Chapter 80 – The Manipulator Behind the Scenes Reveals Himself
LingYang never expected YeLang to bring him to LuoMing. “Why did you bring me to the sports school?”
“Didn"t you previously arrange with Uncle He to look for him here?”
LingYang thought for awhile, finally recalling that he had said something like this, “Ah! That"s right! How did I forget about this?” At that time, he had only said it casually, but what if Uncle He still remembered it?
QiFeng and T.Rex happened to be playing basketball at the court. T.Rex did not look very happy when he saw LingYang, “Didn"t you say that you were coming for that thing? It"s been so long already, why are you going back on your words?”
LingYang hurriedly tried to coax him, “Sorry sorry, I"ve been very busy recently, so I forgot about it. Can you bring me there now?”
With an unwilling expression, T.Rex brought LingYang to the judo training hall, leaving QiFeng and YeLang behind.
Seeing YeLang like this, QiFeng knew that he had something he wanted to ask.
“What"s the matter?”
YeLang pulled out a voice recorder from his pocket. After QiFeng put on the earphones, he played the last recorded clip for him, purposely skipping the female section at the start.
QiFeng finished listening to it, “Why are you making me listen to this?”
“You"re the one who suddenly appeared at the end right?”
“That"s right,” He openly admitted to it.
“I want to know more details.”
“More details?” QiFeng raised his brows. “It"s exactly what you heard. LingYang was bullied by others, I happened to pa.s.s by and so saved him. That person had ran away by then, so I didn"t see him.”
“You didn"t see him?”
“But I know who he is. After awhile, LingYang told me about him, it"s that cousin of his first love"s girlfriend.” QiFeng purposely emphasised the two words, first love. He was someone who always liked stirring trouble to provoke others, with such prime material, how could he not do so.
YeLang knew that he did it intentionally, but his face could not help but darken.
“But I"m very curious, how did you manage to get this recording? This clip is enough to sue the person for grievous a.s.sault.”
YeLang hesitated for a bit, but decided to speak truthfully. “This voice recorder belongs to HuLi.”
“Who?”
“HuLi, he"s called Fox in the game.”
The smile on QiFeng"s face slowly faded away, his expression turning serious. “What did you say?”
“You know him?” YeLang asked in reply.
QiFeng"s eyes drifted to the side, as though talking to himself, “This doesn"t make sense.”
He contemplated for awhile, then asked YeLang, “You didn"t let me hear the whole clip, correct? There"s still something at the start.”
YeLang paused, “Yes.”
“Did HuLi say anything?”
“No.”
“When LingYang told me about this, he also did not mention that HuLi was at the scene. That means, it"s very likely that he recorded this secretly.”
YeLang had never thought about this before, but after pondering over it, since the previous clip had been secretly recorded by HuLi, it was likely that the next part was the same as well.
“Do you know why after getting attacked, LingYang did not report it to the police?”
“Why?”
“Because he always thought that he was the one in the wrong, so he had kept it to himself the entire time. However, if this has something to do with HuLi, then it"s completely different now.”
“What do you mean?”
“To tell you the truth, it was not a coincidence that I happened to be there that day. LingYang, HuLi, me, and many others, including your guild leader MuRong, we were all at the same place that night.”
QiFeng took two slow steps, recounting. “LingYang and I knew each other from the old server, but once LinShan was created, I moved over. We were only casual acquaintances in the game, that night was the first time we"ve met.”
“As for the reason we met… It was the first PK compet.i.tion of Pale Soul in HuShuo City.”
YeLang knew of this compet.i.tion, and also knew that MuRong and LingYang had partic.i.p.ated in it. However, he was not a fan of PVP, so he had never paid attention to it.
“Before the semifinals, the compet.i.tion was hosted online. Starting from the semifinals, it was now hosted locally. Both my team and LingYang"s team were in the 3v3 compet.i.tion, and we played against each other in the first draw.”
“LingYang is very skilled, and we"ve always acknowledged him as our number one opponent. However, to tell the truth, he did not perform very well that day, it was far from his usual standards.”
“I still thought that we could get an easy win, but who would have guessed that our team"s XiaoGe had made a rookie mistake, and Bai ShaoTang took advantage of that and pressed on. Hence, they moved on to the finals the next day, while we only got third place.”
“That night, the game developers had booked the entire venue for the compet.i.tors to interact. That venue was that bar. When the incident happened, I was just outside the bar, and heard someone screaming in the alley. By the time I rushed there, LingYang was already like that. I wanted to call his teammates over, but he did not allow me to do so, and I could only send him to the hospital.”
“The next day…” QiFeng"s words slowed down. “His two teammates kept calling him non-stop, but he refused to pick up the calls. Finally, I could no longer stand it and answered it, even putting it on speaker mode. I only wanted to make him clear the air with his teammates, but who would have thought…”
QiFeng shook his head, as though regretting what he did, “You should have heard about what happened then. His little sweetheart gave him a good scolding, saying that he was wilful and irresponsible for deserting them, and said a lot of other things as well. At that time, LingYang"s body was full of injuries, and his left hand was practically mangled. There were many people there as well,” QiFeng suddenly laughed. “An older lady could no longer listen to it, and even ran over, wanting to help LingYang, but he s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone over and switched it off, so his two teammates never knew about it.”
“When LingYang was in the hospital, there was only me — who just met him — to accompany him. He was very emotional, and told me many things about his past, even saying that he no longer had any face to see the two of them, and no longer wanted to return to the game. It just happened that my little brother wanted to start playing 2v2 instead, and I"ve been searching for a new teammate for awhile. So I suggested to him to join us in the new server, and he finally agreed…” QiFeng looked at YeLang. “But I didn"t expect you to put a halt to that.”
YeLang finally understood why LingYang changed servers and bought an account. “But I still don"t understand what HuLi has to do with this.”
“With LingYang"s fingers injured, and his absence from the compet.i.tion, his team had no choice but to forfeit. The other team would win automatically, and they easily got the championship.” QiFeng placed his hands in his pockets. “That was HuLi"s team.”
As YeLang and QiFeng headed towards the judo training hall, they unexpectedly met MuRong.
Although Pa.s.sionate Sword and LuoMing had turned from rivals into allies, with MuRong and QiFeng signing an alliance agreement in the game, but it was a fact that MuRong had instigated T.Rex to discard the gender-changing pearl, forcing LuoMing Feng to marry Uncle He as a girl. MuRong knew that QiFeng was someone who would seek revenge even for the smallest grievances, for them to meet today, MuRong"s smile was still very friendly, but he was already strategising on how to deal with this situation.
MuRong was very surprised to see his MT together with QiFeng, and did not understand how the two of them would hang out together.
It was as though QiFeng could guess his suspicions, and took the initiative to give him an explanation. “Student Night Wolf came to look for me to discuss about moving guilds.”
“Moving guilds?” MuRong was startled.
“He said he no longer wanted to stay in Pa.s.sionate Sword, and wants to move over to our LuoMing. Does Guild Leader MuRong have any opinions on this?”
The corner of MuRong"s lips twitched, he knew that he was being made fun of.
YeLang could not be bothered to play along with them, “Senior, why are you here?”
MuRong turned his attention onto YeLang, “I"m here to look for your ex-wife.”
QiFeng burst out laughing, while YeLang was speechless.
MuRong completely did not notice that YeLang was unhappy with that phrase, and continued, “I heard that your ex-wife was hospitalised a few days ago, but was soon discharged. I could only come to his school to see if I can get some information about his location now.”
“Why are you looking for him?” YeLang automatically dismissed the phrase that he did not want to hear.
“Sakka told me, when your ex-wife was in the hospital, he had argued with someone on the phone, and that person happens to be someone I know.”
“Who is it?”
“HuLi.”
HuLi again? YeLang exchanged glances with QiFeng.
“Both Sakka and I found this matter very fishy, so I came over to investigate.”
QiFeng spoke up, “If it"s that person, I"ve seen him a couple of days ago.” He was also there on Christmas Eve when the fake Bell"s ident.i.ty was exposed. Those two people happened to be his schoolmates, so he remembered them.
“You saw him?”
He nodded, “He"s been too conspicuous recently, you can"t avoid hearing about him. However, I don"t know where is he now exactly, but…”
He randomly pulled over a student walking by, “Junior, our school recently has a student who broke his leg, do you know where is he staying?”
“I do, he"s on the same floor as me, Block 6 Room 218.”
QiFeng patted him, “Thanks, Junior.”
QiFeng brought the two of them to Block 6, and as expected, they found the injured wretched boy in room 218 lying on his bed.
After seeing them, the wretched boy was very nervous. Previously, it was MuRong who had tricked him into coming out, causing his ident.i.ty to be exposed and get beaten, he could not even get off his bed for a few days after that.
“Don"t be nervous, little brother,” MuRong went over to his bed to placate him. However, the more kindly he behaved, the more nervous the other person got.
“You, what do you guys want to do, I"m no longer scamming anybody now. I"m not even playing the game anymore, I I I am really not lying.”
“Then what happened to your leg? Wasn"t it because you got beaten after scamming others?”
“That never happened! I got into a car accident!”
“Is it?” MuRong poked at the wretched boy"s body. “Then, do you dare to let us check your injuries?”
The wretched guy stopped him, but did not dare to make a sound.
YeLang did not plan on going in circles with him, and asked directly, “Do you know HuLi?”
The wretched boy was frightened, “How, how did you know that?”
“Your injuries have nothing to do with him?”
The boy tightened his lips, it seemed as though he was struggling internally. Seeing him like this, YeLang knew that HuLi definitely had something to do with his injuries.
He hesitated for very long, before deciding to speak out, “Fine, I can tell you, but,” He looked at MuRong, then at QiFeng. “I will only tell you alone.”
When the two of them left, the wretched guy motioned YeLang to come closer. When YeLang approached him, he latched onto him, giving YeLang a fright.
The wretched guy spoke rapidly and urgently, “I know you"re a good person, you have to help me.”
YeLang frowned, “What exactly is going on?”
“The person who beat me is a big guy, but I know he"s not the mastermind, he is only following the directions of others.”
“Who?”
“HuLi! HuLi was the one who asked him to do it!”
“Why did HuLi ask him to beat you?”
“Because I know his secret!”