Chapter: The remnants of the Ninth Unit indeed had a large group of people daring to do such things.
"Just pretend you don't know."
Su Xiao understood that this was another murky situation he didn't want to get involved in.
However...
Thump, thump, thump.
The knocking came again. This time, the young adjutant casually pulled a steam bomb from inside her coat.
Opening the door, two soldiers and an imperial official stood outside.
"Is Lord Kukulin here?"
"He is... probably."
The young adjutant answered vaguely.
"Probably?"
The messenger, a civil officer, looked at the young adjutant with confusion and pressed further:
"Is he here or not?"
"Cough, it seems... he's not..."
Before the young adjutant could finish, Su Xiao pushed past her, blocking the doorway. Both the civil officer and the young adjutant felt awkward.
"Lord Kukulin, the Holy King summons you."
"When?"
Su Xiao also wanted to say he wasn't there, but the messenger had already arrived at the door.
"Now."
The civil officer smiled obsequiously, making the situation hard to read.
...
Lunfen Palace, Rear Garden.
When Su Xiao arrived at the rear garden, the old Holy King was standing before a whitewood tree, dressed in formal attire.
"Is the Soul Whisperer still alive?"
The old Holy King appeared normal, but Su Xiao caught a faint scent of blood.
"Still alive."
"That's good. There's something I need you to do. This morning, the Western Moro Empire sent an envoy to discuss post-war reparations. The representative from the Divine Maiden's side is the Empire's Flower, Sonia. You'll also act as our representative. The time is 10 AM the day after tomorrow."
The old Holy King never mentioned the assassination attempt, instead assigning Su Xiao to participate in negotiations between the two empires as their representative.
It wasn't until Su Xiao left Lunfen Palace that the young adjutant following behind him remained on edge.
"Commander, was it really our people who did it?"
The young adjutant finally couldn't help asking.
"The old Holy King never brought it up with me."
"That's good, that's good."
The young adjutant patted her chest. She wasn't afraid of dying in battle, but feared being framed with false charges and dying inexplicably.
"The old Holy King didn't mention it, which means it must have been someone from our Ninth Unit."
"I..."
The young adjutant grabbed her short brown hair with both hands, muttering something under her breath.
Su Xiao didn't take the negotiation with the Western Moro Empire envoy the day after tomorrow too seriously. Although it was ostensibly a ceasefire, the Dawn Empire barely counted as the victor among the three empires. Today's meeting was just the old Holy King's attitude. What the remnants of the Ninth Unit did was no longer Su Xiao's concern.
Returning to the two-story civilian house, Su Xiao began preparing for Bubu Wang's plan.
"Bubu, can you hear me?"
Su Xiao pressed the wireless earpiece on his ear.
"Woof."
Bubu Wang's bark came through, accompanied by the sound of a choir from his end. At this time, Bubu Wang was most likely inside the Grand Cathedral.
"What does the Moon Divine Maiden cherish most?"
"Woof~ (Let me think)."
After a moment of thought, Bubu Wang gave his answer: the Moon Divine Maiden valued the Moon Goddess statue in her prayer room very much.
"Then steal it. Are you sure she can foresee the future?"
"Woof (Sure, I saw her predict once)."
"Specific details."
Through Bubu Wang's description, Su Xiao learned about one of the Moon Divine Maiden's abilities: foreseeing the future. The extent of what she could predict was unknown for now, but it should only be small fragments, text information, or a short snippet of sound.
If the Moon Divine Maiden could frequently foresee the future and obtain complete visual images of it, the old Holy King would have been dealt with by her long ago, and there wouldn't be this evenly matched confrontation now.
Moreover, Su Xiao felt that such a nearly shameless ability must have multiple restrictions, such as needing to personally see the person to be predicted or obtaining their personal belongings to perform the prediction.
Otherwise, none of Su Xiao's plans so far would have succeeded, let alone using the Empire's Flower, Sonia, to sneak monitoring bees into the prayer room—that would have been an impossible task.
At this point, Su Xiao confirmed that the Moon Divine Maiden was slightly inferior to the old Holy King in terms of being an old schemer, as she possessed precognitive abilities.
...
That afternoon at 5 PM, inside the Moon God Monastery.
The Moon Divine Maiden, as usual, entered the prayer room at 5 PM. She stretched her slightly sore arms and knelt devoutly on the square velvet cushion.
"Oh, Moon Goddess..."
Just as she was about to begin her prayer, before closing her eyes, she inadvertently glanced at the Moon Goddess statue, causing her movements to freeze.
The Moon Divine Maiden was stunned for at least two seconds, pondering one thing: where had her Moon Goddess gone? It was there this morning, so how was it gone now!
At that moment, Bubu Wang, crouching beside the Moon Divine Maiden, wanted to ask: 'Well, how about it? Surprise, unexpected, exciting? Gone just like that. Don't worry, there are plenty more surprises like this until your mentality shatters.'