Chapter 29 Part 1

The ability user Song Yunya, who kept centipedes at home, was stumped.

Could weird things like centipedes be sold? No, could they be used as medicinal ingredients?

“Mr. Lin, the mutated centipedes seem unusable…” Song Yunya watched wide-eyed as Lin Juan’s gaze grew brighter and brighter, the look he directed at the bugs gradually turning unkind.

“I was thinking of using them on people who had been polluted,” Lin Juan said casually as he stomped a few to death. “Since that won’t work, let’s just burn them.”

“Not necessarily impossible,” Lu Yanzhou said. “These days, parts from many weird phenomena have been put to use. These centipedes might work too. Normal centipedes can be used as medicine—who knows if weird centipedes might have miraculous effects against certain pollution ailments?”

“Take them for testing first. Destroy them if they can’t be used.” After Lin Juan finished speaking, he shifted his gaze to Black Bro. “What about the big one?”

“Take the big one back too.” Zhuang Yufeng pushed up his glasses.

The ability users got busy cleaning up the aftermath. Suddenly, a rush of urgent footsteps echoed from the hallway.

An ability user hurried over. “Bad news! Li Yang has mutated into a pollutant!”

Li Yang was right next door, so it was easy to get there. By the time Lin Juan, Zhuang Yufeng, and the others arrived, Li Yang was gone. In his place stood a massive insect egg.

“What a huge egg.” Lin Juan sighed in admiration.

“The pollution value is still rising.” Zhuang Yufeng glanced at the pollution detector, its numbers climbing rapidly.

“Will it hatch?” And if it did, what would come out?

The question popped into everyone’s mind.

“Should we destroy it right away?” one ability user asked.

Zhuang Yufeng stepped forward and examined it with his supernatural ability. He confirmed, “It’s fully mutated.”

As soon as he moved his hand away from where he’d pressed it, a slit slowly cracked open at the spot.

It was about to hatch!

Everyone gripped their weapons, bracing themselves.

“We can’t let it hatch!” Zhuang Yufeng decided on the spot.

As the crack appeared, the pollution value shot up rapidly. Once it fully hatched, no one knew what kind of monster would crawl out of the egg.

Sheng Tianzong stepped forward and activated his supernatural ability 【Starfire】. Blazing flames enveloped the giant egg. Sensing the danger, the thing inside sped up its efforts, and a pitch-black claw extended from the crack.

It looked like a charred human hand.

Unfortunately, it was one step too slow and could only turn to ashes amid the 【Starfire】.

As the flames gradually died down, dawn had broken outside. The Anomalous Affairs Bureau would handle the aftermath, so Lin Juan didn’t need to worry about it.

“It seems your unexplained coma back then was very likely connected to weird phenomena.” After this incident, Lin Juan realized that Lu Yanzhou’s enemies in the shadows had probably been involved with weird phenomena for a long time.

Lu Yanzhou nodded, his gaze turning icy. “No matter who the person hiding in the shadows is, I’ll drag them out.”

Then, make them pay a heavy price!

“I’ll help you.” Lin Juan sat across from Lu Yanzhou, his gaze exceptionally sincere.

No one was going to harm the Lu Family—the first ones to let him enjoy the pleasure of having money in the bank!

Something stirred in Lu Yanzhou’s heart. He reached out and placed his hand on the back of Lin Juan’s hand, which rested on the table, as if worried. “Xiao Juan, these people in the shadows are colluding with weird phenomena. Your public image is that of a mysterious expert I invited. Won’t they target you?”

“If you get hurt because of me, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

These were Lu Yanzhou’s true feelings. Perhaps from the moment he woke up and first laid eyes on Lin Juan, Lin Juan had been different from everyone else in his heart. Lin Juan was like a shining sun, bringing warmth and a sense of security to those around him. He wanted the sun to forever hang high in the sky, admired by the world. Yet he also harbored a selfish desire to possess that sun.

He wouldn’t allow anything to harm his sun.

Lu Yanzhou tentatively tightened his grip, enveloping the slightly smaller hand in his palm.

The hand on the back of his was warm and dry. Lin Juan had never been held like this before, but strangely, he didn’t feel repulsed. Thinking Lu Yanzhou was scared, he patted him reassuringly with his other hand.

“Don’t worry. It’s only me harming those weird things—there’s no way they’d get a chance to hurt me.”

It wasn’t overconfidence. He’d discovered that he had a natural suppressive power against weird phenomena. He’d asked Zhuang Yufeng about it—even ability users saw their pollution values rise after overusing their supernatural abilities. Different ranks of ability users had different pollution thresholds; the higher the rank, the higher the threshold. But correspondingly, once the pollution in their bodies exceeded that threshold, they would directly degenerate into weird phenomena of the corresponding rank—or even stronger.

Thus, the higher the rank of an ability user, the greater the danger. Lin Juan had no such limit. No one knew his critical threshold. No matter how much he used his power, his internal pollution value always stayed at an extremely low level.

Even after close contact with weird phenomena, his pollution value would only rise briefly before dropping back to baseline.

He had a natural immunity to pollution.

Zhuang Yufeng had noticed it. For various reasons, he hadn’t told anyone about Lin Juan’s uniqueness. He’d even helped cover for him in front of the research institute staff.

As a purification ability user, hiding this secret was easy for him.

Lin Juan hated trouble, so when Zhuang Yufeng told him it would reduce a lot of hassle and prying eyes, Lin Juan cooperated fully.

He knew his own uniqueness and understood the saying that an ordinary man with a priceless treasure invites disaster. He was confident but not arrogant; he wouldn’t abuse his strength just because he could. He was content with his current life. Sure, ugly weird phenomena caused trouble from time to time, but he had money in his pocket, endless gourmet food to enjoy, new friends, and Lu Yanzhou, who tolerated him in every way.

The people from the Anomalous Affairs Bureau were great, and so were the Lu Family. He didn’t want his current life disrupted.

At first, he might have only helped the Lu Family casually because they’d given him so much without minding a little trouble. But after spending time with them and seeing their attitude toward him, both sentiment and reason demanded he prevent the Lu Family from heading toward their original plot-ending fate.

Lin Juan grew increasingly invested in the prison weird phenomena incident. Clearly, the two people who had mutated into pollutants in the prison were targeting Lu Yanzhou.

Lin Juan privately asked Lu Yanzhou, “Do you have any suspects in mind?”

“There are plenty of people who’ve crossed me, but I can’t confirm who among them is connected to weird phenomena.”

Weird phenomena had only recently appeared to the public; only a few people had known about them before. In the past, as a staunch atheist, Lu Yanzhou never would have imagined such things beyond human cognition existed.

“I only learned about weird phenomena after I woke up. I wasn’t prepared before, the events happened so suddenly, and I was in a coma for days. It’s too late to investigate properly now.”

The existence of weird phenomena was beyond normal cognition to begin with, and ordinary people couldn’t trace the marks they left behind. Lin Juan asked Director Liu to keep an eye out for him.

Director Liu agreed immediately. The Anomalous Affairs Bureau had been established precisely to handle weird phenomena incidents. Both publicly and privately, they had to investigate Lu Yanzhou’s encounter thoroughly.

Colluding with weird phenomena to harm the public—they wouldn’t tolerate it!

Lu Yanzhou mentioned the project Qi Ruilin had brought up to Lin Juan. “Rong City discovered a new energy source. If the Lu Corporation gets involved in its development ahead of others, success would greatly benefit our future growth.”

“You want to join this project?” Lin Juan didn’t understand business. Radiant Star was under his name, but Lu Yanzhou was still the one calling the shots. From Lu Yanzhou’s tone, he was quite interested.

“Yes. With weird phenomena appearing, the world’s powers will surely reshuffle. I don’t want the Lu Corporation to fall behind.” Lu Yanzhou never hid his ambitions. He knew better than anyone that sometimes, falling just one small step behind meant being eliminated by the era—especially at a pivotal moment of global power shifts.

Only with power could one hold sway. Lin Juan’s strength destined him for the top. Whether it was the Anomalous Affairs Bureau or other factions, any who learned of his power would welcome him as an honored guest.

He was just an ordinary person, not an ability user. He didn’t want to be left far behind Lin Juan in the future.

No matter the era, to protect those he wanted to safeguard, he needed sufficient influence.

Lin Juan’s temperament meant he wouldn’t play the games of political intrigue. His strength was formidable, but there was no guarantee some fool with a “if I can’t have it, no one can” mentality wouldn’t target him. Human hearts were far more terrifying than weird phenomena.

He couldn’t rely on others; he would become Lin Juan’s shield himself. Lin Juan just needed to do what he wanted—everything else, he’d handle.

“Then let’s join.” A man with ambition was even more captivating. Lin Juan propped his chin on his hand, gazing at the charismatic Lu Yanzhou. He had to admit, this was a man who could easily stir one’s heart.

Especially when he was suited up, commanding the boardroom.

In meetings with Lu Yanzhou, Lin Juan, who understood nothing, grew extremely bored. To pass the time without anyone noticing, he stared at Lu Yanzhou along with everyone else.

Sometimes it was simple admiration, sometimes spacing out while fixated on him. Lu Yanzhou could always pick out Lin Juan’s gaze amid the crowd.

Occasionally, he sensed the appreciation in it that even Lin Juan himself wasn’t aware of.

No matter what kind of feeling that appreciation stemmed from, Lu Yanzhou savored it.

He liked having Lin Juan’s eyes on him.

Lin Juan noticed that Lu Yanzhou’s outfits were becoming more striking. He was a natural clotheshorse anyway—everything looked good on him—which led Lin Juan to glance his way more often without realizing it.

Lin Juan himself didn’t notice that Lu Yanzhou was deliberately dressing to his tastes.

It wasn’t too obvious, just subtle tweaks to details. To those unfamiliar with Lu Yanzhou, President Lu simply seemed more imposing. But Special Assistant Liang, who worked closely with him and knew his habits well, spotted it. The first time, he was shocked; after seeing it more, he grew numb.

So what if it was a peacock strutting its feathers.

Turns out, a smitten President Lu was just like everyone else.

Nothing strange about it.

Special Assistant Liang worked hard to stay composed and not show any cracks in front of Lin Juan. He didn’t dare sabotage his boss’s courtship plan.

Lin Juan remained oblivious to Lu Yanzhou’s sneaky efforts to draw his gaze.

On the weekend, Lu Yanzhou had a social engagement at a farmstead in the Capital Suburbs.

It was organized by Mr. Zhou of the Zhou Corporation. Lu Yanzhou hadn’t planned to go, but his father changed his mind.

Old Master Lu held the invitation. “How did I end up with such a blockhead for a son? Is your way of pursuing someone just dragging them to work every day?”

Lu Yanzhou didn’t plan to hide his intentions, nor did he need to. Old Master Lu felt he understood his son pretty well. At first, he wasn’t sure, but a few days later, he confirmed it—his youngest son had finally bloomed like an iron tree!

What great news!

Old Master Lu grinned from ear to ear.

But seeing his son finally get it yet only take the person to the office every day left him frustrated that iron wouldn’t turn to steel.

After observing for a few days, the good news was they were inseparable; the bad news was, it was at the company.

Old Master Lu couldn’t sit still any longer. He seized the chance and pulled out Mr. Zhou’s business card.

“Want to take Xiao Juan out for some fun?”

When he got a negative reply, Old Master Lu blew up.