Crazy Detective

“Boss… boss… are you awake?”

In the darkness, Zhao Yu heard Cui Lizhu’s frantic calling, but even realizing this he couldn’t resist the side effects of the Energy Booster and Invisible Recovery Potion and fell into a deep slumber.

He checked to see that his eyes were open. They were, but he couldn’t see anything. Everything was pitch black. It seemed like the generator had run out of energy.

Ugh…

Zhao Yu groaned. His mouth felt dry and he felt terrible. At that moment, a flash of light shone into his eyes. It was Cui Lizhu! She held a flashlight in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, placing it near his lips.

“Where… where did this water come from…?” Zhao Yu was in a daze, remembering that they had already finished drinking all the water that morning.

“It was flowing from the crevices of the debris. I’ve been collecting it for half a day! It’s all rainwater so it’s drinkable!” Cui Lizhu said.

“Oh…” Zhao Yu stretched his neck and took a sip. Even though the water was a little bitter it quenched his thirst.

Zhao Yu looked at his watch but because it was dark, he could not see clearly. “Lil Cui, how long have I been sleeping? What’s the current situation?” he asked.

“You’ve slept for over ten hours!” Cui Lizhu answered. “We’re still trapped here!

“But… we did manage to find a relatively safe hideout in the deep tunnels. It’s far from that area and there are mud doors at the entrance, so even if the bomb explodes it should protect us pretty well!”

“That’s pretty long…” Zhao Yu said, slowly consolidating his thoughts as he recalled what had happened previously. “What about Li Jing and Xiao Hang?” he hurriedly asked.

“Li Jing is sleeping next to you! Xiao Hang has your phone and is communicating with the search teams outside!” Cui Lizhu said. “The people outside are digging through the entrance that exploded. If nothing goes wrong, we should be able to get out of this debris in a few hours!

“Relax boss! We can definitely get out of this place alive!”

“Then… about this case…” Zhao Yu shifted his position while talking, but a rush of burning pain traveled through his body and he felt more sensitive than before.

“The girl doing the decryption is still in the midst of working…” Li Jing’s voice unexpectedly rang through the darkness. “They are still analyzing each photo and attempting to find related characters, words, or pictures…

“But… because the photo is really old the resolution is poor. So even if there are minimal leads, we can’t really do anything about it…”

“Then what about Jinping? Has it been confirmed that our secret’s been leaked?” Zhao Yu asked.

“The other party used a new kind of technology in their attack,” LI Jing explained. “Only a part of the code can be read, after which we need to rewrite the codes ourselves. The technology is rather complicated.

“The only thing we can confirm is that even if the other party gets the values, they will need a massive amount of time to restore the information,” Li Jing said. “So, we are not lagging behind our enemies by that much!”

“But the key is…” Zhao Yu frowned. “Based on a single picture, can we really solve this secret?

“Lil Cui…” Zhao Yu began, turning to Cui Lizhu. “Try to recall what happened with Tao Xiang back in Huang Jin City. I’ll get the local police to search the places you’ve stayed just to be sure. What if Tao Xiang buried the items? Even a small piece of information, no matter how broken, would be good…”

“Well, as for that… While you were sleeping, we already received an update!” Li Jing said. “But that place has been torn down, so our chances are slim.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Cui Lizhu said to Zhao Yu, suddenly recalling something. “There is still one more thing you don’t know.

“The rescue team found two dead bodies in the cave outside…”

“Oh? That must be the Tian brothers!” Zhao Yu said without hesitation.

“Wow! You’re really amazing, you guessed it in one try!” Cui Lizhu said, clicking her tongue. “Apparently they had already been dead for a long time. They were shot to death!”

“And…” Li Jing added. “After comparing the messages, we have already confirmed that some of the people who attacked us belonged to an underground organization. These people have participated in many commercial wars before!

“Other than that, do you still remember the illegal informant, Meng Youbin?” Li Jing asked. “That group was part of this very same underground organization!”

“Ah, that makes things so much clearer!” Zhao Yu said. “Japan knew about the doll’s secret and wanted to look for the treasure again, so they used an underground organization to infiltrate our country and started to search for the fortress.

“But they realized that the fortress did not hold the answers they wanted, so they had no choice but to keep searching. It was then they found out the doll was in Tian Zheng’s hands!

“But Tian Zheng is dead, and the doll is missing!” Zhao Yu deduced, falling into deep thought like he always did when he was about to crack a case. “So, they captured Tian Zheng’s sons and interrogated them.

“Who would have thought that the Tian brothers knew there was an expert who bought the doll? But they had no clue which expert it was, so they began to question all of them until they finally found their answer! The doll was in Yuan Juncheng’s hands! That’s how everything happened!”

“They are so ruthless!’ Cui Lizhu said. “They didn’t hesitate to collapse an entire fortress, and even detonated a bomb on me and the fortress just to catch me! They are simply terrible!”

“Right!” Li Jing said. “Although it can’t be considered treasure, the weapons and equipment in this fortress are still worth a considerable amount of wealth!

“They obviously knew that they would not be able to bring them back, so they didn’t want to leave them for us either. They are so mean!” Li Jing said angrily. “We will not tolerate anybody committing evil deeds on our land!”

Just as Li Jing finished, there was a sudden ray of light at the door of the fortress followed by a flurry of footsteps.

“It’s clear, it’s clear!” Xiao Hang hurriedly ran into the room and reported the news to everyone. “The drill has broken a small path! In a while, we will be able to bring some food and water in! Then, in a couple more hours, we can all get out!”

After finishing, Xiao Hang shined his flashlight on Zhao Yu’s face. “Leader Zhao, are you awake? You sure can sleep a lot!” he greeted Zhao Yu excitedly.

“That’s great!” Cui Lizhu said, giddily clapping her hands. “Let’s all hope we can get out of here quickly! This is really starting to scare me!”

“Oh, right…” Zhao Yu suddenly remembered something again and hurriedly turned to Li Jing. “Leader Li, before I fell unconscious, I told you to do something. Have you done it yet?”

“Yup!” Li Jing nodded. “As per your request I have already leaked a fake piece of news, but I’m not sure if that’s enough to bluff our way past our enemies!

“And… are you sure that the bombs in the fortress will no longer explode?”

“The fake news must not look like it’s real news!” Zhao Yu instructed. “Please don’t say anything about the explosions, just say that there were some unknown earthquakes and investigations are still going on, stuff like that…”

“I know, I know…” Li Jing nodded. “I don’t need you to teach me something like this!”

“Good!” Zhao Yu was finally relieved. “I know we might not be able to lie to the other party, but now that things have reached this point, we can only do what we can, and that is to hope!”

Just as Zhao Yu was about to pray, he recalled something else of importance.

That’s right! After the Kun Gan hexagram had ended, he had yet to open another hexagram! To know if the case was completed or not, wouldn’t he have gotten the answer just by opening a new one?

Thinking about this, Zhao Yu hurriedly entered the new system and opened a new hexagram. After all this time, Zhao Yu felt like he already knew the system well and was used to it. He thought that he would not be shocked, no matter what hexagram appeared. But the system had a way of proving him wrong once again! It completely exceeded his expectations.

Looking at the hexagram, he had already expected Kun Zhen, but behind the words, there was a small black dot, followed by a smaller Gen word. It read as a Kun Zhen·gen Hexagram.

Holy sh*t! Zhao Yu froze. The hexagrams had always been two words, today… today there were suddenly three words? This… what was this strange situation?!