CH 261

Lin Chen returned to the room to find a spare phone to replace the one he was currently using, and he handed the latter to Wang Chao for further research.

Xing Conglian didn’t get up, allowing Lin Chen to enter the room alone.

After closing the door, Wang Chao put down the pretense of typing on the keyboard and looked at him with a worried expression. “Is A’Chen Gege really okay now?”

Xing Conglian didn’t answer immediately.

Even Wang Chao could tell that something was off with Lin Chen. How could Xing Conglian not notice it?

From the beginning of their meeting, he could sense that Lin Chen was in a hurry, whether it was his urgency in talking to him in the car or the matter he entrusted to him regarding the text message.

Lin Chen now felt like a timed bomb that could explode at any moment. The more relaxed he appeared on the surface, the less one knew when the bomb’s timer would reach its designated point.

“What do you think?” Xing Conglian asked him.

“I don’t know, but I just feel that A’Chen Gege recovered too quickly. Is there anything else he needs to check?”

“Do you think he would be willing to go back to the hospital?”

Wang Chao whispered, “Damn it, Boss. As a man, he’s already slept through it all. You need to have some courage!”

Xing Conglian, for the first time, patted Wang Chao’s head. The young man’s hair was light and soft. He silently stood up and walked to the doorway.

When he opened the door, he found that Lin Chen didn’t appear to be anxiously rummaging through things, as he had expected.

Lin Chen sat quietly on the empty bed board, gazing at the sunny blue sky outside the window, so quiet that it seemed excessive.

The anticipated side effects of the medication seemed to have taken Lin Chen to another extreme.

Xing Conglian walked over slowly, and his shadow was outlined on the floor in the sunlight.

Lin Chen didn’t instinctively turn to look at him. He resembled a mannequin in a shop window, pure white and flawless, yet in that moment, he seemed to be immersed in a strange space known only to himself.

There were two phones on the bedside table, with the SIM cards removed but not inserted, just placed there. Lin Chen had clearly stopped working on them midway through.

Xing Conglian sat down beside him, and the empty bed board made a creaking sound.

Only then did Lin Chen slowly turn his head back, and a faint gleam flashed in his deep black eyes. He smiled at him.

Before Lin Chen could greet him, Xing Conglian spoke on his own. “The way you are now reminds me of someone.”

Lin Chen looked at him in surprise, not expecting him to use this as an opening line.

“Who?”

“My grandmother.”

As he spoke, Xing Conglian lay horizontally on the empty bed board, leaving Lin Chen sitting there in a daze.

He patted the empty space beside him and then reached out to hook Lin Chen’s shoulder, pulling him down.

With his unsteady balance, Lin Chen fell onto him, and Xing Conglian naturally held onto his waist, forcing him to stay on top of him.

After a while, Lin Chen’s body finally softened, returning to the same level of tenderness they had when they embraced in the car.

“What happened to your grandmother?” Lin Chen asked.

“Baby, you’re ruining the mood.” Xing Conglian kissed the top of his head and spoke slowly. “My grandmother was a strong woman with a warrior bloodline. She hunts bears in the summer and takes vodka baths in the winter.”

“The Tsar’s princess is extraordinary.” Lin Chen said.

Xing Conglian laughed, feeling that lying on the bare bed board, embracing Lin Chen, and not saying or doing anything else, was already more than enough. “It’s not that exaggerated. My grandmother isn’t from a prestigious family. She’s just an ordinary, beautiful girl from a warrior tribe.”

“That’s good. It’s good to have traditions.” Lin Chen said.

“What traditions?” Xing Conglian asked with a smile.

“After all, not all prestigious families would marry commoners. Your family has this tradition, and I feel relieved…” Lin Chen paused suddenly.

He seemed to be afraid that it was inappropriate to bring up the topic of marriage with Xing Conglian so abruptly, but he also felt that further explanation and elaboration would be inappropriate.

In that momentary pause, Xing Conglian had already perceived something. “Didn’t we agree to be willful?” He helplessly held Lin Chen tighter. “You can just say it now: Xing Conglian, marry me, and I would even agree without a diamond ring.”

“No, we still need to buy the diamond ring,” Lin Chen said. “We both need to contribute to the down payment for the house, take out a loan to slowly repay it, so we won’t buy a car. Since you have one, let’s save some money.”

Lin Chen’s tone of voice sounded old-fashioned, and Xing Conglian loved it.

It made him think that they had so much time before to talk and share about love and express their feelings, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it.

Now, even stealing moments to embrace each other felt precious, and every second was so sweet that it made him overwhelmed.

He put his hand behind his head, rested his head on it, and told Lin Chen, “The old man you saw earlier is a friend of the family. I asked him for a favor.”

“What favor?”

“I asked him to help me buy Zhourui Pharmaceutical.”

This news was too shocking, and Lin Chen struggled to sit up. Xing Conglian wouldn’t let him have his way and instead held onto Lin Chen’s waist like a pair of iron pliers. “Don’t move. What do you think you’re doing? I won’t let you go out.”

“I need to ask for help from online friends with my phone.” Lin Chen’s voice sounded gentle, tinged with a hint of worry. “My wife loves shopping too much; what should I do? Urgently waiting online.”

“I thought you would ask why. You’re always so clever. How can I trap you?” Xing Conglian blinked, rubbing Lin Chen’s head. “Originally, I was imagining something like Su Fengzi, to ruthlessly retaliate against Zhourui and dismantle them completely. Because if they weren’t so foolish, you wouldn’t have to suffer like this, and we would probably have already resolved these matters and be looking at the voyage of The Rose May.”

“The name sounds like your family’s ship. Instead of looking at the voyage schedule, why not just come and pick us up?” Lin Chen patted his chest, speaking in a tone of “that’s settled then.”

“But that’s impossible.” Xing Conglian dragged out his tone. “Hongjing isn’t by the sea.”

“Yeah, it’s impossible.”

Lin Chen’s tone was calm, but he stopped there, waiting for him to continue. However, it was apparent that their notions of impossibility didn’t stem from the same reason.

Xing Conglian continued to recall the retaliatory meeting earlier. He didn’t have the intention of coaxing Lin Chen to be happy. To be honest, he was quite adept at such things.

He didn’t have to say or do anything, and he could still make Zhourui’s situation chaotic, and then deliver a final blow, causing the entire building to collapse and crumble.

But as he gradually approached his intended goal, he felt that perhaps this wasn’t entirely correct. A vague clue seemed to connect everything together.

Shen Lian couldn’t be alone, and she couldn’t have independently developed a drug like TERN, with such clear and powerful contrasting effects. Behind her was a hidden plan spanning over a decade, with countless people secretly cooperating.

Everything could be summed up in one word: “Why?”

To induce social unrest with drugs, to turn healthy elderly into psychiatric patients, to destroy countless happy families?

These were all reasons, of course, but they were all insufficient.

Xing Conglian still didn’t know why all of this was happening, just like how Lin Chen didn’t fully understand why Shen Lian had to actively seek death at the hands of the police.

Some vague intuition told him that they had experienced similar things before, and what they needed to do was stand in the immense shadow cast by the puppet master behind the scenes, waiting for the other side to reveal a vulnerability, and then strike back.

However, the existence of a puppet master behind the scenes was merely a hypothesis.

To verify this hypothesis, he asked Chairman Zhou two questions and received concrete answers.

Zhourui did indeed receive a blackmail email. Although they didn’t know who sent the email, the sender clearly knew that they were covering up the adverse reactions of the Nao Kangning drug and using it to manipulate them.

After paying the bribe, Zhourui Pharmaceutical received the exact video of a murder at an amusement park.

In the blurry cellphone recording, it captured the moment when Shen Lian assassinated Tan Kang. Although the perpetrator wore sunglasses and pulled up their collar high, disguising themselves as a man, there was a moment when they turned their head, revealing a resemblance to Shen Lian.

The email provided related clues, pointing the finger at Shen Lian.

The email contained subtle hints that led Zhourui to believe that the sender was the captain of the Criminal Investigation Team in Hongjing.

However, later on, negotiations between Zhourui and “him” reached a breaking point. Zhourui took preemptive action, bravely severing ties before “he” could expose everything and accused him of forced extortion.

Then, the grand operation to besiege Shen Lian began.

The most interesting game was always the one that quietly began, observing the fight between tigers and benefiting from it.

But Shen Lian didn’t follow the planned script and died. Just like in Shen Lian’s plan, Duan Yang didn’t die, and the deceased became Duan Wanshan.

The plot took an uncontrollable path as a result.

In that email, there was obviously a hidden foreshadowing. The sender hoped that Xing Conglian would become angry and retaliate fiercely against Zhourui after being bitten by them. But Xing Conglian couldn’t do that.

When sitting in that meeting room, Xing Conglian felt countless times that Lin Chen was right beside him.

He despised Zhourui, and that was only natural. However, as he looked at the scientists standing up one by one, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better choice than just watching the largest domestic pharmaceutical company go bankrupt.

Clearly, there was.

Money was truly good.

Xing Conglian felt this countless times.

While he spoke, Lin Chen leaned quietly against him, so silent that Xing Conglian thought he found the story boring, and Lin Chen had fallen asleep.

However, when he stopped, Lin Chen fittingly continued, “I understand. This is probably one of the purposes of this message.”

“Yes.”

“The sender hopes that this message will divert our attention from Zhourui Pharmaceutical and quickly move us into the next stage they have predetermined.” Lin Chen paused, then said, “But they probably don’t know that, firstly, you don’t have the habit of checking my phone, and secondly, something unexpected happened last night, resulting in a time gap. So, as the saying goes…” Lin Chen spoke lightly with a calm voice. “Those who attempt to manipulate fate will eventually be controlled by fate.”

Every word Lin Chen said made sense.

“Uh…” Xing Conglian paused, feeling somewhat guilty. “But actually…”