Chapter 25 Part 1

Lin Juan’s focus was too off-kilter, to the point that Lu Mingxuan stopped sobbing and said softly, “Little Uncle, actually, it wasn’t much money that got scammed, right?”

This wasn’t the point at all, was it?

“Then tell me, how much did you spend on those five-colored ropes?”

Lu Mingxuan recalled, “One cost about 160, and I bought ten…”

“That’s not much money scammed?” Lin Juan unconsciously raised his voice. “One for 160? Why doesn’t he just go rob a bank?!”

“And that’s just scamming you alone. Do you know how many people got scammed? Do you know the total amount?”

It was the first time Lu Mingxuan had seen Lin Juan so emotional, and he mumbled without daring to speak up.

Unable to get answers, Lin Juan turned and looked at Su Xingchen. “You should know the amount that scammer is suspected of defrauding, right?”

“I…” Under Lin Juan’s intense gaze, Su Xingchen gradually lowered his head. “I don’t know.”

He really hadn’t paid attention to that detail.

“I’ll ask Director Liu right now!”

Director Liu was like a brick—moved wherever he was needed.

The call connected, and Su Xingchen handed the phone directly to Lin Juan. “Mr. Lin, feel free to ask Director Liu anything you want.”

Don’t make things hard for a guy who specialized in brute force.

Director Liu was in a meeting about the five-colored rope incident when his phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and saw Su Xingchen’s name.

Su Xingchen wouldn’t call him proactively under normal circumstances. Worried something unsolvable had cropped up, he raised a hand to pause the meeting and answered.

But the voice that came through wasn’t Su Xingchen’s.

Lin Juan’s voice, laced with obvious anger, transmitted from the other end. “Director Liu, have you calculated the amount that scammer is suspected of defrauding through the five-colored ropes?”

The question stumped Director Liu.

Their focus had been entirely on the weird phenomena lurking behind the five-colored rope incident. They hadn’t even considered the fraud amount.

No response came from the phone. Connecting it to Su Xingchen’s attitude, Lin Juan understood—Director Liu probably didn’t know either.

“Director Liu, you have to handle the weird phenomena, but you can’t ignore the money scammed from the public. Besides, Lu Mingxuan alone lost over a thousand. All the victims added up—that’s no small sum, right? That money needs to be recovered for them.”

Director Liu adjusted his expression. “Mr. Lin is right. It was our oversight. We’ll follow up urgently and get the victims’ money back as soon as possible.”

“Good.” Lin Juan had no more questions and hung up.

In the meeting room, the others overheard Director Liu’s words and couldn’t help asking curiously, “Don’t you only handle weird phenomena? How come someone’s asking you for money?”

Director Liu rubbed his face. “It’s the same matter.”

He then relayed what Lin Juan had said.

Someone in the meeting room nodded. “That’s a fair point. We need to protect the public’s safety and their property too.”

“Get in touch with the local police everywhere and do a tally first. See how much the suspected amount is.”

The statistics came back as a shocking figure.

“So much.” Director Liu stared at the report in disbelief.

“Who’s behind this—human or weird phenomena? If it’s human, the money makes sense. But if it’s weird phenomena, what does it need all that cash for?”

It couldn’t be to live in human society, could it?

The thought sent a shiver down Director Liu’s spine. In his mind, he raised the danger level of this incident.

If weird phenomena had truly developed human-like thinking, it spelled disaster for humanity no matter how you sliced it.

Emergency meetings dragged on one after another, but they still had no leads on the culprit behind the five-colored ropes.

On the fourth day, Zhuang Yufeng took over the first batch of patients affected by the five-colored ropes.

He was at the Experimental Base when he got the call.

Coincidentally, one of the first batch had a connection to Lin Juan.

Strictly speaking, it was a Lu Family connection.

Second Brother Lu’s wife.

Upon hearing the news, Lu Mingxuan silently edged behind his grandfather.

Second Brother Lu wore a furious expression. “I’ve heard about it—this weird illness is caused by the five-colored rope. Why’d you have to send a five-colored rope of all things? Are you deliberately trying to harm your second aunt?”

Those words hit hard.

Lu Mingxuan had felt some guilt at first. No matter what, he’d been the one to send the five-colored rope, even if he hadn’t known and his intentions had been good. But since the ropes were problematic, he accepted the blame from his second uncle. Claiming he meant to harm someone, though—that he wouldn’t accept.

“Second Uncle, the moment I learned the five-colored ropes were bad, I came to take them back from you right away. I even asked Doctor Zhuang to check you over, and you were fine. I have no idea why Second Aunt ended up like this.”

“My five-colored rope was for you, not Second Aunt. What if she got the weird illness from one someone else gave her? You can’t just pin the blame on me without evidence.”

Second Brother Lu huffed heavily and turned to his eldest brother. “Big Brother, look at the son you raised.”

Lu Family Big Brother said quietly, “Mingxuan isn’t wrong.”

That nearly sent Second Brother Lu into a fit.

“Enough. No arguing in the hospital,” Old Master Lu spoke up. “First, let’s see if she’s okay.”

Second Brother Lu’s wife was surnamed Qiu—full name Qiu Lishu. She didn’t come from a great background; she’d been a poor student sponsored by the Lu Family. After more than a decade of marriage, she had one son and two daughters, with the youngest son not even four. She’d never set foot in Lu Garden.

Old Master Lu didn’t acknowledge Qiu Lishu. She, on the other hand, wanted to bring all three kids into Lu Garden and even suggested placing the youngest under Old Master Lu’s personal tutelage. He refused.

He gave the same red envelope amounts each year to Qiu Lishu’s three kids as he did to Lu Mingxuan, but he wasn’t close to them.

If not for his late wife’s sake, he wouldn’t even recognize his second son.

In the earliest years after that incident, he hadn’t seen his second son once. It was only later, when an accident happened on a business trip and the second son saved him at risk to himself, that their father-son relationship eased somewhat. They had contact during holidays.

Qiu Lishu was in a single-patient room.

Considering the weird illness’s connection to weird phenomena, Old Master Lu had specifically asked Lin Juan if he could come along to take a look. Lin Juan didn’t refuse.

He wanted to know what thing was behind the scam, too.

Zhuang Yufeng was doing rounds. He came out of a room and ran into Lin Juan’s group.

Second Brother Lu rushed up anxiously. “Doctor Zhuang, is Xiu Xiu okay?”

“She’s stable for now.” The “for now” was because no one knew what would happen next or how the condition would progress.

“Can I go in to see her?” They hadn’t allowed visitors when she first arrived.

“You can.”

Lin Juan didn’t go into the room with them. He asked Zhuang Yufeng, “Is the pollution this time the same as with those ‘seeds’ last time?”

“There are similarities, but not entirely.”

Zhuang Yufeng capped his pen and explained to Lin Juan, “The similarity is that the pollution value in the infected fluctuates at different times of the day. The difference is that this batch showed no infection signs early on. I asked them—all of them, without exception, started showing symptoms on the seventh day after contact with the five-colored rope.”

“For the first six days, they had beautiful dreams every night, their sleep quality improved greatly, and they woke up refreshed. So they thought it was all thanks to the five-colored rope and grew even more reluctant to take it off.”

“When we approached people who’d bought or worn five-colored ropes, anyone who’d had one on for over three days was unwilling to remove it.”

They’d had to bring along mental ability users on missions, using them to plant suggestions and retrieve the ropes.

Even then, some broke free of the mental ability users’ hints and snatched the ropes back at the last second when handing them over.

Most of this batch of infected had done exactly that.

Even after retrieving the ropes, they still fell ill.

Lin Juan said, “So even those of us who’ve only had contact for a day are at potential risk?”

Zhuang Yufeng nodded gravely, his expression somber.

Lin Juan asked, “You still haven’t figured out what’s causing it? How about this—I take a few ropes back. See if the thing comes for me?”

No show, no loss. If it did, they could catch it outright.

Worried one might not be enough, Lin Juan planned to take several at once.

Zhuang Yufeng said, “It’s not that we have zero leads. We compared the pollution values of the five-colored ropes and the ‘seeds’—there’s an identical fluctuation pattern. They’re very likely from the same weird phenomena.”

Lin Juan said, “The one from Solitary Cry Mountain?”

Zhuang Yufeng confirmed, “Yes. We’ve sent people to scout Solitary Cry Mountain. Pollution values near the base are twice as high as elsewhere, and they climb higher the deeper you go. There’s definitely something inside.”

A place like that required full preparation before entry, or no number of ability users would be enough to throw away.

Lin Juan said, “Whether the five-colored rope thing is weird phenomena acting on its own or someone profiting in the shadows, we need to settle it first—and get Lu Mingxuan’s scammed money back.”

Lin Juan was set on catching the mastermind. After chatting a bit more with Zhuang Yufeng, who went back to rounds, Lin Juan headed to Qiu Lishu’s room.

The room was very quiet.

Old Master Lu sat to one side without speaking. Lu Mingxuan was peeling fruit. Lu Family Big Brother stood by the window. Second Brother Lu sat at the bedside, gazing deeply at his wife on the bed.

Lu Yanzhou had a company meeting and hadn’t come.

A knock broke the silence. Lin Juan pushed the door open, and all eyes turned to him.

“I talked with Doctor Zhuang for a bit and got the situation. What’s going on here…?”

“Little Uncle!” Lu Mingxuan rushed over like he’d found his savior, setting down the half-peeled apple. He lowered his voice. “Why do I feel like Second Uncle is off too?”

“How so?”

“Second Uncle with Second Aunt—the moment he entered and saw her, his eyes were only on her. They got all intimate like no one else was there. Grandpa’s face went dark earlier, and he let out a heavy ‘hmph,’ but Second Uncle acted like he didn’t hear it.”

“It’s not that a husband and wife can’t be affectionate. But Little Uncle, you know? It’s just… weird. Their interactions give off this inescapable sense of wrongness.”

Lu Mingxuan didn’t know how to put it into words. Because of Grandpa’s insistence, he hadn’t had many chances to see Qiu Lishu. He’d wondered before why Grandpa refused to let her into Lu Garden no matter what. If Second Uncle and she always acted like this, he got it now.

The thought of two people living nearby like actors in fake masks made Lu Mingxuan’s skin crawl.

He’d only been there a short while and already couldn’t sit still—let alone living together year-round.

Lin Juan observed closely. Second Brother Lu first introduced Lin Juan to Qiu Lishu. After they exchanged greetings, they slipped back into their oblivious intimacy.

No wonder Lu Mingxuan called it weird.

Old Master Lu couldn’t stand it anymore. He thumped his cane heavily and stood to leave. Lu Mingxuan hurried after him to support him. “Grandpa?”

“If they don’t welcome us, why stay?”

Lin Juan went back and told Lu Yanzhou about it, emphasizing that even after removing the five-colored ropes, influence was still possible.

He told Old Master Lu and Lu Family Big Brother and Third Brother the same, instructing them to call him at any sign of something off.