sick
"Alright, since you both say so." The woman looked regretful. While beautiful feelings were important, she preferred a steady stream of money. The addictive substance developed based on the Tan Zhenjing glands, though highly praised, would gradually lose its novelty over time. Replacing it with another strong Omega was perhaps a blessing in disguise. She then asked, "Hasn't the Alpha's been developed yet, Dean Kong?"
After receiving a negative answer, the woman wanted to ask again, but swallowed her words after seeing Luo Zangrui's ambiguous smile.
Luo Zangrui said, "We'll suspend supply until things calm down, then we'll resume."
"How do we hide?" the man on the left sofa asked again.
"Get rid of all the goods you have on hand, and throw some people out to give the police a little something to show for it, so they can finish their job. As for the list, I'll contact you again, just one-way." Luo Zangrui looked at each person in turn to make sure they had no objections, and when he looked at the last person, he asked, "What about Xiyanba?"
The man was facing Luo Zangrui, a blood-red gemstone ring on each of his crossed index fingers: "Du Junzhang has been vigorously promoting the Xiyanba project for the past six months. Now that he's in trouble, the projects he handled will naturally attract a lot of attention, and whether they are promoted or delayed is no longer under our control." The Luo family's image has been damaged, and Zhao Heli will definitely compete with all his might, so their chances of winning are slim.
Xiyanba was orchestrated by Luo Zangqi. Luo Zangrui only knew some information about it, so he couldn't help but turn his gaze to Kong Jiaogen, a partner who had planned with Luo Zangqi. Noticing the gaze, Kong Jiaogen looked up and looked back. He said, "It was burned clean. We can't find anything."
"Really?" The gemstone made a slight crunching sound as it was rubbed together. "The things are all burned, but the people are all alive."
"If you think it's too slow, you can do it yourself." Kong Jiaogen's words revealed impatience, and his hoarse voice amplified this feeling.
"I didn't mean to interfere with your experiment. The police have been getting leads way too fast lately. Are you sure you don't have any traitors among your men?"
The woman feigned surprise and turned to call out, "Brother Rui!"
Luo Zangrui's smile froze, his eyes sharp and cold: "Internal strife? How hurtful! How can we cooperate in the future?"
Everyone looked at Luo Zangrui. After a few words and a brief silence, the air gradually calmed down as no one spoke. The woman clapped her hands lightly, revealing ten exquisitely sharpened claws. She smiled and said, "Brother Rui really knows how to handle things. This ending couldn't be better."
Du Junzhang awaited how things would unfold to determine his own end, while someone else desired a far more grand finale. Yu Zou understood that this gunshot was just the beginning of a race, a competition of lifespan. The key opened a box in Wangyuan Garden, inside which were backups of collected evidence and two fortune slips, one old and one new. He immediately recognized them as fortune slips from the Goddess Temple.
The new fortune slip reads: Why bother asking about right and wrong? The moon is half flawed and half radiant. The old fortune slip reads: Wildfire cannot burn it all; the spring breeze brings it back to life.
Yu Zou couldn't understand it, and when he asked Du Pianjian, he was also clueless. He simply took the note away among the evidence and handed it over to his lawyer to defend Du Junzhang. In fact, no matter what it was, even a blank piece of paper could be interpreted as his pitiful state and his innocence, confirming his status as a victim forced to resist. It could portray a widower who had lost his wife as helpless in the face of the person who had harmed his wife and was now targeting his child. This would guide public opinion towards sympathy, making everyone feel insecure in the same predicament. If a star musician could disappear overnight, what about an ordinary person?
The building was brightly lit day and night, and undercurrents were surging amidst the power struggles of various forces. The Tan Zhenjing incident was brought up for retrial. At this moment, Luo Zangrui took the initiative to sever ties with Luo Zangqi, stated that he would unconditionally cooperate with the police investigation, and expressed his infinite apologies to the victims in this matter.
As a result, the villa where Tan Zhenjing was imprisoned was exposed to the public.
Surprisingly, the last traces of activity in the villa dated back twelve years, meaning that Tan Zhenjing lived there for a period after her abduction. Her handwriting was found in the books in the study, her fingerprints on the harp in the music room, and her hair on the clothes in the bedroom. Public opinion shifted instantly, speculating that Tan Zhenjing might have fallen in love with Luo Zangqi, given the theory of Stockholm syndrome. However, the analysis of the bloodstains revealed that both Luo Zangqi and Tan Zhenjing's blood was present throughout the villa—on the edges of the wooden table, the bathroom tiles, and the stitches of the carpet—all indicating a bloody struggle between the two.
However, no matter how hard they searched, they could not find Tan Zhenjing's body.
And in this world, only the deceased Luo Zangqi knows.
"He's talking nonsense." He Honghan closed the news report, pushed her chair back to her desk, and frantically clicked the mouse a few times. The monitor flipped, displaying two videos side-by-side on the side facing Yu Zou. "He'll definitely retaliate. Who knows how much he loves this older brother. This micro-expression is clearly imitation. Besides anger, there's also a hint of relief. The mountain in front of him has finally collapsed, and he's now the head of the Luo family, or more accurately, he's now 'Luo Zangqi.' He might even arrest your wife and repeat what his older brother did."
Yu Zou couldn't discern anything, so he lowered his gaze to his phone. Yi Song's snowman icon was still white, signifying that everything was fine at home and Du Pianjian was safe. Ever since witnessing Du Junchang fire the gun, he could no longer stay in the orchestra, could no longer touch the instruments. Gunshots always reached his ears before music, and rumors spread before he saw them. He was suspended again and forced to stay at home.
The printer was running, and the papers were being dispensed in an orderly fashion. He Honghan straightened the papers, then looked at Yu Zou and said, "If you're so worried, why didn't you bring them to see me? It's easy to make a misdiagnosis just by listening to the patient's family's description."
“I told him he was very professional, and he said he didn’t want to see anyone, wouldn’t admit he was sick, smashed things, locked himself in his room and sulked.”
"I'll smash it then." He Honghan wrinkled his nose in disgust. As soon as he entered the room, he noticed that Yu Zou's left leg was a little weak when walking.
"I'm fine." Yu Zou smiled and reached for the information in He Honghan's hand, which was about the treatment plan for post-traumatic stress disorder based on his previous description.
“I don’t think so.” He Honghan slammed the documents into his hand, propped her head up with her right hand, narrowed her upturned phoenix eyes, and spoke more casually. “Quite a few couples come here to consult about relationship problems. The day before yesterday, I heard the most absurd couple I’ve ever seen in my medical career. One of them thought that if the other didn’t love him, then the other was sick. In short, all he could find fault with was that he didn’t want to separate. The other one was even more bizarre. He clearly didn’t love her, but he liked to play the love game with her and tolerate her bad temper.”
He Honghan paused, and Yu Zou, who had been looking at the documents, replied without looking up: "Um, and then."
“Just stay together, come to the doctor regularly, but it won’t change.” He Honghan leaned back in her chair, her hands crossed on her knees. “But enduring the hurt isn’t a solution. And then they ask me if we’re mentally compatible. I’m speechless. Does saying we’re compatible mean we’ll be together forever? Needing someone else’s approval is a problem in itself. At least I didn’t say it out loud for the sake of my license.”
Yu Zou laughed and said, "If I saw people like this every day, I wouldn't want to date either."
“I’m serious, Yu Zou, sometimes I’m really worried about you. Can you stop treating those dangerous things like a game?” Seeing that Yu Zou still didn’t take it seriously, He Hong kicked Yu Zou’s left leg, which made him look up from the papers in pain. Then she continued, “What you two are doing doesn’t even belong to the realm of romance. It’s like boiling a frog in lukewarm water. When the real knife comes out one day, you’ll still think you’re just playing around.”
The paper was crumpled into deep creases, which Yu Zou smoothed out. He gritted his teeth and took two deep breaths, saying, "Who do you think he is? He could kill me with just a little pheromone."
"Then the police will find out he did it," He Honghan said, spreading his hands.
Yu Zou also asked, "What good would it do to kill me?"
"Oh, if you can understand mental illness, then you're mentally ill yourself. Do you need a reason to hate someone?"
"You think he hates me?" Yu Zou's gaze froze on He Honghan's face. These words were like a pebble thrown into his burning heart, stirring not ripples, but a deathly silence.
He Honghan couldn't take it anymore and waved her hand, saying, "I, I was just talking nonsense. How could I know so much about your relationship?"
But this did not comfort Yu Zou. These words still pierced his heart. In the end, Du Pianjian had never said she liked him, nor had she shown any dislike for him. After marriage, she seemed to have taken up the job, meticulously fulfilling her duties as a wife except for intimate contact. She was loyal not to him as a person, but to the position.
It doesn't matter who comes.
The phone flashed twice, and on the screen, Yi Song was waving a letter; it was a message from Du Pianjian.
Yu Zou clicked on Yi Song, the letter opened, and she entered the chat box. The latest message read: When are you coming back?
In his reply, Yu Zou pointed to the paper on the table and said, "After some time, I'll find an opportunity to meet with him, and you can reassess whether he's gotten any better."
"I think he's completely cured and doesn't want to see me."
"You secretly observe from the shadows. In the end, I'll treat you to dinner."
He Honghan clenched his teeth, making a crisp sound, stretched, and moved back to his desk, pretending to work diligently. Although he didn't help, he still spent Yu Zou's money on expensive meals. But he still said, "Alright, alright, hurry up and leave. I think your mind is already on the door."
Yu Zou stood up, patted He Honghan on the shoulder, and walked out.
Holding the doorknob, Yu Zou mentally reviewed the treatment plan one last time before turning the doorknob and going inside.
Du Pianjian stood at the door, wearing a moon-white nightgown, his hand holding the phone hanging down. His handsome features were obscured by his dark hair, like a distant mountain shrouded in gloom. Even his voice seemed to come from a very far place: "I'm too lonely staying at home alone."
These words initially sounded to Yu Zou as, "You're my only family." However, they were then interpreted in various ways, each one potentially plausible, yet none seeming to be the correct answer.
Yu Zou walked over step by step and gently put his arm around him. Even his body temperature was so cold, as cold as jade. He whispered, "It'll be alright soon, your father will be fine. Once things are settled, you can still go to work."
It was as hard as jade. Yu Zou counted down in his mind, exactly ten seconds, no more, no less. Du Pianjian pushed him away and stepped back, looking down at her hands: "Can I still do it?"
Yu Zou clasped his hands together in his own palms, then released them ten seconds later: "Of course! I won't go to work tomorrow, I'll stay home with you."
"And the day after tomorrow?" Du Pianjian looked up at him, her eyes glistening with tears, which startled Yu Zou. He then asked, "And the day after tomorrow?"
"Do you want to come to work with me?" Yu Zou asked uncertainly.
The overall shape of the Yulong Building resembles a giant, precisely shaped metal ingot, spiraling upwards towards the sky. Each floor is slightly rotating, with all parties working in an orderly manner. The elevator opens at the top floor, and the walls along the way are lined with built-in display cases containing various models, which are Yulong's star products from construction to the present.
At the far end was Yu Zou's office. After a quick glance around, Du Pianjian ran her finger across the neatly categorized documents on the desk, walked to the panoramic floor-to-ceiling window, and asked, "Where's the secretary?"
Yu Zou sat down, began to look at the documents, and said, "I specifically told them not to show up."
"Why?" Du Pianjian placed his hand on the window, and shallow ripples spread out in circles, startling him so much that he immediately let go, and the glass returned to its original state.
“It’s inevitable to be tense when there are outsiders around. I want you to feel more at ease, and I also want to be alone with you.” After signing his name, Yu Zou pulled out the control panel on the table. A second later, the edge of the curtain wall flashed blue light, and the entire display screen went into standby mode.
Du Pianjian looked at it for a moment and asked, "Aren't you afraid of leaking trade secrets?"
“People outside can’t see.” Yu Zou walked behind Du Pianjian and patted his shoulder. “You don’t count.”
The projects Yulong is currently working on are listed in order of price from front to back. Du Pianjian pointed to the file in the middle marked "Aerial Garden". Yu Zou opened it remotely. There were five sub-files in the folder, only the first one, Tropical Rainforest, showed "Completed", while Glacier showed "In Progress".
Is the project progressing smoothly?
"Very soon, it's almost over. Do you want to see the real thing?" Yu Zou opened the compressed file in the document, and a 3D simulated glacier appeared, slowly rotating in front of the two of them, its eerie light shining on them.
Du Pianjian gently shook her head and said, "I can't understand it either."
He walked to the sofa, sat down, and picked up the magnetic cube on the coffee table. A few minutes later, an ocarina appeared in his hand. He wanted to play it but hesitated to put his lips down. Yu Zou took it from his hand and played a song called "Daughter's Love." The mournful sound was like the White Tiger Ridge where the White Bone Demon appeared at night.
Du Pianjian finally laughed. Yu Zou put the ocarina back in his hand and said, "Just listen to the sound."
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