Chapter 1296 - 1156: Shrouded in Mystery

Chapter 1296: Chapter 1156: Shrouded in Mystery

The ones that intercepted Starship 6503—one was a warship, the other was a civilian starship that had been requisitioned by the Military.

Fortunately, Nutrient Injection had prepared thoroughly and produced a certificate, so they managed to pass in the end.

That warship was relatively polite; after all, from the outside, Starship 6503 looked exactly like a standard Standard Warship.

Even if the paint job was a bit off, that still wasn’t a big deal; the Military ran secret missions all the time.

It was that civilian starship that was the problem—no idea if they were unhappy about being requisitioned by the Military, but they held them up and questioned them for ages.

In the end, the other side even wanted to board for inspection—and there was also a Supreme on that starship.

That finally pissed off Nutrient Injection, who just let out a cold snort.

"Looks like you’re really craving to be requisitioned, being this dutiful and all. I’ll make a note of this."

The other side finally took that threat to heart and, sullenly, let them through.

Starship 6503 arrived thirty million kilometers from Good Fortune Star and waited for half a day before a heavy-load cargo starship showed up.

Although it was "just" a cargo ship, one look at the armor told you it was something else; more rare still, it was registered locally on Good Fortune Star.

The person in charge on the cargo starship was a female A-level; after the two ships docked, she behaved extremely politely.

The female A-level repeatedly explained that their own superior had matters to attend to and really couldn’t come in person, asking them to be understanding.

After Qu Jianlei and the other two exchanged a few perfunctory courtesies, they dropped the topic and simply refused to pick up her lead.

They presented a coldness that kept others a thousand miles away, but the female A-level showed not the slightest displeasure, as if she had long expected this.

The heavy-load cargo starship landed at the public Star Port; the moment it touched down, a large hovercar pulled up.

The hovercar was not only big but also quite luxurious inside, with thick armor added on.

When they exited the Star Port, the Guard didn’t conduct any checks at all and just waved them straight through.

Then the hovercar sped all the way, and three hours later, arrived at an estate.

The estate sat halfway up a mountain, not very large, only forty to fifty thousand square meters, surrounded by lush forest, clearly built for quiet in the midst of noise.

The off-road vehicle drove into the estate; a female Supreme had long been waiting there.

The female Supreme had a big, burly build, but spoke in a soft, tiny voice. "Greetings, honored guests. I should have gone in person to welcome you..."

She had wanted to go to the Star Port to receive the guests, but she’d been warned not to.

At this, she still sounded a bit aggrieved. "They said it’d draw too much attention, but I never cause trouble."

Nutrient Injection snorted. "No need to bring that up again. Keeping a low profile isn’t a bad thing. Is the lodging arranged?"

"All arranged," the female Supreme responded immediately. "I’ll take you to have a look."

She was genuinely enthusiastic, without a hint of Supreme arrogance, introducing things to them one by one.

The three chose a small courtyard with a standalone villa, saying they would all live there together and didn’t need to be separated.

Only then did the female Supreme look to Nutrient Injection and ask hesitantly, "And... you are the host?"

So she didn’t even know who exactly she was supposed to receive and arrange for!

Nutrient Injection just waved his hand casually. "You don’t need to know that. Just get the rest of the arrangements ready as well."

After the female Supreme left, Qu Jianlei tapped his own head. "That one just now... something wrong up here?"

He had never seen a Supreme living this timidly.

"Mm." Nutrient Injection nodded. "She was never very bright to begin with, and later she took a head injury—her Spiritual Power was damaged."

"This really is..." Flower Scorpion shook her head. She’d seen plenty of Supremes, but never one this foolish.

Nutrient Injection waved his hand again. "Drop it. She’s one of the people I trust the most... one of them."

Flower Scorpion froze at that, while Qu Jianlei nodded again. "Someone like her really isn’t suited to acting alone."

Nutrient Injection nodded as well. "Which is why the two of us still have to handle things and play it by ear."

Over the next two days, the three didn’t go out again. They rested up a bit and, in the meantime, sorted through the various bits of information.

The silly female Supreme was called Darlene. She had excellent talent, the single-track-minded type when it came to Cultivation, and somehow managed to push her way up to Supreme.

Later, though, she and Jing Yuexin were ambushed, and her head suffered massive damage.

Back then, the two of them were fighting back to back; there was no question of who saved whose life—they were simply each other’s support.

But there’s no doubt that when she realized something was wrong, she could have slipped away.

Afterward, Jing Yuexin decided to stick with her. They were separated briefly after that disaster, then later picked each other up again.

Given Darlene’s condition, she was obviously not suited to intelligence gathering, but Nutrient Injection had arranged for others to handle that.

Besides that, Qu Jianlei had Little Lake on his side, who was also good at collecting all sorts of hidden information online.

Unfortunately, this time, the role Little Lake could play wasn’t very big.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t collect information; it was that... they collected too much.

It was obvious someone online was steering public opinion, with all kinds of information flooding in from everywhere, saying everything under the sun.

If there had only been a few versions, Little Lake could have used big data to roughly infer the situation.

But there were just too many versions; trying to tease out the threads and analyze them was basically impossible—some of the rumors really had their brains wide open.

Besides, this kind of thing isn’t like doing an experiment—there’s only one truth, it’s either right or wrong, there’s no room for trial and error.

By comparison, don’t be fooled by how Darlene’s brain looks a bit silly; the intel she gathers is all well-founded.

And some word-of-mouth information is destined never to appear on the net.

So artificial intelligence really isn’t omnipotent; a lot of the time, Little Lake isn’t sure whether the one going online on the other side is a human or a dog.

Qu Jianlei looked over the compiled situation and just felt his head swelling. "There are even people specially in charge of writing stories now?"

Nutrient Injection didn’t care. "Anyway, since we’re here, we’re definitely going to run around and ask questions. Relying on others is worse than relying on ourselves."

So on the morning of the third day, Qu Jianlei and Nutrient Injection headed out.

Darlene didn’t come along; instead, she sent a middle-aged A-level man to accompany them.

This middle-aged man was called Arka, a local from Good Fortune Star, upright and handsome, and he seemed to be currently pursuing Darlene.

Setting Cultivation aside, the two really didn’t look like a match.

But once you factor in Cultivation, Arka was definitely reaching up the social ladder, giving off a bit of that "Auntie, I don’t want to work hard anymore" vibe.

Fine, that was just a joke. Arka was an A-level after all, not so lowly as all that.

But without a doubt, this was also one of the reasons Darlene chose to trust him. He had to rely on her to live better.

As for the possibility of some "Infernal Affairs" situation, that objectively existed, but Arka also knew very well that even though she was a Supreme, there were still people above her.

Darlene might be a bit silly, but she’s not stupid; who would dare to casually offend the people behind a Supreme?

A mere A-level managing to climb up to a Supreme like her was already pretty good!

Arka really was very attentive in his service, driving Qu Jianlei and Nutrient Injection all over the place.

Nutrient Injection was fairly at ease with him; her logic was simple—if you really dare to mess with me, you’ll be miserable!

But Qu Jianlei’s sense of security wasn’t great, and he couldn’t help secretly using his Divine Sense to tell her, "What if he’s a Death Warrior?"

Nutrient Injection just smiled dismissively. "Being a Death Warrior isn’t something you can do casually. You need faith and attachments to pull it off."

"Does he have those?"

Hearing that, Qu Jianlei suddenly saw the light. Sure enough, some things are best understood by the locals.

After the four of them had been running around for three days, Nutrient Injection gave Flower Scorpion an order, telling her to focus on monitoring a few people.

Technically, this kind of assignment had always been decided by Qu Jianlei, but this time, she probably just found this light bulb an eyesore.

Flower Scorpion didn’t show any objection. Never mind that the other party was above a Supreme; just the fact that she was Little Jing was enough.

She was one of the earliest elders who followed the boss; her seniority was right there.

Qu Jianlei and Nutrient Injection’s work wasn’t easy either; they had to analyze and observe many key suspects.

Mainly because Versailles not only had a lot of students but also a lot of children, with all kinds of tangled relationships.

Once they nailed down the key people to watch, Big Head Butterfly could also contribute a bit, mainly by monitoring the suspects’ wristbands the whole time.

But the role it could play wasn’t very big—anyone capable of doing something like this would obviously be on guard against leaks through communications.

Fortunately, aside from the two of them, Nutrient Injection also had Darlene and other subordinates who could share some of the workload.

Even so, they still had to poke around for several more days before they more or less locked onto a few key suspects.

One of them was a Supreme, the specially appointed vice dean Mozart, whose suspicion was quite heavy; he’d been suppressed by Versailles in the past.

Then there was Duke Descartes; rumor had it that two of the duke’s grandsons died while interning at the Academy.

But that was just a rumor. For the duke’s grandsons to enter the Academy, even if they couldn’t get into the top three, Glory Academy was still an option.

Yao Yang, among the military academies, was only a "sit second, look to first" existence; there was no reason for it to be that sought after.

Besides, when the duke’s grandsons entered such academies, they would very likely Conceal their origins—just like Celestial Sound back then.

Without the parties involved stepping up to testify, this was basically something that would die with no evidence.

Anyway, Duke Descartes and Versailles definitely didn’t get along.

Those two were the most suspicious ones; there were plenty of others, such as the current dean of Yao Yang Academy.

On paper, he was a direct-line descendant of Versailles and very respectful to the old dean, so he shouldn’t be suspicious.

But the old dean’s prestige in the Academy was simply too high...

The Imperial is a society where Extraordinary exist, and "free conviction" is very popular; there’s also a saying that "the greatest beneficiary is the biggest suspect."

In short, it was all a big mess, with too many possibilities.

On the ninth day after they arrived, it was Little Lake who made the contribution; it collected a piece of information: the descendants of Versailles don’t get along!

The old dean was incredibly fertile and lived long enough; just his direct-line descendants exceeded three hundred people.

And that was only counting those still around his circle; those who died or left the family to develop elsewhere weren’t included.

In this kind of situation, it was far too common for some descendants not to get along well.

Yet at the same time, the Imperial was a society with a strong sense of family; clansmen could have disagreements, but they couldn’t make things too ugly.

Little Lake learned from one suspect’s conversation that the differences among Versailles’ descendants were huge—they could practically be called mutual hostility.