Chapter 8

  "There's nothing," Zheng Hanfei said lightly. "Anyway, you'd better be careful, or the thief might steal the gemstone from under your nose."

  "How about you?"

  "Seize him!" A glint of sharp light flashed in Zheng Hanfei's eyes. Since his first encounter with the residual shadow, the blood in his body had been constantly boiling, and his body would inexplicably tremble, unsure whether it was due to excitement or fear...

  Ouyang Xiuzhen took a deep look at Zheng Hanfei, turned around and walked back to the stage. He was very clear that at this moment, Zheng Hanfei was simply an outcast who would only act according to the "lone action" command in his brain.

  Well, in that case, let's just go along with his wishes. Ouyang Xiu thought to himself, compared to his second personality, his first personality is much easier to get close to, no wonder he's a perfect failure product, I don't even dare to imagine what would happen if his experiment was successful, he would definitely be a genius criminal...

  In the blink of an eye, only five minutes were left before the scheduled time. The exhibition continued as usual during this period. Nothing happened, but Ouyang Xiu and others understood that this was the calm before the storm. When the time came, the residual shadow would surely steal away in a flash, so they tightened their nerves and kept sizing up their surroundings, trying to find some clues.

  As for Zheng Hanfei, he still stayed in the corner of the stage. Perhaps he himself knew how much the aura that rejected people thousands of miles away would cause **. At that time, the probability of the residual shadow taking away the gemstone would increase again, so it was better for him to stay where he was and decipher the last puzzle of the notice.

  What does this last sentence mean? Zheng Hanfei thought constantly, and after switching to his second persona, his thinking and logic greatly improved, and his analysis speed was also dozens of times faster than his first persona. Within this short minute, Zheng Hanfei came up with dozens of methods, but unfortunately, none of them could decipher the last sentence of the notice.

  English, Chinese, combination, could it be...

  Suddenly, Zheng Hanfei's gaze swept over the previously deciphered sentence, and a flash of inspiration appeared in his mind. The extremely chaotic "notes" seemed to be manipulated by an invisible hand, falling into their corresponding positions on the "staff".

  "It seems... all the mysteries... have surfaced." Zheng Hanfei's mouth corners slightly curved up, this smile-like expression brought great charm to his second personality, unfortunately, no one saw this scene.

  Bang! A white ball fell out of Zheng Hanfei's upper shirt pocket, making a crisp sound, startling Zheng Hanfei who was immersed in joy.

  What is this? At the moment when Zheng Hanfei bent down to pick up the white ball, he didn't notice that the watch on his wrist was pointing at 9 o'clock...

  Bang! The sudden loud noise attracted the attention of everyone in the venue, and a huge white smoke wave burst out from a corner of the stage, instantly flooding the entire stage.

  Damn it! Ouyang Xiu suddenly shouted "not good" and turned to run towards the stage, just as his eyes saw several white balls passing by from under his feet.

  Before Ou Yang Xiu could react, the white sphere exploded again just like before, and the area below the stage was also engulfed in a huge wave of smoke. The sounds of chaos, crying, and panic were even louder than the smoke, and they spread to the outside of the Shadow Tower. In short, the current situation is more chaotic than the previous power outage, and it's not something that can be maintained with just a few words.

  The performance went very smoothly! Now, it's time to drop the curtain! Somewhere on the stage, a faint smile appeared, and the Shadow Star in hand was put into his arms. His fingers lightly plucked, and the door of the Shadow Tower opened instantly. The smoke waves in the venue all surged out of the door.

  "Star in the Shadow... has vanished!" After the smoke dissipated, Ouyang Xiu stared blankly at the stage, where the display stand that had held Star in the Shadow was now empty. The seemingly tall glass cover had shattered into countless shards of glass, scattered around it, like tears shed by the display stand for the "new star" that had disappeared.

  "The fugitive escaped from the main gate!" Qu Menghan pointed outside the door and shouted loudly, "Hurry up and chase him, don't let him get away!"

  Upon hearing this sentence, Zhou Zheng was the first to rush out of the door. It seemed that he had some connection with the so-called thief god, otherwise, he wouldn't have been so eager to chase after him.

  The second group to rush out were Qu Menghan, Di Luo and Yuan Li. Since they were all wearing formal attire for the banquet, their mobility was limited, so naturally, their speed slowed down.

  As for Wang Bo and Ouyang Xiu, they stood stupidly in place, their eyes involuntarily fixed on the stage, both seemingly worried about Zheng Hanfei's situation.

  "Wang Bo, you go after him first, I'll go take a look at how Zheng Hanfei is doing." Before Wang Bo could respond, Ouyang Xiu quickly ran towards the stage, leaving behind a stunned Wang Bo. After a long while, Wang Bo seemed to have thought of something and looked back at the stage with a hint of concern, then turned around and ran out the door, joining the ranks of those chasing after the fleeing figure.

  When Ouyang Xiuxiu ran to where Zheng Hanfei was standing, the scene in front of him made him take a big surprise. The dress that Zheng Hanfei wore seemed to have been thrown on the ground by someone very carelessly, dirty and messy. However, Zheng Hanfei himself had long since disappeared. On top of the clothes, there was a card pressed down, Ouyang Xiuxiu picked it up and took a look, it was that invitation letter, also stained with dust, some of the words on it could no longer be seen clearly.

  The strokes on the notice caught Ouyang Xi's attention, and from that special handwriting, it was clearly Zheng Hanfei's. So Ouyang Xi carefully began to examine, and immediately afterwards, his pupils contracted, and he turned around and left this place.

  Hurry up and tell them, otherwise... As Ouyang Xiuxiu thought to himself, he ran as fast as he could. He had to catch up with those people, or else the remnant shadow might once again slip away from under their noses...

  The top floor of the Tower of Eyes.

  A dark figure panted slightly as he opened a door, and immediately, a strong gust of wind struck his body, calming his mood slightly.

  Dada, the black shadow slowly walked in, inserted the iron gate with ease, and then he walked to the front of the railing, took out the Shadow Star from his bosom, and burst into laughter, seemingly rejoicing at his own success, yet also seeming to mock those few detectives' incompetence.

  "What are you laughing at, Mr. Thief?" The sudden voice made his laughter stop abruptly, and he turned around to see Zheng Hanfei slowly walking out of the dark corner, wearing the same tuxedo as before, which was fluttering in the wind, his black hair blowing in the wind, and a smile on his face that seemed to be announcing his victory.

  "I had already figured out the location. Seeing that the other party didn't intend to speak, Zheng Hanfei slowly opened his mouth, "'The bloody mountain castle, depicting a tragic drama of human life.' This sentence represents that you will descend upon one of the three buildings: Shadow Tower, Time Tower, or Pupil Tower. As for which one, it took me a long time to think about it, fortunately, Shao Le's hint allowed me to naturally solve the next sentence and figure out the correct location."

  Hei Ying still didn't speak, it was unclear whether he had no rebuttal or was listening to Zheng Hanfei's reasoning to see if it was correct.

  "The sorrowful king, blind in both eyes, died in the end." Zheng Hanfei continued, "This sentence has no deep meaning, just look at the surface meaning. 'Blind in both eyes' can be understood as 'blind', and 'died in the end' means to remove the character for 'death', then you will get the character 'mu', and among the three buildings, only Tongzhilou is related to 'mu'."

  Clap, clap, clap! The dark shadow applauded and said in a rusty iron voice: "Since you knew the destination, why didn't you stay here to guard the tree at that time, but instead continued to participate in the exhibition?"

  "Because of the last sentence, I never figured it out!"

  "Now that we know the location, why bother to rack our brains to decipher the last sentence?" The black shadow sneered, he fundamentally disapproved of Zheng Hanfei's approach.

  "You're wrong!" Zheng Hanfei's eyes flashed with a hint of sharpness as he said, "Uncovering the truth is the destiny of a detective!"

  "Is that so..." The black shadow spoke in a voice that only he could hear, his mind thinking who-knows-what, but Zheng Hanfei could sense that this sentence seemed to stir up the black shadow's memories.

  "I have to admire you!" Zheng Hanfei didn't give Hei Ying too much time to reminisce, and continued, "The last sentence, you actually combined English and Chinese, such a simple and childish phrase, how did you even think of it?"

  "The more intricate the setup, the more loopholes there are, whereas simple setups often have very few. From how much time it takes you to crack it, can't you tell, great detective?"

  "Indeed! The English translation of 'wang hou' is Queen, 'shi yi' is memory, and 'jian ku' is hard. 'The source of everything' refers to the first letter of each English word, Q, M, H. Combining this with Chinese pinyin, the answer is obvious. The person you are disguising as is..."