On the second day of Wen Xishu's return, all the Bunker People celebrated the miracle he brought.
Meanwhile, Miyamoto Yishu was brutally killed.
The Miyamoto Family probably guessed what happened, but dared not act impulsively.
And soon, the Miyamoto Family began trying to contact Wen Xishu, hoping he would grant them the honor of a discussion.
Unable to meet Wen Xishu, they contacted William Hawker.
Nowadays, William Hawker and Wen Xishu have a sort of private friendship. Wen Xishu thinks highly of this future human tycoon.
Money can communicate with gods, including the god of the Xishu Divine Teaching.
If it weren't for William Hawker, Wen Xishu wouldn't have raised the treatment of the Deceit Tower climbers so quickly.
William Hawker wants to meet him, almost bypassing the Academy Spirit.
But while it seems simple to arrange, it cannot appear too easy.
William Hawker said to the Patriarch of the Miyamoto Family:
"This matter is very difficult to handle."
With this statement, he secured a huge sum of money from the Miyamoto Family before heading to Wen Xishu's location and informed him that he had extracted a large sum from the Miyamoto Family, but whether to meet was entirely Wen Xishu's decision.
William Hawker had also thought about how to take the money and not fulfill the task.
Wen Xishu liked this person's candor, his frankness in even confessing taking bribes for greed.
However...he refused to meet the Miyamoto Family.
The reason being, he had already started climbing the tower.
…
…
Most of the time, Wen Xishu was in a situation where his friends were resting in the bunker while he was climbing the tower.
But there were a few occasions where he was the one resting while his friends were climbing the tower.
Wen Xishu refused the Miyamoto Family, saying he had begun climbing the tower, but he actually hadn't.
He was waiting for a few people to return.
In fact, during yesterday's conversation, Wenren Mirror also mentioned something quite concerning.
Evelyn had not returned for four days.
This is an extremely dangerous number; in the Three Towers, one can only stay for seven days, and many choose not to stay until the time limit.
At least Evelyn and the old principal are not the type to stay the full seven days.
Another is the old principal, who has been in there for three days. Wen Xishu is waiting to handle some bunker matters together with the old principal.
At the same time, Wen Xishu also thought of something: whether the cost of using "Time Annotation" is related to Destructive.
He really wants to inquire about things Evelyn was investigating concerning the "source of destruction."
But with Evelyn and the old principal both absent, he rarely experiences these times when he's in the bunker and others are climbing the tower.
…
…
It's not just the principal and Evelyn.
When Wen Xiangge stabilized the situation using a gamble-style approach, some of Wen Xishu's friends couldn't handle the widespread low national morale and chose to climb the tower.
Zheng Zai is one such person.
Zheng Zai is currently ranked fourth on the Celestial Ladder List, practically Wen Xishu's direct disciple. Facing everyone's negative speculation about Wen Xishu disappearing from the list...
He was at a loss.
He's not good with words, a person who isn't articulate. He actually considered whether Wen Xishu might be dead.
But he cannot stabilize everyone's emotions like Wen Xiangge.
What he can do is, if Younger Brother Wen is really dead...at least to inherit his spirit of climbing the tower without regard for life, and valuing life without climbing.
So...
He embarked on the Deceit Tower journey.
Deceit Tower, level twenty-four.
This was not the highest level for Zheng Zai, who had fluctuations in levels every tower climb. But confronting level twenty-four, Zheng Zai was very clear that this was going to be a life-risking tower climb.
At level twenty-four, there were many tasks, and the one assigned to Zheng Zai was a task called "Mysterious Court."
This task is not complicated.
On the first day of the task, Zheng Zai needed to go to twelve households and observe the family atmospheres.
Through observing the living atmosphere in these twelve households, gathering information to judge who used to be good people and who used to be evil people, and give them sentences.
If those judged as formerly good and released without charges by Zheng Zai, he would unlock some experiences of the good people, learning more about the sequence of real historical events.
But if he misjudged some, for instance, letting evil people escape punishment or sentencing good people, it would cause psychological attacks on Zheng Zai, corrupting him, making him more paranoid and prone to make erroneous judgments.
Some families seemed harmonious; it appeared the father was kind and the son filial, yet the home would have a basement revealing signs of domestic violence against the wife.
Some families appeared very discordant; during meals, dishes would be thrown, the father would point at the daughter's head, scolding her for being unaccomplished, telling her to leave the house.
Yet upon closer examination, you'd discover the father secretly went to the daughter's workplace, gave money to her colleagues, then asked them to find ways to pass the money to the daughter.
The purpose being not to have the daughter believe the money came from him, to respect the daughter's self-esteem.
Of course, not all families have contrasts; when you perceive some families have contrasts, you might then encounter those who seem perfectly normal and harmonious, but with a touch of eeriness, making you suspect the family has issues...
Yet in reality, they have none.
In summary, these twelve families all have problems, some severe enough involving crimes needing Zheng Zai to issue penalties.
Others are purely generational gaps; a deep-seated care for family members resulting in disputes due to misunderstandings, requiring Zheng Zai to reveal the "truth."