Martial Arts Secret Realm: Only I Can Know the Plot?

Chapter 123 Information

Sun Fan sat on the steps, watching Ah Le's figure disappear into the shade of the campus trees, the note in his hand rustling in the wind. He folded the note, put it in his pocket, stood up, and walked towards the dormitory building.

Fierce Tiger's dormitory is on the third floor of the third-year building, and the seal on the door is still on. Ah Le said his phone was under his pillow, but the dormitory was sealed off, so he couldn't get in. However, Zhang Guangcheng could get in.

Sun Fan didn't go to find Zhang Guangcheng; instead, he returned to his residence first. Dong Dahai was practicing shooting in the yard. Seeing Sun Fan enter, he put away his gun and walked over.

"Squad leader, is the second round over?"

"It's over." Sun Fan sat down at the stone table, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it all in one gulp. "Ah Le is gone."

Dong Dahai was taken aback: "Gone? Where did they go?"

"A regular martial arts school. He said that Fierce Tiger promised him that he would take him to a regular martial arts school after he left the Dark Martial Arts School. Now that Fierce Tiger is dead, he's going there by himself."

Dong Dahai was silent for a moment, then said, "He is a man of great loyalty and affection."

"Hmm." Sun Fan put down his cup and looked at Dong Dahai. "Before he left, he gave me a clue."

He took the note out of his pocket and placed it on the stone table.

"The Path of the Warrior? That mobile game?" Dong Dahai picked up the note and frowned. "I've heard of this game; it's very popular among ordinary people, supposedly with hundreds of millions of monthly active users. But how could a game with hundreds of millions of monthly active users be used for secret communications?"

"It's precisely because it has hundreds of millions of monthly active users that it's suitable for secure communication," Sun Fan said. "Tens of millions of people are online every day, and billions of messages are circulating on the server. Trying to find a few encrypted messages from them is harder than finding a needle in a haystack."

Dong Dahai frowned even more deeply: "Then how are you going to investigate? You can't exactly go to the game company to pull data, can you?"

Sun Fan didn't answer. He was thinking about something. Ah Le said that Xiong Hu would read and delete messages after receiving them, but sometimes he would take screenshots and save them. The screenshots were stored on his phone. The phone was under Xiong Hu's pillow. Xiong Hu's dormitory was sealed off, but the seal was put up by the Academic Affairs Office. The Academic Affairs Office was under Zhang Guangcheng's jurisdiction.

"Dahai, please make an appointment with Old Zhang for me. Tell him I have something urgent to discuss with him."

That afternoon, Sun Fan met the old man in Zhang Guangcheng's office.

The old man looked better today than last time, and there were fewer cigarette butts in the ashtray on his desk. He sat behind his desk, holding a cup of tea in his hand. The tea had gone cold, but he didn't drink it; he just held it there.

"You said there are clues on the fierce tiger's phone?" Zhang Guangcheng's brows furrowed.

Sun Fan nodded and repeated Ah Le's words, but did not mention the "boss" or the "Path of the Martial Artist"—

It wasn't that he didn't trust Zhang Guangcheng, but the more people who knew, the greater the risk of a leak. Although Zhang Guangcheng was helping him, he was, after all, a member of the Dark Martial Arts School and one of the Eight Masters of the Round Table.

Some things are better left unknown.

Zhang Guangcheng stared at him for a long time, then put down his teacup, picked up the phone on the table, and dialed a number.

"Old Liu, did you put up the seal on the dorm room with the fierce tiger in the third-year building?"

After hearing what was said on the other end of the phone, Zhang Guangcheng grunted in response and then said, "Remove the seal. I need to go in and find something. Don't ask what you're looking for, just do as I say."

He hung up the phone, stood up, took a bunch of keys from the drawer, and weighed them in his hand.

"Let's go."

Fierce Tiger's dormitory was the innermost room on the third floor of the third-year building. The seal on the door had been torn off, and the door was ajar. Zhang Guangcheng pushed the door open and went in, with Sun Fan following behind.

The dormitory wasn't big, containing a bed, a table, a chair, and a wardrobe. A map of the Dark Martial Arts Academy was pasted on the wall, with several locations circled in red: the entrance to the secret realm, the training ground, the canteen, and the administration building.

There was a stack of books on the table, all related to martial arts, some of which were worn and frayed. On the bedside table was a framed photo of two people: Fierce Tiger and his younger brother, Yan Gaojiang.

The two men, dressed in matching black training uniforms, stood in front of the gates of the Dark Martial Arts School, both smiling broadly.

Sun Fan's gaze lingered on the photo frame for a moment before shifting away.

He walked to the bedside and lifted the pillow.

Sure enough, there was a cell phone under the pillow.

It was a black, ordinary smartphone with a few scratches on the screen, looking like it had been used for quite some time. Sun Fan picked up the phone, pressed the power button, and the screen lit up, displaying a password input interface.

Ah Le only gave the game password, not the password for the Fierce Tiger's phone.

"Password—" Zhang Guangcheng walked over, glanced at the screen, and frowned.

Sun Fan thought for a moment and entered Yan Gaotian's birthday. No. He entered Yan Gaojiang's birthday. No. He entered the founding date of the Dark Martial Arts School. No. He tried again—below the photo of the two fierce tigers, there was a line of small print indicating the date the photo was taken: August 15th, 61st year of the New Year calendar.

He entered the numbers.

The screen is unlocked.

The phone's home screen is clean, with only a few frequently used apps: phone, text messages, browser, photo album, and a game icon. The icon depicts a sword stuck in a book, with the four characters "The Path of the Warrior" written below.

Sun Fan opened the photo album.

The album contained dozens of photos, mostly selfies taken during training, pictures of food in the cafeteria, and views from the window, along with some screenshots. Sun Fan flipped through them one by one, until his finger stopped at the fifteenth photo.

The screenshot shows the private message interface of the game "Path of the Warrior".

The sender's profile picture was a dripping sword—exactly the same sword on the Dark Martial Arts Academy's flag. The nickname was empty, containing only a string of numbers: "0000". The message contained only one sentence: "Yan Gaotian, your brother didn't say anything he shouldn't have, did he?"

Sun Fan's pupils contracted slightly.

He continued scrolling down. The next screenshot showed the same profile picture, the same string of numbers, and the same message content.

The next one says, "I can help you. Secret Realm 34 and Secret Realm 55 are connected. You can enter using the reverse season. After it's done, I'll clean up your and your brother's past. You can go to any martial arts school you want."

Next one—

The last screenshot is the tiger's reply, which contains only two words: "Deal."

Sun Fan handed the phone to Zhang Guangcheng without saying a word. Zhang Guangcheng took the phone and read it from beginning to end. His expression changed from confusion to shock, from shock to gloom, and finally settled on an indescribable complexity.

"This '0000'—" he said in a low voice, "is an internal account of the Dark Martial Arts Academy."

Sun Fan frowned slightly.

"Each teacher at the Dark Martial Arts Academy has an internal account used for system login, secret realm management, and access to student records. The account format is a four-digit number, linked to the employee ID. The ID is '0000'."

He paused.

"He's the principal's assistant."

The office fell silent.

Sun Fan stood there, holding the phone in his hand, his knuckles turning white.

He remembered what Ah Le had said—"In the Dark Martial Arts Academy, there are no coincidences." He recalled how, from his imprisonment to entering the Dark Martial Arts Academy, every step felt like he was being pushed along. He thought of the Yan brothers, Yan Gaojiang and Yan Gaotian, and of Shen Wuxiu, and of the person watching him from the shadows.

Assistant to the Principal.

That was someone he had never seen before.

The principal's secretary is the most powerful position outside of the Eight Masters of the Round Table. He is not on the front line of teaching and does not directly manage students, but he holds the administrative resources of the entire Dark Martial Arts Academy, including the number of secret realm slots, resource allocation, student files, and system access.

If he wanted to tamper with the system, he wouldn't need to hack in; he only needed to log in.

If he wants to investigate someone's background, he doesn't need to ask for help; he only needs to access the files.

If he wants someone to die, he doesn't need to do it himself; he just needs to find the right knife.

"Mr. Zhang," Sun Fan's voice was calm, so calm it didn't sound like he was discussing something of life or death, "Assistant Principal, what's your name?"

Zhang Guangcheng remained silent for a moment.

"Chen Mo."