Chapter 573
The Church of the Flowery Words
Chapter 573 The Church of the Cross (Thirty-Six)
Ning Yao recalled his time at Kulian No. 3 Middle School, when Li Xin was a younger brother who followed him around, always saying "Big Brother, what are you saying?" and who acted as his henchman alongside Xu Sui.
He stared at the cold and aloof face beneath him. Although the model was the same, it didn't match the honest and enthusiastic boy at all, and he looked to be more than a decade older than Li Xin from No. 3 Middle School.
It's probably another NPC with the same model, name, and attributes generated in Chunyu Kong's dream when energy is insufficient.
But that doesn't make sense. The two Li Xins have nothing in common except for their appearance, so how could they use the same name?
Could it be that he and Xiao Lixin share the trait of being "lackeys"? They don't seem like it...
Ning Yao withdrew his tentacles with a question in mind and pulled the person up from the ground.
"Be honest. With your skills, you should know you can't escape. You might as well tell me the truth, and everyone will be happy."
Li Xin coughed twice, his neck seemingly crushed by Ning Yao's kneeling, and he took several deep breaths to recover.
He seemed to have given up on escaping, leaning casually against a pillar: "Ask away. I'll tell you what I can, and I'll kill myself if I can't."
Ning Yao was pleased with his sensible nature: "It's good that you're understanding. Tell me, why are you chasing after my older brother?"
Li Xin: "The association needs to take action."
"Bullshit!" Ning Yao exploded upon hearing this. "I've never seen the association arrest someone and then say 'life or death doesn't matter.' Are you trying to pull some strings? Do you have a personal grudge against my brother? Do you know him?"
Li Xin glanced at him and sneered, "Never seen it before? How many times have you seen the association arrest people?"
"Uh..." Ning Yao's curse words stuck in his throat. After stammering for a while, he finally managed to squeeze out another sentence, "Mind your own business! Just tell me why the association arrested my older brother? Don't try to fool me. I know there's no such person as him in your database. He doesn't have any wanted criminal record. It's not a big deal that he and I rescued a little ghost king together. Is it really necessary to send a special guard team to hunt him down? Besides, I committed a crime with him, so why kill him and not me?"
Li Xin looked away, her tone indifferent: "I don't know your older brother. These are all orders from above; I just follow them."
"Don't give me that." Ning Yao didn't believe this explanation at all. "Your guard team usually never leaves the house, but this time you actually sent a team of more than a dozen people deep into the ghost stories to capture someone you don't even know? And the leader is a weakling like you with no fighting skills. Isn't this just sending them to their deaths? Oh~ I know! You want to send someone to their deaths first and then frame my brother?!"
Li Xin was silent for a moment before speaking in a low voice: "...Theoretically speaking, I'm not bad."
Ning Yao: "Is this the important point, brother?"
Li Xin sighed: "I don't know the details, I only know that your older brother seems to have gotten into a huge mess, the higher-ups are furious, and the specific information has been blocked, but it doesn't really matter anymore. You just need to understand that the association's attitude is 'bring him to justice, life or death,' so if you see our people, just run for your lives; as for the teams that are coming to arrest him, there is more than one... I volunteered to come."
Ning Yao was taken aback: "You're applying? Why?"
“As you said, it’s unlikely that our guard team will have the opportunity to leave the association, but I need to come out and take care of something.” Li Xin lowered his eyes, as if he had made up his mind. Before Ning Yao could ask any further questions, he simply stated his reason, “I have received information that Rao Qian’s disappearance may be related to this church. I’m following his trail, and maybe I can find Rao Ze.”
"Rao Ze?" Ning Yao frowned even more. "What do you have to do with Rao Qian and Rao Ze? Why are you looking for them?"
Li Xin raised her head, her gaze calm yet firm: "Rao Ze is my teacher, and I have some questions for him." Teacher?
Ning Yao's mouth slowly opened into an "O" shape, and he suddenly clapped his hands in a moment of sudden realization: "You're Rao Ze's 'student'? Ah, I see. No wonder you're 'Li Xin'. I get it!"
Li Xin originally thought Ning Yao would continue to delve deeper into his relationship with the Rao family, but how did this fool suddenly become enlightened? Incidentally, Li Xin was also completely baffled.
However, this "inexplicable" feeling is very much in line with Li Xin's stereotypical impression of Ning Yao.
Although he had never crossed paths with Ning Yao, Li Xin had long heard of Ning Yao's legends. He even heard that Ning Yao had been exceptionally admitted as a "corpse-driving apprentice" in his early days, and Li Xin had even considered taking him on as an apprentice.
Yes, Li Xin also rose through the ranks from "corpse-driving apprentice".
Under the tutelage of his teacher Rao Ze, his magic gradually broke free from the limitations of "corpse driving," allowing him to precisely control more puppets and even manipulate living people into battle.
The team led by Li Xin was built on this basis.
The team battle just now was a masterpiece of coordination. Through Li Xin's control over his teammates' movements, a ten-person squad could exert the fighting power of more than twenty or thirty people. As long as Li Xin has teammates around him, his strength will always be greater than the sum of its parts; therefore, despite his lack of physical skill, Li Xin is actually ranked quite high in the guard team's strength ranking.
Unfortunately, over the years, apart from Li Xin, no other member of the association has emerged who is skilled in corpse-driving or puppetry. Most people still prefer to learn orthodox magic or body-refining techniques, and it's almost impossible to find a successor for his unorthodox methods.
Li Xin was secretly excited for a while when Ning Yao joined the association as a corpse-driving apprentice.
Unfortunately, Ning Yao was a truly inexplicable character. He inexplicably joined the association, inexplicably took on high-difficulty missions solo, inexplicably gained Captain Jiang's favor and patronage, and inexplicably encountered a series of fortuitous events. There were countless legends about him within the association; some even claimed that Ning Yao had already obtained a divine artifact during his internship!
Why would someone with such great opportunities and good fortune follow me to learn such lowly and unorthodox tricks?
Li Xin then abandoned his idea of taking on a disciple and instead focused on finding Rao Ze's whereabouts.
For years, he could not believe the association's characterization of Rao as an "extremely dangerous defector." During his monotonous years in the guard unit, he secretly sifted through every pursuit report, trying to piece together the truth from between the lines.
Therefore, Li Xin tracked down Rao Qian's whereabouts and applied for field operations in order to find Rao Ze and ask his teacher in person.
"Hey."
Ning Yao's voice brought him back to his wandering thoughts.
Li Xin refocused her gaze and decided to be frank with Ning Yao: "Actually, you won't get any useful information from me. I'm just an executor on the front lines. It only takes one order to mobilize us, and the higher-ups won't explain anything to us. I don't even know how many teams are following my orders."
Ning Yao shrugged: "I guessed so~ If a newbie like you can just run to the front lines with classified documents, what's the difference between that and surrendering with one click?"
Li Xin turned his head to the side, thinking to himself: This brat really doesn't know how to talk. It's a good thing I didn't take him as my apprentice, otherwise I would have kicked the bucket long ago and gone to enjoy my life.
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