Chapter 222: Public Hearing (2)

“Hahahaha.”

Delighted laughter rang out through the hall. The generals were quite pleased with the way Su Chen reacted.

No matter how much influence the Crown Prince had, their respect for heroes wouldn’t decrease in the slightest.

“Is that so?” Lin Wenjun laughed coldly, as if he had anticipated this response from Su Chen a long time ago. “But the people from the Immortal Temple don’t seem to say the same thing.”

“Oh? What do they say, then?” Su Chen asked.

“You want to know?” Lin Wenjun clapped his hands and said, “Bring the man up!”

As Lin Wenjun yelled, a man was brought onto the stage.

When he walked past Su Chen, he shot him a glance.

Su Chen frowned slightly.

The man before him did seem somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t remember exactly why.

Su Chen was very clear that this man was not one of Shi Mingfeng’s people. As Su Chen had gotten closer with the Immortal Temple, his usefulness had increased, so the Immortal Temple had done their best to protect him. Apart from the people that had gotten to know Su Chen very early on, no one else was permitted to contact him.

However, this sense of familiarity only told Su Chen that it really was possible that they had met before.

The man stood before the assembly and said, “Sun Mo greets His Majesty the Crown Prince and the Commander-In-Chief.”

Lin Wenjun said pretentiously, “There is no Crown Prince here, only the Deputy Commander.”

“Yes, of course. Greetings to the Deputy Commander.

“Tell us when you got to know Su Chen.”

“It was when we were at Northface City……” As Sun Mo elaborated, a portion of Su Chen’s memories that he thought he had forgotten actually began to surface in his mind.

So this Sun Mo was one of Sang Zhen’s underlings.

Back when he was in Northface, Su Chen had been brought over to Sang Zhen’s side. At the time, he had a ton of subordinates under his control, and this person was one of them.

He had been incredibly unassuming at the time, and twenty years had already passed since then. As a result, Su Chen basically had no recollection of who he was.

He might have forgotten his opponent, but that person who had met Su Chen found it impossible to erase the impression Su Chen had made on him.

And just as the Immortal Temple was doing their best to infiltrate the higher ranks of Long Sang Country, so also Long Sang Country was quite active in trying to stamp out the Immortal Temple. They did their best to try and rope people in and buy out people belonging to the Immortal Temple.

Sun Mo’s being bought out was many years after he had first met Su Chen. He didn’t know exactly what exchanges Su Chen had made with the Immortal Temple, but that didn’t prevent him from knowing about the connection between Su Chen and the Immortal Temple, as well as about the matter of the Spirit Burying Terrace.

And to people who had the heart to pursue the matter, knowing about this initial interaction was more than enough to allow them to interpret what had occurred afterwards.

Sun Mo’s description began to open up the secrets that had been kept under the surface, allowing the generals to get to know a Su Chen from a different time.

The Su Chen at the time was weak and powerless, but he was able to wrangle his way into a cooperation despite the fact that they had tried to assassinate him before this. Everyone who heard this story couldn’t help but sigh in amazement.

If it weren’t for the fact that the Crown Prince was present, this would have made for quite a legendary story. If the Immortal Temple was not a threat, this story might even have been passed on for some time. However, because of the aforementioned conditions, the brilliance of these feats was dimmed. The people listening sighed in their hearts, wondering how Su Chen would deal with this accusation.

Su Chen remained silent and calm.

He quietly listened to Sun Mo tell stories about his past exploits as his mind flew at breakneck pace. The powerful calculation ability his consciousness crystal conferred to him allowed him to simultaneously explore multiple possibilities as he searched for holes in Sun Mo’s words.

Yes, holes.

Even if Sun Mo was present and the words he spoke were the truth, there were still holes present.

Did that sound strange? What holes could there possibly be in the truth?

But if the truth was even more bizarre than a story, then why could there not be any holes?

Of course there could be!

Sun Mo’s exposition had concluded at this point.

Unsurprisingly, once he had gotten to the point where Su Chen had held up his end of the deal, the remainder of his explanation was all guesswork. This was because, after Northface City, he had never come into contact with Su Chen again. However, this did not stop him from analyzing what Su Chen’s further work with the Immortal Temple might have looked like.

In particular, the Three Yangs Medicine.

This was a problem Su Chen wouldn’t be able to tiptoe around.

“......That’s everything that I know. I can guarantee that ever sentence I have said up until this point is the truth,” Sun Mo said.

“You’ve heard what he has to say, Su Chen?” Lin Wenjun asked.

“I heard,” Su Chen replied.

“What do you think?” Lin Wenjun asked.

“It’s all a bunch of nonsense,” Su Chen immediately refuted.

“Oh? You refuse to admit it?”

It’d be weird if I did admit it, you idiot! Su Chen rolled his eyes in his heart.

He ignored Lin Wenjun and turned to look at Sun Mo.

“Sun Mo, what position did you have while you were at the Immortal Temple?”

Sun Mo replied, “An executant.”

Executants had the lowest amongst the Immortal Temple. They had no status and were pretty much considered commoners. Night Demon had been just an ordinary executant when she had been sent to assassinate him.

Su Chen immediately asked, “As far as I am aware, the Immortal Temple has a rule where executants only have the right to carry out commands, not participate in the planning stages, right? How could you have the authority to know about something as important as the Spirit Burying Terrace?”

This was the first “hole” in Sun Mo’s explanation.

An organization like the Immortal Temple usually had a set of rules in place designed to preserve secrecy. Executants had no right to know about any higher-level plans or targets. Basically, executants were the same as minions.

When carrying these things out in real life, however, it was rare for these rules to be so strictly adhered to.

Very rarely were executants so carefully policed. Most of the time, people just did things as they pleased.

Back when Su Chen’s relationship with the Immortal Temple was developing, no one could have possibly anticipated that the situation would reach this point, so Sang Zhen naturally didn’t attempt to restrict his subordinates too much.

This was how the first hole was revealed.

Su Chen’s reasoning was a refutation of reality. Even Sun Mo was taken aback, and he momentarily had no idea of how to explain this seeming contradiction.

After thinking about it for a moment, he could only say, “That’s because they didn’t see you as important at the time!”

“You say they didn’t see me as important?” Su Chen chuckled coldly. “Then I have more questions for you. You say that I killed Master Feng and forced Sang Zhen into agreeing to my terms. Is that a joke? That man was a Master Alchemist! He had an extremely high status, an exalted identity! Would it really have been possible for me to suffer no consequences at all after killing him? What kind of existence is the Immortal Temple? Could I possibly have threatened them at the time? And they even trained me to refine medicines for them? Do you not think that this is absurd? Who would be stupid enough to do something like this? Would you train an individual who killed a Master Alchemist that you spent a lot of money to invite to your place into an alchemist in their stead?”

He spoke that last sentence to everyone present. The assembled generals all shook their heads.

There were all kinds of impossibilities and impracticalities that would occur throughout the course of human life. People often referred to these events as miracles.

Miracles were occurrences that defied logic.

Even so, these miracles could not defeat logic in a debate.

Su Chen’s deal with Sang Zhen only came about because of a host of different reasons. Su Chen had done what he did because he had no choice, and the same went for Sang Zhen. Their environment, each individual’s personality, and their respect and trust for the other party all played a role in bringing this kind of a logic-defying situation about.

However, this exact same logic could be used to dismiss the occurrence of such a situation, even if it actually had happened - in a debate, what actually happened usually was not as important as what logically should have happened.

This was the second “hole” in Sun Mo’s testimony.

Sun Mo was rendered totally speechless by Su Chen’s verbal barrage. He had been able to explain away this first hole, but there was no way that he could possibly explain this second one. Actually, even Sang Zhen himself would have had a hard time explaining exactly what his thought process was back then.

Not everything needed to be clearly explained. Since it had been done, it had been done. Even if Su Chen had killed a Master Alchemist, if Sang Zhen still viewed him favorably, he would use him. But so what?

After all, Zhu Xianyao had almost gotten Su Chen killed just because she was unhappy not too long ago.

There were too many unreasonable things that happened in this world.

In a debate, however, you had to be reasonable.

Sun Mo discovered that he was being portrayed as the person who was being unreasonable, which immediately sent him into a panic.

He began to yell, “That’s because he viewed you as important.”

Su Chen immediately countered, “But you just said earlier that you guys didn’t view me as important, so how come they started viewing me as important all of a sudden?”

“I……” Sun Mo was immediately rendered speechless.

The assembly began to chuckle with laughter.

Sun Mo grew agitated as he began to yell, “How would I know the contents of your discussion? No matter what, this is exactly how the situation occurred!”

Su Chen chuckled coldly. “I have another question for you. How long ago did you renounce your evil ways?”

Sun Mo replied, “Ten years ago.”

“Ten years? You’re telling me that you have not been with the Immortal Temple for ten years, but the Immortal Temple never tried to kill you or warn me about you?” Su Chen asked again.

This was yet another “hole” in his testimony.

Given Su Chen’s current status and his purported importance to the Immortal Temple, the departure of anyone who could possibly have revealed his identity should have been dealt with by the Immortal Temple. This was simply too illogical.

Su Chen didn’t know why this was the case, but the reason for this was not important at the moment. The only important thing was that this matter became yet another illogical aspect of Sun Mo’s testimony.

If it was illogical, that was good enough!

As long as it was illogical, he could overturn his opponent’s reasoning, and he could deny all these allegations all the way to the end.

Su Chen's relationship with the Immortal Temple was based on a bunch of seemingly illogical coincidences. When these were picked apart with logic, it was very hard to imagine that their relationship had continued to this point.

If you were to ask Su Chen, he would have told you that it was because of his ability.

Yes, people with ability and talent could use it to create illogical occurrences. Only mediocre individuals would complain about things being impossible or illogical. This was why mediocre individuals remained mediocre, while those with true talent turned impossibilities into possibilities.

On the other hand, most people in this world were mediocre, so pointing out "illogical" aspects paradoxically became quite logical.

Su Chen pointed out all these inconsistencies with incredible elegance and rationality. For just a moment, even Lin Wenjun couldn't help but wonder if he had managed to find a fake surrenderer.

This really didn't make any sense!

Since Sun Mo's explanation of Su Chen's initial relationship with the Immortal Temple was filled with problems, then Sun Mo had even less of a right to analyze what had happened between Su Chen and the Immortal Temple after he had left Northface City...... If what he had personally seen was not trustworthy, then his analysis was totally meaningless.

In other words, this witness was totally worthless.