Chapter 1374

The lights in the screening hall went out, and the black-and-white film began to play—a romance. Ten minutes in, the male and female leads started doing indecent things. Su Xiao had thought this was a pure romance, but now he realized he had boarded the wrong train—this was clearly a ****, with everything shown except explicit nudity, and the beautiful female lead was giving away free benefits.

Half an hour in, Su Xiao realized he had underestimated the film. The female lead, for an extremely melodramatic reason, began a passionate affair with the male lead's best friend. In the heat of it, the male lead made a dazzling entrance, successfully catching them in bed. What followed was a segment worthy of being called an "epic masterpiece" of grudges, passion, and love. At the 50-minute mark, the male lead chose to forgive her…

Su Xiao turned his head to look at a twelve- or thirteen-year-old child who was happily enjoying the film. He gained a new understanding of the Ge Ya Alliance's openness. Seeing the child's expression, it seemed such films were nothing unusual to them.

Just as Su Xiao thought the film would end with the male and female leads reuniting happily, the female lead instead walked into marriage with the male lead's friend, while the male lead found himself on the battlefield, bravely slaying enemies—this time, it had become a war film.

After a stirring end-credits song, the film ended. Su Xiao glanced at the traitor, who had already met with a spy from the Sun Kingdom. Though it lasted only six seconds, Su Xiao had witnessed the entire encounter.

Compared to the traitor, tracking the Sun Kingdom's spy was obviously more important—this was the lead, the "vine" in following the trail to melons.

After enjoying this "masterpiece" of love, action, love triangle, warped values, and war, Su Xiao stood up and walked toward the screening hall's exit, quietly following the spy at a moderate distance.

This spy was not the imagined man in a suit, but a housewife. As she walked out of the screening hall, she chatted and laughed with her husband. He was likely just a civilian of the Ge Ya Alliance. From their conversation, it seemed today was their wedding anniversary, which was why they had come together to watch a romance film—only to accidentally step on a landmine and end up watching a chaotic mess.

"What the hell kind of movie is this."

The female spy's husband was clearly disgusted; he couldn't understand what the film was trying to express. Such bizarre films, perhaps only the early days of the film industry could get away with showing in theaters.

"Perhaps this is just life—no matter what happens, life must go on."

The female spy linked arms with her husband as they walked down the street, their expressions natural.

"Then I'd rather give up on life."

"Huh?"

The female spy looked at her husband with a smiling, squinting gaze. The man gave an embarrassed chuckle. Their path home was somewhat remote, the streetlights gradually growing sparse, with no pedestrians in sight for a long time.

"If I were that kind of woman, what would you do?"

The female spy asked a question worthy of being compared to both her and her husband's mothers falling into the water at the same time.

"Of course… I would choose to forgive you."

The husband touched his chest, speaking insincerely, though his conscience still ached unavoidably.

"You're lying."

The female spy's expression suddenly turned serious. The dim yellow streetlights stretched her shadow long.

"You're deceiving me, aren't you?"

"Ah?"

The husband was clearly dazed, instinctively attributing his wife's behavior to menopausal syndrome flaring up.

"Let me explain…"

The husband's mouth slightly opened as he lowered his gaze to his abdomen—there, a dagger was embedded, gripped by a hand all too familiar.

A freezing, bone-piercing sensation spread from his lower abdomen. In less than two seconds, his entire body lost consciousness. The dagger was poisoned, and with a neurotoxin.

"It won't hurt at all—I'll be with you soon."

The female spy pulled out the dagger, tilted her head to look at the sky. Unfortunately, in the deep night, she could see no dawn, nor feel the protection of the god she believed in.

With a *plop*, the man collapsed to the ground, silent. The dagger flipped in the female spy's hand, the blade's edge flashing coldly. She reversed her grip and pressed the point to her throat.

*Clang! *

A pale blue blade light slashed toward her. The female spy only felt a chill at her shoulder—her entire arm went numb.

Feeling the abnormality in her arm, she immediately gritted her teeth.

*Whoosh*—a black shadow lunged at her.

*Crack! *

Bones shattered. A blow struck her jaw, her head jerked uncontrollably to the side, and several teeth flew from her mouth.

Before she could react, a metal water kettle was shoved into her mouth, creating a constricting sensation in her throat.

So far, the female spy had not seen who attacked her, but she knew one thing: her attacker was terrifying, having subdued her in a short time—she couldn't even bring herself to commit suicide.

The female spy tried to struggle, but a heavy impact struck her tailbone, causing her entire spine to reverberate with shock, leaving her completely limp.

Su Xiao grabbed the female spy's throat with one hand, poured a few mouthfuls of water into her, then began observing her pupils.

Her pupils showed no tendency to dilate—indicating she had not drunk poison to kill herself.

Su Xiao was somewhat baffled—how had the female spy discovered him? Even more puzzling was that, when he subdued her, she seemed never to have seen him before.

The female spy first killed her husband, then chose suicide. Rather than saying she had discovered Su Xiao, it seemed more like she had received an order from someone. If she had known of Su Xiao earlier, she would have killed herself immediately—not come to a remote place to first kill her husband.

After decades of sharing a bed, they turned on each other without hesitation—spies are like that. Their thinking has diverged from ordinary people, marked by a near-distorted loyalty.

Su Xiao glanced at the male corpse on the ground, thought for a moment, then seized the female spy by the throat and rushed into an alley, heading toward the outskirts of the hot capital.

Su Xiao's guess was that the female spy had not discovered him—this might have been her final mission: eliminate all nearby threats, then use her corpse to transmit some information.

Transmitting information doesn't require text—like the female spy's suicide location, time, wound position, depth, etc., can all convey data. This method is harder to crack.

Now that the female spy has been captured alive, Su Xiao doesn't believe her backers will do nothing. Since he can't follow the vine to the melon, he chooses to keep fishing—especially since he has already captured the female spy. The people under Lai Zong are certainly not incapable of prying open a spy's mouth.

Moving through the night, with Su Xiao's speed, he reached the outskirts of the hot capital in less than half an hour. The surrounding buildings began to sink low, pitch black, in stark contrast to the brightly lit city center.

Su Xiao arrived before an empty civilian residence. He seemed to be inspecting the 'mechanism' at the door, but in truth, this was his first time coming here.

He opened the door and entered the civilian residence to wait.

A few minutes later, faint footsteps reached Su Xiao's ears. He glanced at the unconscious female spy, then slowly walked toward the door.

Su Xiao pushed open the door. A man wearing a round-top hat and dressed in a black robe stood on the street.

"Sir, could you……please go die."

The black-robed man tossed a metal lighter in his hand—it bore the initial sun pattern, marking him as someone from the Sun Kingdom.

Su Xiao drew the long sword at his waist. Seeing Su Xiao's long sword, the black-robed man was very surprised, then turned somewhat amused and exasperated.

"People from the Killing Units actually use such primitive weapons—you're always mocking us Divine Court fighters for fighting barehanded."

The comer was clearly not a spy—spies wouldn't waste so much breath on nonsense.

*Boom! *

Dust flew from under Su Xiao's feet as his long sword sliced through the night.

One minute later, the black-robed man with both arms severed and his body covered in blood was thrown into a civilian residence, his body twitching unconsciously.

Su Xiao pulled out an energy needle from his palm, this thing entirely formed from light elements, possessing terrifying penetrating power.

Su Xiao's plan failed; he couldn't follow the vine to the melon, to conduct a layered espionage operation, so he directly hacked the 'melon' half to death.

Su Xiao closed the door of Guan Yan's residence, crouched down, and grabbed the black-robed man's hair.

"You have two choices: one, tell me where your accomplices are, and I'll kill you immediately; two, I'll hand you over to those from Luo Si Zhi Yan, choose."

ps: (Updated two hours early, originally planned for six chapters, but couldn't write them; since that's the case, I'll wait until tomorrow when inspiration returns, striving to continue with five chapters, to express my apology for yesterday's break in updates.)