Chapter 64

It took nearly three hours one way and another three hours to get back. A day has 12 hours, and half of that time is spent on the road. Fortunately, Feng Xu's car is as comfortable as a luxury movie theater box.

Feng Xu switched the car to driving mode. When the two got tired of sitting, they took out cushions, reclined the seats, opened the sunroof, and enjoyed the quiet night. The starry sky in the suburbs was a silent romantic movie.

"How is Bai Yu?"

Feng Xu's eyes never left Chi Xia. Hearing her speak, he turned his head slightly and looked at her delicate profile. "There are too many mother worms. Any means are pale and powerless. We are currently making a final effort to expel the worms. If this fails, Mr. Bai Yu's organs will all need to be replaced with machines."

"The larvae taken from Tong Yue are being raised by Dr. Huang. They should be mature by now. If you are interested, you can take them back and let your research team study them."

Looking at Chi Xia's overly youthful face and her calm and composed demeanor, Feng Xu couldn't help but try to find a balance between her age and her past. "I didn't expect you to have been paying attention to this matter all along. Did you already have this plan when you were retrieving the insects?"

Chi Xia turned her head to the side, "Your intervention is more effective than mine."

This time, Feng Xu did not avoid eye contact. "Okay, I'll do my best."

Chi Xia turned her gaze back to the starry sky. She rarely had such leisure time before, when she could fully feel her connection with nature and the universe.

Why did you want to work in biotechnology?

Feng Xu withdrew his almost greedy gaze and looked at the same starry sky with Chi Xia. "You probably don't know, but Cheng Yang and I are classmates. Cheng Yang's grades have always been excellent, consistently ranking first in the grade."

Chi Xia frowned slightly, sensing that she was about to hear a very different story. Last time, Cheng Mo told the story of his uncle, but for various reasons, he didn't finish it. Feng Xu's opening seemed to be a continuation of that story.

Chi Xia turned to look at Feng Xu, whose handsome face was a masterpiece under the starry sky, like a jade carving meticulously crafted by a master craftsman. Feng Xu's abilities often made people overlook his appearance. When they saw him, they would think of a young talent, the head of the Feng family, a role model of the new generation, and a series of words and labels praising his excellence. But no one would calmly appreciate that his face was actually very dazzling.

"That year, a transfer student came to our class. She was a very individualistic girl who easily took first place from Cheng Yang. For the first time, Cheng Yang met his match in academics, and their back-and-forth competition caused quite a stir. Everyone thought that Cheng Yang and she were on the same level, both of them were prodigies. But that wasn't the case. Cheng Yang put all his mind into his studies. He had an obsession with grades that was hard for ordinary people to match. But Wang Yijia was not like that. She studied effortlessly. She even chased after someone while going to school. She didn't put in any effort at all."

Chi Xia seemed to have caught something and blurted out, "Was she pursuing you back then?"

Feng Xu was silent for a few seconds, as if recalling that past. "Yes. Every day when I went out, she would happen to pass by, say hello, and hitch a ride in my car. After we got to know each other, my driver would even subconsciously wait for her. In the car, she would talk to the driver a lot, and nine out of ten sentences were about asking me. She would walk two kilometers to my building at night for a walk, sing off-key songs to the window, and the love letters she wrote in class would appear in my schoolbag after school."

Chi Xia: "You rejected her?"

Feng Xu: "During that time, I was going through a very difficult period. My father's three mistresses were exposed one after another, and the news that I was not the sole heir of the Feng family spread like wildfire. My father's business suffered a heavy blow. It was around that time that my family closed the food factory in the old capital and moved to the new city on a smaller scale. In my memory, my mother was arguing with my father every day. After that, my father simply stopped coming home. I heard my mother hiding in her room crying. The house was a mess. I had no mood to accept the admiration of any girl, no matter how sincere she was."

Chi Xia: "And then?"

Feng Xu: "My parents were getting a divorce, and my father took me to the old capital, where I attended classes for a semester. My father's competitors took advantage of the situation to suppress the Feng family, using various forms of business threats, which my father withstood. Then they set their sights on me. One day after school, I was knocked unconscious as soon as I stepped out of the school gate. A rat was gnawing at my finger when I suddenly woke up and found myself lying in a cold, damp, and foul-smelling sewer, covered in injuries. Fortunately, my father arrived in time with a rescue team. When my mother found out, she had a big fight with my father and took me back to the new city, where I returned to my original class."

At this point, Feng Xu suddenly turned to look at Chi Xia, "What was unexpected was that I got infected in the sewer. My body was parasitized by a mutated worm. For the next month, I would have high fevers and faint from time to time. That afternoon in PE class, after running 1,000 meters, I fainted on my way back to the classroom. Wang Yijia followed me all the way and took me to the hospital."

Like stars shattering and falling into Feng Xu's eyes, Chi Xia saw the shimmering starlight. He said, "Back then, Nuodun Affiliated Hospital was still a Feng family business. It was around that time that the hospital frantically recruited experts in biochemical medicine. For a time, Nuodun gathered almost all the well-known experts and scholars in the New Territories, determined to remove the parasites from my body. But at that time, biochemical technology was relatively backward, and parasites could still kill people, let alone the mutated parasites in my body. When everyone was helpless, Wang Yijia sneaked into my ward one night. She cut both of our wrists. When I woke up, I tried to stop her, but it was no use. Her blood had a deadly attraction to those parasites. They rushed towards her like a surging tide, and I couldn't stop them at all..."

Chi Xia saw Feng Xu's tears, rolling down his narrow eye sockets and landing one by one on the leather sofa. "Nuo Dun mobilized the entire hospital to do everything it could to save her, but her body was like food for worms, and those disgusting things just wouldn't leave. She transferred my pain to herself. I watched her being tortured and heard her screaming in pain during chemotherapy in the ward."

“I knew she couldn’t hold on any longer, but she gritted her teeth and persevered until the college entrance exam. She said she wanted to do one more good deed to help Cheng Yang improve his grades. Just when Cheng Yang thought the two of them were about to have a showdown, the day before the college entrance exam, she climbed onto the roof of Norton Hospital and jumped off with a smile.”

Feng Xu closed his eyes. This past event was a knot imprinted on his youthful years, and no matter how much time had passed, it remained there, in the form of the end of a young life.

"She told me it was in so much pain, those bugs were gnawing at her bones every day, and she couldn't sleep because of the noise, she couldn't take it anymore..."

Chi Xia hesitated for a few seconds, but finally got up, took out a tissue and handed it to him. Feng Xu grabbed Chi Xia's hand and pressed it to his face. "She is so young and talented. She is only 17 years old. I owe her my life. I hate those disgusting things and want to cut them off at all costs."

Chi Xia: "Did the way I saved Tong Yue remind you of her?"

Feng Xu opened his eyes and looked carefully at Chi Xia's face. "You have a certain quality that attracts me. The painting Tong Yue drew for you is in my room now. I feel at ease looking at it every night before I go to sleep. Chi Xia, that's your true self, isn't it?"

Chi Xia gently wiped away his tears, pursed her lips, and slowly withdrew her hand. "My current state is the same as when you were being pursued by Wang Yijia."

Feng Xu's eyes were bright, but his eyes were moist. "Can I wait for you?"

Chi Xia had already turned her gaze back to the boundless starry sky. "Feng Xu, I am different from Wang Yijia. My flesh and blood body is not nourishment."

Feng Xu sat up, leaned over to look at Chi Xia, and placed his hands on either side of her. "I didn't—"

Chi Xia looked at him calmly. Her detached indifference made Feng Xu's words of explanation stuck in his throat. Chi Xia reached out and smoothed his collar. "If you need it someday, I can give it to you for research free of charge, but not now."

Seeing the resolute light in Chi Xia's eyes, Feng Xu curled back his slightly burning fingers, adjusted his breathing, looked away, and pulled himself back to his original position.

An hour later, the car arrived at the Moon Bay villa area.

Xin Ran, wearing slippers, paced back and forth at the door. When he saw the car coming in, he instinctively ran to the shade of a tree and stood behind the trunk. He was more used to appearing from the perspective of an observer. He watched Chi Xia get out of the car and say goodbye to her. Only after the car drove out of the intersection did he step out from the shadows.

"You were waiting for me?" Chi Xia was somewhat surprised to see him waiting outside the door.

Xin Ran turned her gaze away from where the car had disappeared. "President Feng personally brought you back?"

Chi Xia walked towards him and said, "Mm."

Xin Ran immediately grabbed her and led her to the basement, saying as they walked, "I've made a major discovery."

The two went to the basement together. Xin Ran turned on the circular computer and pulled up the video again, freezing the moment the mysterious person took the coffee. "Don't you think he looks familiar?"

Chi Xia carefully examined the fully armed man, unsure of what to do. Xin Ran slightly compressed the image, making the man appear slightly overweight instead of tall.

Chi Xia blurted out, "Is it Director Ma?"

Xin Ran snapped her fingers. "Bingo, you guessed it. The person who took your coffee from your windowsill is Director Ma."

Chi Xia took the mouse and read another section in compressed format. She confirmed it was indeed Director Ma. "That makes sense. Director Ma suddenly gave everyone in the office a fingerprint-locked cup. He knew there was something in the coffee and was worried something like that might happen. He was using this method to remind everyone in the office. But how did you figure out this person was Director Ma?"

Not only was the video deleted, but it was also stretched and reshaped after being restored, demonstrating meticulous attention to detail.

Xin Ran took the mouse, froze the image again on the moment the person reached for the coffee, and then clicked on the person's hand to zoom in. "See? He has a mole on the web of his left hand. I had a buffet with Director Ma today, and he also has one on the web of his left hand. What a coincidence!"

Chi Xia frowned. Xin Ran looked at her and asked, "Are you curious about his identity?"

Chi Xia: "Zhang Peng said that there is an informant with an unusual identity, who appears and disappears mysteriously and has a weak presence. Who do you think he is talking about?"

Xin Ran's eyes widened. "This...is just like Director Ma. Taking the coffee, making Zhang Peng mistakenly believe you drank it, and then using Zhang Peng to probe your true identity?"

Chi Xia: "We can't rule out that possibility. Director Ma's actions seem very suspicious no matter how you look at them, especially since he went to such lengths to hide it."

Xin Ran leaned closer, "Let's try it and see if he's really the informant."

Chi Xia: "How do we try?"