“Pretending…?” Chu Tianqiu forced out a strained smile with great effort. “You’re saying I’m pretending?”

“I don’t care whether you’re the leader of ‘Heaven’s Mouth’ or the deity who rules this place. Why would you provoke me?” Qi Xia said coldly.

“I…” Chu Tianqiu’s expression was clearly somewhat strange. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t have imagined that Qi Xia actually had this kind of personality. “How did I provoke you…?”

“Last time I came to find you, you deliberately acted mysterious and wasted half an hour of my time. Do you know how important that half hour was to me at the time? Wouldn’t it have been better to just speak directly?” Qi Xia turned his head and grabbed a brick-sized stone from the ground. “This time I trusted you and brought everyone here collectively, yet you immediately tied up my teammate without a word. Chu Tianqiu, why would you provoke me?”

Qi Xia weighed the stone in his hand, feeling it was enough to crack someone’s skull open.

“You, you wait…” Chu Tianqiu was truly somewhat afraid. He hurriedly waved his hand. “Listen to me, there are reasons for everything I’ve done!”

“Unfortunately, you didn’t tell me the reasons in advance.” Qi Xia said expressionlessly. “The thing I hate most in my life is things that exceed my expectations. You may think that acting mysteriously like this makes you appear powerful, but to me it seems extremely childish. No matter what shocking ‘truth’ you reveal next, I’m prepared to smash your head open.”

“Qi, Qi Xia… wait!” Yun Yao hurriedly ran over and grabbed Qi Xia’s hand. “What are you trying to do? You can’t kill Chu Tianqiu here!”

“Then ‘where’ can I kill him?” Qi Xia asked. “Do I need to specifically drag him to the corridor?”

“You…” Yun Yao’s face showed uncertain emotions, looking extremely flustered. “Qi Xia, I’ll apologize on Chu Tianqiu’s behalf… but if you kill him now, we’ll have no hope of getting out…”

“It doesn’t matter. We can all come back to life after we die anyway.” Qi Xia sneered. “This time I’ll smash your skull open to teach you a lesson—don’t provoke me in the ‘next life.'”

“Don’t…” Chu Tianqiu’s eyes widened instantly. “I can’t die yet…”

Qi Xia’s gaze was incomparably cold, clearly not bluffing at all.

With Chu Tianqiu and Yun Yao looking on in panic, Qi Xia raised the stone high, then smashed it down viciously.

A massive sound suddenly rang out, and dust instantly flew up from the ground.

Yun Yao hurriedly closed her eyes and turned her head to the side.

But the scene she imagined of brain matter splattering everywhere didn’t appear—the stone had fallen on the ground beside Chu Tianqiu.

Looking at Chu Tianqiu’s flustered expression, Qi Xia slowly asked, “Did you remember everything I said?”

“I, I remember…” Chu Tianqiu stammered in reply.

“Remember what?”

“I, I can’t provoke you…”

“Very good.” Qi Xia clapped his hands, stood up, then found a chair to sit down in and asked, “Why did you kidnap Qiao Jiajin?”

The still-shaken Yun Yao hurried over to help Chu Tianqiu up.

Chu Tianqiu smiled awkwardly and picked up his knocked-off glasses from the ground, slowly putting them back on.

“You truly are a formidable person…” Chu Tianqiu smiled unpleasantly. “I originally thought I could give you a ‘show of force’ today, but I nearly got trampled to death by your horse instead.”

“Chu Tianqiu, if you want me to become a reliable teammate, then put away your ‘tactics’ and be sincere with me.” Qi Xia replied coldly. “I’m not an ordinary person. If you keep playing mind games with me, you’ll only provoke my anger.”

“Indeed, I now deeply understand that.” Chu Tianqiu spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground and also found a seat to sit down in, looking considerably more honest. “Just now when I saw your eyes, I thought you really would kill me…”

“But I’m a liar.” Qi Xia said. “You can only believe half of what I say.”

The three people sat facing three different directions, the atmosphere somewhat silent.

“You still haven’t answered me.” Qi Xia said. “Why did you kidnap Qiao Jiajin? Where are the others?”

“Qi Xia, your situation is very dangerous.” Chu Tianqiu steadied himself and raised his head to speak. “Your team has a very serious problem.”

“A serious problem?” Qi Xia furrowed his brow. “Which aspect are you referring to?”

“The number of people is wrong.” Chu Tianqiu said, cutting straight to the point. “There’s a problem with the male-to-female ratio of people who walked out of your room.”

“Oh?” Qi Xia looked at the refined-looking man before him. “There’s a problem with the male-to-female ratio?”

“That’s right.” Chu Tianqiu nodded seriously. “To tell you the truth, the people who walked out of your room should have been ‘six men and three women,’ but now it’s ‘five men and four women.'”

“Mm.” Qi Xia nodded and said, “I understand. And then?”

“And, and then?” Chu Tianqiu was startled. “Qi Xia, don’t you understand what I mean? There’s an extremely high possibility that an ‘Extreme Path’ member has infiltrated your team. I’m not sure exactly how many intruders there are, so I’ve restrained everyone.”

“I said I understand.” Qi Xia spoke up. “Are there any other reasons?”

“I…” Chu Tianqiu completely hadn’t anticipated this attitude from Qi Xia, and his eyes widened instantly. “I see… you’re truly a terrifying person… could it be that you already knew about this?”

Qi Xia silently nodded. “Chu Tianqiu, I’m somewhat suspicious now.”

“Suspicious?”

“Making such a big fuss like this—are you really a clever person?” Qi Xia slowly stood up, his unfathomably deep eyes filled with doubt. “If you discovered that someone in our team is from the ‘Extreme Path,’ shouldn’t you discreetly pull out this thorn? Yet you’ve made such a commotion and alerted the enemy. This doesn’t seem like the work of a clever person.”

“You…” Chu Tianqiu looked at Qi Xia meaningfully. “I miscalculated. I didn’t expect that you already knew about this.”

“I’ve long known that there’s most likely an ‘Extreme Path’ member in my team, but this person is very strange.” Qi Xia said. “I’ve teamed up with most of them, and I’ve also exposed myself at my most defenseless moments in front of many people, but no one has harmed me, nor has anyone seized any ‘Dao,’ so I’ve been considering whether I need to spend a few days to deal with this problem.”

Qi Xia knew well that the only woman in the entire team who hadn’t teamed up with him was Xiao Ran.

But was she from the “Extreme Path”?

Looking at her performance overall, the word “suspicious” might as well have been carved on her face.

Would the “Extreme Path” really arrange such a foolish person to infiltrate the team as a spy?

“Since no one has harbored any ill intentions at all, how do you know there’s an ‘Extreme Path’ member in the team?” Yun Yao asked from the side.

“This is a very simple yet very bizarre logic.” Qi Xia scratched his head and said, “If I’m not mistaken, your initial interview rooms all had ‘nine people,’ right?”

“Yes.” Yun Yao nodded from the side. “Weren’t you ‘nine people’ too?”

“That’s right. Our room had ‘ten people.'”

Qi Xia’s words left the two of them momentarily stunned.

“Ten people?!”