Chapter 108
Chapter 108
A torrential downpour began outside the window. Occasionally, lightning tore across the night sky, its momentary brilliance spilling over the earth and driving back the darkness for a single instant.
Rotting white bones raised their arms high, as if burdened with grievances they had nowhere to voice.
The female ghost holding the infant had hatred in her eyes and fury in her chest, yet nowhere to vent it.
The old man leaning on his cane had died with his eyes open, his heart clinging to someone beloved, yet his mind remained muddled and lost…
Qiao Yu stood high above, quietly watching the white hem of a skirt sway in the wind from the tree outside the window.
And behind him, the person there used the silver chain as the boundary of his sweep, cutting down gods if gods stood in his way and Buddhas if Buddhas blocked his path, carving out a pure, untouched space for him.
That chain seemed to have been granted the power of destruction. Wisps of black energy coiled around it, lashing every clamoring Ghost until it was reduced to ash and scattered into nothing…
-Now that is a savage.
-Damn it, I just want to know why the Soul-Hooking Chain is in his hands!!!
-Heh. He hasn’t even taken out the Judge’s Pen or the Soul-Departing Fan yet. I’m starting to suspect he’s the Live Stream Room’s biological son.
-Come on. If he really were its biological son, would he have been tormented that badly before becoming a Red Name?
-True. It does feel like ever since the Live Stream Room became a no-man’s-land, he’s been cheating his way straight to the top.
-Painted Skin: Sigh, honestly, he’s still pretty good to baby qy…
-Sadako: Come, offer your blessings with us.
-Painted Skin: No blessings. Our baby qy’s journey is among the stars and seas. I’m going to go find him a few more men.
Absolutely not. One was already more than he could handle.
At that thought, Qiao Yu had no choice but to admire those people who could juggle two, three, four, five, or six lovers at once.
As if having a white moonlight in their heart and a cinnabar mole on their mind wasn’t enough, the moment inspiration struck… nail fungus, superglue, they couldn’t let go of any of them.
Wasn’t that exhausting?
In any case, he did not want to suffer through that.
He could barely withstand one little demon already. If another little green tea or little white lotus came along, he might as well drop dead on the spot.
Qiao Yu hurriedly snuffed out the dangerous thoughts in his mind and swallowed in terror.
His gaze swept over the comments rapidly scrolling upward, then he glanced at the person behind him and asked in a low voice, “Was Shang Yan really miserable before he became a Red Name Streamer?”
-Painted Skin: …So after everything we said, that’s the only part you care about?
-Li Xiaoqin: Hahahaha, love brain~
-Amazing. With a love brain like that, even zombies wouldn’t eat him.
-Sadako: Don’t you dare call our gie gie love-brained. He’s super career-driven, okay? Could you go from janitor to intern doctor in three days?
-I could not. Sorry. I’ll see myself out…
Just as the corridor grew quiet again, the blurry, indistinct scene became more and more solid, almost to the point where it could pass for reality.
The moment it reached a critical point, the overlapping images switched places. The original objects began to blur, gradually being replaced…
“What’s going on?” Qiao Yu rubbed his eyes, extremely surprised.
Shang Yan did not answer. Instead, he looked at the tightly shut doors on both sides, a thoughtful look flashing through his eyes.
Qiao Yu looked at the tile floor that had turned white again, walked through the silent corridor, and finally stopped in front of the director’s office.
He tentatively knocked on the door.
It was completely silent inside. There was no sound.
He glanced at Shang Yan. Seeing that the other man had returned to his usual lazy posture, Qiao Yu closed his mouth, took out the Small Wire, and prepared to explore on his own.
With a click, the door was easily twisted open. Qiao Yu was just about to walk in when Shang Yan stopped him.
“Hm?” Was he worried about an instant kill the moment the door opened?
But Qiao Yu wasn’t too concerned. As long as he braced himself, his head would stay attached.
“Wait a moment.”
Shang Yan slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his amber pupils had become somewhat different. They seemed unfocused, veiled by a faint mist.
At that very moment, a sudden snap came from inside the open doorway.
The arm blocking his chest lowered. Qiao Yu craned his neck to look, and a scorched smell drifted out of the room.
He looked toward the source of the smell and caught sight of the security camera in the corner, now emitting white smoke.
Qiao Yu: “…Are you even human?”
Was that something a normal person could do?!
Shang Yan was speechless. “I’ve realized you’re not just a little bit of a chatterbox. A perfectly normal question, and you make it sound like an insult.”
Qiao Yu shrugged and reached out to flip the switch on the wall.
Compared to the gloomy, terrifying door-opening jump scare he’d imagined, this place was so normal it hardly felt like it belonged in a horror Instance.
Qiao Yu walked forward, looked over the messy desk, then picked up the group photo sitting beside the computer.
In the photo, the man wore a white coat and held tightly to the hand of a young boy beside him. The two stood on the hospital lawn, bathed in sunlight, looking peaceful and untouched by time.
Then he looked at the medical experiment reports scattered across the desk and casually picked one up.
Clone: Requires live genes in order to clone. Newly formed clones have no hair anywhere on their bodies. A psychologist is required to pair them with intensive indoctrination-style learning to accelerate growth.
Note: The test subject’s self-protection mechanism under stressful conditions may affect the success rate of cloning.
Risk: No issues are visible in the short term, but forcibly implanted memories may conflict with the original self.
The signature at the bottom read: Zhou Wenshu.
Qiao Yu rubbed the tip of his nose and guessed, “Could this Zhou Wenshu be Director Zhou?”
He set down the experiment report, but still felt like something was off.
A laptop lay open on the desk, and the screen wasn’t password-protected.
There was a medical records folder inside, simple and straightforward.
Case One
Name: Zhong Hongyuan
Gender: Male
Age: 41
Diagnosed with AIDS. Discharged after postoperative recovery.
Case Two
Name: Diao Deyi
Gender: Male
Age: 49
Diagnosed with a malignant tumor. Discharged after postoperative recovery.
Case Three
Name: Lu Shanshan
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Diagnosed with congenital heart disease. Currently in postoperative recovery.
Case Four
Name: Tang Wen
Gender: Male
Age: 63
Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Discharged after postoperative recovery.
There were four medical records. Aside from the illnesses and basic personal information, the most glaringly out-of-place thing was that the computer actually had a graphics program called PS installed.
When Qiao Yu opened it, the first thing that appeared was an invitation image.
File name: Yuanyang Consortium Banquet Invitation Original.jpg
The image had a black background, with bright golden borders set around the edges.
He clicked through the layers below one by one. They were different fonts.
State Banquet Three Courses…
There was also a time. Five hours from now.
Yuanyang Consortium??
Qiao Yu narrowed his eyes, unable to figure out the connection.
“I know this person,” Shang Yan suddenly said from beside him, pointing at a name list on the right side of the screen.
Qiao Yu raised an eyebrow. “Who’s this?”
“He has some business dealings with my family, but I heard his private life is pretty messy.”
Curious, Qiao Yu pressed, “Messy how?”
Shang Yan gave him a helpless look, but still patiently said, “I heard he keeps several lovers outside, and he has a whole pile of illegitimate children. They sprout up like bamboo shoots after rain, scattered all over Yan City.”
Hearing that, Qiao Yu looked at Shang Yan with sympathy. “Sure enough, even young masters from rich families like yours don’t have it easy, huh?”
“Are you saying my dad has illegitimate children out there too?”
Qiao Yu just looked at him, as if to say, You should probably go home and check.
Shang Yan, however, gave a derisive laugh. “Don’t worry. He wouldn’t dare. My mom has a black belt in taekwondo.”
“…Auntie is that powerful?”
Shang Yan shrugged. “I’ve been getting beaten by her since I was little.”
Qiao Yu covered his mouth and gasped. “Whoa. With a face like yours, she could actually bring herself to hit you? I kind of want to become her disciple.”
Shang Yan: ??
Disciple of what? Absolutely not!