Eldritch Horror Theatre

Bagging the person in charge right off the bat? The staff at Anjing Company were surprisingly dedicated to their jobs!

Listening to Carlos's introduction, Fu Qian sighed in genuine admiration.

Now these were proper villains!

Since the man's strength qualified him as a high-level grunt, Fu Qian had already guessed his rank within Anjing Company wouldn't be too low.

To think he was a fellow Doctor.

"Mister Dancy is truly extraordinary."

After his introduction, Carlos considerately gave Fu Qian ten seconds to digest the information before continuing with a smile.

"After receiving Asao's report, I took a brief look at your file and couldn't resist rushing right over."

"It is nothing short of a miracle!"

"Mister Dancy may have benefited from the potion, but believe me, to us researchers, the value of this case far exceeds that of a transcendent—even a Mid-Tier Transcendent."

Carlos's tone sounded polite enough at first, but his praise achieved the exact same effect as a famously caustic insult.

The words themselves were pleasant enough, but they were thoroughly steeped in superiority and disdain, perfectly demonstrating the art of language.

"Asao? The guy with the glasses?"

Fu Qian tossed back another mouthful of tea and swallowed before speaking.

"I'm not sure how PR Sakura described things when she got back."

"But I've always considered my own value to far surpass a Mid-Tier Transcendent."

"...I have to say, I'm starting to appreciate you more and more."

Carlos looked surprised for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"That was presumptuous of me. Asao really isn't qualified to evaluate you."

"After all, who could have imagined that a simple Miracle Potion would actually produce a Mid Tier..."

As he finished, Carlos stared at Fu Qian with a deeply meaningful expression.

"To be honest, my first reaction to the report was to question the test's authenticity, so I went straight to Sawada for a chat."

"After getting a detailed account of the entire process, including our deceased staff member, I didn't expect to actually find something interesting... Does Mister Dancy know what that might be?"

"That the turkey hood had absolutely zero taste?"

Faced with Carlos's increasingly sharp probes, Fu Qian had pondered for a moment before giving that reply.

"Now I believe Asao's report didn't exaggerate in the slightest."

Carlos nodded with a half-smile.

"You really are an interesting character!"

"And I agree with you, of course. That turkey hood really was entirely tasteless!"

"But back to business. When I examined the remaining head, I found that the time of death didn't quite match up. Does Mister Dancy know why?"

This tone aggressively demanding accountability, this pointed questioning—no matter how you looked at it, it seemed Sawada had already confessed everything, leaving a full confession for leniency as Fu Qian's only path forward.

Facing the overbearing Carlos, Fu Qian offered a silent critique.

"The time of death doesn't match? That actually does fall within my area of expertise, but if you want my professional opinion, you should at least put the corpse in front of me."

He threw a seemingly unintentional glance at Su Gao and decisively chose to put up a stubborn resistance.

...

Carlos's icy stare lasted for a full ten seconds this time.

"Fair enough. After all, that guy was still alive when you made your escape."

To his surprise, Carlos didn't demand that Fu Qian confess. Instead, he simply went along with the excuse.

The human will to survive really is powerful. Brother Sawada actually withstood the pressure!

Inwardly marveling at this sudden shift, Fu Qian realized something else.

Carlos lowering himself to come all the way out here naturally couldn't be to seek justice for some nobody.

Fu Qian didn't even think he was doing it out of interest in a successful case. Given his rank, he had arrived abnormally fast.

Only a threat to their survival could provide that kind of driving force.

The purpose of this researcher's visit was likely the same as PR Sakura's—to assess the risk of the situation spiraling out of control.

As the project leader, Carlos's primary concern had to be what hidden dangers this special case posed to Anjing Company, and whether he could contain them.

It went back to his earlier conclusion: their least concern was whether he truly was a Child of Destiny who had his Ren and Du meridians cleared by a single vial of potion.

But if he was poisoned bait used to seize leverage over them, the nature of the problem was far more severe.

Especially considering one other detail... Fu Qian thought of the sunken giant ship on the way to Laiye Island.

The chances of the Night Watchers cooperating with a notorious character like him were relatively slim. Before, Anjing Company might have only harbored a sliver of that concern.

But looking at the current situation, it was obvious that a competitor was stirring up trouble for Anjing Company.

Under these circumstances, a natural possibility emerged: he might not be the Night Watchers' poisoned bait, but he could be a competitor's.

Even if they hadn't struck yet, by holding on to this leverage, they were preparing to expose it at a critical moment. This would give the Night Watchers an excuse to act, driving a tiger to devour a wolf.

This was the real reason Carlos had rushed over.

Of course, even if Sawada had buckled under the pressure and confessed everything, he actually knew very little about Fu Qian. It was perfectly normal for Carlos to come and test the waters.

The reason Fu Qian judged that Sawada had kept his mouth shut was because, otherwise, Carlos wouldn't have used the matter of Kunio's head to test him.

That point of suspicion was far too weak. There were plenty of better options.

First of all, there really was an issue with Kunio's time of death. Even though Sawada had carefully preserved the head before bringing it over, a professional taking a close look could easily tell that the man had died much earlier.

The reason Fu Qian considered this evidence weak was simple.

Bringing someone back from the dead might be impossible, but accelerating their decay was easy enough.

The moment he got his hands on the head, he had made a minor adjustment.

Specifically, he had used the Tyrant's Fist, upgraded by the Sin Fire, to taint it with a trace of its aura.

The Sin Fire, inherently the ultimate manifestation of corruption and decay, successfully ruined the remains far beyond normal degradation.

During the process, Fu Qian had carefully removed the hood, only putting it back on after the treatment was complete.

The final result was that it looked like Kunio had been dead for eight to ten days.

This undoubtedly created a glaring conflict with Kunio's known movements. It could only be chalked up to the influence of supernatural power at the time of death, rendering the timeline discrepancy meaningless.

Naturally, he hadn't told Sawada about any of this.

He felt no psychological burden whatsoever about letting an unscrupulous yet incompetent schemer live in fear.

Summing it all up, Fu Qian concluded that Sawada had most likely withstood the pressure. This left Carlos in the dark, forcing him to use this specific point to probe for answers.

It couldn't have been easy. Such is the power of the will to survive!

"Let's leave the past in the past."

Carlos's expression turned placid.

"Mister Dancy, after being gone for so long and suddenly reappearing, you surely didn't just come back to grab a bite to eat?"

"Is that not allowed?"

Fu Qian blinked.

"I wasn't talking to you!"

This time, however, Carlos ruthlessly cut him off, his eyes fixed on Su Gao beside him.

"Let's have this lady answer."

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