Girl, There's Something Wrong With You - Chapter 24

Amidst the dense fog over the sea, the group circled the perimeter a few times. Ye Ru calculated that the fog-covered area was roughly 20,000 square kilometers.

“And then what, genius?” Murong Shu asked Wang Wanrou.

“After testing the perimeter, isn’t the next step to investigate the interior?” Wang Wanrou shot back.

“I thought you might have something insightful to say,” Ye Ru sneered. “In the end, we still have to go in. What’s the point of calculating the fog’s size first?”

“How exactly are you planning to investigate inside?” Wang Wanrou smirked. “Walk in a straight line? Diagonal? Curved? Oh, I get it—you’ll wander around aimlessly, following your mood.”

“Are you suggesting we investigate the entire fog-covered area using the shortest route?” Su Lili asked curiously.

“How does the Great Emperor Ziwei conduct her reconnaissance?” Wang Wanrou asked. “Surely, it’s not with her naked eyes.”

“In fog like this, she’d likely use one of three methods: spiritual vision, bird’s-eye, or sound probing,” Su Lili explained.

“What are these three methods?” Wang Wanrou asked coolly.

“Well,” Su Lili began detailing, “spiritual vision is a demon art that creates an omnidirectional, unobstructed perception centered on the user. Bird’s-eye involves creating and releasing flying spiritual entities—bluebirds—for carpet-style reconnaissance. Sound probing emits infrasonic waves, scanning objects in a fan-shaped area ahead…”

“And the data?” Wang Wanrou pressed on. “Does using these techniques consume energy? What’s the diameter of spiritual vision? How frequent is the scan? Any time limits? Is there a cap on the number of flying entities? What’s the range and principle of their reconnaissance? For sound probing, what’s the length and width of the fan-shaped area? If it’s based on reflection, does that mean it only captures the outline of reflective surfaces?”

She rattled off a barrage of questions, and Su Lili patiently answered each one.

Nearby, Ye Ru and Murong Shu, feeling annoyed, struck up a conversation with Princess Sister.

“Was she always like this in the human world?” Ye Ru asked.

“Hmm,” the Princess replied with a smile, “actually, it was quite the opposite. She was very polite over there.”

“So, she’s just rude to us demons?” Ye Ru mused.

“No,” Cheng Jinyang interjected. “She’s only rude to people she intends to engage with. If it’s someone she doesn’t want to deal with, she’ll be extremely polite—so polite that they’ll want to end the conversation quickly.”

The two: ?

“She’s really something,” Murong Shu shook his head. “I feel like if she were ever converted…”

“She’d probably bypass the corruption phase entirely and emerge as a demigod-level demon right after hatching,” Ye Ru speculated.

“Don’t even think about it!” Jiang Jiu quickly shouted, seeing the two seem intrigued. “Look at that face of hers. If she becomes demonized, how are the rest of us supposed to live?”

The two: ……

Wait. If she were to be demonized on top of her current looks…

“Would that amplify her to mind-corrupting levels?” Ye Ru turned to Murong Shu in shock.

Murong Shu shuddered involuntarily.

“Let’s not,” they both shook their heads quickly.

While demons were generally eager to increase their ranks, if that new member were both far better-looking and incredibly sharp-tongued, it was an entirely different matter.

—

Amid the dense fog, on Yingzhou Island, the Great Emperor Ziwei stood at the edge of a cliff, gazing into the misty expanse.

Suddenly, she raised her right hand, and as though exerting some kind of suction force, a distant object flying within the fog instantly appeared in her palm.

“A bluebird, huh.” She smiled as she examined the struggling paper crane in her hand. “This technique—clearly Meng Zhang’s handiwork.”

With a light squeeze, she crushed the paper crane in her palm. Then, taking a step forward, her figure disappeared from the spot.

Reappearing at the location where the paper crane had been caught, she hovered in midair, formed a spell with her hands, and gazed intently in the direction the paper crane had originally come from.

The dense sea fog around Yingzhou Island blocked most of her detection methods, and naturally, her opponents would face the same limitations. However, if they encountered her, they would inevitably die. This gave her the freedom to search her surroundings without restraint, whereas her adversaries had to tread carefully, fearing exposure.

Spiritual vision emitted spiritual pressure, bird’s-eye reconnaissance released bluebirds, and sound probing caused vibrations—each method would inevitably reveal their position. As for Ye Ru’s spatial folding, if they dared to use it within her range, she could exploit the fog to execute a long-distance dimensional strike directly at the caster’s coordinates.

The fog’s drawbacks affected her far less than her enemies.

After a quick divination, the Great Emperor Ziwei identified the coordinates where the bluebirds had been released and was preparing to teleport there for further pursuit. Suddenly, she detected a spatial folding disturbance behind her to the right.

“Oh, a crude diversion tactic,” she sneered slightly.

Such a trick was too clever by half. It didn’t matter which was the real target—she could simply choose arbitrarily.

If she chose wrong, her opponents might get a brief reprieve; if she chose correctly, they would die. The more times they attempted this, the more likely they would suffer casualties.

With that, she disappeared in a flash and reappeared at the location of the spatial disturbance.

Tch—just a decoy.

Upon closer inspection of the surrounding space, she realized Ye Ru had pre-set a timed spatial warp here. When the timer reached its activation point, the surrounding spatial compression reverted to its original state, creating a folding-like disturbance to draw her attention.

Shifting again through space, the Great Emperor Ziwei arrived at the location where the bluebirds had been released. As expected, there was no one around—only the churning seawater and the pervasive mist.

Hmm. She pondered for a moment.

With no traces of spatial folding, the culprits must have either flown away under cover of the fog or used water-escaping techniques to leave quickly.

But how far could they go?

Ziwei slightly parted her lips, unleashing an invisible soundwave that spread forward in a fan-shaped arc at incredible speed.

Found them!

She suddenly appeared behind the moving target and struck with her palm, instantly ripping it apart from within.

Bits of wood fell into the water.

Not them? Ziwei froze momentarily and realized it was a lifelike wooden decoy.

Strange. While Murong Shu could certainly create such convincing wooden human replicas to bait her detection range, it was impossible for wooden constructs to cast demon arts.

So, who had released the bluebirds earlier? And how had they managed to evade her sound probing in such a short time?

Scanning her surroundings again, she found no traces of the enemy.

Frustrated, Ziwei began teleporting rapidly in concentric circles outward from her current position, releasing a large number of flying spiritual entities for a carpet-style search.

After half an hour of fruitless searching, she finally stopped, her expression dark.

She realized she had truly fallen for her opponents’ diversion tactic.

During the time her attention was diverted, they must have employed some incredibly fast method to silently slip beneath her nose and infiltrate Yingzhou Island.