Chapter 2657: About To Open

Old Bo remained bowed. Without a word from Cang Bi, no one in the meeting hall dared to rise back up.

Lu Yin remained in front of the servant, who was standing close to Old Bo, as he stretched out a hand and rested it on the old man’s back.

Old Bo reacted out of instinct, but Lu Yin countered with strength. Old Bo felt an intense pain on his back, as though his bones were being shattered. The man became enraged, and he tried to retaliate, but Lu Yin's voidforce energy overwhelmed the old man and threw him aside.

"Take him away," Lu Yin ordered.

Old Bo crashed to the floor, enduring the pain that he was suffering to look up at Lu Yin. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Boss Guan grabbed the man. "You’re nothing but a spy! Come with me."

Old Bo was confused.

A spy?

He looked over at Cang Bi. "Senior, just what is going on? There must be some misunderstanding. Senior, I'm not a spy!"

Cang Bi frowned. He was merely accompanying Xuan Qi and the Bureau, and he had absolutely no right to intervene in their activities.

Lu Yin stood where Old Bo had just been, and he looked around at the bewildered crowd of Astral Pathfinders as he coldly said, "None of you will be leaving until we are able to determine the extent of Old Bo's crimes. Boss Guan, keep an eye on them. There have to be other spies here as well."

"Senior, all of us are Astral Pathfinders. How could there be any spies among us?" someone nervously questioned.

Boss Guan slapped that person and sent them flying. The unlucky man crashed to the floor where he spat blood. "The Bureau’s activities are no place for your sophistry."

Lu Yin's eyes turned back to the servant. "This man can go. He's just an ordinary human."

He then stepped forward and left the meeting hall. He needed to find an opportunity to release Gu Yue's descendants.

...

Lu Yin had arrested Old Bo for personal reasons. It was nothing more than Lu Yin’s own way of avenging Gu Yue. However, unexpectedly, many people stepped forward to plead for Old Bo's innocence. Surprisingly, the old man’s most ardent supporter was none other than the protector of the Astral Pathfinders, the Mo Courtyard’s Ban Yuehong.

While Ban Yuehong physically stayed within the Mo Courtyard, he was always paying attention to any problems that the Astral Pathfinders might encounter.

He had received news of Old Bo’s arrest right after it happened and had immediately hurried over, only to be stopped by Cang Bi.

No matter what Ban Yuehong said, Cang Bi refused to allow the Demi-Monarch to meet Xuan Qi.

Lu Yin had absolutely no interest in seeing a mere Demi-Monarch.

However, the Demi-Monarch had strong connections with many other members of the Mo Courtyard. So after Ban Yuehong failed to make any progress with Xuan Qi and the Bureau on his own, he asked for support from the other experts in the Mo Courtyard. Then, a group of them demanded a meeting with Xuan Qi, urging him to share evidence that Old Bo was a spy.

However, this attempt was ruined by Old Greenpeel. The man was not the most sociable person in the Mo Courtyard, but with Chen Le’s recent breakthrough, Old Greenpeel had become the most powerful Demi-Monarch in the Three Monarchs Universe. Thus, his promotion to the leader of the Mo Courtyard was nearly a foregone conclusion. Given the fact that Old Greenpeel was expected to soon become their leader, no one in the Mo Courtyard dared to offend the man, not even Ban Yuehong.

Aside from their protector, Ban Yuehong, the Astral Pathfinders also sought the help of the Mu family, hoping that the powerful family would intercede on their behalf. Old Lady Mu informed Lu Yin of this development, though he did not take it to heart.

That indifference changed when Chen Le personally approached Lu Yin about Old Bo’s arrest.

"Don't tell me that even you want to talk to me about Old Bo's arrest." Lu Yin was rather surprised. Old Bo was not even a Demi-Monarch, so why were so many people so concerned about him?

Chen Le replied, "Do you have any evidence confirming him to be a spy?"

Lu Yin felt quite puzzled. "What if I don’t?"

Chen Le said, "If there is no evidence, then you may need to release him, as Monarch Luo himself has requested this."

Lu Yin was taken aback. "Why is Monarch Luo interested in Old Bo?"

Chen Le shook his head. "I'm not entirely certain, as I didn't ask too many questions so as to avoid rousing Monarch Luo’s suspicions. After all, I've already been too accommodating with you. You should ask Old Bo about this."

Lu Yin soon met Old Bo in person.

The old man had been beaten rather severely by Skinner, but Lu Yin did not feel the slightest hint of pity.

When the old man saw Xuan Qi approaching, he glared fiercely at the young man. "I am no traitor! You cannot falsely accuse me! Why are you targeting me?"

Lu Yin walked over to Old Bo. "You are a spy."

"I am

not

!" Old Bo angrily retorted.

Lu Yin calmly observed his captive. "Then you should talk to Cheng Feng about that. He was the one who ratted you out."

Old Bo's eyes grew large. "Cheng Feng? From the Voidforce Universe?"

"Don’t tell me you’ve never met him," Lu Yin said coldly.

Old Bo considered what he had just learned. "I’ve only seen him once. I visited the Broken Cliff in the Voidforce Universe once before, as I was curious about his singing. After all, even Monarch Xing enjoys it."

“What a joke! You, a man known for your cruelty and ruthlessness, traveled all that way just to hear him sing? That's just absurd. Cheng Feng stated that he sent you a message through the song that you heard, and that you then passed the information along. So, tell me, who did you deliver that message to?"

Old Bo grew indignant. "I did

not

! I am no traitor! Where is Cheng Feng? I want to confront him myself. I am not a spy."

"It has already been proven that Cheng Feng is a spy, and he has no reason to want to frame you. Strictly speaking, if you’re not a spy, he would have never met with you. Why would he be trying to frame you?" Lu Yin countered.

Old Bo was caught off guard by the question, as he could not understand why Cheng Feng would want to frame him. Had he ever even interacted with the man? No, they had never even spoken to each other.

Suddenly, Old Bo turned to stare at Lu Yin. "Someone is having Cheng Feng frame me."

"Who?" Lu Yin asked.

Old Bo had no answer for that. Who could it be? He did not have even the faintest idea.

Lu Yin remained silent as he watched Old Bo wrack his brain. The old man could not understand his situation at all.

"There are a surprising number of people paying attention to your case." Lu Yin abruptly changed the subject.

Old Bo's eyes instantly lit up. "I am not a spy, and you’d better release me, or else Monarch Luo won't spare you."

Lu Yin chuckled. "The Bureau serves the entire Sixverse Association. Monarch Luo may be the ruler of this Three Monarchs Universe, but not even he would dare to go against the will of the entire Sixverse Association. You must have already heard about how Cheng Feng’s arrest went. Bot even Sovereign Ninth Lotus’s disciples were able to take him away from the Bureau."

Old Bo stared at Lu Yin in a daze as he recalled what he had heard about that matter. The entire Sixverse Association had gone into an uproar when Cheng Feng had been arrested, and it had all started with this Xuan Qi. This man had the audacity to antagonize even Sovereign Ninth Lotus’s disciples, so there was no need to even mention someone like Old Bo.

"Xuan Qi, I swear that I am not a mole." Old Bo decided to try a softer approach. There was no point in threatening someone who did not fear even Sovereign Ninth Lotus’s disciples.

Lu Yin nodded. "Now that's more like it. Don't worry, if you're really not a spy, I'll help you prove your innocence. My duty is to capture spies, not to offend people."

Old Bo sighed in relief. "Yes, I understand that, and I am not a spy."

"Still, with such a strong reaction to your arrest, I really don’t have any choice but to suspect that Aeternus is behind you. The moment you were arrested, a crowd instantly stepped forward to try to save you. Something about this isn’t right. After all, you aren't even a Demi-Monarch, so why are so many people trying to protect you?" Lu Yin questioned.

Old Bo was stunned. How were the attempts to rescue him somehow exacerbating the suspicions of him being a spy?

"This- how does this suggest that someone is a spy?"

Lu Yin glanced over at Skinner, who nodded and explained, "From our own experiences, the more important a spy is, the more connected they are to important matters and people in the Sixverse Association. When something goes wrong with a critical spy, a larger number of people will step forward to try to save them. For example, when Cheng Feng was arrested, the disciples of Sovereign Ninth Lotus even went so far as to send several Demi-Monarch level experts to try to rescue him. The reaction to your arrest is almost as intense as his was. There’s no surprise that Ban Yuehong is trying to save you, but the fact that the Mu family and even Monarch Luo himself are getting involved makes things abnormal.

"We don’t suspect the Mu family or Monarch Luo, but simply put, someone like you shouldn’t be connected to matters anywhere near important enough to garner such a level of interest. The reactions to your arrest are not normal, and the more abnormal things are, the more likely Aeternus is somehow involved."

Old Bo quickly explained, "Monarch Luo spoke for me because I'm involved with the matter between Gu Yue and the Origin Universe."

Lu Yin's eyes flickered. "What do you mean?"

Old Bo hesitated.

Lu Yin stated, "Staying silent will only raise suspicions that you’re involved in some plot of Aeternus’s that was put in play to entangle you in various matters that would ensure your protection in case anything happened to you. These plots make things much more complicated for the Bureau’s investigations, and there’s no telling how long it might take us to get to the bottom of this. Things might last for a very long time, or in the worst-case scenario, we might be forced to assume that you are guilty."

When dealing with a spy, in both the Perennial World and the Sixverse Association, the rule when it came to spies was to assume that the person was guilty.

Old Bo helplessly gritted his teeth. "There’s a passageway here in my Three Monarchs Universe that connects to the Origin Universe. We didn't know it even existed until a man named Gu Yue arrived. He..."

Old Bo proceeded to share Gu Yue's story, and the details perfectly aligned with what Lu Yin had already read in the historical records.

"What does any of this have to do with Monarch Luo speaking up to defend you?" Lu Yin asked in confusion.

Old Bo looked up. "That passage is about to open."

Lu Yin was startled, and his first thought was that something had happened to Shenwu Continent.

However, once he heard the full explanation from Old Bo, Lu Yin understood that Shenwu Continent had nothing to do with the matter and that the passage was going to open from the Three Monarchs Universe’s side.

"Gu Yue has been missing for so long. If Monarch Luo really wanted to get to that other universe, why didn’t he force the passage open before? Why wait until now?" Lu Yin asked.

Old Bo replied, "Monarch Luo did try. A thousand years ago, he took advantage of a time when Forgotten Ruins God left, and all three Monarchs used their full strength to try to open that passage, but they still failed. I don't know why they are able to open it now.”

"My instructions are to investigate what’s happening in that parallel universe after the passage opens. I was assigned this duty because of my familiarity with Gu Yue. Through him, I was able to learn a bit about his universe."

Things finally fell into place, and Lu Yin now understood why Old Bo was of interest to Monarch Luo. Still, the old man was not terribly important to the Monarch. It was simply that Monarch Luo needed Old Bo to investigate the Fifth Mainland because of what he had learned from Gu Yue. However, Old Bo did not have any detailed information, which meant that he would not be able to play a truly pivotal role. Everything hinged on whether the man was truly a spy.

Desperate to survive, Old Bo begged Lu Yin to prove his innocence. The man was willing to share anything and everything he knew, even the location of two trans-universal passages that existed in the Three Monarchs Universe.

This was something that Lu Yin had not found any mention of, even in the stone tower.

After learning about the two locations, Lu Yin hurried over to investigate the passage to the Fifth Mainland, eager to find out what the Three Monarchs were planning to do to open the passage.

He returned days later, having failed. He had not been able to even approach the location. The entire area was surrounded with potent monarch essence, suggesting that either Monarch Luo or Monarch Xing was there. Lu Yin was not confident that he could sneak in without being noticed, especially if Monarch Luo was the one standing guard. The man was a mystery to Lu Yin, and the legends surrounding him indicated that his abilities went far beyond what he had revealed to the public. Chen Le might not fully understand Monarch Luo's capabilities, but Lu Yin did.

That was also why Lu Yin feared the Monarch.

Unable to personally visit the passage, Lu Yin’s only option was to turn to Chen Le.

Contacting the Demi-Monarch, Lu Yin asked if the man knew where the passage was located.

"That’s a passage to the Origin Universe, and it’s where Xia Shenji came through. Before he showed up, we didn’t know that the passage was connected to the Origin Universe," Chen Le replied.

Lu Yin rather casually said, "Go over there and check things out. I need to know the details of what’s happening there."

Chen Le grew puzzled. "You need to know what’s happening there?”

The man fell silent for a moment as he stared at the image of Xuan Qi on his communication crystal. "Are you from the Origin Universe?"

Lu Yin had already known that, as soon as he gave Chen Le this task, his identity would eventually be revealed to the man. However, that did not matter. As long as Chen Le wished to live, he would not betray Lu Yin. "Go look around. I need to know the details, the more you can find out, the better."

With that, Lu Yin ended the call.