Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

Qing Ming City.

 The administrative office of the Scout a.s.sociation.

 The elder appeared here, looking silently at the miserable scene before him. An old man in his seventies and an office table with two words on it — Registration Area.

 There was nothing else.

 This was the Scout a.s.sociation in Qing Ming City.

 There was no branch.

 There was only an administrative office.

 “Hey, buddy, did you come here to register?”

 That old man looked at the elder and asked, “Are you interested in becoming a Scout? Hehe, you're already quite old… I'm afraid it's too late to learn how to become a Scout…

 Even if you're quite talented, your physique may not be able to catch up.”

 The elder was very skeptical.

When did the Scouts ever require physical fitness?

 “It's alright. Come here.”

 The old man waved his hands. “At most, you'll shorten your life-span by a few years. You'll still get a kick out of it.”

 Hence…

 The old man took out a booklet.

 The cultivation manual for Scouts — It began with images.

 Eh?

 The elder casually flipped open the book and was instantly shocked. Inside it were descriptions of how to pry into other people's privacy and lives…

 d.a.m.n it!

 The elder's aura vibrated violently.

 Bang!

There was a sudden outburst of horrifying aura!

 “You…”

 Scared out of his wits, that old man knelt on the ground.

 “The re-enactment of an image is a form of advanced deduction. How can it be the basics?” the elder asked coldly.

 “W-when I was young, there was a saying…”

 Trembling and frightened, the old man said, “I remember it… it's…'interest is the motivation for learning'… My belief is that this expedites the enrollment process…”

 The elder fell silent.

 Seemingly…

 He had also heard these words before, but the original saying was not like that?

 Forget it.

 It did not matter.

 What he was truly enraged about was that a small administrative office was like this, what about other places?! The Scout vocation had already become that corrupted?!

 The Scout a.s.sociation… should be cleansed!

 Otherwise, if they were to accidentally enrage a certain high-status, n.o.ble person one day, the entire industry would be doomed…

 At the thought of this…

 He left.

 However…

 He had no idea.

 The aura that he erupted earlier had already stunned the countless foreigners in Qing Ming City. Another powerful figure had appeared in Qing Ming City!

 All of a sudden…

 Turbulent times brewed in Qing Ming City again.

 At this very moment…

 Somewhere, a certain team of Scouts returned to their base with severe injuries.

 “I'm sorry.”

 The head of the Scout team knelt in front of the leader of the men in black. A huge team had been severely wounded by a gush of thoughts. They had failed in their mission.

 “It's okay.”

 It was seldom that the man in black was gentle. “Come, look at this news.”

Eh?

 The head of the Scout team looked at the screen shown by the man in black and was stunned. That elder actually appeared in Qing Ming City?!

 If it was him…

 It was no wonder…

 According to rumors, he had already retired for many years. They didn't expect him to be out again!

 “I heard that this is someone who doesn't let things slide?” the man in black asked.

 “Yes.”

The Scouts were certain.

 They had had a taste of this elder's style.

 “Very good.”

 The man in black pondered for a moment. “Go somewhere far away and get a few Scouts to mess around and lure him there… Be as messy as possible…

“If it doesn't work, humans and beasts will do as well.

 “Anyway… Make him go away. It will do as long as he doesn't come back in the near future.”

 The man in black wore a calm expression.

 He had to divert him away.

“Understood.”

 The Scout was overjoyed.

 “Remember.”

 The man in black patted his shoulders. “You can't let any more accidents happen in Qing Ming City again… The plan for Qing Ming City cannot go wrong.”

“Yes.”

The Scout's heart trembled.

 At the base.

 A familiar star chart was suspended in the air.

 The nodes which formed the Star Chart of Qing Ming City were flas.h.i.+ng brightly. Most of the nodes were already lit. Only a small number of them were still dim…

 Somewhere, a young man was ascending the mountain.

 “Master, did you deduce wrongly again…”

 The young man sighed. “You made a mistake in the deduction for the python the last time. You also made a wrong deduction about the female snake. This time, your timing is wrong again… Qing Ming City is very peaceful now!”

 Before his eyes… was a lonely grave.

 A cup of tea and three joss sticks were placed before the grave.

“Master… The only thing that you predicted correctly in your life is the timing of your own death.”

 The young man sighed.

 Qing Ming City was more peaceful than he had imagined!

 Before Master had left, he helped him to predict an earthshaking chance encounter and told him to fight for certain things. However, those things did not happen at all. What could he use to compete with others?!

 “Master, there is only one deduction left. If it is wrong again, I will leave…”

 The young man kowtowed respectfully before the grave.

 After a long time…

 He left the graveyard.

 Qing Ming City.

 In the suburbs.

 One by one, sharp arrows were shot at a lighting speed.

 Sounds of bursts could be heard zooming through the air.

 Buzz—

 Buzz—

 Arrows erupted.

 “You've improved again.”

 The old man smiled gently. “No one will be your match at this level.”

 Xia Yu was silent.

 “There is someone,” he said nonchalantly.

 He knew of a person whose combat ability far exceeded his!

 “That's only for the time being.”

 The old man smiled. “Once you attain what you have been waiting for, no one will be able to surpa.s.s you.”

 “Will that day come?” Xia Yu sighed.

 He had heard this many times.

 “It will.”

 The old man looked into the distance and gave a long sigh. “I've already waited for half my life and I have never been that close. You will definitely be able to do so.”

 “How much longer?”

 “Soon… Very soon.”

 “I hope so.”

 Xia Yu's wrist shook gently.

 Swoos.h.!.+

 Nine beams of cold and striking lights streaked across the sky and transformed into nine arc-shaped tracks. On their own, they actually avoided all the obstacles and eventually converged at one point.

 Bang!

The targets suddenly exploded!

 At this very moment…

 In the shop.

 Lu Ming and Xiao-Xiaojian were researching how to guard themselves against deductions.

 At the beginning, they merely wanted to add some garbage information to the deduction. In the end, they discovered that they could actually hide their ident.i.ties and add more things to it…

 “Come, come come. You can do this! You can also do this!”

 Lu Ming was excited.

 Haha.

 He could finally use the expertise from his past life!

 “Look, each time they make a deduction, we can release behavioral targeted information. If you can briefly find out some other things about them, that will be better.

“We can also use advertis.e.m.e.nts.

 “Hehe.

 “If it's a youngster, we can recommend pretty girls and combat-related advertis.e.m.e.nts.

 “If it's an older person, we can recommend health products…

 “Right, right, right. We'll do this.

 “Aye, what do you mean by scamming others? How can this be called a scam? This is an experience… Let me tell you. In the past, a cultivator called “Baidoo” [1. Baidoo is a similar name for Baidu, one of the companies specializing in Internet-related services] did things like this.

 “Then…

 “If they haven't discovered us, we can upgrade and provide services of a higher level when they try to sweep their deduction ability across…

 “We can make compulsory scenes or images pop out.

 “This is called pop-up advertis.e.m.e.nts.

 “A cultivator called “36 Network” loves to do this.

 “Then… If the deductions are from our enemies, we can put in some hidden attack techniques that we hide in the data flow and their results.

 “This is called a virus implant.

 “Before the cultivator “36 Network” did so, its brother “37 Network” specialized in this.”

 The more Lu Ming talked about it, the more excited he felt.

 Xiao-Xiaojian was dumbfounded at his words.

 Oh my goodness!

 It was really considered a blessing that the Lu family's grave had not been dug up… This guy was too evil! He was going to do the entire industry in!

And…

 Baidoo, 36 Network, and 37 Network… These people would do anything for the sake of money.

 “You can't do this.”

 Xiao-Xiaojian hurried to stop him. “You'll be beaten to death if you do this.”

 “It's not that easy to find someone within the big data,” Lu Ming said.

 There were tens of thousands of people in Qing Ming City. How could it be that easy to find someone?!

 “There is no need to find them.”

 Xiao-Xiaojian cast a strange look at Lu Ming. “You have to know that there are also big shots in the Scout vocation. If you do this, the big shots may ma.s.sacre the entire city…”

 Shus.h.!.+

 There was suddenly silence in the air.

 Lu Ming came to his senses from his excitement.

 Oh.

 This was not his past life…

 The Scout vocation had developed for many years and certainly had many powerful figures. If the big shots were to discover that Qing Ming City caused a crisis in the industry…

 And that there were too many people in Qing Ming City and they could not find out who did it?

 That was okay.

 They would just ma.s.sacre the city…

 Someone had done such a thing before.

 If he were to really force people's vocation and legacy to a corner, it was afraid that something big would happen!

 Cough.

 Alright.

 Lu Ming gave up on this idea regretfully.

 He had thought of many kinds of viruses and was preparing to integrate them via cultivation. It seemed that he could only give up on his first idea…

 After all…

 This was not his past life.

 However… A simple information overflow was still necessary!

The deductions were not merely a search engine but also searched for the best available information. The search results had a high degree of accuracy!

 Therefore, Lu Ming wanted to lower this degree of accuracy!

 Why did Baidoo fail in his past life?

 The reason was simple.

 This was because it could no longer retrieve any useful information.

 At the beginning, it did not have any compet.i.tors. It no longer developed any new techniques and created garbage information to earn money…

 Eventually, it was done for.

 And now…

 Lu Ming wanted to add information to their search outcomes.

 Hypothetically, if there were two hundred results for the deduction outcome for ‘Where is Lu Ming?', Lu Ming would simply insert three hundred fake results…

 The original data would still exist!

 What would be the eventual outcome of the deduction?

 n.o.body knew!

 “Can this be done?”

 Lu Ming glanced at Xiao-Xiaojian.

 “This can be done but I don't know how to get that data,” Xiao-Xiaojian said honestly.

Although spirit bodies were more quick-witted, they could not foolishly come up with meaningless information.

 That would be too dumb!

 Lu Ming said casually, “You can come up with it, as long as you don't let them discover you. That will do.”

 The objective of modifying the information was to prevent the big shots from prying into people's lives casually and finding out their true information. As to what the content was?

He did not care at all.

 “Understood.”

 Xiao-Xiaojian understood.

 “Yes.”

 Lu Ming felt grateful.

 And so…

 The crisis of being deduced by the big shots was considered resolved?

 His expectations were not very high.

 To put it bluntly, in this era whereby big shots could pry into people's lives, he merely wanted to protect his home by installing a bunch of curtains on his windows.

Well…

 Anyway, typically, the big shots would only look at the final result of the search.

 “Hopefully, peace will resume in Qing Ming City as soon as possible.”

 Lu Ming stretched his arms.

 The number of foreign cultivators in Qing Ming City had slightly decreased for the past two days. He reckoned that some of them had gone home because they believed that they would not be able to find any spirit bodies.

 This was a good thing.

 As long as this situation remained, sooner or later…

 Suddenly…

 Click!

 There was a crisp and clear sound.

 “Oh no!”

 Lu Ming's heart trembled. He immediately carried Xiaobai, who was in the midst of creating cards.

 Click!

 Click!

 Strange and mysterious cracks were suddenly spreading beneath his feet…

 It was sweeping across the floor of Lu Ming's shop, all the way to the streets, to the top of the building, and then to all the places visible to the naked eye…

 Lu Ming's heart skipped a beat.

 Qing Ming City.

 It seemed that something was really going to happen!!!