The Anonymous Letter

A Battle Emperor-level powerhouse, and yet their aim was to uncover the Red Maple Guard's patrol routes and shift schedules — along with the Night Watchman containment facility's entire guard layout.

Lu Yuan had no idea what their ultimate goal was, but based on the conversation he'd overheard, nothing good could come of it.

If all the Aberration Entities in the Night Watchman underground containment facility were seized, the devastation would be catastrophic. It would be nothing short of a civilization-ending disaster for the Empire.

His first instinct was to report the Chancellor's household.

He had plenty of confidence in his own strength — but that confidence depended heavily on who he was up against. Against a Battle Sovereign, he might have just handled it himself on the spot. But facing a Battle Emperor? He had absolutely no confidence in taking one down alone.

And that wasn't even accounting for the possibility that the figure wasn't operating solo — that there might be an organization, a network of accomplices. None of that was known to him.

The safest course was to notify the upper echelons of the Red Maple Empire and let them handle it. He could alert Li Qinghe, Si Tingxue, and Rebecca, have them tell their respective elders — three Battle Emperors acting together should be enough to resolve the crisis.

But there was still a problem.

Namely: how was he supposed to explain how he'd discovered any of this? Sneaking into the Chancellor's estate for no apparent reason was already deeply suspicious in itself. Even if he claimed he'd had suspicions about Tong Menghan and gone to investigate — how had those suspicions arisen in the first place? He couldn't exactly say he had the Evolution Cube inside him, and that it had detected an Aberration aura on her. That would land him in a cell before anything else.

Beyond that, he had no evidence proving the Tong family was connected to the mysterious figure or that they intended harm to the Red Maple Empire. The Tong family was a major noble clan with Battle Sovereign-level powerhouses, and Tong Shu was the Chancellor himself. No matter how exceptional his talent, Lu Yuan couldn't expect anyone to take his word alone. Li Qinghe and the others might believe him — but the old patriarchs were Battle Emperors. They weren't the type to act on some young man's bare-faced claim.

Lu Yuan's eyes flickered as he sank into thought.

Going after a Battle Emperor alone was out of the question — far too dangerous. He needed to notify the Empire's Battle Emperor-level powerhouses and let them deal with it. But the method of notification called for a certain finesse.

*Best if this doesn't trace back to me at all — an anonymous tip through covert channels.*

And ideally, he needed some kind of evidence to lend weight to the claim. Without it, there was no guarantee anyone would believe an anonymous report. A tip with proof would always land better than one without.

He regretted now that he hadn't secured any evidence earlier. Then again, thinking it over — even if he'd recorded something in that moment, he wouldn't have been able to bring it back anyway.

His eyes gleamed with resolve. He decided to pay the Chancellor's Estate another visit while there was still time.

He produced a white crystal — a Projection Crystal obtained from the Land of Origin. Its function was similar to a recording device, but more convenient and considerably harder to detect. With the Projection Crystal in hand, he thought for a moment, then headed downstairs to collect some dining utensils — knives and forks. All made of metal.

Back in his room, his gaze turned cold. A silvery-grey radiance rippled across the cutlery, and in the next instant, an invisible pulse surged through them. The knives and forks twisted and warped, reshaping themselves into tiny mechanical constructs — roughly the size of mosquitoes.

Miniature surveillance drones.

The Mechanical Fabrication ability derived from the Mechanical Emperor Transcendent Gene — at his current level of mastery, producing simple mechanical constructs that required no soul-binding was effortless, almost miraculous.

He then split off another Shadow Clone. Armed with the Projection Crystal and several hundred surveillance drones, the clone slipped out of the room and made its way back toward the Chancellor's Estate.

The estate looked no different from before. Despite the earlier intrusion, Tong Shu had not ordered any increase in security. Given the involvement of the mysterious black-robed figure, only a handful of people within the entire estate likely knew anything about it. Tong Shu keeping it quiet made perfect sense.

Just as easily as before, Lu Yuan reached the central villa without difficulty.

Once inside, he released the surveillance drones, letting them scatter into position. Then he followed his memory to the spot where the World Stone had been.

His eyes narrowed. The World Stone that had been embedded in the Staff of the Elemental Warrior statue — it was gone.

He frowned slightly. *The moment my previous clone was detected, they moved it?*

That mysterious figure was frighteningly cautious. Only a matter of minutes had passed.

At this rate, even if he tried to gather evidence, it would be an uphill battle. He'd been counting on reporting the World Stone's location as corroborating evidence — but now that it had vanished, that avenue was closed. The odds of the report being taken seriously had just dropped another notch. He didn't even know where the cloaked figure had fled to.

With little choice, he searched the rest of the estate for any other anomalies. After combing through every building on the grounds, he found nothing else unusual. Both Tong Shu and Tong Menghan had disappeared.

*Looks like I'll have to report without evidence and hope for the best.*

The priority would be the Red Maple Guard and the Night Watchmen. Whatever the mysterious figure's endgame, it centered on the Aberration Entities in the underground containment facility — tipping off both organizations to tighten security could only help. The situation with the Tong family would need to be mentioned as well. If it prompted a thorough investigation, something might turn up; finding the mysterious figure would be even better.

Though given how swiftly the figure had relocated the World Stone, Lu Yuan didn't hold out much hope on that front.

*Still... I can keep tabs on Tong Menghan and Tong Shu. As long as they're out there, they'll eventually meet with the figure again.*

That was a lead worth following.

With that settled, Lu Yuan ordered all the surveillance drones to conceal themselves in their positions and maintain continuous watch over the Tong household. Then he dismissed the Shadow Clone.

Back in his room, he sat on the edge of his bed, brow furrowed, turning over the question of who to address the anonymous letters to and what to write.

*The Red Maple Guard has to get one. Si Chengxin and Si Tingfeng — both need separate letters.*

Si Chengxin was the head of the Red Maple Guard. Si Tingfeng was on the list for a different reason — Tong Menghan was his fiancée.

For the letter to Si Tingfeng, he needed to make sure to highlight what Tong Menghan had said: that Si Tingfeng had leaked the Red Maple Guard's patrol routes and shift schedules to her. From what Lu Yuan knew of him, Si Tingfeng was easygoing by nature — but when it came to matters like this, he invariably treated them as real rather than dismissing them. That should be enough to put him on alert.

For the letter to Si Chengxin, Lu Yuan kept it straightforward, without embellishment — a full account of everything he'd witnessed at the Tong estate that day, with particular emphasis on the Aberration-related behavior of both Tong Menghan and Tong Shu. He concealed his own identity throughout, naturally. The letter simply stated that, as a concerned citizen, he had detected an Aberration aura while passing by, followed it to the Tong family estate, and discovered the World Stone and the mysterious figure.

Whether Si Chengxin would believe it, Lu Yuan honestly couldn't say — he didn't know the man well enough to judge. But even if Si Chengxin didn't believe it, he would at minimum go to Si Tingfeng to verify the claim about Tong Menghan. And as long as Si Tingfeng was still himself, he wouldn't keep something this significant buried. That should be enough to raise Si Chengxin's alarm.

As for the Night Watchmen, he deliberated for a long while without finding a clean angle. The mysterious figure's moves against them were still in the planning stage, after all.

Then, after some time, something clicked.

Today, when he'd visited the underground containment facility — A39 had gone berserk.

He knew perfectly well that A39's outburst had nothing to do with the mysterious figure. But this was too perfect an opportunity to waste. So in his anonymous letter to the Night Watchmen, he made a point of noting that someone was targeting the Aberration Entities in the Night Watchman Headquarters basement — and that the entities might show unusual activity as a result.

The moment Chairman Gu An read those words, he would almost certainly connect it to A39's disturbance earlier in the day. At that point, there was no chance Gu An would let his guard down.

He also noted, in all the letters, that the Tong family was connected to the mysterious figure, and that the figure was a Battle Emperor-level powerhouse. Whether they believed it was another matter — he could only hope. Even if they didn't believe it entirely, the information he'd laid out should at least trigger some degree of caution.

With that, Lu Yuan felt somewhat more at ease.

Decision made, he used Mechanical Fabrication to construct a functional phone, then activated Space Teleportation to appear in a different corner of the Imperial Capital entirely. There, he composed the messages and sent each one anonymously to its recipient.

When it was done, he converted the phone back into a simple metal knife, carried it back to the living area, and slipped it into a kitchen drawer without a second glance. That way, no one could trace the messages back to their source.

*If someone could still track it after all that, they'd have to be omniscient.*

Lu Yuan let out a slow breath.

What remained was letting the surveillance drones keep watch over Tong Shu and Tong Menghan. When the mysterious figure showed up again, he'd play the concerned citizen once more and file another tip. He'd done about everything he reasonably could for now. What was left was to focus on his cultivation — so that if the worst came to pass and the Aberration Entities were actually released from the containment facility, he could at least do his part.

With everything in order, Lu Yuan crossed his legs on the bed and sank into cultivation.

Si Tingfeng's quarters at the Red Maple Guard barracks.

After an exhausting day, Si Tingfeng lay on his bed wearing a pained expression.

Because that guy Lu Yuan had joined the Night Watchmen, he was the one paying the price — two straight months with no days off. What kind of torture was this?

The more he stewed over it, the more aggrieved he felt. He decided he was going to call Lu Yuan and give him a piece of his mind.

Just as he pulled out his phone, a massive envelope icon appeared on the screen, flooding over every other app.

Si Tingfeng blinked. "A message?"

Normal messages didn't blast themselves across your entire screen like that.

He frowned and tapped the icon, puzzled. Before it opened fully, a line of text appeared:

*"Please confirm that no one else is present. What follows is critically important."*

Si Tingfeng raised an eyebrow. He had his own room in the barracks, and Tong Menghan wasn't there. Still — what kind of message opened like this? Was someone pulling a prank?

A flicker of curiosity crossed his face. He tapped "Yes," and the letter appeared.

He began to read.

The easygoing expression on his face vanished. His color drained. He shot upright on the bed.

"What?! Menghan — connected to Aberrations?! She's trying to seize the Aberration Entities under Night Watchman guard?! What kind of joke is this?! Who the hell wrote this?!"

Then he caught the next part. His expression froze, and the words came out barely above a whisper.

"...obtained the Red Maple Guard's patrol routes and shift schedules through me..."

His eyes flickered. Involuntarily, his mind drifted back to certain moments with Tong Menghan — her questions, her timing, things he hadn't thought twice about at the time. A cold weight settled in his chest as his brow slowly creased.

He still couldn't bring himself to accept it. His face had gone ugly.

"How can this be real?! I don't believe it! Who the hell wrote this?!"

He snapped the phone shut. A storm of disbelief and alarm churned across his face.

At that very moment, the phone buzzed. The jolt broke through the fog in his head. He glanced at the screen — Si Chengxin.

He answered.

Si Chengxin's voice came through, cold and clipped.

"Si Tingfeng! Did you leak upcoming Red Maple Guard patrol routes and shift schedules to Tong Menghan?!"

Si Tingfeng opened his mouth. "Sir, I—"

"Yes or no."

The words were ice.

Si Tingfeng pressed his lips together, then said quietly, "Yes, sir."

A silence fell. Si Chengxin drew a slow breath.

"Good. Very good indeed. We'll discuss your punishment later. Right now — get to my office."

Si Tingfeng hesitated. "Sir... is this about someone claiming Menghan is trying to seize the Aberration Entities? Do you actually believe that? It could be a prank."

"Whether it's a prank or not, I know what I'm dealing with. I've already had the Empire's top Intellitech researchers look into it — the sender's technology is clearly generations ahead of ours. We cannot trace the source at all. Someone with that kind of technology doesn't waste it on pranks. They likely stumbled onto this during a visit to Great Qi Star and chose to warn us... Wait." His tone shifted slightly. "The way you said that — you received a letter too?"

It had only just occurred to him.

Si Tingfeng's face had gone pale. Every last fragment of hope he'd been clinging to dissolved.

His throat felt like sand. He gave a small nod. "Yes."