Chapter 962: The Ninth Person

Di Hu covered his face and mumbled incoherently, unable to get a word out.

The brightly feathered Di Ji looked furious, and no one dared to approach her.

Hei Yang sneered from the side, "Oh... Pei Qian Hu, where's your temper now? That fierce attitude you had when you were yelling at us? What about that 'a real man owns up to his actions'?"

"What the hell do you know, you old bastard?" Di Hu grumbled. "No wonder you've never had a partner... You totally deserve it..."

Hei Yang froze for a moment, then stood up without another word and headed straight for the short knife on the ground. Bai Lan Gou quickly stepped in to block him.

"No, no, no... Let's just forget it..." Bai Lan Gou said, struggling to hold Hei Yang back, but this time it was unusually difficult.

"I have to kill him... I absolutely have to kill him..."

She Zhu Li and Zhong Er Zhu saw what was happening and rushed over to help. It was clear that Di Hu's words had hit harder than usual.

"Is this never going to end?" Di Ji said, hands on her hips, forcing a smile while veins bulged on her forehead. "Have I been too nice to you all...? How many days has it been? Are you really not afraid of getting exposed?"

"Don't get angry yet..." Di Hu said with an awkward smile. "Quail sister, actually, we..."

"Who the hell is Quail?!" Di Ji shouted.

"No, no, I mean, Di Ji sister, just hear us out." Di Hu quickly stepped forward and helped Di Ji to a seat nearby. "We just did an experiment and found out that the chances of us getting exposed are actually pretty low..."

Di Ji angrily pushed Di Hu's hand away. "I'm not sitting! Don't push your luck. Every night, all you do here is fight and argue. And you think the exposure risk is low?"

"It's true!" Di Hu explained his so-called "experiment" in a few words.

"Fine... Fine..." Di Ji nodded. "So Qing Long can't hear us, right? His Ling Wen isn't working, right?"

"Yeah!" Di Hu seemed a bit pleased.

"Then how did I hear it?" Di Ji said with a forced smile. "Do you believe that everyone in the dozen or so rooms near this hallway heard that line about 'Qing Long, I'll take on your grandfather'?"

"Uh..."

"Even if Qing Long didn't hear it, does that stop you from dying?" Di Ji said. "If anyone casually walks up to Qing Long and repeats it, you're already on a countdown to death."

"Good point... I guess that's how it is." Di Hu scratched his head.

"And what's really making me angry is..." Di Ji sighed again, "I had a friend visiting me today, and I was actually planning to say a few good things about you all in front of her... But no, you just had to do something embarrassing like this. How am I supposed to introduce you to her now?"

"A friend...?" Di Hu was stunned and turned to look at Hei Yang and Di Shu, the two "brains" of the group, only to find them equally confused.

"Ji leader..." Di Shu said with an awkward smile as he stepped forward, "You're going to introduce us to your friend? What kind of friend is she?"

"You still have the nerve to ask..." Di Ji frowned. "Of course, she's a friend on the same path as us. But what does she find? Her future teammates are next door, cursing Qing Long and fighting like it's going out of style—basically a suicide squad."

"Hey!" Di Shu took a few more steps forward. "Ji leader, you're not seeing it right. The reason we're arguing so fiercely is that it shows how full of energy this team is! We're all full of vigor, ready to find a place and show what we're made of!"

Di Ji thought for a moment, then slowly stood up and looked at everyone in the room. "Qing Long really can't hear us?"

"Not that I know of—I'm still alive," Di Hu replied.

Di Ji fell silent for a bit, then turned toward the door and said, "In that case, come on in... Let's discuss this."

There was a slight sound from outside the door, and a figure slowly entered.

Everyone turned to look and saw that it was a female Di Niu. She was slim, not wearing a suit, just lazily dressed in a shirt with a few buttons undone at the bottom, revealing abs that put all the men in the room to shame.

Di Tu and Di Hu quickly tightened their suits to cover their stomachs.

Among everyone in the room, only Bai Lan Gou, who was shirtless under his suit, had abs that were somewhat comparable.

"Nice to meet you all," Di Niu said.

Everyone nodded at her symbolically.

"Quail sister, she is..." Di Hu asked.

"Da Bai Hu... If you call me 'Quail' one more time, I'll slap you three thousand times," Di Ji said.

"Ah! Sorry, sorry, Di Ji sister, who is she...?"

"She is the only person I've trusted all these years," Di Ji said. "You don't need to ask for details—just remember, she's more trustworthy than any of you."

"What...?"

Di Niu took a deep breath and turned to Di Ji. "Can we really trust these people?"

"Don't worry," Di Ji said, patting her shoulder. "This big Da Bai Hu and that Hei Yang are students of Yang Ge, and the others all have some connection to Yang Ge too."

"Yang Ge?" Di Niu was surprised.

"Yang Ge is... 'him'," Di Ji said.

"Alright, in that case..." Di Niu nodded, closed the door behind her, and said to everyone, "I don't know exactly how your team was formed, but we probably all have the same goal—to carry out Yang Ge's plan."

"Yeah!" Everyone nodded in agreement.

"To be safe, he split the plan into two parts across a long time span and told them to me and Di Ji separately," Di Niu continued. "When he was still a 'participant,' he told me one part, and after he became a 'Zodiac,' he told the other part to Di Ji. Later, he probably pulled some strings to get Di Ji and me to meet on the 'Train,' and then we pieced together the full plan. Now, we're here to tell it to you."

Everyone was stunned for a moment, and the room fell into an eerie silence.

It sounded far-fetched, but only someone like Qi Xia or Bai Yang could pull off something like that.

Before Di Ji and Di Niu teamed up, even Tian She couldn't read the full plan.

"But I have to say this upfront—once I reveal the plan, there's no turning back for you," Di Niu said. "If Tian She catches even a glimpse of it, we're all in danger. So, if anyone isn't ready, leave now and don't drag the others down."

Everyone turned their gazes to She Zhu Li, since he always claimed to be a "fence-sitter," but surprisingly, he was sitting as steadily as anyone.

"Good... Since no one is leaving, I'll take that as you all agreeing to follow the plan and work toward it," Di Niu said.