Chapter 119: Shadow of the Enemy

“Gro, don’t you have anything to explain?” As Gro stepped onto the floating staircase, preparing to return to the luxurious room on the fourth floor of the Star-Moon prepared by Hassan, Lofley’s figure suddenly “emerged” from the corner of the staircase.

“What do I need to explain?” Gro’s face darkened; he didn’t even glance at Lofley.

“Just now during the test, what exactly were you trying to do? I don’t recall telling you to offend every martial artist present,” Lofley said, walking up behind Gro with a smile.

“I did it for the teacher’s sake,” Gro replied, swatting away Lofley’s right hand resting on his shoulder. The recent defeat under Agate’s brute force had left the proud Gro fuming with anger. “If we don’t let those useless people know their place, they will surely drag us down in the future.”

“Haha! So the arrogant Gro actually got taught a lesson too!” Seeing Gro’s furious expression, Lofley burst into delighted laughter. After laughing for a while, Lofley walked in front of Gro again, gazing at him with a “melancholy” look in her eyes. “However, this time you missed a perfect opportunity to eliminate Zhang Wen, which is quite disappointing. I even specially distracted that bull Agate to create the chance for you.”

“Hmph!” Gro let out a colder snort and did not argue further. During the previous test, Gro indeed had an excellent opportunity to eliminate Zhang Wen first. However, his over-inflated confidence caused him to miss the best timing.

“Sigh! Now Zhang Wen has teamed up with Shura and Agate again. It won’t be easy to kick him out of this game anymore,” Lofley sighed softly.

“Is it really that troublesome?” Gro gave Lofley a deep look and sneered. “I did make a mistake by not eliminating Zhang Wen first. However, Zhang Wen’s situation probably isn’t that comfortable either. Speaking of which, we should actually thank that weird Bartenping. After his speech, Zhang Wen is sure to become the target of everyone’s arrows. As long as you put in a little effort, would it be difficult to kick Zhang Wen out of this game?”

“Kukuku…” Lofley let out another series of silvery laughter. “Well then! Let’s forget about the past. This time you offended those martial artists, but you actually did something good! I didn’t even notice that among the pile of trash boarding the ship, besides Zhang Wen, there were actually two unexpectedly pleasant surprises!” As she spoke, Lofley seductively extended her tongue and lightly licked her lips.

“Hmph! You’d better be careful. I don’t know what skills Zhang Wen has, but those two guys are definitely more troublesome than you imagine,” Gro sneered. “Moreover, do you think the only experts trying to take advantage of the chaos on this ship are the ones who have already shown themselves? Don’t forget, there were only sixty-seven martial artists in the hall on the third floor, yet ninety-four martial artists boarded the Star-Moon. Among the twenty-seven martial artists who didn’t arrive, the chance of an unexpected surprise is much higher than among the sixty-seven people in the hall. Don’t end up with nothing but a shock instead of a pleasant surprise.”

“Hehe! That’s my business, so you don’t need to worry about it,” Lofley said cheerfully, as if she hadn’t heard Gro’s sarcasm at all. “So many good men, how exciting! I’ll make sure they have a really… really… enjoyable… time.”

While laughing, Lofley excitedly kept tapping her lips with her fingertip. At the same time, her sexy body seemed to melt away, gradually blending into the wall.

※※※

“Who was that person just now?” As soon as the martial artist who called himself “Old Billygoat” left, the maid-dressed Liliya quietly sneaked into Zhang Wen’s room.

“A martial artist trying to get close to me,” Zhang Wen casually replied, locking the door.

“Get close to you?” Liliya frowned.

“He feels he’s alone and vulnerable, so he wants me to help him out during the competition.”

“Help him out? Pfft!” Liliya burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Zhang Wen glared at Liliya, displeased.

“Captain, you’re really taking it easy!” Liliya laughed, making herself comfortable by lying down on the only large bed in Zhang Wen’s room.

“Ahhh!” The soft goose-feather mattress made Liliya moan in comfort. Immediately after, a pair of alluring long legs slid out from under her long purple skirt. Liliya stretched out her hand and began gently massaging her calf.

“Don’t act like you’re offering swan meat to a hungry man, Liliya. I know your type. You want to tease people until they’re drooling, then flap your wings and fly away when they try to take a bite, leaving them with nothing but frustration,” Zhang Wen snorted in discontent at Liliya’s behavior.

“Pfft! Hahaha!” Liliya was almost rolling off the bed laughing. It took her quite a while before she finally managed to calm herself, her chest still heaving as she pressed her hand against it.

“Captain Zhang Wen, I didn’t expect you to be so good at telling jokes. If you went to the capital, with just this talent for jokes, you’d probably never be short of noble ladies inviting you to their private chambers at night,” Liliya sat up, her words a mixture of praise and teasing.

At the same time, as if she wasn’t done yet, Liliya provocatively crossed her long, jade-like right leg over her left. Her purple skirt spread open with the movement, revealing a nearly perfect curve of her leg—from her smooth, flawless feet, up her white, unblemished calves, to her shapely, seductive thighs.

And even more maddening was that, at the moment Liliya crossed her legs, Zhang Wen was standing right in front of her. His line of sight had an unobstructed view straight up Liliya’s high-slit purple skirt. Although Liliya moved quickly, Zhang Wen, who practiced the Spring Water Technique, still caught a brief flash of black-and-white stripes in that instant.

“Alright, if you have something to say, just say it quickly,” Zhang Wen rubbed his nose. “Ryen might come back at any moment, and if he sees us together, your plan will be ruined.”

“It’s ‘our’ plan,” Liliya emphasized, and when she noticed Zhang Wen’s gaze lingering on her thighs, a knowing smile crept onto her face. “Captain Zhang Wen, do you really know what kind of situation we’re in? Or… maybe I should rephrase that. Do you know how many people are currently after your life? Earlier in the stairwell, do you really think Nashon and his gang approached you just to scare me and those two maids?”

“What? Are you saying it’s not that?”

“Of course not!” Liliya shook her head with a smile. “The moment Nashon and his two companions first recognized you, they were already planning to pick a fight and eliminate you. At least half of the martial artists on this ship are plotting ways to kill you.”

“Oh! So you came here for that reason,” Zhang Wen nodded in sudden realization.

“Exactly. That’s precisely why I came,” Liliya’s expression turned increasingly serious. “Captain Zhang Wen, I don’t believe you don’t understand your own situation. The reason those martial artists haven’t made a move against you yet is simply because they’re wary of Agate. However, Agate caused quite a scene today, and Hassan won’t let this rule-breaker stay on the ship any longer…”

As she spoke, Liliya glanced at Zhang Wen.

“Mmm…” Zhang Wen nodded as well.

Indeed, Agate’s outburst today, using his bull-like brute force to disrupt Gro’s test, seemed satisfying at first. But in reality, Agate had placed himself in a very awkward position.

Just imagine, since Agate could use his bull-force technique the first time to ruin Gro’s test, wouldn’t he use the same unruly tactics again if he was about to be eliminated the next time? In that case, no one would dare to eliminate Agate, so what’s the point of continuing the test?

Putting himself in Hassan’s position, Zhang Wen thought that the best current solution would be to simply declare Agate’s advancement, hand him all the bounty money, and politely send him off.

As for whether Agate would be willing to join Hassan’s second squad to help Hassan claim dominance over the southern territories, Hassan probably didn’t care either way. If Agate joined, Hassan would gain a super-tier helper for free, which would naturally be a happy outcome. If Agate refused to join, Hassan would only lose a sum of bounty money. Although this amount might be a fortune to others, to Hassan, it was just a drop in the ocean, not worth mentioning.

Seeing that Zhang Wen only grunted and remained silent for a long time afterward, Liliya looked at him again, frowning and saying, “It’s not just the two of us who can foresee that Hassan will drive Agate away. From what I know, quite a few martial artists have secretly formed alliances already. As soon as Agate leaves, they will definitely come after you.”

Liliya didn’t doubt Zhang Wen’s intelligence, but she wasn’t as confident about his strength. Earlier in the stairwell, Zhang Wen’s defeat of Nashon’s group seemed to only prove his ability to seize opportunities, without showcasing any power beyond the tenth tier.

“Oh? You also know about this?” Zhang Wen didn’t answer Liliya’s question but instead asked with interest.

The intelligence Liliya revealed was similar to what the old billygoat had provided earlier, though it was much more severe. It wasn’t strange for the old billygoat, who was himself a “professional explorer,” to know such things. However, Liliya, who had just infiltrated the Star-Moon disguised as a maid, could learn about the plans of those professional explorers so quickly and secretly come to warn Zhang Wen, which made him feel somewhat curious.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Liliya smiled, suddenly adding a touch of pride to her beautiful face. “Don’t think that the Imperial Army only sets up the position of adjutant officers for commanders to satisfy their desires. Reconnaissance, assassination, eavesdropping… these are the basic duties of an adjutant. If I couldn’t even figure out what the passengers on a ship were thinking six hours after boarding, then I would have failed in my duty as an adjutant.”

“Oh! I didn’t expect… I didn’t expect…” Zhang Wen laughed more happily.

Now Zhang Wen finally understood why he felt an especially close connection to Liliya the moment he saw her. And even after being used by Liliya several times, he still regarded her as a close confidante. He hadn’t expected that this seemingly healing-type beauty would actually be a colleague from his past! Moreover, from Liliya’s confident tone, it was clear she was an outstanding one.

“What?” Liliya glared at Zhang Wen, displeased.

“Nothing. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that your manner just now reminded me of another person,” Zhang Wen waved his hands repeatedly, a smile still lingering on his lips.

“Another person? I bet she’s a woman too,” Liliya gave Zhang Wen a sidelong glance with a teasing smile.

“Indeed, she is a woman, but our relationship is definitely not what you’re imagining. We were bitter enemies, always wishing each other dead. Only once…” Zhang Wen’s gaze became increasingly bright, but his tone took on a nostalgic melancholy. “We were forced to team up for certain reasons. I asked her, ‘Can you do it?’ Her expression was exactly like yours just now.”

“Oh? What happened to her later?” Liliya felt a stirring in her heart.

“Later? I think I’ll never see her again,” Zhang Wen shook his head.

A flicker of disappointment appeared in Liliya’s eyes, but she quickly took a deep breath and continued, “Forget about the past if you don’t want to talk about it. However, Agate might be driven off this ship by Hassan at any time. After he leaves, you’d better think clearly about what we should do next.”

“I’ll think about it soon enough.”

“That’s best.” Liliya stood up, deliberately sighing heavily at Zhang Wen. “I have to go now. Sneaking out to warn you was a big risk. Hassan’s management of the maids on the Star-Moon is even stricter than our Guards Corps’ management of soldiers.”

“That’s all your own doing, isn’t it?” Zhang Wen couldn’t help but make a joke, causing Liliya to glare at him angrily again.

However, before Liliya slipped out of Zhang Wen’s room, she still gave him one last piece of advice: “In any case, be careful.”

“You too,” Zhang Wen solemnly replied to Liliya.

“Hehe,” Liliya smiled lightly, like a nimble cat, leaping a few steps and disappearing from Zhang Wen’s sight.

Zhang Wen could tell that Liliya didn’t really take his warning to heart. However, his past experiences dealing with women similar to Liliya told him that when it came to confident women like her, no matter what you said, they wouldn’t listen until they actually ran into trouble. Therefore, Zhang Wen could only helplessly smile and close the door.

However, just as Zhang Wen’s bedroom door was almost closed, he suddenly yanked it open again! Immediately after, Zhang Wen used the Ghost Step. Like a ghost, his figure flickered several times in the opposite direction from where Liliya had left!

Zhang Wen, using the Ghost Step, was almost as fast as an ordinary super-tier expert. After chasing down several corridors, Zhang Wen finally saw the figure he had anticipated—the mysterious martial artist with a baby face, Bartenping.

In fact, Bartenping might have been watching Zhang Wen’s every move for a long time, even before Liliya arrived at Zhang Wen’s room. However, despite Zhang Wen’s cultivation of the Spring Water Technique, which gave him a sharp sense, he hadn’t noticed anything at all! It wasn’t until the moment Bartenping left that Zhang Wen finally felt a subtle sense of anomaly!

Bartenping also exerted his full strength and fled down the corridor for a while. But soon he was shocked to discover that Zhang Wen had actually caught up to him from behind!

“Hi! Teacher Zhang Wen.” Before Zhang Wen caught up to him, Bartenping turned around with a purely innocent smile that perfectly matched his baby face.

“It’s really you,” Zhang Wen stopped a few steps away from Bartenping.

Since Zhang Wen had followed him here, he must have sensed Bartenping’s earlier spying. There was no point in Bartenping denying it now. “Teacher Zhang Wen, your strength really surprised me!” Bartenping sighed with a bitter smile.

“It’s you who surprised me,” Zhang Wen smiled, instantly bringing the Spring Water Technique to its peak.

“Teacher Zhang Wen, you don’t need to be so wary of me. What I saw between you and that maid was just a misunderstanding,” Bartenping also sensed Zhang Wen’s fighting intent and hurriedly waved his hands to explain.

“A misunderstanding?” Zhang Wen frowned, still not relaxing his guard. The previous Vicky had left a deep impression on Zhang Wen, and now encountering an even more formidable Bartenping, Zhang Wen would definitely not be careless.

“Exactly. A complete misunderstanding. It’s true that I was checking outside Teacher Zhang Wen’s house, but I wasn’t targeting you.”

“Oh? Then who were you targeting?”

“Hehe! Teacher Zhang Wen, I know you care about that maid’s safety. However, my target has nothing to do with her either. Actually, I was just acting on someone else’s request…” Bartenping was saying with a bitter smile when he was suddenly interrupted by a scream from the corridor.

“Ahh!” The scream that reached Zhang Wen and Bartenping’s ears was very short, clearly someone being silenced halfway by having their mouth covered.

Zhang Wen and Bartenping exchanged a glance, and almost simultaneously, they exerted their full strength and rushed toward the source of the scream.

Although the scream was brief, both Zhang Wen and Bartenping could tell that the shrill, somewhat childish scream could only come from one person on this Star-Moon—Ryen! Moreover, Zhang Wen could clearly determine that the location where Ryen screamed was near the floating staircase where Liliya was preparing to board!

Zhang Wen and Bartenping sped up, rushing through the maze-like corridors on the second floor of the Star-Moon. After turning three or four corners, they arrived at the floating staircase where the scream originated. Outside the staircase, Zhang Wen immediately spotted a purple sandal, a standard uniform item for the Star-Moon maids, lying on the ground.

However, the floating staircase had already left the second floor and stopped at the third floor. Zhang Wen and Bartenping exchanged another glance and immediately rushed to the nearest floating staircase, quickly ascending to the third floor.

“You take left, I take right,” Bartenping urgently shouted as soon as the floating staircase stopped at the third floor, then rushed into the corridor on the right.

Zhang Wen didn’t hesitate either, fully activating the Ghost Step and proceeding down the left corridor.

Unlike the web-like corridor structure on the second floor, the corridors on the third floor were all divided into four unconnected areas—southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest—centered around the central hall. In other words, if the abductors had gotten off the floating staircase on the third floor, they could not escape Zhang Wen and Bartenping’s search unless they entered the central hall.

However, after searching the entire southern area of the third floor from left to right, the two found not even a shadow!

“We’ve been tricked,” Zhang Wen realized he had been outsmarted when he reached the end of the left corridor without finding anything.

“Indeed! They must have known we would chase them, so they deliberately stopped at the third floor to make us think they would switch to another floating staircase, luring us to chase them. In reality, they never got off the floating staircase but immediately went to another floor,” Bartenping, not a fool himself, understood the abductors’ trick as soon as Zhang Wen pointed it out.

However, even though Zhang Wen and Bartenping now understood the abductors’ trick, it was too late to do anything about it. In the time it took the two to search the southern area of the third floor, the abductors had already had enough time to take the hostage to any floor, switch to another floating staircase, and hide.

“This is really bad,” Bartenping sighed again as he returned to the floating staircase where Liliya and Ryen had disappeared. “My employer repeatedly warned me to make sure to bring young Master Ryen back safely. Now he’s been taken right under my nose, and I really don’t know how to explain this to my employer.”

“You can rest assured. I estimate that those people aren’t after Ryen. Their target should be Julie,” Zhang Wen said coldly, his left index finger lifting the purple sandal.

Earlier, when Liliya lay on the bed in Zhang Wen’s room, Zhang Wen had noticed a simple yet practical martial arts mechanism on the sandal. After Liliya input some martial energy, the sandal automatically loosened and fell off. When she put it back on, it seemed to be the same.

As a saint-tier martial arts master, Liliya’s sandal couldn’t possibly have fallen off accidentally during a struggle. That meant it was deliberately left by Liliya as a signal for Zhang Wen. Most likely, Liliya hadn’t expected Ryen to suddenly appear and scream. So she thought of leaving a clue for Zhang Wen to remind him that she had been abducted!

“But even if their target is Miss Julie, I still can’t feel at ease,” Bartenping’s baby face showed even more concern after hearing Zhang Wen’s analysis. “If their target were young Master Ryen, it would be easier to handle. Before achieving their goal by using Ryen’s identity, they probably wouldn’t harm him. However, if their target is Miss Julie, then young Master Ryen is just an unexpected accident to them. If I were in their position, to avoid any complications, I would probably kill him off quickly.”

“Mm,” Zhang Wen nodded slightly. “Then what do you plan to do?”

“Sigh! Since these people were cautious enough to use a trick to escape from me, they probably won’t leave any clues for me to find them. Now, I can only try to save young Master Ryen’s life first,” Bartenping sighed again, but quickly turned his innocent baby face towards Zhang Wen with a smile. “For this matter, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask Teacher Zhang Wen for help.”

“Speak. What do you need my help with,” Zhang Wen didn’t hesitate at all. It was obvious that Ryen and Liliya were now in the hands of the same group. Helping Bartenping meant helping himself.

“Teacher Zhang Wen, I hope you can help me spread the news about Miss Julie and young Master Ryen’s simultaneous disappearance,” Bartenping said as he followed Zhang Wen into the floating staircase, immediately revealing his plan.

“Spread the news? Oh, I see. You want to make a big fuss about it. Once the whole ship knows about Ryen and Julie’s disappearance, everyone will be watching their whereabouts. That way, they won’t dare to harm Ryen for the time being, right?”

“Exactly. I’m confident I still have some methods to investigate young Master Ryen’s whereabouts. However, this will take time,” Bartenping’s baby face once again carried an innocent smile. “Also, regarding the announcement of young Master Ryen’s disappearance, I’m not suitable to be the one to do it. Otherwise, the perpetrators will definitely become wary of me. It won’t be easy to investigate young Master Ryen’s whereabouts again.”

“Hehe! To be honest, I’m not really suitable to do it either,” Zhang Wen smiled slightly at Bartenping, his lips curling up. “However, I do have a very suitable candidate. Even more suitable than you or me.”

“A suitable candidate? I’m really curious!” Bartenping’s eyes widened in curiosity.

“Hehe… Want to know? For now, it’s a secret,” Zhang Wen laughed, pressing the button to go to the second floor.