"Hey, Xiba, awake at last."

In Liang Ye's room, he was squatting on a chair, slurping instant noodles while sipping iced American coffee.

On the other chair, Li Hua sat with one leg crossed, flipping through documents.

Seeing Liang Ye dressed and ready, Lin Yu was a little surprised.

"Captain, you didn't sleep all night?"

Liang Ye set down his seafood fish-flavored noodles. "No need for that."

Li Hua looked up and said, "He's Korean, he doesn't need to sleep... Did you rest up and are you ready to start the investigation?"

Lin Yu nodded slightly. "Yes, we're ready to go question people. If you two are available, please come with me..."

"After all, if it's just me and Furbollo, our weight might not be enough."

Liang Ye agreed profoundly. "You're right. Those Xiba are exactly the kind of people who size others up and act accordingly."

"Don't worry, Li Hua and I will back you up. If necessary, we can play the heavy hitters for you!"

Li Hua turned off the tablet in his hand. "I'm not very good at putting pressure on people, but I'll try my best."

"You two are too polite," Lin Yu said, then showed a measured hesitation on his face, "but there's one more strange thing..."

Seeing Lin Yu hesitate, Liang Ye said, "Xiba, just say it straight!"

"I had a very strange dream last night," Lin Yu said as if he had made up his mind. "In the dream there was a guy who called himself the Consultant, and he claimed to be an accomplice in Radish's murder. He wanted to play cards with me. If I lost a round, I could ask him a question." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"I played a few rounds with him. He told me that the missing item and the murderer who killed Radish were not the same person. The person who stole the item intended to use it in some dungeon world."

Lin Yu weighed his words, sounding a bit unsure. "I keep feeling this wasn't just a stress-induced dream... it felt too real."

Before Liang Ye could react, Li Hua's face dramatically changed.

"A method to enter dreams or weave dreams... a nightmare spell from the Secret Realms."

"Being able to pull you into a dream right under our noses is definitely a troublesome capability."

Li Hua said coldly, and Liang Ye reacted as well.

"Xiba, was that achieved with a Summon or a Scroll? If it's the former, we're in real trouble!"

The two Order experts reacted more intensely than Lin Yu had expected.

What surprised Lin Yu even more was...

It wasn't just those two;Fu Luo also reacted.

"Holy crap, did you just say that person called himself the Consultant?"

Seeing Fu Luo look shocked and uncertain, Lin Yu was surprised too.

"You don't happen to know him, do you?"

Fu Luo shook his head. "I wouldn't say I know him. It's just that in the Player Mutual Aid Association there are small circles and social groups formed by players of the same Class..."

Liang Ye and Li Hua nodded, seeming to know about this.

Lin Yu was the only one a little bewildered—he had no idea such a thing existed.

But he knew it made sense he hadn't encountered it;he had joined the game too recently.

Plus, being a Unique Class, he initially had no reason to delve into those things.

News among players still relied heavily on word of mouth—without Fu Luo mentioning it, Lin Yu would never have known.

Because Fu Luo mentioned it, now he knew.

"If you could infiltrate different Class circles, performing there might help me a lot," Lin Yu thought silently and continued listening to Fu Luo.

"When I communicated with other Detectives elsewhere, I heard about a guy... Although he's a Detective by Class, he actually does anti-detective work."

"He specializes in orchestrating 'crimes' against other players for those who have been expelled. If you wanted to kill a player or steal an item... you go to him."

"That guy calls himself the Consultant—I think I saw traces of him when I helped our local Order in Henan Province crack several cases, but we couldn't confirm exactly which incidents were his because we lacked identification."

"Our captain, High Mountain, said we can't rule out that those people fabricated being guided by the Consultant to shift blame."

"But this figure isn't purely made up;there are many signs of real activities... he's just very smart, so he hides well."

"Also, from my investigation, his strength seems considerable;he ranks at Third Tier on the leaderboard while staying anonymous."

Liang Ye and Li Hua fell into thought after hearing Fu Luo.

"Xiba, I think I've heard of someone like that..."

At this point Lin Yu looked directly at Fu Luo. "You probably have a guess at his real identity, but you lacked evidence or absolute certainty, so you didn't tell us."

Fu Luo exclaimed in surprise, "Damn, you figured that out?"

"You're really my good brother, May, you know me too well."

Lin Yu shook his head. "Just a hunch."

It wasn't just a hunch, because he could tell that when Fu Luo described the other's traits, some details were too specific—he was describing a particular person, not a general profile.

So even though Fu Luo rationally felt he hadn't identified the person, his subconscious had already locked onto a suspect.

"Who do you think that guy is? Say it out loud."

Li Hua nodded too. "If he's hiding that well, there's even a chance the forum hasn't expelled him."

Fu Luo thought for a moment, then said, "His forum ID and social ID should both be 'Twenty', the character for twenty... As far as I know, he likely does have some method for entering dreams."

"Twenty?"

Hearing the alias, Lin Yu frowned slightly.

He seemed to have seen a few posts mentioning that ID before. If he remembered correctly, the posts were fairly positive.

They were about this person often leading entire groups through puzzle-type dungeons to flawless clears with no casualties.

"Xiba, that's a very serious accusation," Liang Ye's face turned solemn. "That guy has good relations with many local organization leaders, medium and high-ranking members of large groups including our Order, and even administrators in several cities."

"Are you sure, Furbollo?"

Fu Luo shook his head. "I'm not saying I'm certain, but... every direction my investigation has pointed to ends up at him."

Li Hua raised a hand to cut off the discussion. "Put his case aside for now. Anyway, if he claims he was only an accomplice, and if he didn't lie in the dream, objectively he might have even helped us."

"First we should investigate the murderer thoroughly and give the Player Mutual Aid Association an explanation."