In the wooden partition room.
After realizing he had fallen into the trap set by Silver Fox and Zhao Ming, Zhou Qinfeng's breathing grew rapid, and his head of white hair seemed even paler in that moment.
At this time, Bai Xuewu, Yang Ran, and Chen Na, who had received the message, all walked into the partition room, staring at Zhou Qinfeng in disbelief. They never imagined the traitor would actually be the Dean himself.
Yang Ran couldn't comprehend it at all, looking at Zhou Qinfeng like he was an alien: "Dean, why? You're already the Dean of the academy. Countless people envy your position and benefits. How could you still do something like this?"
Zhou Qinfeng remained silent.
Silver Fox gently cut in: "Yang Ran, I think the answer is right there in the question. Precisely because the Dean holds an extraordinary identity and status, the more he enjoys the benefits it brings, the more he fears losing it."
"Losing it?" Yang Ran asked, puzzled. "Why would he lose it?"
Zhao Ming spoke up at this point: "I think Dean Zhou is very concerned about his own age. After all, in this era, people over sixty are few and far between. And if I'm not mistaken, Dean Zhou's Mind Power upper limit probably isn't high, which stands out even more in an academy full of talented individuals. Even if the other students don't know about it, Dean Zhou himself would develop anxiety over it."
Zhao Ming's words seemed to strike a nerve with Zhou Qinfeng. He glared viciously at the group, hovering right on the edge of losing control.
A short blade appeared silently in Silver Fox's right palm, hanging at her waist. If Zhou Qinfeng made any move, she would strike immediately.
"Just feeling that being old is a reason to betray?" Yang Ran still couldn't understand. "Sixty-something isn't that bad, and the officials don't care. Besides, what does being old and having a low Mind Power upper limit have to do with being Dean???"
Even now, in the third year of the Doomsday Rules era, human social structure still hadn't fully become "Mind Power-centric."
From the officials to the common people, no organization or group would simply assign positions based on Mind Power upper limits. Many organizations still had ordinary people in leadership roles, with High Mind Power Individuals serving as subordinates.
So setting aside whether Zhou Qinfeng's Mind Power was high or low, even if he weren't an Ascendant at all—just an ordinary person with a Terminal Panel turned off—he could still serve as Dean thanks to his extensive management experience from previously serving as principal of two universities, and still receive official protection.
Yang Ran really couldn't figure out why he would do something so self-destructive.
"Actually, before coming here, I'd already done some investigating."
Zhao Ming offered his reasoning at this point.
"I found that among the academy's student body, there's been ongoing discussion and buzz. The topic is: if the current Dean Zhou were to step down in the future, who would be the most suitable successor... According to my research, among the many discussions, the one with the most support is Shi Jingyi."
Yang Ran looked at Zhao Ming: "So you're saying he felt Shi Jingyi threatened his position as Dean, so he wanted to eliminate her?"
"If it were only that, it probably wouldn't have gone this far." Zhao Ming watched Zhou Qinfeng's constantly shifting expression and hit the nail on the head: "I think the main reason for Dean Zhou's betrayal has to do with the memory transfer technology held by Suroma."
"What?!"
"You mean..."
Hearing this, Yang Ran, Bai Xuewu, and Chen Na thought of the experiences of Gaelid and Adam's daughter Ai Ya, then looked at Zhou Qinfeng's head of white hair. A wave of nausea surged up instantly.
No doubt Bai Xuewu also wanted to use this technology to transfer his memories into a younger, less talented Ascendant's body. This was truly...
"Enough!"
Zhou Qinfeng let out a trembling shout.
At this age, I feel like I've been stripped naked, all my hidden, filthy thoughts exposed. It fills me with both rage and unbearable shame.
The arguments and denials I'd prepared were now impossible to voice.
Only endless resentment and fury remained in my heart.
"I just can't stand these young people! Why should they have higher talent than me just because they're younger?! These little bastards, they always stare at my hair, laughing at me in their hearts!"
Zhou Qinfeng was burning with fury, pointing at the five of them and cursing loudly: "Even you people—I bet you think the same as those little brats, that I only survived back then thanks to Alertness Mints, don't you?!"
Silver Fox said coldly: "That's just your own mind playing tricks on you."
"Pah! Silver Fox, you're just like Duanmu Feng—you military types are all trash! Duanmu Feng wanted to kill me at that meeting, and that damned Gao Liangwei protected him just because he was also military! If I had a young body, would that surnamed Duan dare look down on me? A bunch of garbage! So what if I betrayed?!"
Silver Fox watched the hysterical Zhou Qinfeng, her gaze turning icy. She didn't want to listen to his nonsense any longer.
"Zhou Qinfeng, I'm now formally announcing, in the name of the Countermeasures Research Office, that you are being placed under personal restriction. You will immediately return with us for further investigation."
As she spoke, she produced a pair of Mind Power restraint cuffs and stepped toward Zhou Qinfeng.
Zhou Qinfeng watched Silver Fox approaching with the cuffs, his mind racing.
He knew that if he was taken to the base, it was completely over. Even as Dean, committing such a grave crime, the best outcome would be life imprisonment.
Once sentenced to life imprisonment, there would be almost no possibility of growth. And the officials would no longer care about his development; they would only provide the bare minimum for survival.
At this point, at over sixty years old, what chance did he have of holding on to live until that new world after all the rules ended?
But fighting was even more impossible...
Zhou Qinfeng's peripheral vision caught Bai Xuewu and Yang Ran on either side, plus Silver Fox approaching from the front. Any one of these three was stronger than him.
If he made a move, he would be subdued in an instant.
...No time left!
Silver Fox was only a few steps away from reaching him. Zhou Qinfeng made his decision and took out two items from his Storage Box, one in each hand.
They were a barrier tool and a teleportation-type item.
One to provide short-term protection, the other to quickly escape danger.
Use the barrier tool to buy time, then teleport away... Zhou Qinfeng's plan was sound, but just as he got the items ready to use, he discovered they weren't activating.
What's going on?
He instinctively thought Silver Fox and the others had set something up in advance, but when he looked up, he saw surprise on all their faces.
He looked down again and found both his hands had fallen to the ground. No wonder the items hadn't activated—the hands holding them had already been severed from his body.
"Ah! Aaaah!"
Intense pain shot through his entire body. Belatedly realizing what had happened, Zhou Qinfeng screamed and stumbled backward, collapsing to his knees, unable to believe this was real.
Silver Fox snapped out of her brief moment of shock and reacted instantly. She sharply caught sight of the flowing shadow that had sliced off Zhou Qinfeng's hands, her pupils contracting.
"It's Shadow... Guan Tong?! Wait! Don't kill him! We need to interrogate him to find out who his contact is!"
Silver Fox activated her ability as she spoke, her supernatural speed carrying her to Zhou Qinfeng in an instant.
She wanted to stop Guan Tong's shadow from killing him, but the next moment, the wisp of shadow turned ethereal and burrowed into the ground. Silver Fox sensed something was wrong and whipped her head around.
Squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch—!
Behind her, Zhou Qinfeng had been pierced through his entire body by shadows that burst out of the ground and transformed into countless spikes.
From head to toe, Zhou Qinfeng was completely riddled through like a sieve. The expression on his face was frozen in an agonized twitch.
"You..."
Silver Fox gritted her teeth, so furious she hurled the cuffs to the ground.
All of this happened within just two or three breaths. The other four only reacted afterward, completely unable to stop Guan Tong.
Thud.
Zhou Qinfeng's body, riddled with bloody holes, toppled forward. Dead beyond dead.
The mass of shadow gradually coalesced into a humanoid form resembling Guan Tong, standing on the pool of crimson flowing from Zhou Qinfeng's body, flickering in and out like an image on an old television set.
Silver Fox looked at it, both angry and resigned to what had already happened: "...Guan Tong, why are you in such a hurry? Wouldn't it have been better to dig more clues out of him?!"
Guan Tong, using the Five Senses sharing feature, spoke through the shadow.
"No need. He's the seller, Bruce is the buyer. They both have to die. It's that simple."
"But—"
"Besides, if he'd gone to your base, would you have executed him?"
"..."
Silver Fox fell silent. She understood what Guan Tong meant.
The bloody stench emanating from Zhou Qinfeng's corpse and the unstable shadow standing beside it made the atmosphere in the wooden partition room heavy and oppressive. Even the normally boisterous Yang Ran didn't dare strike up a conversation with Guan Tong right now.
Bai Xuewu frowned at the mass of shadow. Chen Na didn't know what to say either. It was Zhao Ming who stepped forward and spoke.
"You're right. Although Zhou Qinfeng's betrayal was egregious in nature, since Shi Jingyi came to no harm, no serious consequences resulted. As such, given his years of service as Dean, the officials would most likely just strip him of his position and detain him, not sentence him to death."
Guan Tong, hearing this, turned his shadow-shared vision toward Zhao Ming.
Of this five-person investigation team, the only one he didn't recognize was this young man in the white shirt.
But he had watched the entire sequence of events through the shadow just now.
This young man named Zhao Ming was sharp-minded and incisive in his analysis. He was indeed a good investigator—probably a newly cultivated talent from the Countermeasures Research Office.
"Don't add fuel to the fire here!" Silver Fox shot Zhao Ming a glare, not understanding why he was saying all this. Wasn't he just deliberately provoking Guan Tong?
Zhao Ming said: "I'm just saying—I joined the Countermeasures Research Office only a few months ago. Before that, I lived in the wild the whole time. So I know that in the wilderness, there's no such thing as the upper class's 'fight without breaking.' There's only the cruel reality of kill or be killed. So I can understand you."
"Then I suppose I should thank you for your understanding." After saying this, the shadow turned back to Silver Fox.
"Silver Fox, we're all living people. We each only have one life. Once you die, you're dead. So for anyone who wants my life or the lives of those around me, I communicate in only one language—killing."
The shadow stopped maintaining its humanoid form and gradually dissipated.
"...Go back and tell your superiors: Duan Weifeng must die too. That's non-negotiable. If you won't execute him, then even if you keep hiding him in the Countermeasures Research Office base, I'll find a chance to send him off myself."
As the shadow vanished completely, Guan Tong's voice ceased as well.
The others looked at the corpse on the ground, then thought about Guan Tong's final words, all falling into silence.
At that moment, voices from other teachers sounded outside. Zhou Qinfeng had been in the partition room for a long time—longer than anyone before him—which made everyone outside curious about what was happening inside.
Silver Fox wiped her face, picked up the cuffs, and put them away. She had Yang Ran and Bai Xuewu use items to gather Zhou Qinfeng's body, and sent Zhao Ming out to communicate with the other teachers.
"For now, don't say Zhou Qinfeng is dead. Just say we need to bring him back to the base for questioning." Silver Fox instructed. "Otherwise, the teachers won't know what's going on. If they see the Dean's corpse and turn hostile toward us, things could get out of hand."
"Understood." Zhao Ming nodded and walked out of the partition room to speak with the teachers.
While Bai Xuewu and Yang Ran handled the body, Silver Fox pulled Chen Na aside privately.
"Xiao Na, tell me." She stared into Chen Na's eyes. "Your task during our sweep of the teachers was to keep your Perception Domain active and stay on alert. If Guan Tong's shadow had been lurking nearby, you would have sensed his Mind Power long ago. But you didn't tell us, did you?"
"Sister Silver Fox, I..."
"It was Guan Tong who told you not to say anything, right? He can communicate through shadows. I know this."
Silver Fox had seen through everything. Chen Na silently lowered her head. But even being discovered by Silver Fox, she didn't regret what she'd done.
"...Xiao Na, listen to me." Silver Fox lowered her voice. "When we get back to the base, the Doctor will definitely ask for details. When that happens, you say that by the time you sensed Guan Tong's Mind Power, it was already too late to warn us. Understand?"
Chen Na looked up in surprise: "Sister Silver Fox?"
"You must say it that way, understand?" Silver Fox had none of her usual smile on her face. Her expression was utterly serious.
Chen Na had never seen Silver Fox make that kind of face at her before. She was a little frightened.
But she knew Silver Fox was doing this for her own good, to protect her.
Otherwise, deliberately concealing important information that led to Zhou Qinfeng being suddenly killed by Guan Tong would definitely result in severe punishment from the Countermeasures Research Office.
"I understand. Thank you, Sister Silver Fox." Chen Na nodded firmly. "I'll say exactly what you told me."