478: Intelligence with a reason

At this moment.

Inside this not-so-busy fast-food restaurant.

Two Headed Vine had put aside her resentment towards Shen Bei and began to elaborate on the intelligence she had gathered from her client.

“This is an unethical technology, so the Apocalypse Cult naturally cannot openly recruit volunteers, and internal cult members would certainly not test the medicine on themselves.

Therefore, they started entering the black market, buying ‘guinea pigs’ from human traffickers.”

“However…” Two Headed Vine continued, “even for ‘guinea pigs,’ they have specific requirements: only those with good Martial Artist talent are suitable.”

“Why?” Shen Bei asked, following her lead.

“Their medicine is currently in a semi-finished stage; it can only allow those with better Martial Artist talent to become Martial Artists or achieve better promotions, thereby obtaining experimental data.”

Shen Bei stroked his chin upon hearing this.

According to Two Headed Vine’s description, the Apocalypse Cult probably concocted the ‘New School Martial Artist’ rhetoric for the sake of acting with perceived righteousness, right?

After all, if the Apocalypse Cult committed evil without reason, even its internal members would question its legitimacy.

Even if outsiders called them the “Apocalypse Cult,” they themselves believed their sect was a legitimate “Tianqi Divine Sect.”

Nominal justice was something the Apocalypse Cult could not ignore.

“Moreover, this medicine also has unignorable dangers and significant side effects.

Then they collect data from the experimental subjects to move on to the next stage, developing a safe medicine that allows people with ordinary talent to Awaken as Martial Artists.”

Two Headed Vine continued: “Because human traffickers cannot provide so many ‘just right’ experimental subjects, they decided to take matters into their own hands, kidnapping Martial Artists from the lower social strata in Jingcheng City and its surrounding villages and towns to meet their experimental needs.”

“I think the Apocalypse Cult might have outsourced this task.

The one undertaking this task has the vibe of a ‘criminal professional amateur’.”

Shen Bei expressed his thoughts while recalling which local organizations possessed the technical capability and means to undertake such a request from the Apocalypse Cult, but after much thought, he couldn’t immediately find any suspicious targets.

Ultimately, turning ordinary people into Martial Artists—where did they get the confidence to research such a project?

At the same time, Two Headed Vine showed a puzzled reaction: “Amateur? How do you know?”

Two Headed Vine was clearly confused by Shen Bei’s words, which, in turn, surprised Shen Bei a little.

Shen Bei put on an air of seeing through the fog and said with a smile:

“Firstly, as the saying goes, a rabbit doesn’t eat the grass by its burrow; kidnapping people locally easily increases the chance of being detected by local constables.

Any somewhat professional criminal organization would choose to kidnap people from other regions, and those with long reach would choose even more distant conflict zones.

In such chaotic places, no one would consider a missing person something worth noting.”

“Secondly, the Mind's Eye Potion is probably not made on-site; it involves drug manufacturing, so there must be an organization fulfilling the Apocalypse Cult’s orders.

As for the relationship between the Mind's Eye Potion and the murdered Martial Artists, that remains a mystery.”

“Exactly.” Two Headed Vine also nodded: “However, it’s still an organization with a scientific research project, so there must be smart people internally.

Although the decision-makers initially made a blunder due to their amateurism, they quickly noticed their elementary mistake and came up with a plan to avoid being tracked by local constables.”

Hearing this, Shen Bei lowered his head and began to ponder.

A criminal organization kidnapping local residents, a Sheepskin Assassin who Awakened after taking medicine, a plan to avoid being tracked by local constables…

Shen Bei immediately came up with a possibility, raised his head, and asked: “The Sheepskin Assassin is a ‘scapegoat,’ right?”

Two Headed Vine nodded in agreement, then said: “The mysterious organization found the Sheepskin Assassin, deliberately gave him a semi-finished medicine, and made him a Martial Artist.

However, this semi-finished medicine, when inducing one to become a Martial Artist, causes significant psychological changes in the user.”

“The Sheepskin Assassin already had serious criminal tendencies, and the power and side effects brought by the medicine made him cast aside all scruples, leading him to kidnap and brutally murder local residents everywhere.

To facilitate his criminal activities, the mysterious organization even provided him with a spell to enhance his stealth.”

The spell she referred to was, of course, ‘Feign Art.’

At this moment, most of the doubts in Shen Bei’s mind had been dispelled.

Currently, it seems the Apocalypse Cult is in charge, with a mysterious organization handling the execution.

The mysterious organization’s “scapegoat” plan was also very simple: find a madman in the black market to kidnap local residents everywhere, and then, based on this situation, prepare two detailed sets of clues and physical evidence for two scenarios— “the scapegoat is arrested by local constables” and “the scapegoat is not arrested”—to push all the criminal records left from their initial blunders onto the Sheepskin Assassin.

The reason Two Headed Vine wanted to find the Sheepskin Assassin was that clues to the mysterious organization could be obtained from him.

As for the last time the Sheepskin Assassin was cornered by him and Thunder King Ye Leng appeared, it was probably because the Sheepskin Assassin was also a genuine Apocalypse Cult member.

This chess piece was not yet ready to be abandoned.

Therefore, Thunder King Ye Leng came to assist, but it was completely unexpected.

Both of them were easy targets in front of Shen Bei.

In the end, both perished.

But it still had some impact on Shen Bei, for example: a complete breakdown.

Now that things had come to this, Shen Bei asked: “Why are you tracking this?”

Two Headed Vine smiled and replied: “My motive is not complicated.

In the process of my daily intelligence gathering, I accidentally touched upon the boundaries of the mysterious organization, and they particularly did not want their existence to be known, so they immediately sent people to hunt me down.”

Shen Bei frowned, “Is it that simple?”

Or were there other motives?

Two Headed Vine didn’t say, and Shen Bei didn’t have mind-reading abilities, so he couldn’t know.

Shen Bei said half-jokingly: “Now that the information I have is similar to yours, I can shake you off.”

“You—” Two Headed Vine stood up angrily, then paused slightly under Shen Bei’s gaze, her words changing, “...your milk tea is getting cold, drink it quickly.” Then she sat down.

A second later, she seemed to feel her reaction was too cowardly, her face showing “the more she thought about it, the angrier she got,” all her psychological activity written on her face.

Shen Bei noticed Two Headed Vine’s emotional fluctuations and felt that this person might be hiding something from him.

It was still Professor Gu Xinrou’s words: every Martial Artist has secrets; don’t pry into what you shouldn’t.

Being prepared was enough.

Two Headed Vine composed herself and asked in return: “What about you?”

Shen Bei carefully chose his words and said: “I’m interested in that medicine that can turn ordinary people into Martial Artists.”

Two Headed Vine oh’d, drawing out the sound: “I thought you were concerned about the threat of New School Martial Artists to Old School Martial Artists.”

Shen Bei stated frankly: “There is no New School or Old School, only good or evil.”

“Meaning…” Two Headed Vine asked suspiciously: “Are you with the constables or the military?”

“You can doubt me, but you cannot question Big Ears,” Shen Bei replied expressionlessly.

Two Headed Vine was stunned for a moment and said: “Don’t look at me like this, but I’m actually very confident in my judgment of people.

I have my own way of distinguishing who is trustworthy and who is a shameless liar.”

Shen Bei nodded: “Very good, I hope we can continue to cooperate.”

“Alright, now you can tell me about your ‘client’.”

Shen Bei said finally.