Chapter 45 Chapter 45 It’s all because of him, Dust! …

Tao Ying sat down upright in Zhu Chi's seat. Not only that, she also held the photo of Zhu Chi and his family in her hand and admired it carefully.

"Oh, Director Zhu Chi is married." Tao Ying looked at the photo calmly, with a hint of mystery in her eyes.

Because it seemed so natural for her to skip class and sit down, and her cheeks were so pale, everyone didn't know for a moment whether she sat down because she was not feeling well. They all looked at her hesitantly, not knowing how to start.

Qian Huimei said cautiously: "Classmate...that's Director Zhu Chi's seat."

The implication is, are you going to give way?

This chair was custom-made by Zhu Chi, featuring high-end ergonomics. Zhu Chi never liked people touching his things. If he knew someone was sitting on his chair, he would definitely be furious.

But looking at Tao Ying's expression, asking her to stand up seemed a bit like abusing the student.

Xu Hao thought for a moment and came up with a compromise. He moved his own chair.

"Student, come, take this chair."

But Tao Ying lay half-lying on the table, not moving.

Out of sight of everyone, she was groping for something under the table with one hand.

Well, it should be here... Got it!

"Classmate? What are you doing?" Several teachers from the External Relations Department finally seemed to realize that something was wrong with Tao Ying's posture and walked over.

Tao Ying pretended to have just come to his senses, unplugged the data disk from his hand, stuffed it behind his back, and then sat up with an innocent look on his face.

She raised the blue folder in her hand and waved it towards everyone.

Tao Ying: "Finally found my league registration materials."

Qian Huimei paused: "Looking, found it?"

Gordon was not surprised: "Oh, it's Professor Zhu Chi's place after all."

"Since the teacher knew it, why didn't you come over to look for it just now, but kept searching over there?" Tao Ying asked bluntly, holding her face with her hands.

Gordon coughed lightly to hide his embarrassment. He couldn't say he didn't dare touch Zhu Chi's things, so he dragged his colleagues along and pretended to look for them.

Gordon scratched his head and said, "Well, I forgot."

Xu Hao waved his hand and said, "Why are you asking so many questions? Isn't it enough to just find it? But what's the point of you bringing back the documents? Registration must be through our Lai University External Relations Department."

Xu Hao didn't say what came next, but the general meaning was: If the External Relations Department doesn't approve the materials, you still won't be able to participate in the Star League even if you take them back.

Tao Ying folded her hands and tapped the table intermittently.

After a moment, she looked up and gave a textbook-level cute smile: "Really not passing? You might regret it later."

No one said a word.

"Okay." After receiving the expected rejection, Tao Ying shrugged and did not continue to worry about it.

She held the documents, said goodbye to the teacher, and prepared to leave.

Just as she was leaving, Zhu Chi, who had gone upstairs to do some work, also came back. Tao Ying stood in front of the door, paused, greeted him with a smile, and passed by Zhu Chi.

But Zhu Chi called out to her first: "Bai Ying? What are you doing here?"

Tao Ying put the folder behind her back, a puzzled look on her face: "Huh? Professor Zhu knows me?"

Zhu Chi patted Tao Ying's shoulders with his big, fat hands. I don't know if it was intentional, but the force was so strong that Tao Ying almost got a stitch in the side. She calmly took two steps back to stay away from him.

Zhu Chi showed a kind face and said, "You are very famous at Leimen University. By the way, the document in your hand is..."

"Huh? What I found under your desk is my registration materials." Tao Ying said, hiding the folder behind her again.

Zhu Chi's expression became strange.

Application materials? He had already thrown them into the document incinerator, burning them to ashes. What documents did this student have?

Impossible. She must have stolen some other document.

"It looks like you got the wrong document. Can I check it?"

Zhu Chi smiled, and the flesh on his face huddled together, making his already small eyes almost invisible. He spoke like a decent person, but the way he blocked the door made it clear that his tone was not one of negotiation.

"This...can I refuse?" Tao Ying took a step back hesitantly.

Her hesitant attitude made Zhu Chi even more certain that there must be something fishy going on!

But what was she holding? Could it be that document under his desk? Zhu Chi's face suddenly turned panicky.

If it is that document, she must not take it away.

Thinking of this, Zhu Chi grabbed Tao Ying's arm tightly, obviously unwilling to give up.

Zhu Chi forced a smile but clenched his teeth tightly.

"Student, I was supposed to review the materials. I was just taking a look. Why are you reacting so strongly? This makes me suspect you have other motives."

He held on too tightly, and Tao Ying let out a "hiss" sound. Zhu Chi was stunned for a moment and withdrew his hand.

Tao Ying raised her hand and saw bruises on five fingers of her arm.

Tao Ying opened her eyes wide and complained, "Professor, I didn't say I couldn't give it to you. You're not going to pinch me, are you? Look at it, it's all blue."

Zhu Chi: “…”

Gordon came out to smooth things over: "Well, the director didn't mean it."

"Yeah yeah."

Tao Ying looked reasonable and said, "Of course I know he didn't mean it."

Several people breathed a sigh of relief.

Tao Ying added, "So just pay the money."

“…”

Ten minutes later, Tao Ying received a transfer of 200,000 star coins.

Two hundred thousand should be quite a lot for Zhu Chi. I heard that he spent a lot of money to get a job at the Laimen Monitoring Center.

It feels good to see Zhu Chi paying the money with a cold face and pretending not to care.

Tao Ying took the money with a smile and was about to leave. Zhu Chi subconsciously tried to stop her. Tao Ying raised the bruise on her right arm and shook it in front of him, and Zhu Chi retracted his hand.

Zhu Chi gritted his teeth and looked at the blue folder in Tao Ying's hand.

"document."

"I told you it was my registration materials, I don't know why you didn't believe me." Tao Ying helplessly flipped through the documents, and a photo fell out.

Qian Huimei subconsciously wanted to go over and help pick it up, but Zhu Chi snatched it away.

In a hurry, Qian Huimei's manicure cut Zhu Chi's hand.

Zhu Chi's expression twisted for a moment.

Why do I have so much bad luck today?

But luckily I got the photo back.

He held the photo but was stunned.

This is not a photo of him.

The photo shows three clear-skinned college students with bright smiles.

In the photo, Lin Biege is standing in front of a snack stall, holding a spicy roasted field mouse in his hand, his mouth as spicy as a sausage, Nan Gua is clapping and laughing beside him, Tao Ying is holding a laptop, pointing the camera at the team, with a smile on his lips, and taking a picture.

It was obviously a selfie of three people.

Tao Ying explained with a smile, "Oh, this is a photo I took with two teammates at a nearby snack street. I accidentally put it in my file, and I came to get it because it's very memorable."

Zhu Chi opened the file in disbelief, and found that it actually contained registration materials, exactly the same as what he had just seen.

But he clearly burned it to ashes?

Could it be that he really saw it wrong?

Tao Ying: "What's wrong with Director Zhu? You look like you've seen a ghost. Is there something wrong with my materials?"

"No, it's no problem."

Tao Ying left.

But Zhu Chi couldn't calm down at all.

His fingers were trembling, and he staggered back to his seat, pretending to be calm.

After a while, he could no longer sit still, so he hurried to the bathroom, tremblingly closed the door of the cubicle, sat on the toilet, took out the bottle of medicine from his pocket, and took two pills with trembling hands.

Ever since Tao Ying's death, Zhu Chi has felt like everything is going wrong. He's been having nightmares and feels like something is following him wherever he goes. His family says he's hallucinating. He saw a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with severe anxiety. They prescribed medication and told him to be vigilant and seek medical attention if his daily state changes. Otherwise, his condition could worsen and potentially develop into schizophrenia.

No, no. This is not an illusion.

Zhu Chi clenched his fists.

He just had a misremembering. He might have put the document on the table and burned another document.

I was just too nervous and my memory was wrong.

Thinking of this, Zhu Chi picked up another bottle angrily. There was no label on it and the contents were very suspicious.

He grabbed a handful, ate it all, and then lay back on the toilet, feeling relaxed.

My mood improved instantly.

Yes, he is not sick, why should he take medicine? The doctors are talking nonsense!

It’s all because of Tao Ying, it’s all because of that first-level intelligent entity!

Leimen Monitoring Center file, wanted codename A003, Class A high-risk intelligent entity, Dust.

He is the most hateful one!

Zhu Chi showed an angry look.

…

The boy tugged at his collar, and his thin chin rubbed against the edge of his white turtleneck sweater, leaving several red marks.

He pursed his lips and said in a cold tone: "It's really a haunting ghost. You even dare to approach Xiaoying."

The Pomeranian lifted its front legs and tried to raise its hands to object.

"What I'm going to say next isn't meant to provoke you, Dust. But we still have to use some logic. Zhu Chi doesn't know that this 'Bai Ying' is the Tao Ying he once burned to death, right?... Are you listening to me, Dust? Hello?" Pomeranian rolled around wildly in front of the boy, but was completely ignored.

“…”

The boy's hands kept waving in the air, manipulating the flow of information. Dark blue particles flowed freely in the air, sometimes gathering together, sometimes dispersing, like conscious creatures, with a unique beauty.

In short, the boy couldn't hear what Pomeranian said at all.

After a moment, the space projected the route to the Leimen Monitoring Center.

The boy stared at the first-level firewall in the center of the screen and smiled coldly.

"Since we're here, let's find something for Director Zhu to do."

...Why does this sound so familiar? Didn’t a woman named Tao say the same thing just now?

Bo Mei sighed. Forget it, there's no point in trying to persuade her. When it comes to matters involving Tao Ying, there's no point in trying to persuade her.

Pomeranian didn't know much about the relationship between the two.

All I know is that Dust has been investigating the cause of Tao Ying's death.

When he found out that Zhu Chi was the arsonist, Dust said nothing.

An electronic attack was launched directly on Zhu Chi's residence.

The massive, precision-guided attack paralyzed the electronic systems in Zhu Chi's residence, even causing a small explosion. The Leimen Monitoring Center initially misjudged this as an enemy attack and even notified the military, activating the highest level of electronic defense.

Hundreds of intelligent bodies raised by the empire were activated at the same time. Under such circumstances, Dust avoided all obstacles and chased Zhu Chi all the way to the electronic safe house of the Reval Empire.

If time hadn't been tight, Zhu Chi would have been dead by now.

Yes, Pomeranian had no doubt that Dust had intended to kill him.

Until Dust was too impulsive and exposed his secondary address, and was nearly caught by the Lemen Monitoring Center, Pomeranian said, "Aren't you still waiting for Tao Ying to come back?", Dust was finally persuaded and restrained himself for a few years.

But Dust didn't stop, he just changed his method.

Dust gently invaded the space around Zhu Chi, taking control of all electronic components he could reach.

From then on, the audio system in Zhu Chi’s house would suddenly play music in the middle of the night, the lights would start flickering inexplicably, and the refrigerator would suddenly stop cooling.

I heard that one time Zhu Chi ate everything in the refrigerator and was admitted to the hospital due to food poisoning.

Zhu Chi couldn't bear the mental torture and threw away almost all the electronic products in his home. He couldn't even read the news and could only read a torn newspaper every day.

Dust is called an electronic ghost for a reason...

Sometimes it's like an electronic evil spirit.

…

Tao Ying left the building, found a quiet and deserted place, leaned against a tree, and connected the data disk to the computer.

【The 3rd Perceptual Mecha Technology Summit.】

【Venue: Conference Hall 1, Leimen University. 】

[Contents of the summit: Manufacturing details of the sentient mecha Minghuo-002.]

【Speaker: Zhu Chi.】

"I've been invited to Lehman University to give a presentation on the Minghuo II. Let me see, the invited guests... huh? There are a lot of people."

The authorities in the mecha world were all names Tao Ying was very familiar with.

Directors of several major mecha research institutes, and representatives of mecha manufacturers such as Garcia Electronics, Iowa Technology, Baishi Industries, and Haitai Technology.

There are even politicians from small border countries.

Tao Ying was surprised for a moment, tilted her head, and a hint of mischief flashed in her eyes.

These are summits of important people, so how can it not be considered a perfect stage?

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The author has something to say: The stage has been set x