The prismatic faceted surface flashed with a gloomy light. The gadget in his hand was only as thick as a thumb.
【Prismatic Eye of Black Buddha—Consumable: An item that can only be used by Black Buddha Cultists.】
Su Chen estimated it was a one-time lethal weapon.
'When Yu Xuan was about to die, he seemed to want to use this thing to counterattack. Its power definitely isn't bad.'
Tossing it into his Storage Space, he thought that since he could disguise himself as a Black Buddha Cultist, he should be able to use it as well. 'It more or less counts as a trump card.'
Taking out a Mist Fiend Potion from his Storage Space, he poured it into his mouth. He checked carefully and found there wasn't much left—only three bottles.
With the enhancement brought by the 【Sage】 class, his talent improvement was reflected in all aspects, including his potion absorption efficiency. He could fully consume two portions of Mist Fiend Potion a day.
'Spiritual Light Potion is useless now too. I need a 2nd-tier meditation potion, and an E-grade meditation technique...' Su Chen got a headache just thinking about it. He could only wait for Old Sun to come before asking.
...
"Yu Xuan didn't come back?"
In a seemingly ordinary civilian house somewhere, Zhou Xian's expression was clearly not right; it was very gloomy. "Today's encirclement obviously wasn't targeting him specifically, and he also had the 【Black Eye】 I just gave him. He should have been able to escape."
The Priest glanced at him, his voice deep and dark. "Could it be a bitter meat trick?"
"A bitter meat trick? Him?" Zhou Xian froze slightly. It was only after a moment he realized that the Priest was doubting whether he had defected. He immediately rebuked out of anger, "Have you ever seen anyone use a bitter meat trick to kill their own son!?"
"Just saying it casually, why so anxious?" the Priest said indifferently.
Zhou Xian's face turned red, the blood vessels on his neck throbbing. "It must be Su Chen!"
"The previous Pan Yu disappeared, and now Yu Xuan has disappeared too. The people keeping an eye on him have vanished without a trace. This is absolutely not a coincidence!"
"He seems to have nothing to fear." The Priest's expression was obscure and difficult to read. "Yu Xuan had clearly confirmed that he is an Evil God Cultist. Where does his confidence come from?"
"Do you want to test him out?" Zhou Xian felt a slight stir in his heart.
The Priest's pitch-black pupils stared at him. "Xia Hanshi is still here. Before the holy statue arrives, I don't want to be discovered by him."
"Make a trip outside the city now to ensure there won't be any problems with the holy statue's transportation."
"As for Su Chen, find some trouble for him so that he and the Evil God behind him won't pay attention to us."
Looking at those eyes that were akin to an abyss, Zhou Xian involuntarily shifted his gaze and nodded. "Understood."
...
"Lately, our Supervision Department has really been acting swiftly."
Early the next morning, Su Chen heard people discussing this in the cafeteria.
"Some time ago, they took out a stronghold of the Evil God Cults, and last night there was another major operation. I heard they caught quite a few people."
"Now, the other two departments know how formidable we are. When the department head made a big fanfare checking on people previously, they didn't get any clues and were ridiculed by them instead."
"Although the inner city is not as dangerous as outside the city, many things are hidden beneath the surface. These two ambushes are probably the follow-up to the department head's investigation a while back."
Many people from the Supervision Bureau branch shared the honor and were in high spirits.
"I heard that Zhou Xian was discovered last night, but they let him escape..." Hou Xu, who was sitting beside him, sighed when mentioning the matter. "What a pity. Otherwise, it would really be a great merit."
Su Chen listened without speaking the whole time. Only at the end did he clink bowls with Zhang Hengyu. "Wishing you a smooth promotion."
He drank down the meat broth in his bowl in one gulp. Zhang Hengyu was slightly taken aback before he also finished his, saying sincerely, "Thank you."
Zhang Hengyu was about to advance to a 2nd-tier professional. The estimated time was two months faster than he had imagined.
It was also because he was stimulated by Su Chen during this period that his training never stopped. Although the process was very tedious, now that it was harvest time, he had a different state of mind.
'The protective talisman ran away.' Su Chen sighed inwardly; there was nothing he could do about it.
According to Zhang Hengyu, the requirements for his professional advancement were special and required assistance from someone else.
After sending Zhang Hengyu off, Su Chen was in no hurry to train. As expected, in the afternoon, Fatty Sun hurriedly came looking for him.
"Little brother, it's another great merit." Fatty Sun carried his metal suitcase as usual. Although excited, he inevitably had a bit of suspicion as he lowered his voice.
"Little brother, there are no outsiders here. Tell me honestly, what is actually going on this time?"
"What do you mean what is going on?" Su Chen still pretended to be clueless. "It was just a rumor. Who knew if it was true?"
Seeing that he was unwilling to speak, Fatty Sun didn't press the issue. Anyway, it was strangling Evil God Cultists, so it was a merit no matter what.
"Sigh, what a pity..." He was somewhat desolate. "If I had known Zhou Xian was on the scene, I would have notified the City Lord."
"Zhou Xian was actually there?" Su Chen was astonished. "What exactly happened?"
"It was a stronghold. A few upper management of that factory were Evil God Cultists, and the people below just took money to do things and offer convenience." Fatty Sun shook his head. "However, during the screening last night, they found a charred corpse not far from the encirclement."
"We still don't know exactly who it is. The department is doing genetic analysis."
"By the way, there's one more thing. You need to make a trip back with me this afternoon. The City Lord is looking for you," Fatty Sun finally said.
Su Chen's heart skipped a beat. He originally wanted to ask about the 2nd-tier meditation potion but temporarily held it back. He asked in surprise, "Because of what?"
"I don't know." Fatty Sun didn't mind. "You're so close with his son, so it definitely isn't a bad thing."
"Could it be that they want to transfer you back and promote you to section chief? That would be a bit too fast, right?"
He muttered, still thinking of good things over there.
Su Chen couldn't help but frown. The two chatted a bit more before Su Chen greeted Hou Xu and then followed Fatty Sun into a hovercar to return to headquarters.
Old Sun had made consecutive merits and was in high spirits. Su Chen sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window while brushing him off from time to time.
Arriving at the Supervision Department, they went straight up to the top floor office.
Zhang Hongbo was already waiting for him there. Just like when Su Chen first met him, he had a mild smile on his face as he gestured for him to sit down.
"Hengyu is going to advance to a 2nd-tier professional. It's faster than I estimated, which is also thanks to you," Zhang Hongbo said with a sigh.
"We motivate each other," Su Chen replied properly.
"Last night, we almost caught Zhou Xian. Sun Tai is quite a character; he has quite a few clues in his hands." Zhang Hongbo suddenly brought this matter up.
"Big Brother Sun has always been very capable." No fault could be picked from Su Chen's response.
The troublesome part about dealing with an old bastard like him was that you couldn't figure out which of his remarks were genuine sighs and which were probes.
"Back when you were a refugee, did you encounter anything?" Zhang Hongbo's gaze sharpened a bit, but he added, "I'm not deliberately picking off your scabs; I'm just asking how the people below do things."
"This doesn't count as a scab." Su Chen shook his head, pondering. "The City Lord's orders should have been carried out to about sixty or seventy percent. Although we couldn't eat our fill, it couldn't be called going hungry either."
"Sixty or seventy percent is not bad," Zhang Hongbo said helplessly. "The human heart is unpredictable."
Su Chen really didn't want to continue chatting idly with him, so he simply asked, "City Lord, you are looking for me to..."
"No rush, wait for two people." Zhang Hongbo gestured for him to stay calm.
Su Chen remained silent. The two fell into silence, and after waiting for five or six minutes, two people arrived.
One was a cold, white-haired man, and the other was a quiet older sister.
"Let me introduce you. These are the special envoys from Yingfeng, Yang Yan and Gu Bing." Zhang Hongbo stood up and gestured with his hand.
"Special Envoy Yang, Special Envoy Gu," Su Chen greeted.
Yang Yan sized Su Chen up and down and nodded inwardly. Neither haughty nor humble, calm and composed.
What a handsome young man, Gu Bing pushed up her glasses and sized him up from head to toe.
"Summoning us in such a hurry, what's the matter?" Yang Yan asked indifferently.
'They don't know either?' Su Chen muttered in his heart.
Zhang Hongbo only glanced at him before finally sighing. "It's like this: someone reported that Su Chen is an Evil God Cultist."
'As expected, they act really fast. A report as well? Treating others in the same way they treat you?'
Su Chen understood clearly in his heart, but he feigned astonishment and shouted in shock, "What!?"
Hearing this, Yang Yan furrowed his brows tightly, and the look he gave Zhang Hongbo carried disgust.
Last time when he used Su Chen as bait, he still spoke with valid reasons. Although it yielded no results, he didn't take it to heart.
But this time, the method was a bit too vulgar, and just like last time, in order to share Yuan Chenyang's firepower, he dragged them in as well.
Gu Bing beside him was not outdone either. She originally didn't like Zhang Hongbo, and this time seeing Su Chen himself, she was even more displeased.
"I didn't expect City Lord Zhang, dealing with ten thousand matters a day, to still have the time to pay attention to these reports," she said tepidly.
Su Chen was truly astonished this time. 'This woman is speaking up for me?'
But since someone had initiated the conflict, he immediately followed up, declaring angrily, "City Lord, do such baseless reports need to be weighed on a scale?"
"Does it mean that if I go back and casually write a letter reporting you, reporting Zhang Hengyu, reporting Zhang Yunqing, you will also have to question them?"