Chapter 2416 - 2411: The Prophet Is Dead (22)
Chapter 2416: Chapter 2411: The Prophet Is Dead (22)
It has to be said, this is a heavy blow.
The more confident the Black Doctor sounded, the more stiff Amber’s face became.
As the first recorded High-level Extraordinary to step into the Gate of Freedom, his words still carried some weight.
The most straightforward conclusion to draw from this was that after he entered, Akasha never came in.
Having lost that hope of running toward freedom, Amber suddenly felt that even the hope of finding her seemed to become faint.
"Your reasoning needs to stay rigorous. Isn’t it still possible that Akasha came here even earlier than that? You analyzed that yourself."
But the blow wasn’t completely devastating.
The next moment, the Grand Fate Ming Emperor spoke up, offering a rare bit of consolation, and with solid reasoning.
"Heh heh... outsiders?"
Amber kept quiet; the Black Doctor instead looked quite eager to talk, staring at Fu Qian to confirm.
"Outsiders."
Fu Qian treated him with equal sincerity and nodded.
"No wonder. Otherwise he should’ve shown up in this same pile of muck just like us."
The Black Doctor looked even happier, almost like he was about to start hopping.
But he really couldn’t be underestimated; from a single sentence you could see how clear his thinking was.
The issue of the spawn point had actually been raised just now: because of his status as an outsider, he lacked the "True Self" inside the cauldron.
So the first stop after he went through the door had been Yuan Fang’s apartment.
By contrast, whether it was the Sheep-headed Demon before, or Lady Crystal’s Nascent Soul "Amber," they both instantly corresponded to the "True Self" inside the cauldron.
If the Black Doctor had really been hunkered down here this whole time, it would’ve been very easy for him to notice how different Fu Qian was.
Judging by the tone of his question, he also seemed somewhat unfamiliar with Fu Qian as a person, so he probably hadn’t taken part in that restaurant ambush back then.
Personally organized by the Prophet, involving the safety of the entire Unseen Hillock—if he didn’t even attend an event that important, you could tell just from that that he was a troublemaker.
Combine that with the title "Black Doctor," and he was tilting hard toward the criminal camp.
"Doesn’t look too bad, actually. Not damp at all."
But considering his own image wasn’t exactly great either, Fu Qian didn’t take offense on that front. The next moment he even glanced around and pointed out that this place actually wasn’t that bad.
"Heh heh... this arrogance of yours, standing safely on the shore, looking down from on high."
Living up to the evaluation just given, even his sigh carried the air of an educated man.
And admittedly the sarcasm made sense; no matter how strong his Empathy was, an outsider standing here talking about how dire the situation was inevitably looked a bit like he was putting on a show.
"Yeah, didn’t you see my hands aren’t even dirty? I’m having someone else do the searching."
The only problem was that moral accusations had always been something the Grand Fate Ming Emperor was immune to.
He didn’t waste a second trying to argue back; Fu Qian simply acknowledged his own sense of superiority, even pointing a finger at Amber.
...
"Well said, haha... well said..."
The Black Doctor froze for a moment at that, but then it was like something had flipped a switch; he burst out laughing, shoulders shaking.
"Interesting. At this point I don’t even feel the need to ask why you came here... Go on, what do you want to know?"
And toward Fu Qian, who had brought him such joy, he behaved quite generously, fully aware that small talk came with a price tag.
"So how likely do you think it is that Akasha came here before you did?"
Though Fu Qian’s question clearly caught him off guard for a moment.
"You actually care about that?"
Obviously he didn’t see Fu Qian as the humanitarian type. Staring at that awe-inspiring mask, the Black Doctor seemed to be trying to see through the mysterious outsider’s heart.
"Unfortunately, the probability is basically zero, because I’m fairly sure no one discovered that door earlier than I did."
But that was clearly a futile effort; the Black Doctor soon gave up and instead directly answered Fu Qian’s question.
"I see."
Fu Qian glanced at Amber; this time the impact was heavy enough.
When he’d asked that question, the one taken aback wasn’t just the Black Doctor; Amber had been just as shocked.
And while confused, Amber had clearly been focusing hard on the question, only to take another solid blow to the head.
If what the Black Doctor said was true, it meant the door had been under his watch the entire time, and Akasha’s disappearance could no longer be explained by that theory.
"What about the Prophet?"
Unfortunately the Grand Fate Ming Emperor sounded like he’d only been asking in passing, clearly not that interested in the matter. He immediately shifted the topic and casually glanced toward the shore.
"...I never saw him go through the door either. By the time I came here, he was already around. Maybe he left the door behind, or maybe he didn’t come through the door at all."
This time the Black Doctor hesitated a little, but still answered in the end.
"That possibility indeed can’t be ruled out—"
And Fu Qian still agreed with his assessment.
On one hand, Yuan Fang’s behavior had always been very Swindler-like; on the other, don’t forget his current position was already different from everyone else’s—like how he wasn’t in the cauldron, for example—
"We can’t even rule out the possibility that he’s an outsider too."
Before the Black Doctor could say anything, Fu Qian tossed out an explosive conclusion.
...
He really wasn’t saying this just to scare people; if you thought it through, the logic actually held up.
The fact that the Grand Fate Ming Emperor hadn’t woken up inside the cauldron was proof he was an outsider. So can you now be sure that Yuan Fang woke up in the cauldron?
Even if the Prophet had provided guidance over long ages, who could say an outsider was incapable of doing that?
This kind of habitual thinking had to be broken.
Not to mention, from Fu Qian’s perspective, there was another strong reason—if the Prophet really was that Yuan Clan genius who passed away in meditation, then wasn’t he literally someone who’d come from outside?
He was never the same type of being as these innate wills of the Unseen Hillock in the first place.
"Looks like you’re pretty sure the story you told him earlier about the duplicate name is true."
Without needing any prompting, the Black Doctor seemed to arrive at a similar line of reasoning. He glanced over at Yuan Fang, making no effort to hide the fact that he’d eavesdropped on their earlier conversation.
"That part I’m actually not that concerned about. What I really want to know is why you’re so certain that no one discovered that door before you did."
Before Fu Qian could express that great minds think alike, Amber—reeling from the barrage of information—finally snapped out of it and questioned something from earlier.
It was understandable; on one hand that claim did sound a bit vague, and on the other, given Akasha’s whereabouts, the answer to this question was clearly crucial.
"Simple. I’d already been staying in that building for quite a long time before that. I never noticed Akasha coming to visit the Prophet, and after I heard the Prophet’s message, I was also the first person to rush over."
At that, the Black Doctor just let out a cold chuckle, even turning toward Amber and giving a rather irreverent raise of his eyebrows.
"Who do you think wrote those words?"