Su Zhan silently watched everything unfold.
Dean Li didn't just understand—he knew he had already lost.
How long had Li Ya been an Aberrant?
How many people had the Aberrant killed to survive?
These things must have happened with Dean Li's silent consent.
Or rather, Dean Li would personally bring food to Li Ya.
"Sigh~"
Wang Mingyuan sighed, patted the dust off his clothes, and looked at the group: "Let's go. The judgment of Dean Li is not something we can participate in anymore."
Everyone nodded silently and followed Wang Mingyuan as they walked out.
That Liu Ziming was the first to finally speak up: "Will Dean Li be executed?"
Xie Xi responded: "Someone of his strength level, and a dean at that... they'll probably handle it secretly."
Feng Jue mechanically recited: "According to Daxia law, those who shelter Aberrants and cause significant casualties can be sentenced to death as maximum punishment."
"Actually... I can understand Dean Li's feelings."
Xu Hao said slowly: "If it were my family..."
"But there's no other way."
Wang Mingyuan's voice turned stern: "Precisely because we all have families, we must strictly maintain our bottom line."
"Even setting aside the fact that he discovered the Aberrant but didn't report it."
Su Zhan spoke up: "He turned the entire Lan City Aberrant Purge Division into ruins. How many innocent people did he kill? Just this matter alone is enough to give Dean Li serious trouble."
There was one thing he didn't understand.
Why had Director Zhou been here all along.
Yet chose to wait until Dean Li had completely destroyed the Aberrant Purge Division building before taking action.
During that time, how many innocent purge officers died in the lightning?
Even that team leader Zhao Lin didn't escape this disaster.
Why?
Why didn't Director Zhou intervene?
Su Zhan looked toward Director Zhou standing calmly in the distance.
Could it be... these people's sacrifices were just to reduce Dean Li's anger?
To make Dean Li willingly go guard the border, some sacrifices had to be made?
He shook his head and stopped overthinking it.
These matters between important figures weren't something he could interfere with.
He could only watch as a bystander, silently observing this drama unfold.
Some things, you only get to know when you reach that position.
Otherwise, you can only keep guessing the intentions of important people from below.
"The others were innocent."
Wang Mingyuan said calmly: "He can't escape this matter, but for someone of Dean Li's strength, the authorities will give him a chance to guard the border, resist the Mist, and atone for his crimes."
The setting sun dyed the ruins blood red.
Liu Ziming suddenly kicked a piece of rubble fiercely: "This damn world!"
No one responded.
Everyone looked at the evening glow on the horizon, their eyes dark and unreadable.
"Let's stay here a few more days, then return to the academy."
Wang Mingyuan finally said: "Dean Li has been apprehended, and the Starlight Academy students will be too disturbed by this matter to have any desire for competition.
Plus your physical strength hasn't recovered yet. There's no point in us staying here anymore. We don't need to participate in the team competition."
Everyone was slightly stunned.
Clearly not expecting this exchange event to end so anticlimactically.
...
Later.
It wasn't until Su Zhan and the others were about to leave Lan City.
That Dean Li's crimes were finally announced online.
[Lan City Daily Special Report: Trial Record of Former Starlight Academy Dean Li Tinghuai's Aberrant Sheltering Case.]
Su Zhan clicked to look.
It was an interview.
Someone asked: "Dean Li, as a representative of the older generation of awakeners, why did you shelter your Aberrant daughter?"
Dean Li clasped his hands on the interrogation table and began his personal confession.
"That rainy night three years ago, when Yaya first showed Aberrant reactions, I should have reported it."
Dean Li paused for ten seconds, then looked up at the one-way glass:
"She was huddled in the corner of the bathroom, her right fingernails already turned black, yet she was still using her left hand to desperately pinch her mutated right wrist.
When she saw me come in, her first words were 'Daddy, run quickly, I can't control it anymore.'
How ironic is that?
I taught students for thirty years how to hunt Aberrants, and in the end my own daughter was kneeling before me undergoing mutation!
Later...
She begged me crying not to tell anyone, saying she could just drink animal blood!
Do you know what's most ridiculous?
For three full months after that, she actually survived on expired plasma from hospital blood banks.
Until that day... she smelled someone's blood from a cut..."
Dean Li slumped back in his chair:
"I personally built that basement for her, could only maintain her life by buying blood from hospitals every day.
But that was just maintenance.
Later her condition grew worse and worse.
At first 500cc of plasma per day was enough, but now she needed live blood extraction.
But after another three months.
Even live blood extraction couldn't satisfy her.
Later, I had to personally go to the black market every week to buy organs, lying to her that they were remains of executed prisoners.
What a great father, right?
To keep my daughter from killing people, I first became a criminal myself.
Like this, her demands grew higher and higher.
Until we encountered...
The Transcendence Society!
It was these beasts who taught her how to hunt!
They brainwashed my Yaya, saying hunting humans was natural and justified.
The first one she caught herself... was a little girl holding a teddy bear!
The coffee shop?
Ha!
That was just the front desk of a slaughterhouse!
Those vacuum packages in the underground freezer were all gifts from her friends!
Later because this happened more and more frequently.
The relationship between me and my daughter grew worse and worse.
That day she returned from hunting wearing the Transcendence Society's fox mask.
I slapped her.
But she said—Daddy, don't humans eat pigs, cows, and sheep with the same self-righteousness?
From that day on, I knew my Yaya would never come back."
After a long silence.
Dean Li sighed and continued:
"Yes, I sheltered her.
Just recently, on the day Vermilion Bird Academy came for the exchange.
I personally watched those children finish the first day of competition. They won beautifully, but their physical strength was completely exhausted.
The Transcendence Society's Emissary sought out Yaya that very night.
Their doctrine?
Only when the Mist descends can one achieve transcendence.
And to summon the Mist, one must first break the future backbone of Daxia.
These talented students under twenty years old!
That day, she knelt in my study, begging me to divert Wang Mingyuan.
Saying just one minute would be enough."
Speaking to this point.
Dean Li slammed the table angrily and stood up:
"Of course I knew what that meant!
Five dazzling new stars of Daxia.
Five bodies that might save millions in the future!
I refused her at that time.
She scratched me, or rather just broke the skin slightly.
She said if I didn't agree, she would kill herself.
I asked her why she had to kill those innocent children.
She answered—This is the Lord's instruction, only when the Mist descends can one achieve transcendence.
To hell with that Lord! That was clearly my daughter!
Later, I still agreed. I still couldn't bear to watch her die before me. My heart kept telling me this would be the last time.
The moment Wang Mingyuan left the hotel area, the Mist descended."
Dean Li raised his hands: "These hands, the hands of countless awakeners, personally opened the door for the butchers.
I thought those children would certainly die.
Five exhausted students, two Aberrants, a group of Mist creatures—it should have been a massacre.
But they survived.
Not only survived.
Wang Mingyuan even brought his students to find my daughter's coffee shop.
His special-type Life Soul.
Even the Aberrant Purge Division couldn't find that secret room after multiple inspections, but he found it.
At that time, Yaya called me and explained what had happened.
I knew immediately that with the basement discovered, the evidence was almost certain.
Yaya was probably in grave danger.
Sure enough, in the interrogation room, Yaya was to be detained for two months—a certain death sentence for an Aberrant.
Finally, she used the Transcendence Society's secret technique and self-destructed.
Do you know what I was thinking at the end?
Was my daughter protecting her fallen father? Or maintaining that damned Lord?
But even if it was the former, after losing her, nothing matters anymore.
I won't cling to life shamelessly.
I will confess everything.
Now it's fine...
I no longer have to go to the black market every week to buy organs, buy ingredients, no longer have to worry about Yaya every day.
No longer have to hide like a rat, afraid Yaya's secret would be discovered.
No longer have to..."
Dean Li slumped weakly in his chair, murmuring to himself: "I know my sins are grave, deserving of death penalty, but I don't want to waste my strength. Send me to the border, to resist the Mist there. I think that's where I should atone."
...
Before this interview was broadcast, multiple Aberrants were captured among those connected to the Corner Cafe.
This Transcendence Society stronghold was completely eliminated.
Finally, after trial by Daxia's highest court.
A video of the presiding judge circulated.
"Defendant, Li Tinghuai, former dean of Starlight Awakened Academy.
Charges: sheltering Aberrants, dereliction of duty, endangering human security, among others. Combined punishment warrants death sentence.
However, there are three sentencing considerations.
First, defendant Li Tinghuai possesses strategic value, qualifying under 'Wartime Awakener Amnesty Regulations.'
Second, Southern Fortress currently faces Mist invasion, personnel shortage, urgently needs high-level awakeners stationed.
Third, defendant voluntarily provided Transcendence Society intelligence, qualifies for statutory leniency.
Li Tinghuai is hereby exiled to Southern Fortress.
Death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, with possible sentence reduction based on performance.
However, if you leave Southern Fortress, high-level awakeners from neighboring fortresses may execute you on sight without orders."
This matter, finally concluded.