Chapter 849: Showdown
After saying that, he took a piece of prop cloth and covered her head with it, plunging her vision into darkness. The light spots inside the stone suddenly brightened, looking almost like a starry sky.
"It's very beautiful." Xu Huo lifted the cloth off his head. "Where did you get that prop?"
"Mr. Dong gave it to me." The Painting Woman clutched the new communicator in her pocket, picked up the stone, and ran off.
Carrying the stone, Xu Huo went to the study to check the ores placed alongside the Nuwa Stone. After testing them with an instrument, he found no changes.
Ores near a Primordial Stone would be affected and turn into Subclass Stones, but what kind of Subclass Stone they became, or exactly how long it took, was uncertain.
Xu Huo thought for a moment, then put the stone into the pocket inside his clothes.
He needed the Nuwa Stone to nurture the King Fungus, so he couldn't keep the stone on him all the time; he had to alternate.
"Sir?" Mr. Dong knocked on the door outside. "The goods you ordered have arrived."
The wormhole flowers and props Xu Huo had ordered that morning weren't rare high-level items, so delivery was fast.
Placing one pot of wormhole flowers on the desk, he took the other pot into the inner space of the castle.
Taking out the green potion, Xu Huo dipped a cotton swab in it and applied it to a leaf of the wormhole flower. Sure enough, within a few seconds, the area where the potion touched changed from purple to red.
On this point, Dr. Deng had not lied.
To be safe, he tested it again with an ordinary potion. This time, an unevenly colored spot appeared, the same as even the best quality evolution agents available on the market.
This result showed that the information Dr. Deng had given him and the method he described for identifying the Perfect Potion were genuine.
He just didn't know how much stock Dr. Deng still had.
Xu Huo didn't plan to inject the potion right away. He tore off the wormhole flower leaf that had been touched, destroyed it, then put the flower back into the luggage compartment. After leaving, he took the props and went to the guesthouse.
As someone "without a Perfect Potion," he could only verify the truth with the help of props.
Of course, he couldn't show the props directly to Dr. Deng; he had to be half-concealing.
Dr. Deng must have understood the reason for his renewed questioning and cooperated in completing the prop "test." The final result was that both the wormhole flower verification of the potion and the incompleteness of the information were actually true.
Xu Huo smiled as he looked at him. "You made a mistake."
"You knew I wouldn't believe you had told the complete truth, yet the prop tested everything as true. That means you have a way to circumvent prop detection. So, is even one word you said true?"
Dr. Deng smiled but said nothing.
Xu Huo put away the props and stood up. When he reached the door, he said to Mr. Dong, "Keep him locked up for a few more days. He's got nothing better to do anyway."
Mr. Dong nodded.
Dr. Deng, unable to leave or go out, quickly said, "Are we still in a cooperative relationship or not?"
"If you'd stop trying to arm-wrestle me, our cooperation would be very harmonious." Xu Huo waved his hand and left.
Perhaps accustomed to his fickleness, Dr. Deng, whose time in solitary had been extended, didn't feel too distressed. Instead, he said, "As long as we can still cooperate, it's fine."
By dinner time, Bai Kou still hadn't returned. Xu Huo waited in the living room for a while. Before she arrived, he first received a contact from the Duchess. The Duchess invited him to her residence, saying she needed his help with something.
Xu Huo's first action after ending the call was to search for news online. It was still the same old news from the main city area; there was no information about the movements of the 011 District players or the Enforcement Department.
After a moment's hesitation, he decided to go. Before leaving, he gave a few instructions to Mr. Dong.
When he arrived, he realized the situation might be more serious than he had imagined.
The Duchess's mansion was surrounded by parked aircraft. Black and white epaulets from the Enforcement Department and government players were present, along with many players dressed in noble attire.
The Enforcement Department and government players had surrounded the mansion, while the noble players were split into two opposing groups in the garden. Behind them were many players whose identities couldn't be discerned. However, distinguishing "friend from foe" wasn't difficult, because Serin, mixed in with one side, was waving at him.
As Xu Huo approached, he observed the situation inside the castle. The lesser nobles were outside, while those with more status were already inside. Among them were Ashis and others he had seen before, but they were sitting opposite the weeping Lady Lily, the two sides seemingly in a standoff.
"Aren't you curious about what's going on?" Serin used a prop to communicate with him. "Lady Lily's brother is suspected of secretly communicating with the Holy Sword Society, and the person is hiding inside the castle."
Xu Huo looked at the castle. Although the door was closed, voices still leaked out.
Lady Lily wiped her tears as she spoke. "Are you all just going to bully a widow like this?"
"You don't even say what happened, and you just bring the Black Epaulets to surround my mansion... What's the point of me being a Duchess? Do you think I'm easy to bully because I've lost my man and have no one to rely on?"
Through the glass on the door, one could see the faces of the nobles and senior government officials opposite were grim. A white-haired old man in the middle said, "Lady Lily, let's talk slowly. The government always acts according to the rules; they must have evidence to come here."
"What evidence?" The still-attractive Lady Lily's eyes were full of tears, and she said weakly, "My father, my mother, my two elder brothers, my two younger brothers, five male cousins on my father's side, three younger male cousins on my father's side, and four younger male cousins on my mother's side—all of them sacrificed themselves for District 011."
"My parents died in their prime. One of my two elder brothers left behind a child less than a year old, the other had only been married for two months. Of my two younger brothers, one was about to get married when he died on the battlefield—his fiancée remains unmarried to this day. The other was captured by players from an outer district, tortured cruelly before being strangled, and his body was dismembered after death... He was only twenty-five!"
"My cousins on both sides, not one of them even had a complete corpse to be buried."
"Even my husband was mistakenly killed on a ship..."
Her tearful account moved the few elderly people opposite to pity. One of them sighed, "District 011 will never forget anyone's sacrifice..."
"No," the Duchess interrupted him. "For the future of District 011, I accept their sacrifice. But half of my family died on the battlefield, and now I'm being suspected of having ties to the Holy Sword Society? Isn't that forcing me to die?"
"Or are the real traitors deliberately framing me to divert attention?"
"You elders have watched me grow up. Can you bear to see me, a new widow, pushed to this point?"
The few elders looked troubled, but Ashis wasn't buying her act. He said coldly, "We wouldn't have come without sufficient evidence. Lady Lily, it's best if you let your brother come out to accept the investigation. Besides him, you still have other relatives."
"Are you threatening me?" Lady Lily's gaze turned icy. "The Miler family was bleeding for District 011 before you were even born. Now that the Miler family is in decline, are we only fit to have our dignity trampled and be used as a stepping stone for upstarts like you?"