Chapter 95: A Heart Too Dark

When he heard the question, Wei Cheng had already calmed down.

There was no point in not being calm. This was Earth, still the government’s domain. Finding out the truth about something was still easy.

Come to think of it, it was already outrageous enough that the constables in the government had taken twenty days to find him.

“I have.”

Wei Cheng did not deny it.

So what if he admitted it? At most, the government would give him a reward, and at most, the infiltrating demon would take note that there was such a person as him.

No big deal.

“Ha. Mr. Wei, no need to be nervous. May we come in and talk?”

The constable in the lead, a Mountain-Moving Constable, smiled faintly.

Wei Cheng nodded and invited the three of them into the room, yet he remained puzzled. Something that happened twenty days ago should have been handled by a local constable, so why make such a grand display over it?

“My name is Zhang Ji. This is my work badge. These are my colleagues, Yu Chenghu and Tian Yujuan. You can connect to the official trialist website right now and verify our identities.”

“The reason we came in person is that this matter is of great importance. Twenty days ago, after you killed that infiltrating demon, Mr. Wei, did anything unusual happen?”

Zhang Ji asked calmly. Meanwhile, Yu Chenghu and Tian Yujuan acted like true constables: one wandered casually to the window, while the other took out pen and paper and began taking notes with practiced ease.

At a glance, they looked like the real thing.

“Nothing unusual. That infiltrating demon had only just crossed over and was very weak. I happened to be nearby and reached the scene in less than ten seconds. I hit it hard and killed it. It even dropped a crimson bead, which fused with my Flame Ring and actually raised my fire resistance from one point to six.”

“After I rescued the people, I left. Was there a problem?”

Wei Cheng briefly recounted what had happened. He truly did not think there was anything wrong.

“Could we take a look at your Flame Ring?” Zhang Ji asked.

“It was destroyed. In the previous stage, inside the poison zone, the Shadow Curse was too strong. I couldn’t keep it,” Wei Cheng said frankly. It was the truth. He never lied.

But Zhang Ji’s attention was clearly elsewhere. He took a small box made of some peculiar metal from the file bag at his side and handed it over.

“After the incident, we initially thought the same as you. But then the relevant departments organized experts to conduct precise sampling and investigation of the soil, air, and water around the site. The results were unexpected. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but it was certainly related to the infiltration of a demon.”

“So we organized an excavation. In the end, after all the nearby soil had been removed and specially rendered harmless, we found this one hundred and eighty meters underground. You can open it and take a look. Ordinary people would go mad just from a single glance, but for trialists like us, there’s no harm in looking. By the way, what level is your mental power?”

“Level?”

Wei Cheng was startled. Mental power could be graded too?

Truly a government way of doing things: everything had to be orderly, everything had to have a standard.

“Yes. The government urgently established this standard two days ago after taking both domestic and foreign conditions into account.”

“Hmm, how should I put it... if you can initially comprehend the visualization chart of a heart method, then your mental power is level one. Every time it doubles after that, it becomes level two. You should have your own judgment about it. In fact, as long as your mental power is level one, the thing inside won’t affect you at all.”

“Understood. Then I suppose mine is probably... level three.”

Wei Cheng nodded. He deliberately understated it by a little.

Level three mental power was roughly the same as Liu Sui, Xu Shan, and Cheng An at present.

In truth, he should be at level 6.9. By the principle of rounding, calling himself level three was perfectly reasonable.

At that moment, Wei Cheng took the small box, opened it, and found that inside was a photograph. It was old and faded yellow; anyone who did not know better would think it was taken decades ago.

Yet the photo showed a large pit, and within that pit floated a strangely flower-shaped rune.

One glance was enough for Wei Cheng to know it was the thing discovered beneath Dong’an Community. Back then, he had not completely killed that demon. He had been deceived.

That demon had used some unknown method to leave a hidden contingency behind. It was fortunate that the government had been so shrewd this time, actually detecting the anomaly through tests of soil and water, and then tracing it back. Otherwise, the entire city would have been utterly doomed.

Wei Cheng closed the box, his expression solemn. That demon’s methods were far too damn cunning. It truly deserved to be something capable of ruining an entire cultivation world.

“What can I do? This thing can’t be destroyed?”

Zhang Ji carefully put the little box away before saying, “The relevant departments have been discussing how to handle it. They even drew up dozens of contingency plans. In the end, they decided to use it as bait.”

“Right now, thirty-seven cities in the country have been confirmed to be infiltrated by demons. But only three can intervene and destroy the demons in time. Our city is one of them.”

“We know very little about demons, so we want to see whether this demonic sigil has any attraction for other demons.”

“So after it was unearthed, aside from ensuring the quarantine of personnel, we did not take any active action. Twenty full days passed, and during that time we also went through the sixth trial stage.”

“And just yesterday, signs of demon activity and demon servants appeared in S City. We immediately concluded that a demon had taken the bait.”

“Although in some foreign countries there have already been cases of certain cities in smaller nations going completely dark, within our country the demons have still been keeping a low profile. For them to suddenly show themselves this time, it rather gives off the feeling of luring the tiger away from the mountain.”

“In fact, at this very moment, with S City at the center, five surrounding cities have each dispatched large numbers of elite trialists to impose a blockade and launch a sweep. Demons and their servants are to be killed without mercy. But that also means P City will be left relatively hollow.”

By this point, Wei Cheng was completely numb.

One could only say that the people in government who played strategy and tactics had black hearts indeed. They had actually begun digging pits and laying traps more than ten days in advance.

No wonder this recruitment had been announced so openly on the trialist official website. It was practically screaming for demons to notice.

“Will the demons really cooperate?” Wei Cheng still asked cautiously.

Zhang Ji smiled. “I don’t know. But this time, the relevant departments have solid evidence. Many trialists were attacked by demons and then vanished before entering the sixth stage. Take City F in the southwest province as an example: more than a thousand trialists disappeared at once. If we don’t solve the demon problem, then even if we want to enter the trial stages and complete our trials, we’ll still be on edge every moment.”

“So the best method is to strike first and wipe them out completely on the battlefield we set for them.”

“And precisely because of that, we have to consider the plan thoroughly. You were the one who got the first kill on the demon, a meritorious man. But for this operation, we need you to show up. More accurately, you’ll be serving as the second piece of bait.”

“What!”

Wei Cheng was shocked, then said in confusion, “Shouldn’t the bait be that dark rune?”

“That is the main bait, yes. But you, as the one who achieved the first demon kill, also need to cooperate. We’ve already spread your deeds through several channels. Of course, we used false names. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. This is mainly about catching whatever we can. If other infiltrating demons become interested in you, wouldn’t that be a win for us?”

“Besides, you don’t need to worry about safety. In Dong’an Community, we’ve already deployed five hundred elite trialists, including a number of core members from the P-prefixed legions. The highest mental power among them reaches as much as level 5.5. On top of that, there are several heavy weapons, such as close-in defense guns.”

“We’ve never been afraid that demons will appear. We’re afraid that they won’t. Do you understand?”

Wei Cheng was deeply shaken and nodded like a pecking chick. He truly understood that all too well.

There was no helping it. Up to now, Earth was still the government’s home turf.

Damn it, a close-in defense gun. Who knew whether his ultimate form, the Motionless Golden Bell, could hold out for even one second?

Still, if the core members of the P-prefixed legion had mental power at level 5.5, could they also be people who shared his habit of rounding things up?

Wei Cheng was not entirely sure.

And Zhang Ji seemed able to guess what he was thinking. He smiled and said, “We have tested it. The ultimate form of the very best Nine-Flower Mountain-Moving Method, the Motionless Golden Bell, can withstand close-in defense gun fire for three seconds. Of course, if it’s the newest model, that’s another matter.”

“Anyway, on Earth, we still hold the advantage for now. But the future is hard to say. So what the government needs to do now is ensure the logistical support of the trialists, so that everyone can go into trials at ease, with confidence and boldness, until we can build a new home and open a new chapter.”

“No matter how bad things get, at least we still have a future.”

“Right. In that case, you’ll disguise yourself as a truck driver transporting construction materials to the Dong’an Community worksite. This is your action manual. It tells you what this identity should say and do.”

“Don’t be too nervous, and don’t be too exaggerated. In fact, I don’t even think the demon will come looking for you. But when the government does things, it always aims for perfection. Just understand that.”