a few insiders who knew the truth, everyone else believed that Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu were staying in separate rooms.
So they...
Yu Lanfeng's gaze fell upon Zhou Changwu, bringing an overwhelmingly terrifying pressure down on him.
"So? What you're saying is... officially, the room we're currently in was arranged for Nan Yu?"
Zhou Changwu nodded.
Although even nodding seemed difficult beneath that pressure, he still clearly conveyed what he meant.
Yu Lanfeng continued staring fixedly at him.
Only after Zhou Changwu's clothes had become soaked with sweat did Yu Lanfeng gradually withdraw his gaze.
"What was their objective?"
If those people had specifically wanted to expose Zhou Changwu's supposed atrocities, then they should have gone to the other residence to find Yu Lanfeng.
There was no reason for them to come here...
Wait.
The person who had said those two had come directly to this room was Zhou Changwu.
Obviously, if those two people had first gone to the room arranged for Yu Lanfeng, discovered that he wasn't there, and only then come here last night...
"Where is the residence that was arranged for me? Next door? On the left or the right?"
Zhou Changwu said, "The residence on the right, Marshal."
Yu Lanfeng nodded and stood up.
"Let's go take a look."
"Yes, Marshal."
They got up and left the room.
Without anyone noticing, Yu Lanfeng casually laid numerous hidden threads of fire around the place.
The moment anyone broke in, countless fine threads composed of flames would wrap themselves around the intruder before slowly burning them to ashes.
Yu Lanfeng walked to the residence on the right and opened the door.
The interior layout and decorations were exactly the same.
He walked to the balcony and pulled aside the curtains before opening the floor-to-ceiling window.
He carefully examined the surrounding area, the floor outside the window, and the floor inside.
But there seemed to be nothing.
If there were truly no traces at all, then that would mean the two people who had come looking for him last night had been lying.
Everything they had said and done had been fake.
The chip was probably something they had prepared as a cover in case their sneak attack failed. If they made their story convincing enough, they might indeed escape death.
If there were no traces here whatsoever, then they had gone directly to Nan Yu's room.
They had been targeting Nan Yu from the beginning.
If they had gone looking for Nan Yu under those circumstances and Yu Lanfeng had actually been staying in this residence, he might not have heard anything coming from next door at all.
After all, all the walls, doors, and windows here were equipped with the most advanced soundproofing technology.
Combined with the intruders moving quietly, Yu Lanfeng might not have noticed anything until after something had already happened to Nan Yu.
So it was fortunate that he had been staying with him.
Otherwise, Nan Yu would have been in serious trouble.
The most urgent thing now was to search the entire residence.
Yu Lanfeng thoroughly examined everything, inside and out.
In the end, he reached a conclusion.
He couldn't find any traces that anyone had ever broken into this place.
Of course, many traces could disappear completely after the room had been cleaned once.
All it would take was sending a cleaning robot through the residence.
Yu Lanfeng had only just thought of this.
In other words, he had previously considered two relatively dangerous possibilities, but neither could currently be confirmed.
Since that was the case, he would wait and observe for now.
First, Zhou Changwu needed to finish dealing with the spies.
This particular matter wasn't actually that urgent.
As long as Yu Lanfeng remained at this military base, he would definitely get to the bottom of it before leaving.
He genuinely hoped Zhou Changwu wouldn't turn out to be a second Yao Anyang.
If that happened, Yu Lanfeng would completely begin doubting his own judgment of people.
Why did one person after another keep turning out to be involved in something terrible?
Yu Lanfeng hadn't found anything useful here.
However, just as he was leaving, he spotted a small object in a corner behind the doorframe.
This thing...
He picked it up and examined it in his palm.
It was a button.
Small and round, it looked like the sort of button that would be found on a girl's clothes.
But this was a military base filled overwhelmingly with men.
Why would there be a button like this here?
Besides, even the women in the legion uniformly wore military uniforms. Why would any of them be wearing casual clothing with this kind of button?
So what exactly was going on?
Yu Lanfeng showed the button to Zhou Changwu.
"General Zhou, I can guarantee that when I opened this door and entered just now, there was absolutely nothing here. In other words, someone dropped this while I was examining the room. Now tell me, how many people came inside just now?"
At a glance, the button clearly looked like something belonging to a woman.
However, the only woman accompanying them had remained outside the door and never entered.
She hadn't even been standing directly beside the door. There had been another person between her and the doorway.
If she wanted to place the button here, she would have needed to pass the person standing between them and carefully drop the button in this spot.
Trying to take a shortcut wouldn't have worked either.
Even if she secretly tossed it onto the floor and let it roll over by itself, someone would have noticed.
Ability Users had extremely sharp hearing.
So it couldn't have been someone outside.
It could only have been someone who had entered the room just now.
And only four people had entered.
One was Yu Lanfeng himself.
Another was Zhou Changwu.
The remaining two were Zhou Changwu's trusted subordinates.
Yu Lanfeng toyed with the button between two fingers.
Then he accidentally applied slightly too much force and crushed it.
Yu Lanfeng froze for a moment when the button broke.
But he quickly discovered that there was something tiny hidden inside the shattered button.
He tossed aside the fragments and clearly saw what had been concealed in the center.
It was a chip of the smallest available model!
Without saying °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° another word, Yu Lanfeng immediately took out the spare optical computer he had previously used for the other chip.
He inserted this chip and examined its contents.
There was only a single surveillance recording stored inside.
Yu Lanfeng opened it and played the recording in front of everyone.
The footage began at night.
He noticed the timestamp.
It was from last night, approximately five minutes before those two people had appeared in the room next door.
Two dark figures could be seen lingering outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
They remained there for roughly a minute.
Perhaps they found it strange that despite not concealing themselves, the person who was supposedly living inside hadn't noticed them.
Yet there was no movement whatsoever.
So they quietly opened the floor-to-ceiling window and entered to investigate.
After discovering that no one was inside, they quickly left.
From the moment they stood outside the floor-to-ceiling window until they left the residence and closed the window behind them, the entire process took three minutes.
And the time they left was exactly two minutes before Yu Lanfeng had seen the two of them last night.
Based on that, it could be inferred that after leaving this residence, they had gone directly to the balcony of the room next door, where Yu Lanfeng had then discovered them and spoken with them.
Yu Lanfeng said nothing.
He simply continued watching.
Afterward, the residence returned to silence.
The remaining surveillance footage was accelerated by several dozen times.
Eventually, at some point in the early morning, the door opened.
A figure walked inside.
A cleaning robot followed behind him.
The person manually adjusted several settings on the cleaning robot, then allowed the robot to clean the residence by itself while he quickly opened the door and left.
The entire process took only about two minutes.
Extremely fast.
And the person who had brought the cleaning robot into the residence was currently one of the four people standing here.
Zhou Changwu stared at one of the two men behind him with utter shock.
His slightly trembling finger pointed toward him.
"How... how could it be you? Zhou Teng, you..."
He looked as though he'd been betrayed by someone he trusted more than anyone.
His disbelief seemed overwhelming.
Although Yu Lanfeng didn't possess Nan Yu's ability to precisely distinguish the authenticity and exact nature of other people's emotions, he could still somewhat sense whether someone's feelings were genuine.
At this moment, Zhou Changwu's grief was real.
But what exactly was he grieving?
Was he heartbroken because this man named Zhou Teng had betrayed him?
Or because Zhou Teng was framing him?
Yu Lanfeng remained standing in place.
He didn't move or say anything.
He simply watched their reactions and waited to see what Zhou Changwu would do.
If this was the Zhou Changwu Yu Lanfeng knew, then given his personality, he would definitely...
Zhou Teng turned his face away, refusing to look at Zhou Changwu.
There was also a restrained expression on his face, but from Yu Lanfeng's angle, he could only see half of it, making it difficult to judge.
Zhou Teng said, "What are you trying to say? Are you going to say that you brought me in? That you gave me things other people could only dream of obtaining, so because I accepted those things, I have to be endlessly grateful to you?!"
"You old bastard, I've endured you for long enough. All this time, I've been thinking about how I could drag you down from your pedestal. Now I've finally found a way."
"Do you really think no one knows about the things you've secretly done? Do you really think no one could obtain evidence? You think that just because you kept everything hidden, the evidence would never come to light? If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it in the first place. As long as you've done something, there will be loopholes. You'll leave traces behind."
"And now I've finally found my opportunity. I'm going to expose you, you hypocrite hiding behind a false mask. How did someone like you keep climbing higher and higher until you smoothly reached the position of general? I think you must have used schemes and dirty tricks to get here."
"Back then, I'd only just joined the legion and didn't understand anything. But I was one of the trusted subordinates you intended to cultivate, so as time passed, I learned more and more."
"When I finally discovered your true face, I decided that I would make you take responsibility for everything you'd done."
After delivering this righteous declaration, Zhou Teng turned toward Yu Lanfeng.
He slowly approached him, wearing the expression of someone prepared to sacrifice his own family for justice.
"Marshal, this is the evidence we've gathered over all these years. Please examine it carefully. Once you've finished reading it, you'll understand exactly what kind of person my uncle... Zhou Changwu really is."
Yu Lanfeng reached out and accepted what Zhou Teng handed him.
He slowly began going through it page by page.
In many places, one or two miniature chips had been inserted between the pages.
Apparently, whenever the report mentioned certain events, the corresponding evidence had been included alongside them!
That made the report much more detailed.
Its credibility also increased considerably.
Yu Lanfeng continued turning the pages one by one.
The report described in detail the methods Zhou Changwu had supposedly used to persecute many highly talented and powerful people whom he wasn't confident he could defeat while competing for leadership of this military base.
Many details were included.
But there was no way Zhou Teng could have directly investigated these particular incidents at the time.
It seemed that over all these years, he had carefully extracted these details bit by bit from Zhou Changwu himself.
Therefore, those sections contained mostly written descriptions with very little supporting evidence.
However, the entire account was internally consistent from beginning to end, and the logic flowed smoothly in many places.
Clearly, an enormous amount of effort had gone into it.
Once the investigation report reached the period after Zhou Teng arrived at this military base, actual evidence gradually began appearing.
From that point onward, the processes and details of Zhou Changwu's alleged persecution became extremely specific.
It almost looked as though Zhou Teng himself had personally participated.
Most frightening of all was that, by the time Yu Lanfeng reached this point, he remembered nearly half of the people mentioned.
There were even some people whom he still didn't know had already died.
He had assumed they were still somewhere in the military base, slowly contributing to the Empire.
But now, apparently...
Yu Lanfeng didn't dwell on it.
He continued reading.
One page after another.
According to the report, Zhou Changwu had harmed people one after another, as though they were standing in line.
No one needed to fight for their turn.
Everyone got one.
Anyone who had previously competed with him ultimately met with disaster.
Not a single one escaped.
They had either died or become disabled and retired after receiving a large compensation payment.
Although that much money would allow them to live normal lives afterward, it was still ultimately a lifelong regret.
There were also five people who had remained unconscious in the large hospital at the rear of the base because of Mental Contamination.
Two of them were already in extremely serious condition.
The report even included examination reports for all five from some time ago.
If the two most severe cases couldn't receive treatment this year, then all they could do was wait to die.
After Yu Lanfeng finished reading this section and continued downward, the type of people Zhou Changwu allegedly targeted changed.
Now they were younger people.
Newly assigned recruits who had only recently passed the legion's assessment.
Many of them possessed high potential and outstanding strength.
If Zhou Changwu wanted to control this military base, he had to constantly win people over.
Naturally, fresh blood was no exception.
In fact, he apparently considered these newcomers the most important group of all.
But although Zhou Changwu was the leader and general of this place, many people had joined this legion because they admired and respected Yu Lanfeng.
Most of them were still willing to accept Zhou Changwu's attempts to win them over.
After all, this legion belonged to Yu Lanfeng, and Zhou Changwu was Yu Lanfeng's subordinate.
They were serving the legion either way, regardless of where exactly they worked.
But some people weren't fools and didn't think that way.
Perhaps Zhou Changwu had accidentally revealed a little of his true emotions while dealing with newcomers, allowing certain people to discover the ugliness hidden inside him.
As a result, they were unwilling to become his true trusted subordinates or work specifically for him.
They only wanted to diligently serve the legion and contribute to the Empire.
In Zhou Changwu's eyes, these troublesome people became obstacles to his control over the military base.
Naturally, they became targets of his retaliation and persecution.
The rest of the report was entirely about this.
According to what was written here, Zhou Changwu had already successfully harmed nearly thirteen promising recruits with excellent aptitude, high potential, and great strength.
Some had even been personally discovered by the team Yu Lanfeng had stationed on the Capital Star.
Yu Lanfeng found this difficult to believe.
He immediately exercised his authority as Marshal and began looking up every single person whose name appeared in the report.
He searched for them one by one.
And he discovered that every single person's fate was exactly the same as what was described in this evidence report!
There wasn't a single discrepancy!
The evidence was conclusive.
It seemed Zhou Changwu really had...
Yu Lanfeng frowned slightly and looked at Zhou Changwu with considerable pain in his eyes.
"General Zhou, I never expected... things would actually turn out like this. You really..."
At this point, Zhou Changwu also revealed an expression of unbearable anguish.
"Marshal, I didn't... I... I never..."
Yu Lanfeng instantly wiped the expression from his face.
With an utterly calm expression, he turned toward Zhou Teng.
"What? Did you think that was what I was going to say?"
Yu Lanfeng's abrupt change in attitude caught everyone completely off guard.
Because his reaction was essentially equivalent to saying that he believed Zhou Changwu rather than Zhou Teng and the evidence Zhou Teng had presented.
Zhou Teng froze for a moment.
Then his eyes widened as he stared at Yu Lanfeng, an expression of intense indignation appearing on his face.
But he obviously knew exactly who Yu Lanfeng was.
In the end, he could only swallow his anger and lower his voice.
"Marshal, the evidence is conclusive. I've spent all these years gathering it. It's all real! Every single bit of it is real! The fact that those people were harmed is also true. This is the result of all our efforts over the years... all so we could expose his true face."
Zhou Changwu himself looked somewhat incredulous.
Things had already reached this point.
Such detailed and seemingly conclusive evidence had been laid out before them, along with witnesses, physical evidence, and practically everything else.
There was essentially nothing missing that would be required to convict him.