The Gale Leader was a generous man. He did not mind that Ye Chui and the other three had earlier defeated a group of Gale Warriors. In fact, he felt a bit of respect for Ye Chui because of it. He kept praising how powerful a magus was.
At that moment, the Eldest Prince walked up to Ye Chui and the others with a heavy expression. He looked them over carefully and said, “I am certain that none of you were among the guards of the twelve princes. How did you enter the secret realm? Can the Church now interfere with the rules of the Crown Battlefield?”
Ye Chui glanced at Posili. He knew this was a key moment.
Posili stepped forward and said to the Eldest Prince, “Your Highness, the Church cannot interfere with the secret realm rules. We entered following one of the princes.”
“That is impossible. Are you saying there is another prince besides the twelve?” the Eldest Prince denied.
“There is indeed one more,” Posili said with a smile. “The Ninth Prince.”
The Eldest Prince’s body shook slightly. He showed anger. “Miss Posili, you are the Archmage of the Xiang King. Even His Majesty the Emperor respects you. But I do not want you to insult my son!”
“Your son did not die. Under the Church’s arrangements, he joined the secret realm quietly to catch everyone off guard. We came in as his guards. The secret realm rules cannot be changed, and you know that. Without the Ninth Prince, how could we be here?” Posili explained. “As the Archmage of the Xiang King, would I lie to you?”
The Eldest Prince’s face twitched. He looked unsure.
The Ninth Prince appeared kind and approachable in front of others, with no hint of danger. But the Eldest Prince knew that was just a mask. After all, he was his own son. How could he not know his personality from childhood? Faking his death was something the Ninth Prince could do. After the Ninth Prince “died,” his wife had been heartbroken. But that grief seemed a bit fake to him, as if she did it on purpose for him to see.
His wife and son had tricked him on purpose. They made him hate Ye Chui and fight hard for the throne. That did sound like something those two would do.
Ye Chui watched the Eldest Prince’s changing expression. He knew the man was starting to believe it. Just then, Ye Chui received a reminder from Epyd: “Master, someone is using mental magic on you all.”
“Mental magic?” Ye Chui was stunned. His eyes turned to the three guards beside the Eldest Prince.
The sand people in the secret realm could not use magic, so the only ones who could were the Eldest Prince’s three guards. One was a swordsman, and the other two were magi. One had not summoned his magic book. The other’s book floated at his side.
He was an old magus who looked over sixty, with shoulder-length white hair. He was clearly the one using mental magic on Ye Chui and the others.
“Master, should I block it? This mental magic is not strong. It seems it can only tell if speech is true or false.”
“Do not block it. Let him check,” Ye Chui told Epyd. He then continued to the Eldest Prince, “The Ninth Prince is not dead. He is in the Divine Citizens’ City now. I would not lie to you.”
The Eldest Prince’s body swayed a bit. He turned to the white-haired old magus. The magus nodded, confirming Ye Chui spoke the truth.
This made the Eldest Prince look several years older at once. His wife and son had tricked him like this. Sadness appeared on his face without him realising. He lost his earlier dignity. He walked back to his seat inside, looking lost, and sat down.
The Leader, the Great Warrior, and the other Gale tribespeople looked at the Eldest Prince with some worry. Then the Gale Leader suddenly looked at the Snow Thunder Bird in Ye Chui’s arms. He asked curiously, “Ye Chui, where did you find that Snow Thunder Bird?”
“Leader, do you know this bird?” Ye Chui asked casually.
“I do. This bird is rare in the secret realm. I hear the Divine Citizens’ City keeps many for sending messages. They are not common elsewhere. My wife happened to save one from a carbon snake’s mouth not long ago. This bird is a magical beast with high intelligence. After that, it often came back to visit her,” the Gale Leader said with a laugh.
Ye Chui’s body shook. He exchanged a glance with Debbie, Green, and Posili. He vaguely understood something. He quickly said, “We met this bird on the road. Since it is a rare magical beast, we caught it to raise as a magic pet. I wonder if it is the one your wife saved.”
The Gale Leader looked at the Snow Thunder Bird closely and shook his head. “They all look the same. How can I tell? I will ask my wife to check.” With that, he turned to a young man standing nearby and said, “Nia, go call your mother.”
That Nia was clearly the Gale Leader’s son. He was the one who had almost been swallowed by the giant whale that day and was saved by the Eldest Prince. He agreed at once and slipped out of the tent. Moments later, he returned with a sand girl. The woman looked only in her twenties, not much older than Nia. She was not Nia’s birth mother. Though she wore sand people’s animal skin clothes, she had a bit of refined beauty.
After entering the tent, she greeted the Leader and the Eldest Prince politely. When her eyes fell on the Snow Thunder Bird in Ye Chui’s arms, her body trembled.
At the same time, the Snow Thunder Bird struggled suddenly. It chirped “cheep cheep cheep” at the Leader without stop, as if telling Ye Chui, it is her, it is her.
Ye Chui finally confirmed the spy’s identity. But he felt a strange twist in his heart. The spy turned out to be a woman, the Leader’s wife no less. But the Snow Thunder Bird did not care about gender. If it had said earlier the spy was a woman, finding the spy would have been easier.
“It seems this bird is indeed the one your wife saved,” the Gale Leader said at once, seeing the Snow Thunder Bird’s reaction.
The Leader’s wife’s brows furrowed. She looked Ye Chui up and down and asked, “Where did you find this bird?”
“In the desert not far from here,” Ye Chui said. He knew the Leader’s wife was panicking inside.
Snow Thunder Birds were rare in the secret realm outside the Divine Citizens’ City, almost nonexistent. The Gale Leader said his wife saved one by chance. That was likely when she was secretly meeting the bird and got caught, so she lied and said she saved it. Later appearances of the bird were explained as it knowing her.
Since the Gale Tribe and the Divine Citizens’ City had no big conflicts before the Crown War started, no one in the Gale Tribe suspected the Leader’s wife was a spy planted by the Divine Citizens’ City.
“Maybe it came to find me. This bird is close to me. May I have it?” the Leader’s wife said quickly. Her eyes glanced at the Snow Thunder Bird’s leg.
Ye Chui noticed her look and smiled slightly. He took out the divine stone. “Madam, is this what you are looking for?”
At the same time, Ye Chui inserted the sharp end of the divine stone into the data port of his magic book. With his mind, he said to Epyd, “If you can read the information stored in the divine stone, you can change it too, right?”
“Master, I can do that.”
“Good. Delete the information inside and replace it with something else,” Ye Chui said in his mind.
“Master, what should I change it to? The divine stone memory can only hold two or three hundred characters at most.”
Ye Chui smiled oddly. He wanted to make the Leader’s wife show her true colours right away. So he thought, “Got it. Write, ‘The story my sister-in-law and I cannot tell, I am the deputy leader of the Gale Tribe, but I did some shameful things with the Leader’s wife, it was by the oasis after the rain.'”
The others saw Ye Chui take out the divine stone and grew curious.
Divine stone memory was an advanced item. Ordinary people did not know it. But the Eldest Prince, the white-haired magus, the Gale Leader, and others looked surprised. They recognised it.
“This stone seems like…” the Gale Leader said strangely.
“It is just an ordinary stone. White Snow likes to bring me all sorts of odd stones,” the Leader’s wife said in a hurry. She reached out in panic to take the stone from Ye Chui’s hand. The moment her body neared his, a faint light from Ye Chui’s magic book quietly entered the Leader’s wife’s body.
Intermediate mental magic: [Aqua’s Blessing]
The Leader’s wife held the divine stone. Soon, her body shook hard. Her face showed great horror. Clearly, she used some secret method to read the stone’s information.
But that information.
The Leader’s wife’s eyes turned to the deputy leader standing in the tent’s corner.
“That seems to be a divine stone memory!” the white-haired magus beside the Eldest Prince said suddenly. “I can read divine stone memory information. Let me see it.”
This made the Leader’s wife’s fear even deeper.
Ye Chui took the chance and said, “Is the information in the divine stone real?”
“What? No, that is not real,” the Leader’s wife denied quickly.
Then her expression froze.
Some sharp-minded people in the tent understood at once.
Ye Chui smiled. “This is a divine stone memory, and you can read its information! Not just anyone can do that, right? I think very few in the tribe know about it. Only people from the Divine Citizens’ City would master this skill.”
“Yes, only the Divine Citizens’ City knows divine stone memory,” the Gale Leader said. His nature was rough, but he quickly grasped what happened. His eyes turned stern to his wife. “Snow Thunder Birds are always used by the Divine Citizens’ City for messages. I never suspected you before. Are you from the Divine Citizens’ City?”
“No, I have no link to the Divine Citizens’ City,” the Leader’s wife said, full of panic. Her look at Ye Chui held a bit more venom.
Everyone in the tent could see the Leader’s wife had something to hide.
Ye Chui gave the Leader’s wife a heh heh smile. Aqua idiot’s adultery-catching method worked too well.
