The Tribunal!
"Two fatalities have been confirmed in connection with the Giant Serpent Incident. At the time, both hunters were directly corroded beyond recognition by the creature's venom. For days, no one realized the remains were human. Only recently were their identities confirmed — they died from venom corrosion during the Sky-Scraping Serpent's appearance." Mo Fan read aloud from the latest news post.
As he stared at the article, a knot of doubt formed in his chest.
*Wasn't an announcement made just a week ago saying there were no casualties? So why are two bodies turning up now — and only identified after all this time?*
"It's a frame-up. Someone is absolutely framing the Sky-Scraping Serpent!" Tang Yue's cheeks flushed red with fury.
"Why are you so sure it's a frame-up — Tang Yue, your phone is ringing." Mo Fan pointed at her pocket.
Tang Yue answered the call. She listened with furrowed brows, her expression turning grave — from the look of it, the voice on the other end belonged to someone above her.
"Come with me." She hung up and pulled Mo Fan straight toward the docks.
"Where are we going?"
"The Tribunal's meeting hall."
Following Tang Yue, Mo Fan arrived at the Hangzhou Magic Association Tower.
They rode the elevator all the way to the building's top floor, where a full-panoramic conference hall awaited — refined and imposing in equal measure.
At the conference room entrance, a row of uniformed men stood guard. Every single one of them radiated power that Mo Fan couldn't begin to gauge. He couldn't help but feel awed by the Tribunal's reach — the sentinels posted at the outer doors were all High-Level Mages.
They hadn't waited long before a man with cascading black hair stepped out. His eyes were sharp as a hawk's, sweeping over Tang Yue and then Mo Fan in a single cool assessment.
"My student. Mo Fan." Tang Yue made the introduction.
The hawk-eyed man gave a slight nod and gestured for them both to enter.
Inside, a large round table dominated the room, with seven or eight impeccably dressed men and women seated around it. The remaining twenty-odd people stood along the walls — judging by their uniforms, virtually all of them were Tribunal Agents.
The guards outside had already been High-Level Mages, but the people in this room unnerved Mo Fan even more. *Not a single person in here is anywhere near my level.*
Every soul in this hall was an authority among Mages.
The black-haired man stirred a faint memory in Mo Fan. He was the one who had stood atop the bank building's dome and stared the Sky-Scraping Serpent down without flinching. His cultivation surpassed even Zhankong by a vast margin — and yet here he stood, not seated, apparently not senior enough for a chair at the table.
"He's my senior martial brother, Hei Yu. Also the Deputy Chief Adjudicator," Tang Yue murmured at Mo Fan's side.
Mo Fan nodded. He was still wondering what realm Hei Yu had reached when a heavily bearded middle-aged man at the table slammed his palm down hard and declared with self-righteous conviction: "People are dead. And you're still shielding that venomous beast? I didn't come here from Magic Court to negotiate. I've been ordered to eliminate the threat to West Lake and restore Hangzhou's peace. You had better surrender the Sky-Scraping Serpent to us for disposal — and soon."
Tang Yue fixed the man with a gaze burning with anger, muttering curses under her breath.
Seeing his teacher's composure beginning to slip, Mo Fan leaned in quietly. "Who is that?"
"Zhu Meng. Tribunal Council Member." Tang Yue said through gritted teeth.
"You seem to really despise him."
Tang Yue didn't bother hiding it. She laid out the whole story for Mo Fan.
The Tribunal, it turned out, had always known of the totem Sky-Scraping Serpent's existence. The Hangzhou city government likewise tacitly accepted this ancient totem lineage. But within Magic Court's Tribunal bloc, a powerful faction led by Council Member Zhu Meng had long fought bitterly against it.
Zhu Meng's faction operated on a doctrine they called the Hidden Danger Theory: anything with even the potential to threaten a city or harm its people was to be judged guilty and eliminated without delay.
West Lake's totem had long been classified as the faction's highest-priority hidden danger. They kept watch over Three Pools Mirroring the Moon without rest and had brought elimination proposals before the supreme Tribunal on multiple occasions. Simply put — a serpent of that scale had no business living inside a city. No one could say when it might turn feral. A creature of that power, nestled in the heart of Hangzhou, was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Zhu Meng's proposal had drawn considerable support from council members and observers alike, and the call to act had existed for years. But a number of elder figures had pushed back, arguing that Totems were part of China's ancient magical heritage — and since the Sky-Scraping Serpent had never harmed a single resident, and the Hangzhou government had issued no expulsion order, there were simply no grounds to drive it from West Lake.
"So Zhu Meng is basically your greatest enemy here," Mo Fan said, glancing at the bearded man.
"Exactly. The moment casualties surface, he flies straight in to demand blood... It almost feels like he's been waiting for this." Tang Yue said.
"But how are you so certain the Sky-Scraping Serpent was framed?"
In truth, Mo Fan himself thought a serpent of that scale appearing in the middle of a city was deeply dangerous. Had Tang Yue not explained the totem lineage to him, he might well have sided with Zhu Meng's Hidden Danger Theory.
"The old one is venomous, yes — but it never releases its poison carelessly, and it would never deploy it against humans. If it actually wanted to use its venom, nothing within the entire West Lake area would be left alive. A week ago, we sent people to inspect the site. The location where the old one emerged was a construction site that had already shut down for the day — no workers present. Despite its enormous size, it hadn't crushed a single living thing. Venom-corroding a human being? Absolutely impossible." Tang Yue's indignation was palpable.
She knew the Sky-Scraping Serpent better than anyone. It would never trample on a living creature — least of all the humans who had cared for and revered it through the ages.
Those remains, discovered a full week later, could not have been the Sky-Scraping Serpent's doing. She was absolutely certain of it.
"And most importantly — during Molting Season, the Sky-Scraping Serpent secretes only a fluid to help shed its old skin. It carries no venom at all during this period. None whatsoever. Someone is exploiting this incident to pin two mysterious corpses on the old one." Her conviction was iron-clad.
"I see." Mo Fan nodded slowly.
The Sky-Scraping Serpent had no venom during Molting Season — yet two people had died from venom corrosion. He didn't think Tang Yue would lie about something this easy to verify.
It seemed someone had deliberately set the Sky-Scraping Serpent up.
He glanced at the news feed and the online commentary swirling around it. What had been dying down was now reignited by the discovery of casualties — a wave of public alarm was spreading through the city. Citizens had begun demanding that the government provide a satisfactory explanation, with accusations of a cover-up mounting by the hour.
"So you think he's behind it?" Mo Fan murmured, his eyes sliding toward Zhu Meng.
"It's absolutely him." Tang Yue's certainty was unshakeable.
The Sky-Scraping Serpent was a splinter in Zhu Meng's flesh, a thorn he could never pull free. Its continued, peaceful existence was a living rebuke to him — this council member had built his entire reputation on the Hidden Danger Theory, and every year the serpent spent quietly in West Lake was another year his platform looked like baseless paranoia.