Chapter 175 – None of My Business

The next afternoon, Ren Suo suddenly received a call just as he placed down the game controller and was about to head out to eat.

“Shall we eat lunch together? I’m downstairs.”

Ren Suo walked over to the balcony and saw a cute girl clad in a black vest, smiling innocently as she waved at him, from under the shade of a tree, opposite the faculty dormitory building.

However, Ren Suo was not charmed; he still remembered what happened with the slipper.

Ren Suo (☉д⊙): “Oh? Are you thinking of an AA policy or an AB policy?”

“I know what’s an AA policy, but what is an AB policy?” a curious Qiao Muyi asked.

Ren Suo explained, “AA policy means that we go Dutch and split the bill equally, while AB policy means that I’ll pay for most of it while you top up the remainder—”

“Let’s go with the AB policy then, thank you boss!” an obedient Qiao Muyi replied immediately.

Looking at such a frank Qiao Muyi, Ren Suo also put on a cap and headed downstairs straightforwardly. Ren Suo was actually not a stingy person; he would never allow Qiao Muyi to pay for the meal since she came specially to the Heavenly Institution of Lianjiang to meet him for lunch.

Ren Suo said, “There is only a dining hall here, would that be alright?”

“That’s fine, the chefs here are not any worse than those from renowned hotels,” Qiao Muyi said as she blinked. She continued, “Although the chefs were not employed by the Countermeasure Division, I read through all their records before.”

Ren Suo glanced at her and said, “Are you so bored that you have to look at other people’s records?”

“I was bored anyway. It’s more interesting to look through people’s private details than to read made-up stories people post online,” Qiao Muyi replied.

How terrifying! How could this woman still speak with such a nonchalant tone as if she was just looking through social media when she invaded other people’s privacy! Although the Countermeasure Division was not considered an intelligence unit, there was definitely still a lot of information being processed every day. Qiao Muyi was now also the leader of one of the teams, so it was very likely that she would have had knowledge of the dark past of many people in the Countermeasure Division.

This woman must not be messed with! Ren Suo was very certain that Qiao Muyi must have seen his records by now, and perhaps, she would already have known about his dark past of his dormitory mate falling for him!

Ren Suo’s questioning tone quickly eased. He asked, “How did you enter the Heavenly Institution of Lianjiang? Outsiders are supposedly not allowed to enter…”

“Oh, I talked to the dean, and she allowed me to come in,” Qiao Muyi replied.

Huo He was a smiling tiger who suited her position as the Dean. Ren Suo did not have many encounters with her except when he had the typical official matters to talk to her about, but he heard from the students like Lin Xianyu that she was a teacher who went strictly by the book. So he asked, “The Dean allowed you to come in so easily?”

Lin Xianyu replied, “Oh, she seemed unwilling to allow me to come in at first, but I accidentally revealed that she had undergone hemorrhoid surgery…”

“Okay, I see,” Ren Suo said.

When they arrived at the third floor of the dining hall, Ren Suo wanted to avoid the trouble of ordering two meals, so he asked Qiao Muyi, “Shall we have a large seafood hotpot together?”

“Sure,” Qiao Muyi said. There was no reason for her to say otherwise.

While waiting for the meal, Ren Suo noticed that the students around him were all watching videos on their mobile phones and exclaiming while they watched:

“If only I were in New York then!”

“What’s so nice to see about a monkey? It would be better to see the nine-tailed fox in person!”

“They say that those who met the nine-tailed fox in person cannot forget her charming appearance, but she seems so ordinary on the screen…”

“You don’t understand, this is called ‘the screen is toxic’. Those who look pretty on the screen would be even more beautiful in reality. Let me tell you, I saw that celebrity in real life before, she looked much prettier in real life than on the screen…”

When Ren Suo placed the seafood hotpot down on the table, Qiao Muyi asked, “Have you watched it? Naisser Ren’s new video.”

“Of course, I did,” Ren Suo said.

Half an hour after the Monkey King divided the sea into two, Ren Suo noticed that the disc icon at the lower right corner of “The All-Devouring Soul” stopped spinning. He figured that the half-hour was the time when he made arrangements for the future of the pangolin and the nine-tailed fox.

On the other hand, Naisser Ren also uploaded a new video titled “Activating Reiki Treasures” in the meantime. It once again took over the homepage of all major video-streaming websites, trying to let Internet users around the world notice the news as soon as they went online—”Grandpa, the uploader you subscribed to has uploaded a new video!”

Ren Suo was already surprised initially when he found that the video was not named “The All-Devouring Soul”, but the video content bewildered Ren Suo further—

—The length of the video was very short; it was only 30 minutes in total. Compared to the game of The All-Devouring Soul which lasted a full month, the video could be considered the highlights of the highlights.

More importantly, the video was true to its title of “Activating Reiki Treasures”; it indeed revolved around the Reiki Treasures.

In the first scene, the Volcano of Legacies in Tianjing lit up the sky in an intense red hue, signifying the activation of the Reiki Treasure of Xuan Nation;

In the second scene, Big Ben in London lit up the sky in an intense blue hue, signifying the activation of the Reiki Treasure of England;

In the third scene, Nine-tailed Fox descended through the air from the Tokyo Sky Tree, signifying the activation of the Reiki Treasure of Fanying Nation;

In the fourth scene…

In the fifth scene…

The first five scenes were very brief and almost flew past in the blink of an eye. Only the scene which showed Nine-tailed Fox descending and stepping on butterfly steps was slightly longer, seemingly to give the audience sufficient time to drool on the screen.

On the contrary, the sixth scene occupied 90% of the entire length of the video; it showed the entire process of the Monkey activating the Reiki Treasure of the Federation.

It began with the Reiki Treasure being activated, following which the Practitioners from the Federation began hunting down the Monkey, until it hid underground and suddenly transformed successfully into a human form with a body of fire armor, melting iron as troops and virtually invincible. An earth-shaking battle ensued between him and the “Angel” Practitioner of the Federation—

—Or perhaps, it was a one-sided battle where the Monkey easily crushed the Angel.

In the end, the Monkey completely suppressed the human Angel and created ten million manifestations of himself to suppress the soldiers of the Federation. He stood on the torch of the Statue of Liberty as he embraced the break of dawn and then proceeded to divide the sea into two with one strike of his staff, before leaving with elegance.

In the video, Ren Suo could hardly see Zhao Zili—when the camera occasionally pointed towards New York Harbor, the likely area where Zhao Zili was at would be covered by people, trees, or smoke.

It was as if it was intentional.

That alone was nothing to dwell upon, but watching the entire video from ‘Naisser Ren’, Ren Suo felt that all of it was intentional—

‘Naisser Ren’ cut out all the scenes which Ren Suo felt was not great: the entire journey of Pangolin, the journey of Nine-tailed Fox, the fact that Monkey King was a monkey transformed from Nine-tailed Fox, that he was actually a real monkey used to hide underground—a new spirit that devoured the world using [Unending Legacy]…

If those scenes were shown, there would be a huge loophole in the lies that the All-Devouring Soul weaved into the game; there certainly were at least a few scenes where the lies would be busted.

If that happened, even if countries around the world continued to believe in the existence of the Heavenly Palace, it was likely that they would probe more in the future. In that scenario, Ren Suo might not be able to make use of the great pawn of the ‘Heavenly Palace’.

Regardless, Ren Suo was not too concerned about that, for the ‘Heavenly Palace’ in itself was all made up by him.

It was like starting a gang in the game without much thought, and now it was about to be wiped out.

Oh (indifferent).

However, what Ren Suo did not expect was that ‘Naisser Ren’ did not distort the truth in reality and continued the lie of the ‘Heavenly Palace’ just by editing and cutting different scenes together perfectly. It was as if he was actively adapting to Ren Suo’s game journey!

Even the title was intentionally changed!

Ren Suo had long known that ‘Naisser Ren’ was definitely not an ordinary video cutting program—which program could produce a blockbuster just by simply editing and cutting different scenes?

Moreover, in “Over My Dead Body”, the drama series uploaded by ‘Naisser Ren’ could be described as consistent, well-balanced, well-organized, and extremely captivating, so much so that the audience could not stop watching after they began. It has even become classic learning material for numerous film schools.

Although ‘Naisser Ren’ was only responsible for uploading videos at present, the intelligence it displayed thus far was already far higher and greater than Ren Suo could imagine.

Now that Ren Suo thought about it, he realized that it was actually not the first time ‘Naisser Ren’ had adapted and catered to his game journey.

In “Holy Priest: Survival Battle” Ren Suo told the other trainees from Xuan Nation about the information of the monsters and demons through Zhao Zili, so that the Countermeasure Division could obtain that information.

At that time, Ren Suo felt that it would be great if those scenes were not shown in the video.

In that way, only the Countermeasure Division would receive that information, and after sorting out the information, the Countermeasure Division could make use of that to make deals with intelligence units of other nations. For one, Ren Suo was from Xuan Nation, and secondly, he was once personnel of the Countermeasure Division, so he naturally wanted them to benefit at least slightly from it.

Furthermore, Ren Suo did not want the scenes of Zhao Zili telling other trainees about the information of the monsters and demons to be shown either, for he would seem like a machine repeating the same thing over and over again like the ‘+1’s seen in comment sections.

In addition, “Holy Priest: Survival Battle” was split into two parts, and an exciting lucky draw was even held to let the audience guess which one of the trainees would eventually emerge as the champion.

At that time, it seemed that there was no problem at all, but looking back now, Ren Suo felt that ‘Naisser Ren’ was actually purposefully fulfilling his psychological needs.

As such, Ren Suo faintly felt that—it was not because he was narcissistic—but perhaps…

The Mini Worlds Gaming Console is starting to like him!

“Hello, what is your relationship with him?”

“Our relationship? I like him too.”

It was only then when Ren Suo looked up to see Gu Yueyan holding her plate and standing beside the table with a cold expression on her face. Standing behind her was Lin Xianyu who was looking intently at the seafood hotpot in front of Ren Suo.

At the same time, Qiao Muyi’s expression was intriguing: she was ‘licking’ the gravy off her chopsticks with her lips as she faced Gu Yueyan. She seemed to be talking to Gu Yueyan, but her eyes were looking affectionately in Ren Suo’s direction—

—Regardless, that’s none of my business.