“Something’s off.” This was the first thing Zheng heard upon waking up. He rubbed his forehead in confusion. He had expended a large amount of mental energy in Kampa’s consciousness space, and was still slightly muddle-headed coming out. It took a long while before what Honglu said registered with him.
“Huh? What does that mean. I just woke up. My teeth aren't brushed, my push-ups aren’t done and my head still hurts…” Zheng dumbly responded.
“I said something’s off!” Honglu briefly raised his voice as he responded. Pinching his hair, he said, “I don’t know why. I’m getting more and more panicked recently, and I keep feeling something is about to happen.”
“Hmm… your good friend is here?” Zheng said suddenly after thinking about it.
Honglu froze momentarily, then asked, stupefied, “Who? Wait, you bastard!”
Honglu was still Honglu after all, and immediately recovered from this topic, immediately shouting irritatedly, “Don’t learn from Cheng Xiao! Even if you do, you won't be anything like him!”
Zheng laughed, patting the boy’s hair. “That was just to liven up the atmosphere. You’re too tense. Remember, anything can be discussed. If you were to be so anxious, wouldn't the rest of the team be even more anxious?”
Honglu inhaled deeply hearing that, and then calmly said, “Freshen up quickly, then I’ll tell you my bad premonition.”
“Oh?”
Ten minutes later, the two were sitting in a meeting room. Several people were at the side indifferently reading, while more were off patrolling the destroyer.
“I told them to patrol. Although we have no flaws rationally speaking, we can’t just disregard premonitions in battle. So, I split them up into several shifts to patrol the destroyer. They're to immediately initiate an attack if they see team East Sea members making a sneak attack or anyone not an original crew member.” Honglu said, apparently with some slight helplessness.
“Oh? Then tell me your premonition then.” Zheng was still as confused as before.
“Hmm, so you discovered several members had an especially thick air of death, so you feel that you and Xuan’s reasoning may be flawed, which is why doubts manifested. Is that how it is?” Zheng muttered as he ate.
“Correct.” Honglu nodded his head in response.
“What did Xuan say?” Zheng scratched his head, then asked.
“He said there's no issue with the reasoning, but… I don't trust him!” Honglu said certainly.
“Indeed, that fellow isn't worthy of trust. So is there anything wrong with the reasoning?
“... Nothing.”
Honglu saw that Zheng was looking at him confused, and hurriedly said, “Don’t think I’m joking. Although the reasoning has nothing wrong, my premonition this time is really strong. There was definitely some very important clue we overlooked, which can affect our entire scheme and the battle afterwards. So, I have to find it. Tell me the situation when your clone appeared, and even every sentence. Remember, don’t leave out the slightest bit.”
Zheng didn’t hesitate. He had large faith in Honglu’s intelligence, and went through the clone’s arrival in detail. He even repeated every sentence spoken and every expression made. Thanks to his superhuman constitution, he remembered all these minute details clearly. It didn’t take long to completely say everything about the time he met his clone.
“Dammit, there wasn’t any special message left behind. What loophole is it that I couldn’t find?” Honglu pulled at his hair, angrily saying softly.
“Haha, haven’t you said before? When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. So, when all the deductions point to there being no mistake, I think that you and Xuan shouldn't have been wrong.” Zheng hurriedly smiled and comforted him. After all, Honglu was still a child, and being vexed at times was more normal.
“No. There’s something I overlooked, definitely! I’m all the more certain of this guess now, but why I can’t find this clue, even if it’s a 0.01% chance?” Honglu was getting more and more vexed, his entire face turning red.
“Alright, alright. It’s no big deal, just the clone coming over. Even if there are loopholes it’ll be found elsewhere.” Zheng patted Honglu’s head again, before standing up, intending to leave the meeting room.
“Wait, wait wait! What did you just say?” Honglu’s eyes shone, hurriedly stopping Zheng to ask.
“Eh? Even if there are loopholes it’ll be found elsewhere, that sentence?” Zheng paused before asking.
“No, the previous one! Right, just the clone coming over! Although it’s an incredibly small probability, it explains my premonition and the flaw in our scheme, as well as explaining team East Sea’s next actions. Heavens, if so, our current situation is very… Xuan! I refuse to believe he didn’t consider all this! He must be planning to counterplot them, but this way we’ll likely have one, two, or even more casualties! This situation is thoroughly perilous!” Honglu’s excitement rose, and by the end of it, he was shouting.
“What? Did that fellow Xuan do something detestable again?” Zheng was sensitive to Honglu's words, and hurriedly asked.
“It’s not that he did something bad. It’s much more serious than that...:”
Honglu was excited for a moment, before calming down. He pinched his hair, exhaling. “Everything can be explained based on this series of deductions. I’ll start from the beginning. Based on our previous deductions, team East Sea will likely reach the Diaoyu Islands a step ahead of us, right?”
“Mhm, continue, I already know all this.”
Honglu nodded. He continued, “Then I’ll start from here. First, team East Sea hasn’t exceeded our expectations from the start. In other words, this is a very ordinary team. With an ordinary person’s thinking process, they either hijacked or hired a fishing vessel. Their initial position should be at…” As Honglu spoke, he looked left and right, picking up a pen and paper, drawing something on the paper. When he had finished, Zheng saw a circle and some strange outlines.
“These outlines represent land. The centre of the circle represents the Diaoyu Islands. Team East Sea should have appeared at the fringes of the circle, and our position is highly likely to be in the same position.” Honglu pointed at the outlines on the paper.
Zheng simultaneously entered the third stage. Looking at the paper, he nodded. “Yes, it’s roughly like that. It also explains why God let us enter late, and not put us away at a further distance. I understand. After that?”
“The following situation is more interesting. If team East Sea had the same thinking process as us, or a team strategist’s, they should have used the ‘influence’ God gave to create an advantageous situation. They could have snatched a warship, lay in ambush, or even contact and bribe countries, going to any lengths possible. However, team East Sea didn't do all this from what we know. Accurately speaking, team East Sea just snatched or hired a fishing vessel they saw like a normal team would, then tried their best to rush to the Diaoyu Islands. This is the dumbest way of going about it, and was the only way they could think of.”
Honglu sighed at this point. He made two markings on the paper, saying, “From this, team East Sea can be divided into two possibilities. One, their power is just so, and they can only use the dumbest way to rush to the Diaoyu Islands, entrusting their victory to fortune and the enemy’s incompetence. Two, they're tigers playing pigs. They're lowering our guard to make us step into their trap. In other words, there’s an ambush ahead.”
“Although I say that, the chances are low, at about 10%. This can be seen by the lack of disturbance or attention in the world caused by them. Team East Sea is much, much weaker than us. Otherwise, we would have caught up to them these few days. God must have given them a greater position of advantageous ‘influence’, and threw them in much earlier, to compensate for them being very much weaker. Thus, if they WERE planning to ambush us, they wouldn’t have have chosen to fight us alone and abandon using the world's powers.”
“Of course, them ambusing us alone isn't absolutely impossible if they're a slaver team. They may take the risk of ambushing us if they have one or two powerful individuals along with special techniques and enhancements. Although the chance is small, it also can substantiate my premonition and deductions, as we may take casualties from their actions. However, Wangxia’s death premonition rejects this, as it’s only possible for non-combatants and rookies to die if they do so.”
Honglu gestured with his hands at this point, saying helplessly, “Now, my deduction hits a dead end. My premonition is unexplainable, but explaining the premonition will contradict my deductions, which should be accurate given the known information. Even if we use the information to amend the scheme, the general direction shouldn’t change. This should be what Xuan and I do, assuming there is no new information… We would definitely have walked into the trap team East Sea set for us, because our direction has been wrong from the start!”
“Wrong? These deductions are quite reasonable, and I may not have been able to come up with them myself.” Zheng pinched his hair, thinking ceaselessly. After thinking for a while, he finally asked Honglu curiously.
Honglu’s lips curled, seemingly with some disapproval towards Zheng’s words. However, it was expected, seeing as he was thinking using the genetic constraint’s simulation, which definitely lacked something compared to the real thing. Every deduction made as a team’s strategist or schemer had to be careful and thorough, and even that slight difference would cause large changes in the scheme, which was why Zheng had never tried to replace the two in planning.
“First, our very most basic deduction was wrong. What if team East Sea’s intelligence suddenly became the level of Xuan or me? Which means that they didn't have a brain before, and later on when they reached here and we started hunting them and casting out our search net, their intelligence had a substantial jump. Everything can be explained then if so!”
“How… ah! You mean that…” Zheng suddenly realized something, and said in shock.
“Yes. Correct.” Honglu nodded.
“You mean that, after my clone met me, he went to team East Sea and told them our whereabouts and plans?”
“Are you an idiot?” Honglu stared at Zheng, dumbfounded.
He miserably rubbed his temples, shouting, “How could there be an idiot like you? Does it mean you clone did it just because he appeared? You… Forget it, I’ll just tell you. There’s only a 10% to 20% chance this was caused by your clone and team Devil. What do you think this is, some kind of melodramatic plot, where there needs to be some kind of test before you can challenge them? Don’t be funny, I think that team Devil won’t do this even if they had the power and abilities to do so. This is because the respect by the powerful to their opponent, is basically self-respect. Team Devil has their own pride, and they won’t allow their opponent, especially one they acknowledged, to lose any combat power before they battle. Although this mentality seems unimaginable in God’s Realm, if it comes to the strongest team Devil, I think it's probably, no, definitely true!”
“The significance of team Devil appearing isn't this, but to tell us that… other teams can break through the restrictions of time and worlds, and even God’s restrictions, to contact us!”
Honglu exhaled at this point. “I actually considered this very long ago already when we got the yellow race’s legacy. As the legacy of the ancient Saints and Cultivators, and especially the strongest race, I don't believe there wasn’t anything inside to control God! It may also be not just a few. Otherwise, the receivers of their legacy and inheritance would still be under God’s control. If so, there’s the possibility of it being snatched away by another team, so they had to make plans for the legacies. If God could be controlled, the other battles would be just battles of survival. At minimum, they felt that their descendants couldn’t be in the situation of being forced into battle. So I’m very sure, that the Cultivators and Saints of the yellow race, the white race and the black race have equipment or techniques to control God in their legacies!”
“In truth, Xuan should already have the ability in this area when he used the Bell of the East Emperor, except that it wasn't complete. After all, we don’t have the energy to use it. Then, back to the topic. If our inheritance can control God, why can't the other two kinds? In other words, there is at least one team other than team Devil that can pass through space, time and worlds. Or, they can at least send a message to another movie world!”
Honglu extended his hands, gesticulating. “Team Devil had Xuan’s clone. I’m very clear on this fellow’s personality. He won't do anything inexplicable. I’m not too sure about your clone, but since they're in the same team, they must have some connection. Clone Xuan won’t let clone Zheng do anything inexplicable. So, your clone must have a reason for coming. He didn't say anything meaningful. Those so-called warnings or provocations aren’t counted, but just some nonsense. You two’s standpoints were long since determined. There will be a battle, where the victor is the strongest, while the loser dies. There’s no leeway for this, and his few sentences couldn’t alleviate it even if there was anyways. So, there was a deeper meaning behind his arrival. This deeper meaning was his inexplicable appearance. I said it before, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Since the clone offered no reasons, I can only think of one answer…”
“Your clone told us a truth. Another team is interfering with this battle, and wants to borrow team East Sea to weaken us! And that’s all there is to it!”