Chapter 407: The Upper Echelon
Everyone was at a loss now. No one would have imagined that simply walking down the street as usual would lead them to encounter a Heavenly Snake.
Nearly all the games of Human Snakes and Earth Snakes couldn't escape "question and answer." It seemed clear that this Heavenly Snake must be an expert in that regard.
Could they escape their predicament just by asking him questions?
"I have one last question..." Zhang Chenze's gaze turned icy. "If you know the answer to this one too, then even if you kill me, I'll accept it."
"Go ahead," the Heavenly Snake sneered. "As long as your question has an answer, there's no way I won't know it."
Zhang Chenze took a deep breath. Following Lin Qin's example, she closed her eyes and said, "I have a colleague. Every Monday, he goes to eat hotpot alone at the restaurant downstairs from our office. His favorite dishes are the pig's aorta and the filefish, because the names the restaurant gave them are very interesting. May I ask what these two dishes are called at that restaurant?"
The moment she said this, the few people nearby were all stunned.
"Huh...?" The Heavenly Snake was taken aback. Although he had clearly heard every word in the question, he couldn't understand a single bit of it.
"What is 'yellow throat'...?" the Heavenly Snake asked. "And... 'hao'er fish'...?"
"Five-second countdown." Zhang Chenze continued with her eyes closed.
The air froze before everyone for five seconds. The Heavenly Snake couldn't utter a single word.
"See?" Zhang Chenze opened her eyes. "There are things you don't know either... So you have no right to decide whether we live or die, right?"
"Did you just make that question up?!" The Heavenly Snake looked into Zhang Chenze's eyes. A few seconds later, he realized he had miscalculated — this question actually had an answer.
The Heavenly Snake's expression grew colder and colder, his pale face beginning to twitch.
"I must have you as my assistant..." He glanced at the two corpses beside him. "You are far more formidable than they are..."
"No, I told you — each of us has a great deal of knowledge that you don't possess." Zhang Chenze continued calmly. "If you want to become more and more learned, then don't kill anyone so easily."
The Heavenly Snake gazed into Zhang Chenze's eyes once more. His lips moved. "You actually didn't lie to me?"
"That's right. I don't like lying." Zhang Chenze said.
"How strange..." He approached her step by step, extending an icy hand and placing it on Zhang Chenze's neck. "Every time I appear, everyone lies to me... but you, on the contrary, didn't?"
The bloodstained, ice-cold fingertips touching Zhang Chenze's neck made her tremble slightly.
"Your experiences are so peculiar..." The Heavenly Snake stared at Zhang Chenze's eyes with a bizarre expression. "You are so knowledgeable... yet your family is so ignorant? Can you truly tolerate your own life?"
"I'm different from you." Zhang Chenze replied. "There are indeed many ignorant people in this world, but I don't want to make them all learned. I can only do my best for myself."
She thought of her own absurd life.
To escape that cannibalistic mountain village, she had been learning new things at every moment, just to make herself better. She never expected that it would come in handy at a time like this.
"Makes sense."
Zhang Chenze suppressed her fear and spoke. "I like people who are reasonable. You won't kill us for no reason, right?"
The Heavenly Snake was silent for a long while, then finally withdrew his hand.
"You're right." He nodded. "What I hate most in this life is being lied to. Since you didn't lie to me and are so knowledgeable, I have no reason to kill you... Now, tell me where that man named Chen Junnan is, and I'll let you go."
Lin Qin and Yun Yao hesitated upon hearing this. Among everyone present, only the two of them knew Chen Junnan's exact location, and only they knew where "Cat" was.
"Do you have any connection with that man named Chen Junnan?" the Heavenly Snake asked. "Are you willing to die for him?"
"Of course not. I can tell you his location." Lin Qin said.
"Hey... are you serious?" Yun Yao whispered. "Qi Xia and the others are there too."
"There's no other way..." Lin Qin replied quietly. "Even if we don't say it, he still has a way to read our thoughts. Since that's the case, we might as well trade it for our lives."
Through her observations just now, Lin Qin had noticed that the Heavenly Snake seemed to have a strange obsession — he liked intelligent people.
In other words... if she led him to Qi Xia, Qi Xia would most likely not die.
If even Zhang Chenze could come up with a countermeasure on the spot, then Qi Xia certainly could.
Moreover, the "Twin Flowers" were stationed there. Even a Heavenly-level "Zodiac" would have to think twice before making a move.
"Look into my eyes." Lin Qin said. "The location of 'Cat' is in my memory."
The Heavenly Snake stared into her eyes for a long while, then suddenly widened his own.
"Not only is the location of 'Cat' in your eyes... there's also a vision of me fighting 'Cat'! You want me to go fight that man named 'Qian Wu'?!"
"What...? No..."
He immediately reached out toward Lin Qin, aiming straight for her heart. "How dare you play tricks on me!!"
Lin Qin was stunned. She had never communicated with someone like this before, and had no idea what the upper limit of his abilities was.
Just as the Heavenly Snake's hand was about to pierce Lin Qin's heart, a massive, powerful gust of wind suddenly swept through, sending the people present staggering.
The Heavenly Snake stood upright at once and turned around. Behind him stood an old man with a withered, haggard face.
The man was standing on tiptoes, his entire body leaning forward at an eerie angle, his face almost pressed against the Heavenly Snake's.
"You..." The Heavenly Snake stepped back and reached up to adjust his glasses.
"A stench of 'Zodiac'..." The old man bared his only remaining tooth, his expression strange. "It's not my place to meddle... but what gives you the right to swagger down the street and kill participants? Who gave you the nerve?"
"Y-You are...?" The Heavenly Snake hadn't felt a sense of oppression from anyone else in a long time. This old man gave him a peculiar feeling.
"How strange..." The old man narrowed his dry, yellowed, murky eyes at the Heavenly Snake. "You've clearly violated the rules... yet no one has interfered? How delicate the balance is here... If it's broken, won't the consequences be endless?"
The Heavenly Snake stared back at the old man. To his horror, he couldn't read a single thought from him.
This old man didn't seem human. His heart was nothing but a pitch-black void, like a mindless stone.
"Y-You are a 'Divine Beast'?" The Heavenly Snake was taken aback.
After all, the only ones who could speak to a "Heavenly-level" like this were "Divine Beasts," and among the four "Divine Beasts," the only one he had never seen was "White Tiger."
"I am 'White Tiger.'" The old man slowly straightened his posture. "Which household do you belong to, 'Zodiac'? By whose order are you killing people?"