After his conversation with Khoa, Lam Minh did not return to his room. Nor did he place all his hopes on a single student who had just "turned over a new leaf." He knew that in a complex chess game, one should never put all their eggs in one basket.
Khoa was a pawn on the board. But he, as the player, also had to make his own moves.
He returned to the central control room he had previously taken over. This place, after he had left, had been sealed off by To Quyen under the pretext of "system maintenance," with no one allowed to enter.
He sat down in the commander's chair and re-accessed the surveillance system for the entire academy.
"If I were Hung Ba, a cautious and suspicious man, what would I do?" he asked himself.
He began to put himself in the enemy's shoes. Hung Ba certainly didn't just have one group of student followers. He must have other eyes and ears, other backup plans. And most importantly, he must have a way to monitor his own subordinates to ensure their loyalty.
Lam Minh started to meticulously scan the entire security camera system of the academy, not looking at the normal footage, but searching for anomalies.
He used the skills he had learned from his "chats" with Minh Thu. He searched for hidden data streams, tampered cameras, and intentionally created blind spots.
This work required patience and an extremely keen eye for detail.
After several hours of scanning, he finally found it.
In a few hidden corners of the instructors' building, there were micro-cameras, perfectly camouflaged, not part of the academy's main system. They were silently recording all activities and transmitting the data to a secret server.
"Found you," Lam Minh sneered.
He didn't disable them. He did something even bolder.
He hacked into that very spy camera system.
This was a battle in the digital world. The one who installed this system was clearly a professional, with multiple layers of firewalls and complex encryption.
But his opponent was Lam Minh. A man who had been "tutored" by the number one super-hacker, Minh Thu.
He circulated his Golden Core, pushing his brain into a state of heightened concentration. Lines of code and algorithms appeared in his mind. He didn't launch a brute-force attack, but like a virus, he slowly crept in, searching for the smallest loopholes, bypassing one layer of security after another.
After nearly an hour of intense mental struggle, he succeeded.
He had gained complete control of Hung Ba's spy camera system, without leaving a single trace.
Now, the stalker was being stalked by his own prey.
From the screen, he could observe Hung Ba's every move in his room.
He saw him pacing back and forth, a thoughtful look on his face. It seemed he also felt something was unusual after that night. He became more cautious, going out less.
Lam Minh was not in a hurry. He just watched silently, like a cat stalking a large rat.
In the following days, Lam Minh lived a double life.
By day, he was still the "honorary headmaster," occasionally appearing on the training grounds to offer some guidance to the students, or handling academy affairs with To Quyen and Quynh Nhu. No one noticed anything unusual about him.
But at night, he became a ghost, sitting in the control room, monitoring Hung Ba's every move, while maintaining secret contact with Khoa.
Khoa, under Lam Minh's guidance, played his part very well. He pretended to take the "Holy Origin Pills," and his cultivation showed "obvious progress," which made Hung Ba very pleased and increasingly trustful. He also began to find ways to get closer, to win Hung Ba's favor, trying to learn about the secret meeting location.
A two-sided chess game was being quietly deployed.
On one side was the "light" pawn, Khoa, trying to extract information from the inside.
On the other side was the "dark" pawn, Lam Minh, monitoring the entire opponent from the outside.
Hung Ba, who thought he was pulling all the strings, had no idea that he was just a puppet on a stage, and his every move was within the sight of the true director.
Time gradually crept towards the full moon night.
That evening, Khoa sent Lam Minh a final message, confirming the location and time.
At the same moment, on Lam Minh's surveillance monitor, he saw Hung Ba begin to move. He changed into a set of black clothes, then stealthily left the academy, heading towards the forest.
Lam Minh stood up and stretched.
"Time to reel in the net," he murmured.
He didn't follow Hung Ba. Nor did he go to the meeting point Khoa had reported.
He went to a completely different place.
A place where he believed the real big fish would appear. Because, through days of surveillance, he had discovered something that even Khoa didn't know.
Hung Ba, before going to the real rendezvous point, always stopped by another location first. An intermediate point.
And that was precisely where he needed to be.
...
On the night of the full moon, cold silver light illuminated the forest behind the academy, creating long, ghostly shadows.
Hung Ba moved quickly and cautiously. He didn't go straight to the meeting point that Khoa knew. He took a roundabout route through many trails, occasionally stopping to erase his tracks. The caution of an "emissary" was deeply ingrained in his blood.
Lam Minh, who had departed earlier, didn't trail Hung Ba. He went straight to the intermediate location he had discovered through the spy cameras.
It was an ancient, long-abandoned temple, situated on a small hill and surrounded by old trees. The place was gloomy and silent, a perfect location for secret meetings.
He didn't enter the temple. He chose a spot on the highest branch of a massive ancient tree, concealing himself within the dense foliage. From here, he could observe the entire temple and the surrounding area. He retracted his entire aura and waited patiently.
He believed that Hung Ba would come here to meet someone, perhaps to receive orders or make a report, before meeting Khoa's group. This would be his chance to catch them all in one fell swoop.
About half an hour later, Hung Ba appeared. He scanned the area, and after making sure no one was following, he stepped inside the temple.
Lam Minh remained silent, waiting. He was waiting for the second "fish" to appear.
Five minutes... ten minutes...
No one came.
Hung Ba remained in the temple, motionless.
Lam Minh began to feel that something was wrong. His spiritual sense swept over the temple. Inside, there was only Hung Ba. He was just standing there, hands clasped behind his back, as if waiting.
"Strange," he frowned. "Did I guess wrong? Or is the other person late?"
He decided to continue waiting.
More time passed. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes.
Still only Hung Ba.
Just as Lam Minh was beginning to lose patience, Hung Ba suddenly spoke. His voice was not a whisper, but a loud, resonant call within the abandoned temple.
"Have you observed enough? Are you planning to show yourself, Headmaster?"
On the branch, Lam Minh was stunned.
I've been discovered?
Impossible! With his concealment skills, even a Peak Golden Core expert would have trouble detecting him. Hung Ba was merely a Peak Foundation Establishment. How could he possibly know?
But Hung Ba just stood there, his expression showing no hint of guesswork. He looked directly towards the tree where Lam Minh was hiding, a mysterious smile on his lips.
"The Headmaster is indeed a cautious man. Following me for so many days, and even planting a mole in my ranks. A very good plan."
This time, Lam Minh was truly shaken. Not only did he know he was here, but he also knew about the surveillance and about Khoa.
What the hell was going on? When had his plan been exposed?
He knew that hiding any longer was pointless.
He landed lightly on the ground, stepping out from the shadows to stand opposite Hung Ba at the temple entrance.
"How did you know?" Lam Minh asked, his voice cold. He maintained his composure, but his mind was racing, reassessing the entire situation.
"Know what?" Hung Ba chuckled. "That you hacked my camera system? Or that you 'convinced' that little kid named Khoa to work for you?"
Every word from Hung Ba was like a hammer blow, shattering Lam Minh's confidence. He knew everything.
"I told you," Hung Ba continued, his face full of smugness. "You are very smart, but still too naive. Did you really think someone who could become an 'emissary' of the Saintly Way could be so easily outsmarted?"
He pointed to a ring on his finger. "All electronic devices, all abnormal data streams within my range, cannot escape its notice. Your camera is very sophisticated, but it's still an electronic device."
"As for the boy Khoa," he sneered. "The 'Holy Origin Pills' I give them don't just contain Madakaros genes. They also have a special type of 'parasitic spore.' It latches onto the user's soul. Any treacherous thoughts, any abnormal emotions they have, I can feel them. That boy, from the moment he began to hesitate, was already in the palm of my hand."
Lam Minh was silent. He had been too arrogant. He had underestimated the cunning and the unknown methods of the "Saintly Way." He thought he was playing chess, but in reality, he was just a piece in a much larger game.
"So," Lam Minh said, his voice lowering. "This was all a trap. You deliberately let Khoa leak the information, deliberately came here, all to lure me out alone?"
"That's right," Hung Ba nodded. "The Headmaster alone, a Golden Core expert, someone who could destroy an entire base. You truly are a big fish. And to catch a big fish, you need sufficiently attractive bait."
"So the one you were waiting for wasn't your superior, but me?"
"Precisely."
Lam Minh looked at Hung Ba. "Are you confident you can capture me? You're only at the Peak of Foundation Establishment."
Hung Ba laughed again, a chilling, gruesome laugh.
"Alone, of course, I can't. But..."
He threw his head back and roared.
Instantly, from all four sides of the forest, eight other black shadows shot out, surrounding the temple.
All of them were "Saint Children," and their cultivation levels were all at the Peak of Foundation Establishment.
And more terrifyingly, from within the temple, a Golden Core aura, no less powerful than Twelfth's, slowly emerged. A figure in a black robe, identical to Twelfth, stepped out from the darkness and stood beside Hung Ba.
One Peak Golden Core. Nine Peak Foundation Establishments.
A perfect trap. An iron cage, already prepared.
They didn't just want to lure him out. They wanted to kill him here.
The hunter had finally become the hunted.
The tables had completely turned.