He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

"So slow... Making three people wait for you for ages, Young Master Ai really has an insatiable amount of face."

The familiar sarcastic tone, the familiar Lin. The gray-eyed boy slowly stepped out of the elevator, chuckled upon hearing this, and naturally continued, "Sorry for the delay."

What should have been a quick resolution turned into a rather lengthy ordeal. The main issue was the killing of an extra person. The shop manager didn't actually have to die, but to leave a more lasting impression on everyone present, he used his cynical thinking to eliminate the disrespectful guy.

This was Ai Yi's first murder in his two lives, and he killed two people at once. He thought he would feel disgusted or repulsed, but surprisingly, he was fine, his mindset was completely calm, and he even felt a little relaxed.

He looked down at his hands, his fair knuckles stained with drifting black ash, reflecting the recent carnage in his white-beaked eyes.

Taking another's life seemed like a commonplace thing to Ai, and he couldn't tell whether this was a change brought about by imitating "Mr. Grey" or whether his nature was just so indifferent.

In short, just as the door says—foxes are born to be villains; to put it in a more dramatic way: ruthlessness is their background color, fear is their plaything, and death is their halo.

Manipulating minds and controlling hearts is as natural and simple as breathing for Ai Yi.

The feeling wasn't exactly pleasant, but it could be described as "interesting." Mr. Grey used killing as a tool, while Ai imitated Grey's mannerisms, trying to sow the first seed for the resurrection of the "Mirror of Radiance" in the suburbs.

Aside from Connor, none of the people at the Moon Bar were even worthy of his name: this seed was still too weak to cause any trouble in the short term, but anyone with ulterior motives who had connections to that cult would naturally be drawn to the "Grey Name" spread by Connor and his group.

As for the concern about attracting the Foundation's attention—the solution is the same old one: Mr. Grey is back, what does that have to do with Phantom Thief Ellen? As for the guys at the bar, they'd all be wiped out except for Connor, and I wouldn't care.

Even if the person who was discovered by chance died... Ai wasn't too heartbroken, since they hadn't established any real relationship yet.

In short, everything I had lost is gradually returning from its silence.

Perhaps it will take some time before we start to encounter some problems.

Ai Yi pondered silently:

Killing the person was only the first step; he also devised a way to get the money out of the store manager's account—his family's valuables had all been sold off, and if he didn't even get back the consolation prize, he would truly collapse.

Ai patted Nie's little head and let out a long sigh of relief.

Fortunately, with the mysteriously privileged "Doraemon" Nexus around, he successfully transferred all of the store manager's assets to Ai's account, preventing him from losing everything.

Looking at the extra 140,000 credit points on the think tank panel, he was quite happy; his little treasury had doubled.

Back then, Ash would never have cared about this money, but now, the Mirror of Radiance has exploded, its parts scattered everywhere, and all the disciples have left. As everyone knows, the restart phase of a project is the most expensive, and when people's hearts haven't been won over, bribery is the most direct and effective means.

The economic pressure in the future is immense.

Ai pouted, looked up and noticed everyone was watching the bird on his shoulder, so he smiled and flicked the crow's beak: "This guy seems to like me. It says it wants to come home with me."

"Uh," Veltin hesitated, "I still don't understand where it came from... It's not important, but we're about to start heading deeper into the suburbs, are you sure you want to take it with you?"

"It's okay, it's very obedient." Ai sounded confident. "Right, Gugu?"

"Whoosh!" The crow flapped its wings twice, looking quite pleased.

"Hmm..." Veltin stroked his chin, looking at the crow thoughtfully. "Coo-coo... how did you come up with this name?"

"I know several birds with similar sexual characteristics, and their names are all reduplicated words. I thought all winged birds liked this format," Ai said, watching the crow hopping around on her shoulder. "See, it really does like it."

"It's true, nine out of ten birds in the lower city are named XX. This naming habit seems to be a tradition of all winged humans." Veltin recalled a little-known fact, "There's a vague record in the think tank... I heard that the pinnacle of the Ash Criterion is a crow with a strange cry..."

Although it's a bit inappropriate to discuss a powerful figure like this, according to reliable information, that supreme deity is a very gentle and neutral being who spends most of his time without conflict and treats most factions with equality and friendliness, so Veltin just said it directly.

"Wow!" The crow tilted its head and began to stare at Veltin. Ai, standing next to it, had a strange expression on her face. "I think... we should still show respect to beings of that level."

He remembered that Gugu was an apostle of Moya, essentially Sichen's gaze cast upon the mortal world—what Virtin had just said to Gugu might not have been anything special in itself, but it seemed rather subtle in the current situation…

I wonder if Mo Ya heard it.

Completely oblivious to the strange shift in atmosphere, she remarked, "If you really like this bird... well, I remember there's a special ritual that can transform animals into your own familiars—once you join the Countermeasures Bureau, I'll look for one for you inside."

"Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Wei."

Ai answered politely on the surface, but she was still somewhat tired of the topic and began to deliberately create an awkward silence.

For the next leg of the journey, without Ai Yi's response, the group quickly fell silent.

He finally had time to observe the distant suburbs after the rain—a land that had been stained with heavy malice and filth.

At first glance, apart from the pervasive humidity and mist, the environment doesn't seem to have changed much. The giant air purifier has been relieved of its long-accumulated burden, and its operation has improved. Even the ubiquitous roar has subsided, and it doesn't sound as heavy and tiring as before.

Ai raised her head higher and discovered that the crack in the dome that she had glimpsed earlier underground had quietly closed at some point, and there was nothing unusual about it to the naked eye.

However, by combining the secret transmission of insight with the principle of the Whitebeard's remains, he could still glimpse a view behind the "dome" from the faintly visible, yet unhealed scars of the Dao—an incomprehensible ignorance, absolute darkness, the residue left after something dissolved, evaporated into impurities, and was burned into ashes.

Having left the outer shell of the suburbs... is that place "outside the nest"?

For the first time, Ai gazed up at the "sky" for such a long time. Even he felt a strong sense of curiosity, as well as an inexplicable fear—an instinctive rejection of the "unknown," a shadow looming over the other side of courage.

What is the world outside this nest, beyond the dome, really like...?

However, the salted fish mentality quickly took over – this map was clearly not one that could be explored at this stage, so they would explore the areas ahead later.

Just as Ai was lost in thought, Sherlock, who had been quietly walking at the back of the group, suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence: "This sewage discharge... is actually not quite right."

Something's not right?

The group didn't stop. As they walked, Veltin answered, "The concentration of malice has increased, right? Actually, that's normal. Hallownest has been in a 'downward economic' cycle for the past few years, and stability is decreasing everywhere."

"Unemployment rate, crime rate, divorce rate... with different weights, a whole bunch of indices, big and small, are basically all rotten. The guys in the countermeasures bureau who sit in the office are also overwhelmed, nine out of ten are bald—the remaining one has changed to a wig and a prosthetic body, tsk, luckily we are the barbarians of the execution department, as long as we stay away from that damn management and statistics, this fire will not reach our heads for the time being."

Let's have a moment of silence for the business students in universities. These unfortunate souls are about to become the waste products of the sinking economy of the city, being filled into the abyss of their twilight majors.

"Could it be my imagination?"

Sherlock didn't deny it, he frowned: "But I still feel that this sewage rain is not normal... It's not like I haven't been to the suburbs before, and I've been to sewage sites several times, but I've never felt this way before—my inclinations are indeed easily influenced by malice, but the influence shouldn't be this strong."

"Officer Wei..." The middle-aged man stopped, the shadow between his brows deepening. "Should we still investigate?"

While the professionals were discussing, Ai kept quiet and quietly moved aside. Wilting, who was walking at the front, had also stopped. She turned her head and looked at Sherlock, whose face was full of solemnity.

She sighed softly, then said in a low voice, "Then let's delay a little longer."

What should we do?

Ai watched with interest as Virtue continued her actions. She stood there in a daze, her eyes a little unfocused, probably operating the think tank: "We didn't come here to investigate the sewage situation, and we didn't bring any equipment that we thought we wouldn't need. I'll send a message to headquarters now to order a set over—don't worry, my feedback channels respond very quickly, it won't take too much time."

Next, the group found an abandoned building and lined up to wait. Fortunately, Virtin's priority channel did work; just a few minutes after the distress call was sent, a buzzing sound came from the end of the dome, as if the previously silent giant structure had suddenly been connected to a power source. A series of dazzling rainbow lights spread along the lower edge of the dome towards the five people—

The three of them, Ai and Yi, didn't react, while Sherlock was a little confused: "Wei sir, what kind of assistance did you apply for?"

Something feels off about this commotion...

"Hume Tree damage assessment, um, wait here for me, I need to verify your identities and sign for the delivery."

What the heck?

"The Tree of Hume..." Even with Sherlock's lightning-fast reflexes, he froze for over ten seconds, his eyes initially blank before turning vacant—"Williams, is it the Tree of Hume I know?"

"yes."

What the hell!

Before Sherlock could even utter his cry of alarm, a strange phenomenon erupted silently:

In that instant, endless halos of light rose and merged into one, illuminating the deep darkness of dawn as if it were daytime. Within this ocean of light overhead, a colossal tree, stretching across the distant suburbs, grew from the darkest singularity—

The tree casts an invisible outline on the ground, like a thin line running through both ends of the world. It grows at both ends with a complex and intricate root system, faintly extending into a huge complex structure like meridians and blood vessels, covering the boundless dome and the narrow land from point to surface.

Within a vast expanse, the flow of the red liquid was dominated by a broader, more immense current of thought. The solidified sense of touch sank into the mind, like an insect caught in a spider's web, its flapping wings sluggish and slow, imprisoned tightly within the web.

Nie opened his mouth slightly, showing a rare display of genuine shock.

Ai Yi was horrified—Holy crap, did you see that? It looks like Wei Sir has exploded again?

It exploded twice in one hour, that's an incredibly high drop rate.

"Miss Wei, did you get your period today?!"

Sherlock wailed, "This is it... I'm completely finished! Forget about being dismissed, I'll be going straight to court for a chat. Is it too late for me to switch jobs?"

"Sherlock, I trust your intuition unconditionally—is this how you repay me?"

Virtue's flamboyant and unruly behavior completely exposed his true nature:

"I've already messed up once—violating at least twenty rules and losing a spot on the Grand Path program, which is no small matter. Those old geezers on the committee who are annoyed with me won't let this opportunity pass. Anyway, I'll most likely be dismissed when I get back, so I might as well have some fun first..."

The young executive was surprisingly open-minded. She was like a dead pig that wasn't afraid of boiling water. When you're in dire straits, you have to gamble like a dog. If she didn't dare to go all in at this point, she felt like she had wasted the past ten years.

Fortunately, Sherlock provided her with this outlet.

"An executive can only use this privilege once in their lifetime; they can't wait until they're demoted without ever experiencing it, can they?"

- The Hume Tree System, the Foundation's "Singularity Technology," is the "Supreme Authority Tree" used to govern the mysterious power of the entire Hive City. It is the heart of Hallownest and the core of its intellectual resources. Under normal circumstances, the purpose of this system is to monitor all changes from the Great Gift Pool, and most of the computing power is devoted to receiving the anomalies of the Supreme Gods.

The remaining redundant computing power was placed under the final authority of the "Advanced Unit" as a benefit by the Foundation. As a senior agent of the Countermeasures Bureau, the Executive Officer, Wilting, naturally also had this ultimate authority.

But having it doesn't mean you can use it recklessly. If it's later discovered that you've wasted the Hume Tree's computing power, then you can forget about being an executor and go have some tea in the courtroom's dark room.

Sherlock's face was full of bitterness: "Wei sir... this time it's probably not just a simple demotion."

"Don't worry about it, I'll take responsibility if anything goes wrong... At worst, I'll just quit and go back to Shangcheng!"

Veltin has clearly gone completely mad. One wrong step leads to another. If you want to blame anyone for all these mistakes, blame that bastard Ai for taking away a spot on the Path of Glory, making it hard for her to repay—otherwise, how would things have come to this?

"Didn't you take the path of enlightenment? Where's your so-called rationality?"

"Before becoming a member of the underdog, I was first and foremost a teenage girl. A girl destined for unemployment believes more in passion and intuition than in reason!"

Ai had only seen a hint of it before, but now it's completely confirmed—Visor might have some brains in his first form, but once he enters his second form, he's just a complete lunatic.

A genderless voice rang in Virtin's ears:

"Identity verification: Trinity Foundation Special Countermeasures Bureau Executive Department ③ Executive Director Wilting, verification passed, authorization completed, Hume Tree confirms intervention in the current matter."

"The damage assessment process has commenced—based on initial feedback, a file has been established: abnormal sewage discharge in the suburbs."

"Model building in progress, malicious monitoring module activated, control group established, data collection underway, model parsing in progress."

The tendrils of the giant tree spread from the dome down to the earth, stretching all the way to the far reaches of the suburbs, enveloping this scorched and filthy world in a tide of light vines and roots.

Wilting held his breath nervously—the excitement from before had mostly dissipated, and now he was definitely going to be nervous! If he sent it, not only would he lose his job, but he would also have to sit in that horrible place called the courtroom for ten days or half a month. Just thinking about it made him tremble.

However! As long as the sewage discharge is abnormal and can be classified into the ε level (second to last level) file, Wilting can be considered to have "redeemed himself" and will have a little more confidence in front of the committee.

She didn't want to retreat to the upper city in such a young age, at the height of her ambition; it would be best if she could keep her career at the Lower City Foundation.

Ultimately, it all boils down to gambling.

Believe in yourself, Virtin!

Down and out is the end for corporate slaves and lowly middle-aged men, but beautiful young girls and gambling addicts will eventually have everything!