Chapter 37 Part 2

Putting himself in Lu Yanzhou’s shoes, Lin Juan thought that if one of his own cherished juniors had done that to him, he would have been heartbroken.

He placed his hand over Lu Yanzhou’s and comforted him in various ways for a while.

Old Master Lu emerged from his grief and saw his youngest son and daughter-in-law huddled together, whispering about something. Relief filled his heart.

Lin Juan was a good one. It had turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Lu Yanzhou had never shown any interest in romance. Approaching thirty, he had neither girlfriends nor even ambiguous interests. His life was all work, as if he planned to marry his job. Old Master Lu had been at his wits’ end.

Now it was good. He had someone he liked, and he seemed more lively.

It was impossible to hide the matter of Qiu Lishu from Old Master Lu. After discussing it, Lin Juan and Lu Yanzhou decided to wait until Old Master Lu had recovered a bit before telling him.

“Finally back. Nothing beats home.” After washing up, Lin Juan sprawled out on the bed in a big X and sighed contentedly.

From being woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night until now, Lin Juan had gone nearly twenty hours without sleep. He rolled around on the bed a couple of times and soon fell asleep.

After washing up, Lu Yanzhou came out and saw the young man who had hogged the entire bed. A smile involuntarily appeared on his face.

He walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and gazed at the young man on the bed without blinking.

After some unknown amount of time passed, as if sensing someone beside him, Lin Juan hazily opened his eyes. “Lu Yanzhou?”

Lu Yanzhou gave a soft “mm,” his voice low and deep.

Lin Juan rolled inward on the bed. “You’ve gone a long time without sleep too. Come sleep for a bit.”

He had just made enough space for Lu Yanzhou.

Hearing this, Lu Yanzhou lay down.

Lin Juan rolled again, coming right up beside Lu Yanzhou. Their bodies almost touched but not quite, and Lu Yanzhou caught the faint fragrance wafting from Lin Juan’s body.

His arm twitched slightly. He felt an urge to pull the young man into his arms.

In the end, he held back.

Time flowed by slowly, and the night grew deeper.

Lu Yanzhou fell asleep.

The small nightlight emitted a soft glow. Under the covers, where no one could see, something invisible extended from Lu Yanzhou’s body and crawled toward Lin Juan.

They eagerly climbed onto Lin Juan, spreading out like a blanket and covering him completely.

When he woke up from a good night’s sleep, the sky was already bright.

Lin Juan sat up, feeling that something was off.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He lifted the covers, got out of bed, walked to the bathroom, and stood in front of the mirror, examining himself.

No abnormalities.

Was it just his imagination?

Lin Juan rubbed his neck and stopped dwelling on it.

Lu Yanzhou had gotten up earlier than him and gone to exercise. Knowing that Lu Yuqing was behind it, Lu Yanzhou had discussed it with Lin Juan and decided it was time to announce his recovery.

Lu Yuqing was just a child, and there had to be someone behind her. Even Qiu Lishu, according to the information from the Anomalous Affairs Bureau, was just following orders.

But the person behind the scenes hid too deeply, and all clues cut off at the critical points.

Three days later, Lu Yanzhong woke up.

Old Master Lu had been worried about his son and had practically lived at the hospital these past few days. When he heard the news, he rushed to the ward without even eating.

The butler chased after him with a lunchbox.

Upon receiving the call, Lu Yanzhou set aside his work and headed to the hospital with Lin Juan.

By the time they arrived, Zhuang Yufeng had just finished checking on Lu Yanzhong.

Lu Yanzhong had recovered well, but the expression on his face wasn’t great.

Lu Yanzhou pushed the door open. The moment he saw Lu Yanzhou, Lu Yanzhong, who had been silent all along, finally spoke.

“Little brother, I’m sorry.”

“Second Brother knew?” Once Lin Juan entered, Lu Yanzhou closed the door.

“I remembered. It was because of me that you got hurt.” Lu Yanzhong wasn’t old, but after this ordeal, he seemed to have aged many years.

Hearing this abruptly, Old Master Lu was startled. “What do you mean ‘because of you, Yanzhou got hurt’? Was Yanzhou’s last coma related to you?”

Old Master Lu had weathered great storms and was extremely perceptive. He instantly connected the dots.

“Why did you do that?!”

Lu Yanzhong lowered his head and fell silent.

His mind was a mess. During those three days of coma, it was as if he had sunk into an absurd dream, watching his own life from these years from an angle he had never imagined.

Only upon waking did he realize that the absurdity wasn’t in the dream—quite the opposite. The dream was real, while he had always lived in a dream woven meticulously by others, like prey caught in a spider’s web: the more he struggled, the deeper he sank.

It took a massive external force to tear open the web before he finally broke free.

But he had merely fallen into another nightmare.

In that brief time, he almost wished he hadn’t woken up at all. It would be better to muddle through in a daze than face the cruel reality.

“Dad, didn’t you always ask me what I liked about Qiu Lishu?”

For Qiu Lishu, he had abandoned his family, abandoned his first love whom he truly cherished, driven her insane, and nearly gotten his own family hurt because of him.

No, they had already been hurt because of him.

If it weren’t for Lin Juan, if it weren’t for Father accidentally marrying Lin Juan to his little brother as a spouse, his little brother’s fate wouldn’t have been much better than his first love’s.

Lu Yanzhong sorted through his chaotic thoughts and said, “Actually, I don’t even know what I liked about her. Did I love her? No, I didn’t. From beginning to end, the only one I loved was one person—a person I’m no longer worthy of mentioning.”

Old Master Lu was puzzled. “Then why did you…”

Yeah, why?

Why had he done such things?

Lu Yanzhong sank into recollection.

The first time he saw Qiu Lishu was when they brushed past each other. It didn’t even count as a meeting. He was shielding his girlfriend in his arms from the rain and didn’t notice anyone around them at all.

But the bitter seed had been planted that rainy day.

He began encountering Qiu Lishu everywhere.

Qiu Lishu, who imitated his girlfriend’s style of dress.

They had no interactions whatsoever. Apart from his girlfriend, Lu Yanzhong wouldn’t spare a glance at any other woman.

When did the object of his affections suddenly shift to Qiu Lishu?

It was another rainy night. He was waiting for his girlfriend at a coffee shop when Qiu Lishu, dressed as a server, brought him a cup of coffee.

No sugar, bitter.

After that one cup of coffee, he uncontrollably began paying attention to Qiu Lishu. In his eyes, she became the girlfriend he had loved for many years.

He had abruptly fallen for someone else.

Knock knock.

The knock on the door interrupted Lu Yanzhong’s recollection. Director Liu came in holding a black box.

“We have some new discoveries,” Director Liu said as he placed the box on the coffee table. “We saw some fragments from those recovered eyes.”

“They’re related to Mr. Lu Yanzhong and the deceased Ms. Qiu Lishu. I think you have the right to know.”

The black box was opened, revealing what was inside.

It was a box of eyeballs. Right in the center was one as big as a human head, surrounded by a circle of egg-sized eyeballs.

“A rare item, the 【Eye of Recollection】, dropped from the 【Humanback Spider】. When activated, it allows viewing of the past memories of the creatures it has parasitized.”

The recollection unfolded, like watching a silent film from the last century.

They saw sixteen-year-old Qiu Lishu.

A beautiful girl from the deep mountains was destined to face many hardships.

Qiu Lishu’s life wasn’t too hard because she was fortunate enough to receive sponsorship from the Lu Corporation.

Even though she had schemed to steal that sponsorship spot.

She went to university and was dazzled by the bustling city. She didn’t want to go back to the mountains. She wanted to stay in the big city forever, to take root and sprout here.

She met Lu Yanzhong, who had come to her school on behalf of the Lu Corporation to give a speech.

Learning his identity from others, she fantasized about one day becoming the woman standing beside him, just like that girl who always wore white dresses.

So carefree, clearly well-protected.

Like a rat peeking into someone else’s happy life, she fantasized about replacing the lady of the house while envying the girl’s good fortune.

She created countless opportunities to “bump into” that man, but he never spared her a glance. His eyes and heart were filled only with that girl.

It was truly infuriatingly jealous-making.

Jealousy bred sin.

The turning point came when she picked up a pair of glasses.

She returned the glasses to their owner, a man in a black trench coat whose face couldn’t be seen clearly. The man gave her a small box containing an eyeball.

Out of curiosity, Qiu Lishu opened the box—like opening Pandora’s box.

The eyeball turned into a streak of light and burrowed into her body. She gained the ability to rewrite a person’s memories.

Without hesitation, she rewrote Lu Yanzhong’s memories.

She replaced the girl she had once envied and stood by Lu Yanzhong’s side.

The recollection cut off abruptly.

The ward fell silent.

“That’s not all. The 【Eye of Recollection】 has a cooldown. We have to wait six hours to continue,” Director Liu’s voice broke the silence.

“So, the weird phenomena had already appeared before Qiu Lishu met Second Brother Lu.”

Lin Juan’s words instantly drew everyone’s attention.

“Not just appeared—the eyeball was given to Qiu Lishu by the Black Trench Coat Man. That means someone had already discovered the weird phenomena back then and started using it for their own ends.”

This timeline was even earlier than the Anomalous Affairs Bureau had anticipated.

Director Liu took it seriously. “I’ll report this discovery.”

This was no longer something he could decide alone. If the weird phenomena had appeared this early, there was much more they needed to do.

For example, the man in the black trench coat who appeared in the 【Eye of Recollection】.

Who exactly was he?

What was his relationship to the weird phenomena?

Director Liu left in a hurry after leaving the 【Eye of Recollection】 behind.

Unable to trigger the recollection for now, Lin Juan closed the black box and forwarded the materials Director Liu had sent him to Old Master Lu and the others. “This is some information I asked Director Liu to look into regarding Lu Yanzhou’s coma. It’s directly related to Qiu Lishu and Lu Yuqing.”

After reading it, Old Master Lu understood why his second son had apologized to his youngest.

“Second, tell me honestly—did you participate in this? Were you aware?” Old Master Lu set down his phone and asked gravely.

“I was unaware,” Lu Yanzhong didn’t defend himself. “Even if I was unaware, I can’t say it has nothing to do with me.”

If Qiu Lishu hadn’t been his wife, she couldn’t have easily learned Lu Yanzhou’s schedule. And Lu Yuqing—if she weren’t his daughter, how could Lu Yanzhou have let his guard down?

“I’m sorry. I know an apology is insignificant. Once I’m discharged…”

“No need,” Lu Yanzhou interrupted him. “As long as I know you were unaware and didn’t participate, that’s enough.”

Hearing the distance in Lu Yanzhou’s tone, Lu Yanzhong felt a pang of sadness. But he knew he couldn’t blame Lu Yanzhou—it was he who had let the wolf into the house. If he hadn’t insisted on marrying Qiu Lishu, if they hadn’t had three children, none of this would have happened.

The ward fell silent once more.

Old Master Lu couldn’t stand the atmosphere. He was angry at his second son’s incompetence, but he also knew his second son was a victim too. With a sigh, he said, “Focus on recovering first. Don’t overthink the rest.”

Lu Yanzhong remembered what had happened before he passed out and took the initiative to recount that night’s events.

The situation that night had been truly perilous. Lu Yanzhong had thought more than once that he was going to die.

“What about the other two children…” His younger son and daughter—he hadn’t seen them since waking. “How are they?”

“Them?” Lin Juan thought for a moment. “They’re probably undergoing labor reform.”

Lu Yanzhong recalled his young children’s ages, glanced at his phone to confirm it had only been three days, not three years, and asked in confusion:

What could two kids under eight possibly do for labor reform?