# 1045
Chapter 1045: Tricks and Counter-Tricks
He didn't touch his nose.
An Qingyu noticed this too, her eyes slightly contracting.
For this situation, An Qingyu could only think of three possibilities.
The first: Leng Xuan agreed with Si Xiaonan's "lie," thinking it was a pity they couldn't return to Asgard in time.
The second: he had forgotten.
The third... he wasn't Leng Xuan.
An Qingyu's mind raced. She raised her hand and nonchalantly touched her own nose.
"In that case, let's quickly search the area. Maybe we'll find other clues."
Touching the nose meant the opposite. So An Qingyu's actual meaning was: don't rush into action, just stand by at the current location.
Si Xiaonan understood An Qingyu's intention and quietly glanced at Leng Xuan beside her.
Leng Xuan slightly nodded, his gaze scanning the surroundings before quickly selecting a direction and striding out.
Seeing this scene, the hearts of both An Qingyu and Si Xiaonan completely sank.
Two consecutive instances of the opposite phrase, and Leng Xuan showed no reaction. This could no longer be a matter of forgetting... Only one possibility remained.
He wasn't Leng Xuan.
Si Xiaonan's face turned deathly pale. Her eyes tightly stared in the direction Leng Xuan was leaving, and her lips couldn't stop trembling.
If he wasn't Leng Xuan... then who could it be?
Leng Xuan walked two steps, noticed the two hadn't followed, turned back, and slowly spoke.
"Xiaonan, what's wrong?"
The breeze brushed past his sleeves. On the back of that hand with the black snake arm, Loki's ear had already disappeared.
Si Xiaonan felt her heart skip a beat, but rationality instantly took over her body. She did her best to calm her state of mind and spoke nonchalantly.
"Nothing, I'm coming."
She walked after Leng Xuan.
An Qingyu followed closely behind her, her eyes meeting Si Xiaonan's. While Leng Xuan was looking forward and walking, she silently parted her lips and made a mouth shape:
—Loki?
Si Xiaonan pressed her lips together and slightly nodded.
An Qingyu's expression immediately became grave.
Loki could actually descend onto Leng Xuan's body from across the ocean using just that black ear? This method was truly too strange.
If that were the case, Loki would have gone from a behind-the-scenes listener to directly entering the game, becoming a living piece hidden in the shadows.
Having a trickster god of Asgard混入Kunlun Ruins was by no means good news for Great Xia.
If it weren't for the nose-touching code that had exposed Loki's identity in advance, even he and Si Xiaonan wouldn't have noticed any abnormality.
An Qingyu's mind spun rapidly, searching for a way to break the deadlock.
"Xiaonan."
In the silent atmosphere, Leng Xuan suddenly spoke.
Si Xiaonan's eyes slightly contracted before quickly recovering calm. "What's wrong?"
Leng Xuan opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, yet silently shook his head. "It's nothing..."
Saying these three words, he picked up a branch from the ground and wrote in Chinese on the earth:
—Are we really doing this to deceive Loki?
The moment she saw this line of text, Si Xiaonan first froze, then felt her scalp go numb and hair stand on end.
Was he testing me?!
This man before her was absolutely not Leng Xuan, but Loki possessing him—this Si Xiaonan could be certain.
But what she hadn't expected was that the very first thing Loki did after secretly descending into Leng Xuan's body was to use the relationship between Leng Xuan and herself to test her!
And he was very "considerate" in asking through writing with a branch rather than verbal communication.
This was because Loki knew very well in his heart that if Si Xiaonan and Leng Xuan truly had rebellious intentions, monitoring with just one ear would never be able to detect anything—there were simply far too many loopholes to exploit.
Using written communication on the ground to replace verbal exchange was the simplest and most direct approach... he had long been certain that the two would do this.
First setting up the monitoring ear as something barely useful, then using written communication to minimize Si Xiaonan's vigilance to the greatest extent, and finally beginning the test.
From the very beginning, that ear was just a smokescreen. Loki's test after descending was the true killing blow!
If Si Xiaonan hadn't been overly cautious and arranged the nose-touching code in advance, she would certainly have been caught in Loki's trap, and once he discovered what she was doing, she would surely die.
Cold sweat broke out on Si Xiaonan's back again.
In this smoke-free battlefield of scheming, any step she took was walking a tightrope—once there was even the slightest slip, it would mean utter destruction.
Si Xiaonan steadied her heart and hand, then wrote on the ground following his text:
—Deceive him about what?
She raised her head, her eyes filled with confusion as she looked into Leng Xuan's eyes.
Leng Xuan quietly gazed into her eyes. The two of them simply stared at each other in silence.
A cold wind blew through the dim mountains, rustling the surrounding leaves.
Between the斑驳 shadows of the trees, Leng Xuan smiled.
His smile was eerie, like a dark viper in the shadows, coldly flickering its red tongue.
"Clever Xiaonan... you detected my arrival long ago, didn't you?"
Leng Xuan's voice was bone-chilling as it echoed through the forest.
Si Xiaonan's heart slightly tightened, but she did her best to steady herself. Her brow naturally furrowed, pretending to be confused for a moment, then as if thinking of something, her expression soured.
"Loki?! What have you done to Leng Xuan?"
Looking at the fury in Si Xiaonan's eyes, Loki couldn't help but sigh.
"Xiaonan, over these years, you really have grown a lot. Worthy of being my agent—now even I can't quite see through you...
But you'd better remember, everything about you is in my grasp. You... cannot defeat me."
His gaze swept to An Qingyu beside him. His fingertips slightly lifted, and a sharp black gleam instantly flashed through the air, slicing toward An Qingyu's neck.
This black gleam was too fast—fast enough that neither of them could react in time.
With a soft sound, An Qingyu's head floated lightly off her body, spraying blood as it tumbled onto the ground.
Her head rolled and stopped right at Si Xiaonan's feet.