Ah Xian's face instantly shifted from excitement to surprise and delight.
"He's here! He's here! He's finally here!"
Dan Shu heard the familiar voice behind her and froze for a moment.
Wasn't that person sent by her to capture test subjects? Why was he here?
Before she could turn around, a piercing pain suddenly struck her chest—
No, that wasn't right. Her heart had already been pierced.
She had been backstabbed!
Her body rapidly grew weak and powerless; she couldn't even stand steadily.
As she collapsed, a pair of feet walked past her head.
Leon wiped his hand across his face, revealing his original appearance.
In the players' view, the camera panned from his feet upward.
His clothing changed accordingly, from NPC attire to the familiar special outfit.
Finally, it settled on Leon's excellently modeled face.
The familiar smile at the corner of his mouth sent the fans into a frenzy.
[He's so handsome!]
[Husband husband husband!!]
[Even backstabbing looks so hot~~]
Dan Shu said in disbelief: "…You, Bai Xiao… Could it be—"
"As you can see, I'm an undercover agent."
"Oh, right. The knife that stabbed you was a gift from one of your Cultivators. I'm just returning it to you."
"Betraying the organization without taking a single needle or thread from them—aren't I quite virtuous?"
Leon wore a beaming smile.
"The black mist is useless now. Sorry for ruining your plans, Leader."
For the first time, Dan Shu panicked—and it wasn't because of the backstab.
"Impossible… impossible… How could an outsider like you break my masterpiece?"
"It does have some tricks to it. It took me a full half minute to temporarily devise a way to alter its pharmacology and neutralize it."
Leon praised it very seriously, with no trace of sarcasm.
But to Dan Shu's ears, it was blatant mockery.
Half a minute…
He said half a minute?
Didn't that make her decades of tireless research a complete joke?
Even her most trusted Cultivators didn't know how the black mist was made.
Even the most outstanding healers in the Xianzhou Alliance couldn't crack it in a short time.
Yet now someone claimed to have cracked her life's work in just half a minute…
Dan Shu was extremely unwilling to believe it.
But the facts were right in front of her; she had no choice but to accept it.
While Dan Shu fell silent, the girl who had been stunned by Leon's sudden appearance finally snapped out of it.
March 7th: "Leon! Weren't you staying on the Express to recover? How did you get here?"
Stelle didn't speak yet, but her gaze toward Leon mirrored March 7th's.
Both carried confusion and worry.
Stelle thought of more.
Leon had just said he was undercover, meaning he had been on the Luofu for quite some time.
At the very least, gaining the trust of the Medicine King's Secret Teachings would take no small amount of time, let alone staying by Dan Shu's side.
The cannon fodder were the ones encountered earlier or captured by the Cloud Knights.
Excluding those who fought Fu Xuan before, only those following Dan Shu were surely the core members of the Medicine King's Secret Teachings.
"Your injury…" Stelle's eyes held concern.
Leon's smile didn't change: "Don't worry, it's fine now."
There was no sign of deception in his expression.
But Stelle didn't fully believe him.
Back on the Express, she had heard Himeko instruct Leon more than once to rest properly and avoid leaving unhealable complications.
"I know you all have a lot of questions. Once things here are settled, I'll explain everything to everyone."
Seeing that the Express crew knew this person, Fu Xuan pondered briefly and dispelled the wariness in her eyes.
In its place was undisguised gratitude.
"The other surprise force General Jing Yuan mentioned must be Mr. Leon, I presume?"
She hadn't expected him to be a member of the Astral Express…
"It's not really a surprise force. I just happened to run into believers of the Medicine King's Secret Teachings coming right to me, so I naturally went undercover and played along with them."
Dan Shu's face darkened upon hearing this.
So her own organization's people had delivered themselves to the wolf's door?
Fu Xuan: "Thank you, Mr. Leon, for your ass…istance."
Leon: "We each get what we need. No need to be polite, Master Diviner. Let's deal with her first."
After glancing at Leon a few more times, Fu Xuan suddenly remembered something.
March 7th called him Leon, but Dan Shu seemed to call him Bai Xiao?
Bai Xiao… Bai Xiao…
!!!
Fu Xuan's eyes widened involuntarily.
The… bad guy who sabotaged the Matrix of Prescience Ultima?!
But he was also the surprise force arranged by the General. Didn't that mean the General—
Fu Xuan couldn't help but blush.
She secretly clenched her teeth.
She wasn't stupid; she quickly pieced together the full story of how the Matrix of Prescience Ultima was paralyzed.
These two… these two… they really were something!
It infuriated her!
Leon didn't notice Fu Xuan's suppressed anger. Instead, he subtly glanced at the foxian girl standing off to the side, looking graceful and poised.
A cryptic glint flashed in his deep eyes as he narrowed them.
That fox… something's off.
Ever since Dan Shu unleashed her various methods, he had been quietly observing everyone present.
Not to mention the locals—even Welt frowned slightly upon contact with the black mist, clearly affected to some degree.
But that foxian named Tingyun—
She was pretending to be affected by the black mist, her delicate brows furrowed.
Yes, the expression was feigned, not a natural reaction.
It was disguised flawlessly, perfectly natural.
Undeniably, it could fool everyone present—except him.
If there wasn't something fishy about Tingyun, then all his years of experience could be fed to Aha.
Aha: ???
No rush. Let's see what she's planning.
Or rather, is this person connected to the mastermind behind the scenes?
"Phantylia… the Medicine King's Secret Teachings has succeeded…"
Dan Shu barely stood up and abruptly pulled out the short knife embedded in her body.
Hearing the name Phantylia, Leon's newly narrowed eyes slowly opened.
Welt froze, falling into thought as if searching his memory for something.
"The Lord Ravager should fulfill her promise now. Quick! Right now!"
Fu Xuan, whose attention had been entirely on the two bad guys sabotaging her Matrix of Prescience Ultima, finally changed her expression upon hearing "Lord Ravager."
Her focus sharpened, filled with vigilance.
As the General had said, the mastermind behind the scenes was definitely an Emanator.
She just hadn't expected it to be Destruction instead of the anticipated Abundance.
"As expected. Without backing, you wouldn't have the guts to flip the table."
Following Dan Shu's line of sight, Fu Xuan looked behind her.
If the person Dan Shu was looking at wasn't one of the Cloud Knights, then it had to be—
The Sky-Faring Commission's envoy, Tingyun.
Sometimes, the game camera is a silent language.
Countless players were stunned in succession as a terrifying and unacceptable guess rapidly surfaced.
[You're kidding, right?]
[No way, bro. Tingyun is actually that mysterious Emanator?]
[I refuse to believe it! How can my wife be a villain?]
[???]
[Alright, alright, so this is how we're playing?]
Only a minority of plot-focused players quickly accepted this nearly confirmed fact.
As early as previous versions, Tingyun had shown several anomalies.
Especially those messages she sent to the protagonist via phone.
"No wonder she vaguely longed for longevity… Wait, hold on. Phantylia is a Lord Ravager—does she even have a lifespan limit?"