I Am Your Natural Enemy

Softly, like the farewell melody of reed pipes, silence is tonight's Cambridge.

Wen Yan had already lowered his voice so much that unless he leaned right next to Cai Qidong's ear, Cai Qidong might not even be able to hear him.

This was all to avoid making things awkward for everyone; this kind of thing, really, you definitely couldn't shout it out loud.

Wen Yan understood in his heart exactly why Old Lady Fox didn't call anyone else.

It's not like that old lady wouldn't be able to get in touch with someone from the Scorching Sun Department right away, right?

In fact, Cai Qidong's personal phone number, that old lady probably even had that.

But in the end, she called him instead.

The other day, when Sparrow Cat came out of the Water Ghost Domain, it collected the contact info for several demon and ghost bigshots, and even gave out his number to two of them.

One is that red-haired, twin-tailed fox's grandma—said to have immense prestige among the Demon Kin.

The other is the Old Ghost from Guanzhong County—said to have both high standing among the Ghosts, and great power, too.

Of course, Wen Yan made note of the numbers for these bigshots—just in case.

Who would've thought, before he even got to call and say hello, Old Lady Fox took the initiative and called him first.

Wen Yan knew, this was Old Lady Fox making sure things didn't spiral out of control—leaving room for mediation, at least making sure no one would lose too much face on the surface.

Wen Yan had a personal connection with the old lady, and this call was from a private number—nothing official involved.

But Wen Yan passed on the key intel to Cai Qidong. That is, Wen Yan, the Scorching Sun Department's specially-appointed expert, had given a suggestion to Cai Qidong, the Minister—so the matter stayed locked inside the Scorching Sun Department.

Even in the worst case, it was still a mistake made by someone else in the Scorching Sun Department, or some temporary worker dug up the wrong shrine and found the wrong person; but then, another expert in the department pointed out that this wasn't right.

But if it was a demon who told Cai Qidong, or the shrine had already been burned down, then this would be a seriously troublesome miscarriage of justice.

The Ghosts didn't enjoy any kind of formal protection clause; in this vast water system of West River, these so-called Water Gods—almost all of them—haven't been officially registered, haven't been given summoning talismans, so of course there's no written protection there, either.

But as long as it's not related to some case, you can't just kill at will—and even less so, killing a Water God who still has their Demon Body, which involves way more, and would be much harder to clean up.

But take this situation—Cai Qidong himself showed up. Solving the Water Ghost Domain is a legitimate, justified move. The Water God clutching Wang Xueqi's body and not letting go is a slap in the face.

In that case, if Cai Qidong smashes the mountain, destroys the shrine, dams the river, wipes them out completely—well, that's justice against Heretic Rites, no one could say otherwise.

Of course, that all depends on not targeting the wrong person, not smashing up the wrong shrine...

Wen Yan watched as Cai Qidong's expression changed uncontrollably, like something out of an opera—he even felt embarrassed for Cai Qidong himself.

Luckily, things hadn't yet reached the point of no return; if they'd been just a few minutes later, it would've blown up into a fiasco.

Wen Yan recalled the materials he'd read these past few days—the whole West River water system is just way too complicated, his head was spinning, and he still hadn't untangled most of it.

Plus, Aunt Gan had told him not to poke his head into this, so he'd been obediently keeping out of it and watching from the sidelines.

Who would've thought, even after consulting various experts in the Scorching Sun Department, they still got it wrong.

Cai Qidong turned around and looked at the dozens of hot-blooded field agents from the Scorching Sun Department, not to mention hundreds more support staff led by Qin Kun. All of them wished they could just bury themselves in the ground.

So humiliating.

The intention was to gather a crowd, ramp up the Yang Energy, so if anything really happened, they could just steamroll right through.

Never expected they'd almost make a fool of themselves in front of everyone and take the blame for it.

If he gave the order to attack and anything happened in the end, of course he, as the leader, would have to take the fall.

Back at HQ, there'd probably be someone waiting to use this chance to stab him in the back—officially and all too conveniently.

Right then, Cai Qidong couldn't help but get a bit paranoid. Logically, the expert consultants in Scorching Sun Department wouldn't make such rookie mistakes, right?

Was there something else going on here?

"Minister..." Wen Yan lowered his voice, gave a quiet reminder—any more delays and there'd really be no good excuse left.

Just then, Feng Yao got a call, hurried over, and leaned in close to Cai Qidong, speaking in a low voice.

"Minister, just got a report—a kid by the river had his phone snatched by a talking river dolphin, and the call it made went straight to Old Lady Fox..."

Feng Yao had already noticed something was off.

Wen Yan's not the kind of guy who would stir up trouble at the wrong time, and the Minister definitely wouldn't just randomly halt things to listen to Wen Yan ramble about who-knows-what.

After getting the tip, he quickly found an excuse to come over—any excuse would do, really, as long as he gave the boss a way out. What the excuse was didn't even matter.

Cai Qidong quietly let out a breath of relief.

"Let's pause here. There's been an unexpected development."

Feng Yao sidled up to Wen Yan, giving him a meaningful look, asking what exactly had happened.

Wen Yan's eyes were a little odd. With a half-smile, half-sigh, he quietly asked,

"You really want to know?"

"What exactly happened?" Feng Yao could sense something was off, but just couldn't figure out what.

Wen Yan leaned in close and whispered,

"You got the wrong guy, dug up the wrong shrine, scared the poor thing half to death—they called Old Lady Fox to beg for rescue."