Chapter 156 Divination of the Eight Trigrams Formation Diagram

Due to the unexpected appearance of Zhou Shu, Bai Yuekui immediately returned to their base camp to question Master Lai, the one who had assigned their mission.

She felt extremely puzzled, because Master Lai's predictions were infallible, yet this time, he had somehow been wrong.

Master Lai's residence was the largest building in the area.

To call it a residence was actually a misnomer; it resembled a heavily xianxia-punk laboratory, filled with decorative motifs from the four ancient civilizations and bizarre instruments.

The most striking piece of equipment stood directly opposite the front door: a colossal Bagua diagram connected to numerous control levers and gears. The Bagua array was encircled by layer upon layer of dense writing and symbols, spanning an entire wall.

At that moment, a robust elderly man was sitting in the corner of the room with his legs crossed, watching a cartoon. The television playing the cartoon was quite retro, resting on a table alongside a pile of data storage devices salvaged from the outside world.

The stout old man sat on the sofa, with a plate of peanuts, an unlabeled bottle of white liquor, and a metal cup placed on the coffee table in front of him. From time to time, he would toss a few peanuts into his mouth, then pick up his cup and take a sip of wine, looking immensely content.

"Knock, knock, knock~"

As the door was knocked, Bai Yuekui's voice drifted in: "Master Lai, I need to talk to you. I'm coming in."

"Ah?"

Hearing this voice, Master Lai panicked instantly. He kicked the coffee table, causing the items on it to rapidly sink downward before being sealed over by a steel plate. Then, he snatched a stack of papers from the sofa and placed them on top, leaving no trace of the fact that he had just been drinking.

Simultaneously, the television automatically shut off, leaving behind the scene of an elder diligently studying paper documents.

However, Bai Yuekui pushed the door open with a loud *clack*, bypassed the screen, walked over, twitched her nose slightly, and said bluntly, "Master Lai, you've been drinking again, haven't you?"

"No, I haven't. How could I possibly be drinking? I've been studying documents this whole time," Master Lai said dismissively, not even looking at her as he stared at the papers in his hands.

"Hmph~"

Bai Yuekui naturally didn't believe him. She continued, "If you weren't drinking, how could your prediction be so wrong? The Lighthouse's Markholders encountered a surface survivor with terrifying combat power who directly bailed them out. I didn't even get a chance to show my face."

"What?"

Master Lai was startled. Forgetting to keep up his act, he stood up and said, "That's impossible!"

Forget about Bai Yuekui believing he was infallible; even he believed he could never be wrong. It wasn't that he was overconfident in himself, but rather that he had absolute faith in "Fuxi."

"What's impossible about it? We saw that person appear with our own eyes, and he carved through the Type-I Pan-lifeform Sustenance-seekers like splitting bamboo. Because of his appearance, Mark's extraction team fled the scene at top speed, and that big brute didn't even get to play a part."

Bai Yuekui sat down on the sofa next to Master Lai, crossed her legs, and folded her arms.

"Someone actually exists? And he's that strong?" While Bai Yuekui sat down, Master Lai could no longer stay seated. He paced around the room, muttering, "Aside from us, there shouldn't be any surface humans left on this continent. How could anyone else possibly show up?"

Disregarding this, Bai Yuekui asked, "Are you sober now? If you're sober, cast another hexagram and figure out what on earth is going on. You must have been completely hammered when you made that last prediction."

Hearing Bai Yuekui's words, Master Lai scratched his head. He was certain he was sober now; he hadn't drunk that much earlier.

Could it be that when he cast the hexagram last time, he was truly blackout drunk?

He honestly couldn't remember.

Regardless, due to his constitution, his fondness for alcohol was a well-known fact.

Puzzling and rubbing his head, he walked over to the front of the Bagua array.

"Inhale—exhale~~"

He took a deep breath, slowly let it out, picked up the helmet connected by cables, and put it on. His hands then rapidly manipulated the control levers in front of the Bagua array.

With the pull of each lever, a ring of the Bagua array spun in sync with the gears, until finally, all the rings began to rotate, and the clicking sound of the gears merged into a continuous, rapid *swish-swish-swish*.

Master Lai suddenly rolled his eyes, and beams of azure light drifted out from his facial features, floating directly into the helmet on his head.

As these lights drifted out, a trace of worry appeared on Bai Yuekui's face. She watched the connected cables light up section by section, until the illumination reached the base of the Bagua array and all nine lamps flared to life. Only then did she let out a sigh of relief.

With these nine lamps illuminated, the Bagua array did more than just spin; glowing blue light emanated from the seams across the entire array.

From Bai Yuekui's perspective, she could see these lights forming certain patterns, though she had no idea what they meant.

It didn't matter that she didn't know; as long as Master Lai did, it was fine. Furthermore, according to Master Lai's past claims, the things he could "see" were actually far richer, far beyond what anyone else could perceive with the naked eye.

A few minutes later, the array slowly returned to its original state. The bulky Master Lai gave a sudden jolt as he took off the helmet, followed by another involuntary twitch. Jerking along step by step, he made his way over to the sofa.

With a *thud*, he collapsed back into his original seat. Disregarding Bai Yuekui standing right beside him, he kicked the coffee table, and the platform that had lowered earlier rose back up. The cartoon on the television resumed its music and dancing.

"Good morning, meow; good afternoon, meow; good night, meow, meow~"

He snatched the glass bottle from the coffee table and drank straight from it, tilting his head back.

*Glug, glug, glug~*

Seeing this, Bai Yuekui made no move to stop him, as she was long accustomed to it. She simply waited quietly for Master Lai to finish drinking.

"Phew~"

Master Lai polished off the entire bottle of white liquor in one go, gave another slight shudder, and set the empty bottle down on the coffee table with a sigh. "I'm alive again."

"What is the latest divination result?" Bai Yuekui asked.

"Things really went off the rails. The divination results from a few days ago are completely void. Crunch, crunch~"

As he spoke, Master Lai grabbed a handful of peanuts and tossed them into his mouth. Chewing as he talked, he said, "It truly is bizarre. We've never had such a massive deviation before. Moreover, after connecting to 'Fuxi' just now, I'm certain I wasn't drunk during the previous divination, which means it shouldn't have been wrong. But the result of this divination..."

Bai Yuekui had no time for his long-winded preamble and winding explanations. She tapped the table and said, "Cut to the chase!"

"Oh, oh," Master Lai rubbed his face. Downing a whole bottle of white liquor in one instant had indeed gone slightly to his head, so he hurried to speak: "The newly appeared person is indeed a crucial figure, but Mark remains our key node for understanding the Manna ecosystem."

"Fuxi tells me the newly appeared person is named 'Zhou Shu.' He is neither our enemy nor a member of ASH Company."

"Fuxi also tells me that person can be referred to as the Terminator of the World... the Terminator... enemy... Hoo... hoo..."

Mid-sentence, Master Lai sprawled out flat on the sofa and fell sound asleep, snoring loudly.

Bai Yuekui: "..."

Fine. She would just have to wait until this fellow woke up tomorrow to ask again.

Speechless, she shook her head. Leaving the old man lying there as he was, she got up and left.

The Lighthouse, the next day.

Dust-dwellers were already up early doing chores—cleaning, repairing the outer layer of the Lighthouse, hauling supplies, and so forth were all part of their daily duties.

Zhou Shu also woke up on time, though he didn't need to do physical labor just yet. First, he needed to assist Gordon, the Lighthouse record-keeper, with the information-recording process.

Arriving at the designated location—the boundary between the dust-dweller and upper-dweller districts—the small room was set up like a prison visiting booth. The interviewing upper-dweller and Gordon were on the other side of the glass, while Zhou Shu stood on this side.

Following the sequence, they asked a question, and Zhou Shu fabricated an answer based on the plot of *Ling Cage* (Spirit Cage). Whenever the plot lacked details, he simply made things up on the spot.

Towards the end, he deliberately dropped a friendly tip: "As the local survivor who fought alongside the Sustenance-seekers down to the very last man, the greatest gain we secured is the method to completely eradicate Sustenance-seekers."

Hearing this, both Gordon and the upper-dweller were startled, because they knew Sustenance-seekers were "immortal"—even if killed, they would inevitably "resurrect" within a certain period of time.

Yet what had they just heard? A method to *completely* kill Sustenance-seekers?

"Are you certain?"

The white-haired Gordon asked directly, "I recorded yesterday's collection mission report, which stated that you did not completely kill those Sustenance-seekers; they resurrected after a short while."

"Of course I'm certain. There's a reason they weren't killed then," Zhou Shu said with absolute confidence.

"However, this matter is of grave importance. I want to see Captain Mark."

Gordon and the interviewing upper-dweller froze. The upper-dweller felt that this matter indeed needed to be brought to the attention of the upper echelons. After conferring briefly, the interviewing upper-dweller went outside to contact someone.

Left alone in the room with Gordon, Zhou Shu asked, "Do you know where the archives are?"