# 859
Chapter 860: A Thorny Opponent
"The [Mask] is missing?"
Grave expressions appeared on the faces of everyone present.
"Was the traitor caught?" Lin Qiye recalled the bloodstains on the wall and asked in confusion, "Can't you extract information about the [Mask]'s whereabouts from him?"
"He's already dead." Zuo Qing paused, "I've basically figured out the identity of the person behind him... however, extracting information from him won't be easy."
"So, you want us to go search for the [Mask] Squad's trail first?"
"That's right." Zuo Qing nodded, "I'll handle the Night Watch traitor as quickly as possible, but I'm worried about the [Mask] Squad's situation. Regardless, you go find the [Mask] first. If I make any progress here, I'll notify you immediately."
Lin Qiye nodded decisively, "No problem!"
"Let's set out now."
...
Half an hour later.
"Dear passengers, the plane is about to take off. Please turn off your phones or switch them to airplane mode..."
Inside a passenger jet, Lin Qiye wearing a baseball cap walked to a window seat and sat down. His gaze swept across the window, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Seventh Night, why are we taking a commercial flight?" Baili Pangpang on the seat next to him removed his sunglasses and asked in confusion, "We're going to Hainan to find leads on the [Mask], aren't we? Wouldn't it be faster to ride the Somersault Cloud? Or we could at least take a dedicated aircraft?"
An Qingyu shook her head from the seat on his other side. "The situation isn't that simple. You know how capable the [Mask] Squad is. In a direct confrontation, unless a god-level entity intervened, there's no way they could be silently wiped out—but if a battle at that level occurred, the Night Watch would definitely have detected it...
The most likely scenario is that someone used some method to lure the [Mask] Squad to a certain location without any combat taking place. So, to find the [Mask] Squad, the first step is figuring out exactly what they encountered..."
Baili Pangpang scratched his head in confusion. "But what does that have to do with us taking a commercial flight?"
"Generally speaking, mental-based inducement techniques would definitely be noticed by the [Mask] Squad, so the best approach is to avoid supernatural methods entirely and use seemingly logical natural inducement instead." Lin Qiye spoke calmly. "The most effective approach right now is to put ourselves in the [Mask]'s perspective and personally experience this journey to see where the problem actually lies...
The seat I'm sitting in right now is the same one Wang Mian occupied that day."
"So... we're going to Hainan for a vacation?" Shen Qingzhu's expression turned strange.
"That's one way to put it."
As they conversed, a flight attendant walked past with a smile, checking everyone's seatbelts and reminding them to switch phones to airplane mode, then continued forward.
Right after she turned away, a shadow condensed from within Lin Qiye's shadow. Lin Qiye gently lifted the brim of his baseball cap, and a crimson eye with black pupils rapidly opened on his forehead, beginning to observe everything around him.
Asylum of the Gods 007's caretaker, Black Pupil.
Black Pupil's [Eye of Secrets] could perfectly see past and future events occurring on this aircraft—including the [Mask] Squad's encounter on the plane that day. With Black Pupil present, Lin Qiye could discover more details through this very aircraft.
This was precisely why he insisted on taking this commercial flight to Hainan.
However, the greatest pity was that Black Pupil could only "see" past images through the [Eye of Secrets] and couldn't hear what Wang Mian said during the phone call at the time. Otherwise, this entire problem would have been solved long ago.
"The plane is about to take off." Lin Qiye spoke indifferently, glancing at the time on the cabin clock. "It was at this moment that Wang Mian received a call from Zuo Qing..."
Dingaling—
The crisp phone ringtone sounded, and everyone simultaneously turned to look at Lin Qiye.
Lin Qiye slowly took his phone out from his chest pocket and stared at the number for a moment before answering.
"Hello? Commander Zuo..."
Baili Pangpang shot a suspicious glance at Lin Qiye, then turned to look at An Qingyu, who was currently making a call to Lin Qiye's phone. A slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth...
"Do we need to be this precise with the reenactment?" he couldn't help but ask.
Lin Qiye held the phone in silence for a moment, then hung up and set it aside.
"Find anything?" An Qingyu asked from the seat beside him.
"Very strange." While Lin Qiye listened to Black Pupil's recounting of the past images, he spoke thoughtfully, "After Wang Mian hung up, his expression was somewhat grave, but far from urgent. The other team members' expressions only showed a hint of disappointment. There was still some time before takeoff, and they didn't choose to get off the plane."
"In other words, the traitor's orders to them were likely already in place in Hainan?"
"That's what I think too. If it were an urgent mission elsewhere, the [Mask] would have disembarked immediately rather than continuing to sit on the commercial flight."
"That makes sense." An Qingyu nodded, "Once the traitor called them to a different location for a mission, the [Mask] would naturally take their own dedicated aircraft, and using that aircraft would definitely draw Night Watch's attention. But by taking a commercial flight to Hainan, there's no way the Night Watch would notice—they'd just assume the [Mask] was going on vacation.
The timing of that phone call was perfectly chosen. It got the [Mask] Squad to Hainan on a commercial flight without any suspicion, while also keeping it hidden from the Night Watch."
"The setup was too meticulous." Lin Qiye frowned. "Who exactly is this traitor within Night Watch?"
"I don't know." An Qingyu paused, "But they must be an extremely formidable opponent..."
With the engine's hum, this passenger jet accelerated down the runway and vanished into the clear sky in the blink of an eye.
...
Huaihai City.
A streak of cyan light swept across the horizon and landed precisely before a small, dilapidated house in the suburbs, taking the form of a young figure cloaked in dark crimson.
Zuo Qing stood before this familiar, modest dwelling, complex emotions flickering in his eyes.
This was the outskirts of Huaihai City, the most secluded corner of the entire city. Surrounding it were mostly barren farmland and rolling hills, with occasional wisps of smoke rising from distant villages and the sounds of chickens and dogs echoing across the fields.
The house before him bore no distinction from the most common brick houses in rural areas—gray exterior walls weathered and peeling, bearing the marks of time. In the chicken coop nearby, several hens sat in their nests, eyeing Zuo Qing, this uninvited guest, with curiosity.