Chapter 85 A Humble Man with a Jade Heart (11)
After a moment, she hesitated before speaking, "...Senior."
The person standing at the door was wearing a floral shirt with the collar wide open, revealing a full chest, broad shoulders, and a narrow waist, looking exactly like a classical mythological figure from an copperplate engraving.
Luxberia's golden hair shone brightly, with slightly curled ends and a playful tint, just like the principal's.
There are many people with golden hair in the Pines, but few have such pure gold hair as the Belial family.
Shi Yu's hair color is a light gold with gray undertones, while Arcia's blonde hair is more dry and dull.
This person's hair was a brilliant, golden color, exactly the same as the blonde hair in Principal Edwina's portrait, and even their facial features bore a striking resemblance.
His handsomeness was somewhat similar to his father's, but he looked more like his ancestor Edwina than his father, Aloberia.
What is this? Is it skipping generations or inheriting the same traits?
Lux took a step back with his arms crossed, glanced at the doorplate, and raised an eyebrow, saying, "You're not Weston, are you?"
Shu Ningmiao slammed the homework shut and calmly said, "I'm a student here to do volunteer work."
She was confident that she wouldn't be exposed. Even if this person told Weston, she and Weston were now bound together, and Weston would cover for her.
The young man slightly raised his body, revealing a pair of amorous peach blossom eyes beneath his sword-like eyebrows. He stared at her for a while before suddenly speaking: "I know you. You are Shu Ningmiao."
She put away what she was holding, stood in front of him, and gave a very slight bow: "So you knew me, senior."
"Don't you know me too, junior? We upperclassmen also watch the recordings of your superpower practice. You're excellent."
The management of students in both grades at String Light Academy is very strict, and it is well known that people with superpowers are difficult to manage and prone to getting out of control.
Cornunos discouraged students from different grades from interacting with each other to avoid causing trouble, and even their class times were basically staggered.
The tradition of upperclassmen secretly watching videos of superpower practices probably stems from the mentality of "you won't have it easy either, just like I have."
Lux straightened up, laughed heartily, and his golden hair curled up unruly: "But soon you won't be able to call me senior anymore."
She already knew about this; wasn't she just coming to replace Yelü Qi as his teacher?
Shu Ningmiao nodded perfunctorily.
Lux swept his blond hair back, revealing his full forehead, and a dazzling smile played on his lips, like a lion shaking its mane.
He was quite refined in his speech and manners.
Shu Ningmiao still felt a chill when she sensed an unparalleled confidence emanating from him.
The blond youth exuded an undeniable charisma and desire for self-expression, constantly radiating an aggressive aura.
Shu Ningmiao felt a little nauseous, but the thought that someone else would be even more upset than her made her feel a bit more at ease.
She could already imagine how furious Weston must be, spending all his time with someone like that.
His slightly wavy blond hair and his almond-shaped eyes stared directly at her, as if he were pondering something. Although he seemed unserious, he hadn't forgotten his business: "Did you hear anything just now?"
Shu Ningmiao braced herself and cautiously replied, "Just now... there seemed to be a loud bang. I didn't pay attention, but did something fall in another office?"
After thinking for a moment, she realized that the sound Lux was pointing to was probably the sound of her falling to the ground.
“I came up here after hearing that noise.” Lux said, hands in his pockets and legs pressed against the doorframe. “I was just passing by.”
Could he hear that brief, muffled thud even from beneath the Zhunti Pagoda?
That's an overly acute sense.
Do you know which direction the sound is coming from?
Lux strolled to his office next door, paused at the doorway, and touched the luxurious decorations with satisfaction: "I told the old man before that this place has been in disrepair for years and should have been rebuilt long ago."
Shu Ningmiao cleared her throat, an idea popped into her head, and walked to the closed principal's office next door. She pointed to the door and said, "The sound is quite close, it seems to be around here."
"Is this the room?" Lux stared at the door in thought for a moment before suddenly remembering, "The one the old man said we couldn't go in?"
His eyes lit up, and he casually pushed the door open to go in.
She had already broken the lock, so there was naturally no resistance.
Lux walked in with ease.
Shu Ningmiao slowly backed away behind him, ready to run away at any moment. Lux looked around, turned back to her with a calm expression, and said, "It's nothing, something may have spontaneously combusted."
She calmly withdrew her step.
Looking from behind him, there were no more flames in the room, but there was still thick smoke. Everything in the room had been burned to ashes, and the four walls were charcoal black, with ash falling down.
All the furnishings inside were burned to the ground, leaving no trace, except for a layer of ash on the floor that was almost up to the soles of shoes.
Shu Ning's palms were sweating slightly.
Only the portrait hanging on the wall was not completely burned, but it was half blackened by smoke and covered with a layer of ash.
Everything, every trace, has disappeared.
Fortunately, she produced that file folder.
Lux suddenly exclaimed with delight, "That's great!"
Shu Ningmiao turned her head blankly: "...?"
"There's nothing left inside, so we can rebuild now."
Lux was pleased: "I have a place to put my small combat simulation system."
Shu Ningmiao found it hard to believe that, faced with this ruin, the first thing this person thought of was his training room.
To put it more broadly, Zhuntita belongs to the Belial family, and the items displayed in this principal's office are relics of his direct great-grandfather.
Principal Aloberia would be absolutely furious if he saw this.
Shu Ningmiao looked at the only surviving portrait: "That looks like a portrait of Principal Edwina."
“You know that too?” Lux was completely unaware of what she was trying to say: “This is my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.”
He picked up the terminal, gestured to Shu Ningmiao to excuse himself, and lowered his voice: "It's been over three hundred years—if you don't build a fireproof wooden structure, it will catch fire sooner or later. This time it's fortunate that only one room burned down, but it would be bad if it affected the students next time."
Shu Ningmiao's carefully prepared explanation was rendered useless, because Lux never doubted her from beginning to end.
Although she had no motive to set the building on fire, she was the only person on that floor. Did Lux not even ask her anything?
Lux finished his call while leaning against the corridor railing, then shrugged and spread his hands, saying to her, "I knew the old man would just talk nonsense all day long."
Shu Ningmiao looked at him with a question in her eyes.
"This dilapidated room has been around for hundreds of years and has never been opened."
Lux said, "The old man said that this is the remaining will of my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. It's ridiculous, isn't it? Their so-called will is because they haven't been able to open this door for the past hundred years."
Shu Ningmiao's pupils constricted, and she looked at him in disbelief: "Can't you pick the lock?"
No wonder Lux wanted to open up this room, and the first thing he thought of was to break down the wall.
—She was clearly a prime suspect, but Lux would rather say the house spontaneously combusted than suspect her.
"Physical locks are easy to pick, but some locks are not so easy to pick."
"Is it... a superpower?"
"Who knows?"
Lux tapped his chin with his fingertip, a slight smile playing on his lips: “But I say, even if it’s the will of my great-great-great-great-grandmother, it should have become invalid after all these years. Isn’t it easy to open? Just scorch it with fire and it will open on its own.”
This wasn't boiled by fire.
Shu Ningmiao felt increasingly that things were strange, but if she wanted to understand everything, she was forced to keep moving forward.
She gave Lux a vague reply, made up an excuse, went back, packed her bag, and left Zhunti Pagoda.
There was only one file folder in her backpack, but it was incredibly heavy. Shu Ningmiao ran back to her dormitory in one breath and locked the door.
She carefully pulled out the folder and quickly flipped through it from beginning to end. It contained far more than she had expected, with all sorts of things: handwritten letters, photos, printed text, and some drawings that looked like medical records and heart rate monitoring charts.
Shu Ningmiao turned to the first page and translated it word by word from the ancient Pinhian text.
The content was difficult and obscure, containing a large amount of classical grammar and foreign languages, making it hard to translate. Many of the foreign languages in it are now extinct in their respective countries. Shu Ningmiao could only search and compare the content using her terminal.
The further she looked, the more alarmed she became.
The first sheet added to the file was titled "Discussion on the Report Regarding the Death of Agent No. 01, Manla".
This is just meeting minutes; the text is mostly colloquial and easy to translate. Even if Shu Ningmiao ignores the unfamiliar words, she can still understand the meaning.
The most important information in this document is that the meeting minutes, stamped with a seal across the seam, use the proper term "Mandela disease".
Wei Shengqianheng told her that only the unattended patients in Xindi dared to use the foreign word "Mandala" from Pandora's Intoli to refer to this disease.
However, this formally formatted document clearly states the term "Manla disease".
In other words, Pinhes already clearly understood this disease three hundred years ago and named it.
—Yet today, they are still nonchalantly covering it up, trying to erase the name of this disease.
She flipped through the documents, each one more shocking than the last.
"Comparative Data on the Impact of Manla on Human Genes", "Anatomical Reports of Different Stages of Manla Disease"...
Any document released now would cause a huge uproar and could even shake the world.
Why would Edwina, a successful businesswoman and educator who withdrew from the administration, obtain these confidential documents?
She flipped through the tucked-in letters, and many photos fell out.
Most of the photos above are of two people together.
Shu Ningmiao picked up a random one.
The photo shows a spirited Edwina in combat gear, sporting an unusually short blond buzz cut, making an obscene gesture at the camera.
Beside her was a baby-faced boy with youthful features but a mature expression. He was shorter than Edvina and had snow-white hair, eyes, and eyelashes.
The boy was wearing a white overcoat, buttoned all the way up, making him look like a pile of snow, but he held both hands up next to his face in a peace sign.
Shu Ningmiao turned the photo over, and on the back was Edvina's familiar scribbles.
I, Lanxi—
The handwriting was hurried and clumsy, and the pen tip broke off at the edge of the photographic paper. Only then did Shu Ningmiao notice that the left side of the photographic paper was slightly fuzzy.
She rubbed the photographic paper on both sides with her fingertips a few times, and it wasn't her imagination; the texture was indeed different.
The photo had been cropped; there was another person next to the white-haired boy, whose name had also been cut off.
But she could already deduce that the white-haired, baby-faced boy in the photo was the one who left the hidden inscription on the sculpture at the National Research Center and also drew a portrait of Edvina—"Lanxi".
Such a person left no trace in Pinheis's history.
Even after searching through all the artists of Edwina's time, she found no clues related to the name "Lanxi".
Shu Ningmiao examined the photo for a while, then laid out all of Edvina's letters. Before she had even looked at a few, she slowly frowned.
All the letters Edwina kept were from the same person she had sent herself.
Every letter begins with Lanxi and ends with your loyal friend, Edwina.
There were a total of 226 sheets of paper. She checked them one by one, and they were all in the same format. There wasn't a single reply from anyone else.
This is against common sense. Who can keep every single letter they send out?
Unless she didn't send it at all and was just talking to herself.
But looking at the content of each letter, they seem to correspond to each other, and they don't seem to be letters that were never sent.
Shu Ningmiao put aside this strange doubt and focused on reading the letters one by one—the contents of the letters were easier to understand than those reports and data full of technical terms.
The letter was filled with dense writing, covering every detail, and it answered her questions better than any reports.
Edwina and Lanxi were among the first generation of users. After the war of resistance by the superpowered, the new Pinheid government was busy rebuilding internal order, and the users did not play a significant role.
The superhumans who participated in the war gradually left the ranks of the exorcists and began to do other things.
Edwina has a natural talent for business, and her business has grown bigger and bigger.
After Lanxi left the Envoy, the organization established the First National Research Center, dedicated to the study of Pandora, also known as Manra.
Shu Ningmiao belatedly realized that most of the documents in this folder used "Manda" to refer to Pandora, and the word "Pandora" only appeared later in the letters.
Every textbook in Pine states that Pine was the first place to discover Pandora. Pine is a divinely granted land, and after evaluation by various experts, the liquid gushing from the depths of the planet was named "Pandora".
However, from this folder, the time gap between the change from "Mangala" to "Pandora" is clearly visible.
From the letter, she also learned who the person who had been cut out of the photo was.
It refers to Agent No. 01 in the report "Discussion on the Death of Agent No. 01 Manla" on the first page of the folder.
Edwina mentioned this person's illness many times in her early letters, and her concern grew with each letter.
Shu Ningmiao picked out these few pages and arranged them separately from the content about Agent No. 01 and Manla Disease.
January 28, 293
...His temper is getting worse and worse, even worse than mine! I can't stand him anymore. He gets sick, does he think he's something special? Lanxi, come back quickly! Come and take care of this great hero.
March 21, 293
Is his illness really incurable? What is Manla disease, and can you cure it? I visited him this morning and saw the nurse draw out a large tube of black blood; it was truly terrifying.
May 1, 293
I miss you. When are you coming back?
I heard from the doctor that this disease is only common in ordinary people who are exposed to waste for a long time. So far, no one with superpowers has had a similar case. He's really unlucky... What have you been busy with out there? Why haven't you come back yet? His face is covered in black spots today, and there's a festering sore on the back of his hand. I don't dare to cry in front of him. I just feel that it's unfair. He hasn't done anything immoral. How could he be so unlucky?
That's so unfair.
July 11, 293
You might as well die out there, and never come back to Phineas.
This guy is practically a zombie and he still gets angry with me. Also, he went crazy and cut up all the parts of the photos of himself.
Never mind, he couldn't handle the change, I forgive him. I don't want the photos anymore; cut-up photos are unlucky. I'll send them to you with this letter.
December 12, 293
Have you found the solution you mentioned? I think you're afraid to come see him because you can't find a solution.
All the doctors said it was irreversible, and everyone had resigned themselves to it. "Come back."
By the way, the muscles in his stomach had dissolved, and it was the first time I'd seen his intestines, but I didn't dare take a picture, afraid he'd get angry.
...
There was a year-long gap in the correspondence, during which Lanxi probably did return to Penelope, and the two stopped communicating by letter.
The next letter was sent a year later in 294, and the content became filled with daily trivialities and complaints. The situation of the No. 01 superhuman was only mentioned every few letters.
Despite his muscles dissolving and his skin rotting, the superhuman was still struggling to survive.
The letter dated August 7, 303, is the shortest of all the letters, as it contains only one sentence.
August 7, 303
He finally died.
To the uninformed, this might seem like gloating at first glance, but as Shu Ningmiao read through the letters one by one, she understood that the tone carried a hint of bittersweet relief.
He was finally able to die.
This long ordeal lasted for a full ten years.
Thanks to the superhuman's superior physical abilities, this torture was magnified infinitely. They could clearly see their bodies rotting and turning black, watching their flesh peel away bit by bit, enduring the pain and being unable to move.
But for a full ten years, this person never gave up the desire to live.
From then on, Edvina and Lanxi corresponded less frequently and over longer periods, with a single letter often being several years apart.
By the time Shu Ningmiao read the last letter, it was almost dawn.
In this letter, Edwina's tone was no longer as boisterous as it had been in her youth; it was much more composed and distant, and the signature had changed from "Your loyal friend" to a simple and indifferent name.
The letter was written in a polite and elaborate style: I heard you are going to Pingyi. I wish you success in your work. I am in good health. Thank you for the painting; I have hung it in my office.
—You painted me too young, and him too ugly, but you yourself will always look the same.
Despite being a polite and distant reply, Edwina seemed unable to contain her true nature as she wrote the last sentence, which contained a bit of barbs:
After all these years of research, I wonder what results you've achieved?
This letter, revealing its true intentions and carrying a hidden barb, became the last letter.
After reading the letters, Shu Ningmiao silently folded them all and put them away, then noticed a piece of paper on the table that she had never seen before.
The paper is newer than the other letter paper.
The above is still Edwina's handwriting, and the first sentence is written in a messy hand:
—I don't know who you are, but the fact that you received this letter means you also received the folder I left in my office.
Shu Ningmiao's drowsy mind was suddenly jolted awake, and she continued reading following the sentence.
—My friend Lanxi sent this document to me in Pines in 347 BC, and then disappeared without a trace.
He probably hoped I could do something with this document.
However, in 344, after a vote by the National Union, Pinheis decided to completely abolish the old name "Mandala" and change it to Pandora.
Because "Manla disease" has few patients and no possibility of cure, it is not conducive to subsequent publicity and social stability. Therefore, it is being treated on a small scale, all research projects are being withdrawn, and funding for each project is being cancelled.
As I write this letter, I already have three grown children, and even my grandchildren are already a month old.
I can't bring myself to give up everything, drag my family down, and do what he wants me to do.
Please forgive my disloyal and cowardly friend.
My superpower is the "Golden Chain".
The chains conjured by my supernatural powers can wrap around any object. I used my powers to lock this room and the things in this drawer.
The only condition to unlock the 'lock' is one that is absolutely impossible to achieve.
But if someone can open this door and get this letter, then please feel free to take this document.
I don't mind you watching my despicable behavior; it's all up to you to decide.
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