Homeward Journey
This was the scene Luo Zhao saw while leaning on the railing.
"Wait!" Luo Han was the first to speak up, stopping Ying Yungui and Shi Youchen from leaving. She took out a painting from behind the sofa and walked over to Shi Youchen. "I heard you like natural scenery. This is the work of a painter friend of mine who was in the circle a few years ago. Consider it a gift for us meeting each other!"
Shi Youchen stood there in a daze. If he accepted the call, it would be tantamount to implicitly acknowledging his relationship with Ying Yungui. If he didn't accept the call, he would be offending his elder in person. He was in a dilemma.
Ying Yungui reached out and took the painting, and said naturally: "Thank you, aunt and uncle." He turned around and looked at Luo Xi and raised his eyebrows.
Luo Xi: "What?"
Ying Yungui: "You don't have it?"
Shi Youchen: "...You've almost had enough." He smiled at Luo Han and his wife, and poked Ying Yungui's waist with gritted teeth.
Luo Xi smoothed the wrinkles on the hem of her skirt and stood up calmly. She took a small square box from the closet, blew off the non-existent dust on it, handed it to Shi Youchen and said, "I learned you were coming at the last minute and didn't prepare anything good in advance, so take this with you."
Shi Youchen saw that the packaging was simple and plain, much more low-key than the framed painting, and took it with both hands as if he had been granted amnesty, and thanked him repeatedly. Ying Yungui glanced at the dark pattern on the box and smiled inwardly.
The two walked towards the stairs. Luo Zhao, who witnessed everything upstairs, hurried back to her room. She didn't want to be caught by Ying Yungui at this moment.
After watching them go upstairs, Luo Han said sarcastically: "Sister, the tea cake from the 110th year of the new calendar is not a good thing, right?" Luo Xi drank the last sip of tea in the cup: "It's okay." Fu Yuchu suppressed his laughter and helped his wife upstairs.
In the guest room on the third floor, Shi Youchen said unnaturally: "Why did you accept it? Won't this cause them to misunderstand?" Ying Yungui found a box to put the painting in, and padded it with thick cotton.
He rechecked the mark on the corner of the small square box, then said, "It's not something particularly expensive. This is it. It's not even as good as the one I stuffed in your pocket earlier." He raised the box in his hand and suddenly asked uncertainly, "You didn't lose the one I gave you, did you?"
Shi Youchen: "It's well kept."
Ying Yungui smiled and said, "That's fine. Don't save it. Remember to drink it!"
Shi Youchen sighed and pushed him out the door: "Okay, okay, you've been busy for so long, go and take a rest first." Ying Yungui was happy.
Perhaps because there were many unexpected events on this journey and he was always nervous, everything settled down that night and Shi Youchen slept particularly soundly. When he opened his eyes again, it was almost lunchtime. He quickly got up to wash and was brushing his teeth when there was a knock on the door.
"There is dust here, has it risen?" It was Ying Yungui's voice.
He opened the door with a mouthful of foam. Seeing this, Ying Yungui's mouth twitched, but he suppressed it and said, "We can eat soon. We need to get back to District 8 as soon as possible, so we arranged for the Luo family's private plane. The driver went to pick up the things you left at the apartment this morning."
Shi Youchen was speechless. He just nodded "hmm" to indicate that he understood, then turned around and went back to continue washing up.
Ying Yungui's eyes followed his messy curly hair, which looked like it had been washed in a hurry last night and not blown dry.
Shi Youchen was originally worried about the awkwardness of the meal, but when he entered the restaurant he found that there were only Jiang Yu, Ying Yungui, Li Sen and himself. The three elders had gone out, and Luo Zhao was still lying in bed as usual.
Ying Yungui: "Shi Youchen and I will be returning to District 8 this afternoon. I'll be troubling you with everything here from now on."
Jiang Yu: "Well, I'll take Li Sen to handle the paperwork this afternoon, and then I'll ask a doctor to come home and check when Luo Zhao wakes up."
Ying Yungui hummed and said, "Send a copy of Li Sen's test results to me and Shi Youchen after a while. It'll be fine as long as we have an idea."
Li Sen was chewing his rice when he heard his name appearing frequently in their conversation. He looked at Shi Youchen with some confusion.
Shi Youchen thought, "What was supposed to happen has finally happened." He hadn't wanted to leave without telling Li Sen, but he was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle the separation. He turned on the translator and said gently, "Li Sen, you'll stay here from now on."
The child was very sensitive and had a premonition of something when he heard this. Sure enough, the next second he heard Shi Youchen say, "Sister Luo Zhao and Brother Jiang Yu are here too."
"But we have to go."
When Li Sen heard the word "go," tears welled up in his eyes, but he didn't let them fall. Shi Youchen continued, "We have important things to do, and you're still too young to take you with you." Seeing Li Sen's tearful expression, he couldn't help but say, "When you grow up a little and learn more, I'll..."
Ying Yungui: "We will come to pick you up."
Li Sen's hesitant gaze moved back and forth between Shi Youchen and Ying Yungui. After feeling their seriousness and sincerity, he scooped a large spoonful of rice into his mouth, but he couldn't stop the tears from falling. In the end, he nodded heavily.
After dinner, Youchen packed his few belongings, exchanged contact information with Jiang Yu, and set off on his journey home with Ying Yungui.
When they took off, Luo Zhao woke up. She stood by the window of her room, looking at the rising plane with a lonely look on her face.
"In the end, I still couldn't help them at all. Am I really just an ordinary person and can't do anything?" The nightmare that often haunted her when she was young came again last night. In the dream, she watched her relatives and friends falling one by one in front of her. All the people she cared about were killed in front of her, but she could only cry out in despair.
She thought she had gotten out of that predicament, but this incident made her paranoid again.
While Luo Zhao was imprisoned, two people appeared on the rooftop of Yikou Shopping Mall, which was urgently blocked last night.
One of them looked towards the District 10 Association branch base and asked the other, "Is it really okay for them to just take those two bodies away like that?"
Another voice replied coldly, "It's okay. He's already been informed of all the information he needs to know." The man smoothed his half-long black hair, revealing a pair of pale eyes. He looked towards District 8 and said, "I hope he won't let me down."
"Also, delete the file of this immaterial clone."
"OK."
The wind rises and the clouds fall, and there is no trace left on the rooftop.
After returning to District 8, Shi Youchen went straight to the X City Central Hospital and confirmed in person that Lu Quezhi's mother's operation was successful. He then handed Lu Quezhi's suicide note to her after she woke up.
"Take care of yourself."
Shi Youchen said goodbye to the woman with a miserable expression. The moment he closed the door, the sobbing coming from inside pierced his eardrums.
Outside the hospital gate, Ying Yungui leaned against the front of the car, his legs propped up. The moonlight reflected his pupils. He opened the door for the visitor and asked, "Are you done?"
Shi Youchen closed his eyes tiredly, feeling helpless about Ying Yungui's insistence on accompanying him: "Well, I'll drive when we get back, you take a rest." Ying Yungui pushed his shoulders into the back seat, closed the door, entered the driver's seat, fastened his seat belt, closed the door, and started the car, all in one go.
"Since you offered to accompany me to earn back the points that were deducted this time, I'll be your driver for a while. Just sleep peacefully." Ying Yungui felt happy when he thought of Shi Youchen's troubled expression when he mentioned this. He even felt that he could drive from District 8 to District 10 and spread the news.
"By the way, what did you say happened to Lin Zhouze?" Ying Yungui asked.
Shi Youchen closed his eyes and replied, "When I contacted him a few days ago, Yan Zhiyuan said he was in a coma. I didn't ask for details at the time, and I didn't have time to contact him later." He pressed his eyebrows together, "Let's go to his place when it's daybreak."
Ying Yungui: "I'm going too. I just want to talk to you about something." He glanced uncertainly at the upturned face in the rearview mirror. "So, can you take me in tonight?"
Shi Youchen didn't think much about it in his daze, and replied naturally, "Yeah."
Unconsciously, he allowed Ying Yungui to get closer to him much more than anyone else.
The next afternoon, Shi Youchen and Ying Yungui arrived outside Lin Zhouze's treatment room together. Yan Zhiyuan came out with a pale face.
Yan Zhiyuan: "I'm sorry, I was too busy and forgot about it. You want the detailed information about the mental invasion incident in District 10, right?" He pressed his aching temple.
Shi Youchen: "No rush, we're here to see him today, how is he doing?"
Yan Zhiyuan led the two men into the room. Lin Zhouze was wearing a breathing tube, his faint breath spraying onto the oxygen mask, the mist quickly dissipating to reveal his pale lips. The equipment showed that his vital signs were normal, but he was still unconscious.
After pouring hot water for the two of them, Yan Zhiyuan sat down at the table. His blue stubble stood out prominently, and the bloodshot in his eyes almost covered most of the whites. He clasped his fingers together in a fist, rubbing his right thumb against the back of his left hand. After a moment's thought, he finally spoke, "He went to District 3 for exchange and study and was attacked by a supernatural power."
"To be precise, the Area 3 Research Institute was attacked by supernatural powers."
This statement was shocking, and Shi Youchen and Ying Yungui were both stunned.
"Such a big thing, and there's no district-wide notification?" This was the first time Ying Yungui heard of such an incident.
Yan Zhiyuan continued to explain, "When I went there to pick him up, I only heard that the samples in the research institute had been stolen, but the other news should have been blocked."
He recalled leading his team to Area 3 to identify someone. Seeing the doctor's grief-stricken expression at the door of the base's treatment room, his legs gave way and he nearly collapsed to the ground. Fortunately, the doctor immediately replied, "All these years of hard work have been wasted," and sighed with regret, so he didn't misunderstand.
"There weren't any casualties, but most of the people from other districts who went to exchange ideas were people with special abilities. Lin Zhouze is just an ordinary person with a weaker physical foundation. He was paralyzed by the neurotoxin and has been in a coma ever since." Yan Zhiyuan clenched his fists as he spoke. "It's been a while since this happened, and the notice hasn't been sent out yet. It might be related to the association's confidentiality, so I was just hesitating about how to tell you."
Ying Yungui: "What about the follow-up? You can't just ignore it, right?"
Yan Zhiyuan shook his head: "I haven't heard of setting up an investigation team for this."
"That's unreasonable," Shi Youchen said. "Since it involves the association's confidential information, why wouldn't they conduct a follow-up investigation? If it's not confidential, why wouldn't they issue a notice?"
Yan Zhiyuan: "Yes, so I submitted an application to the higher-ups to take the initiative to investigate, but it has not been approved yet."
Ying Yungui was shocked: "You want to investigate this matter alone? The risk factor is too high."
Yan Zhiyuan said firmly, "I can't let him suffer this in vain."
Ying Yungui denied him: "No, not to mention whether the higher-ups will approve it or not, even if they do, you can't go alone."
Yan Zhiyuan pushed his hair back and said, "So what do you think I should do? Should I just wait like this?"
Ying Yungui clasped his hands together and said, "If you can apply for a mission reward of more than 2,000 points, I can go with you."
Yan Zhiyuan frowned and looked at him: "2000 points? That's the reward threshold for S-level tasks, this..."
"It's not impossible for you to fight for it. It's settled. I will keep an eye on this matter. Don't try to hide it from me." Ying Yungui stood up and was about to pull Shi Youchen away, leaving behind a sentence, "Oh, by the way, we have resolved the mental invasion in District 10. You can wait for the announcement in a few days."
Shi Youchen wanted to say something, but Ying Yungui secretly scratched his palm and pulled him out, leaving Yan Zhiyuan even more stunned than before.
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