318: Chapter 318 Admit it, you are Bai Xiao

Could it be... he's really a member of the Special Investigation Team?

Cheng Jiashu's gaze swept past abruptly, quickly comparing the photo on the identification with the facial contours of the person before him, his thoughts spinning rapidly.

The man wearing a raincoat gazed at him coldly:

"State your identity immediately, explain the reason for your appearance here, and cooperate with the investigation."

His tone was filled with a sense of authority, carrying the distinct cadence characteristic of a government official.

Cheng Jiashu steadied his mind, put away his attacking stance, quickly organized his words, and explained:

"I am a social volunteer at Chenxi Home, here today to visit the children."

"Because the rain was too heavy, I stayed here overnight temporarily. Just now, I heard abnormal noises and thought a thief had sneaked in, so I came out to check the situation."

His explanation sounded reasonable and airtight.

However, the other party clearly did not completely believe it.

The eyes beneath the brim of the raincoat were sharp, locking onto him tightly:

"You are not an ordinary volunteer."

"The speed and reaction you just displayed far exceeded the scope of a normal person. How do you explain this?"

Cheng Jiashu's heart leapt violently, and he lowered his head slightly to avoid the other's scrutinizing gaze.

Deep within his eyes, an imperceptible fierce glint quietly flashed past.

The hands hanging by his sides had already quietly clenched into fists.

The power within his body began to stir restlessly.

Just when he was prepared to pay any price to get rid of the trouble before him first,

the man named Officer Zhou Liang suddenly spoke up again:

"You must be... the mysterious person who provided intelligence to our Special Investigation Team, right?"

In his inquiring tone, there seemed to be a hint of sudden realization.

Hearing this, Cheng Jiashu couldn't help but be stunned.

The tightly clenched fists also subconsciously loosened slightly.

He raised his head, his eyes carrying a hint of just-right surprise and doubt:

"How did you guess? It seems I haven't exposed my identity, have I?"

His reaction was both as if his mind had been read and carrying a few parts of probing.

"Isn't that simple?"

Seeing Cheng Jiashu's reaction, Officer Zhou Liang let out a light hum from his nostrils, his tone growing increasingly certain:

"The Noah Organization's Dongdu Branch practically poured out its entire nest tonight. If it were merely to deal with a few ordinary children in this orphanage, it would be making far too much of a fuss."

"They must be after some special target of immense value, and coincidentally, our Special Investigation Team obtained an important piece of intelligence."

"A traitor has appeared among the upper echelons of the Noah Organization, codenamed 'White Owl'. It is said he stole the organization's core secrets and is currently hiding out in Dongdu City."

Saying this, Officer Zhou Liang deliberately paused, staring at Cheng Jiashu's face with a torch-like gaze:

"You appeared here tonight, acting exceptionally vigilant, and your martial prowess far surpasses ordinary people. If you aren't that White Owl, then who are you?"

"Moreover, you've been hiding in this orphanage all along, intentionally passing intelligence about the Noah Organization's actions to us. You just wanted to use the power of our Special Investigation Team to help you eliminate the enemies hunting you down, isn't that right?"

This series of deductions sounded logically rigorous and seamless.

Cheng Jiashu remained silent, looking at the other person with complex eyes.

From these words, he captured a lot of key information.

Noah Organization, traitor, White Owl, core secrets...

These words were like scattered fragments quickly piecing themselves together in his mind, attempting to reconstruct a vague outline of the truth.

After a moment, he slowly spoke, his voice carrying a trace of deepness.

"I am not White Owl."

"The reason I stay here is simply to protect those innocent children."

Cheng Jiashu flatly denied it, and what he said was indeed the genuine truth without a doubt.

Only the expression on his face, the gravity between his brows, seemed to be implicitly acknowledging some unknown secret identity.

"Hehe."

Officer Zhou Liang did not seem surprised by his denial, letting out a disdainful sneer:

"Since you are not White Owl, then who dealt with those Noah Organization assassins who sneaked in?"

Hearing this, Cheng Jiashu couldn't help but glance at the utility room in the distance.

He thought, wasn't it you who killed them?

On the surface, however, he maintained a strategy of playing dumb, secretly making plans.

First muddle through with this ambiguous attitude to resolve the current identity crisis.

Best of all, turn the tables and extract more useful intelligence from the other's mouth.

Officer Zhou Liang did not continue to entangle himself in this issue, and then his tone shifted:

"In principle, our Special Investigation Team has the obligation to arrest and interrogate any unregistered ability users and personnel from unknown factions."

"However..."

His tone slowed down slightly.

"If Mr. White Owl is willing to show enough sincerity to engage in deep cooperation with our Special Investigation Team to jointly deal with the Noah Organization, a social cancer harming society, we are not unreasonable..."

These words were undoubtedly throwing out an olive branch.

Cheng Jiashu remained silent, seemingly weighing the pros and cons of the other party's proposal.

Right at this moment, a flurry of chaotic sounds drifted in from outside the walls of Chenxi Home.

That was the sound of many people's footsteps treading in the accumulated water, mixed with the faint rustling noise of metal objects colliding.

It sounded like a large group of people was assembling and surrounding the orphanage this way!

Cheng Jiashu's brows twitched, and a look of shock and suspicion instantly appeared on his face.

Officer Zhou Liang quickly turned his head, gazing at the pitch-black rain curtain outside the window.

His gaze flickered slightly, and he muttered to himself:

"It seems the Noah Organization can no longer hold back and has started moving."

Immediately turning around, his sight fell back onto Cheng Jiashu, speaking at a rapid pace:

"The Special Investigation Team's main goal tonight is to round up this gang of criminals attempting to create chaos and endanger public safety, bringing them to justice."

"I hope Mr. White Owl can think clearly about his situation and choice. Afterwards, you can come to our headquarters as a guest at any time to jointly discuss how to completely eradicate the Noah Organization, this grave threat."

Listening to the other party's words, a hundred thoughts raced through Cheng Jiashu's mind.

If official forces intervened, then the safety of the children in the orphanage should be guaranteed.

Under such circumstances, it was not suitable for him to force himself forward anymore.

Keeping a low profile and avoiding the exposure of his true identity and abilities was the wisest choice.

He pondered for a moment and gave an ambiguous response.

"I will consider it."

Officer Zhou Liang gave him a deep look, as if remembering his face.

Ultimately saying no more, his figure flashed, and like a ghost, he quickly disappeared into the dark end of the corridor.

Looking at it, he must have returned to his team to participate in the upcoming arrest operation.

Cheng Jiashu stood alone in place, his brows tightly locked.

Then he quickly stepped forward, walked to the window, and carefully observed outside.

He saw many figures wearing black raincoats and moving agilely, flooding over the courtyard walls like a tide, creeping towards the direction of the orphanage's main building.

These people's movements were professional and swift, appearing well-trained and brimming with Killing Intent.

Just as Cheng Jiashu clenched his fists, hesitating in his heart,

Bang!

In the distant street, a crisp and piercing gunshot suddenly rang out.

That sound appeared particularly abrupt in the stormy night.

Following closely were more disorderly gunshots, bursting out continuously like popping beans.

Dazzling flashlight beams danced wildly in the rain-filled night, weaving into an unstable, swaying net of light.

Faintly, someone could be heard shouting loudly.

"Don't move, Special Investigation Team enforcing the law!"

"Drop all weapons and surrender immediately!"

The urgent siren sounds also approached from far to near, sharply piercing the night sky.

Before long, the commotion outside grew louder and louder, quickly descending into complete chaos.

The orphanage's elderly security guard scrambled out of the duty room, looking around blankly.

Evidently, he was so frightened by this sudden turn of events that he almost had a heart attack.

Upstairs, the children and staff who had originally fallen fast asleep were thoroughly awakened by the loud noises.

One by one, sleepy-eyed heads poked out from behind the windows of various rooms, looking in terror at the chaotic scene outside.

Cheng Jiashu quickly returned to the dormitory area, shouting loudly to calmly pacify the frightened crowd, telling them to stay indoors in safety and not run around.

At the same time, he was also closely monitoring the battle situation outside.

Judging from the density of the gunshots and the direction of the shouts, the battle was mainly concentrated on the periphery of the orphanage and near the courtyard walls.

Faintly, it could be seen that two factions were engaged in fierce crossfire.

One of the sides should be those combatants from the Special Investigation Team.

They were agile in skill and well-equipped, seemingly having laid an ambush in the blocks surrounding the orphanage long ago.

At this moment, they were forming an encirclement against those Men in Black from multiple directions, just waiting for the other party to crawl out of their hole and walk right into the trap.

As for those members of the Noah Organization, although their numbers were relatively superior and their combat capabilities exceptionally formidable,

under the fierce attack and encirclement of the Special Investigation Team, they gradually showed signs of collapse.

After all, this was Dongdu City area, the home field of the official law enforcement agencies.

After a period of fierce battle, those Men in Black seemed to have received a retreat order, scattering and fleeing in different directions.

The members of the Special Investigation Team, like hounds with a sharp sense of smell, pursued relentlessly.

The gunshots and battle cries gradually spread further away from the vicinity of the orphanage.

Seeing this scene, Cheng Jiashu breathed a slight sigh of relief in his heart.

At least, these children at Chenxi Home were temporarily safe.

But before his eyes, a heavy fog still shrouded everything.

Everything that happened tonight exuded an unspeakable weirdness.

The Noah Organization first painstakingly tracked him, and then mobilized such a massive workforce to surround this small orphanage.

If their goal was simply to deal with him and these defenceless children, this scale was a bit too grand.

Perhaps, it was truly as that masked person had said.

The Noah Organization was hunting down a defecting high-ranking member who had mastered their core secrets.

That is, the mysterious person who passed him the note to warn him of danger.

Cheng Jiashu frowned in thought.

Could it be...

The Noah Organization found out that the murder of the director of Chenxi Home was related to him, and then mistakenly thought he was an accomplice of "White Owl".

Therefore, they kept tracking him, wanting to find clues of the hidden "White Owl" from him?

And that real "White Owl", when hiding in the orphanage, had also discovered his specialness.

Hence, why he used that method to remind him to be careful of the Noah Organization's retaliation?

"If that's really the case, then everything makes sense..."

Cheng Jiashu let out a slight breath.

But with a turn of his thought, it felt somewhat off.

That White Owl had not shown himself up to this point.

If the Special Investigation Team had not arrived in time tonight to stop the Noah Organization's attack,

wouldn't he have become an innocent scapegoat, inexplicably dragged into this vortex?

Thinking it over and over, Cheng Jiashu felt that for the current period, he'd better hide first and not wade into this muddy water.

Quietly observe the changes in the situation before making the next decision.

As long as the Noah Organization couldn't find him, and with the Special Investigation Team relentlessly pursuing them from behind and making trouble for them,

in a few days, as long as they weren't entirely stupid, they should discover that he and the so-called "White Owl" had no relationship whatsoever.

By then, things would naturally quiet down.

Thinking of this, in Cheng Jiashu's mind, the "midnight date" mentioned on that mysterious note surfaced once again.

In his heart, a strong sense of curiosity and doubt couldn't help rising once more.

Ultimately, the desire to explore the unknown truth overwhelmed his caution.

He decided to brave the pouring rain and personally go take a look at the abandoned lighthouse by the sea.

No matter what, he had to peel back these layers of fog and see clearly who on earth was the sacred entity manipulating all of this behind the scenes!

Cheng Jiashu made up his mind, taking advantage of the fact that the chaos outside had not completely subsided, and quietly walked to an unattended corner.

He took a deep breath, his pupils suddenly lighting up with an unusual radiance.

Hum——

A low and strange buzzing sound arose out of thin air.

The space before his eyes instantly underwent a clearly visible distortion centered on his right eye.

The air was no longer calm, and the light seemed to be pulled by an invisible force, converging and collapsing toward that point.

Strikingly forming a pitch-black vortex continuously collapsing inward.

That vortex rotated like a living creature, first expanding violently, almost sucking everything around it in.

Then it abruptly contracted, enveloping Cheng Jiashu with an irresistible gravitational pull.

His figure seemed to be forcibly twisted and pulled by this power, starting from the edges, being swept into that pitch-black entrance piece by piece, inch by inch.

The next instant, Cheng Jiashu had completely disappeared from the spot, as if he had never appeared at all.

Leaving only a trace of an imperceptible spatial fluctuation in the air, which was quickly smoothed out by the wind, rain, and gunfires outside the window.

Deep in the corridor, in a dark corner beyond the reach of light.

Suddenly, a streak of lightning flashed across, vaguely illuminating the contour of a figure wearing a raincoat.

That figure had no breathing, no heartbeat, and carried not the slightest sign of life on its body, resembling an abandoned cold sculpture.

Yet at this moment, he suddenly opened his eyes, staring brightly at the direction where Cheng Jiashu disappeared, muttering to himself:

"Turns out your ability is so interesting, no wonder you could stay at ease within the encirclement..."

The slightly stiff voice carried a trace of a barely audible echo in the empty corridor.

The figure slowly raised a hand, gently removing a micro-patch as thin as a cicada's wing from his throat.

That was a precise voice-changing device.

The one communicating intelligence with Cheng Jiashu just now was none other than the disguised Fang Cheng.