Good fortune, like an invisible stream, flowed silently around Feng Qian, nourishing this golden fortress buried deep underground.
Supplies always seemed to "extra" unexpectedly, broken equipment always seemed to "find a way out" when all seemed lost, and even the few potted ornamental plants that Liu Man had carefully tended but were always sickly miraculously came back to life and bloomed with beautiful flowers after Feng Qian casually helped water them and spilled the nutrient solution.
"Brother Feng! You're our mascot!" Every time Xiao Zhang from the supplies department sees Feng Qian, he pats him on the shoulder with a big smile.
"Old Feng, you'll have to come with our team next time we inspect the equipment!" said Old Li, the maintenance team leader, half-jokingly and half-seriously.
Even Liu Man looked at Feng Qian with a more sincere smile and affection, "Brother Feng, come visit me more often when you have time. It feels like the air is fresher when you're here." She personally brought Feng Qian a cup of freshly brewed coffee.
Grandpa Cheng Yuanshan rarely put down his teapot, his voice low but clear. "Little Feng, you are truly blessed." Although it was just a simple comment, it made everyone else in the living room, including Cheng Linzhou who was reading a report, turn their heads slightly.
Feng Qian was enveloped in an unprecedented warmth, becoming an indispensable "lucky star" in this doomsday fortress. This feeling of being needed and valued did not dispel the unease and doubt deep in his heart.
It's ironic that someone would feel anxious about being too lucky.
In fact, not only Feng Qian felt something was wrong, but Cheng Linzhou also noticed something strange.
Some minor problems didn't require Feng Qian's "luck" at all; the technicians could have solved them themselves. But in the end, they were still resolved by Feng Qian's "luck" by sheer chance.
As time went on, Feng Qian's reputation grew, but Cheng Linzhou's mood worsened.
While everyone gathered around Feng Qian, beaming with relief at yet another stroke of "luck," Cheng Linzhou would simply stand in front of the massive screen in the control room, silently watching the boundless, slow, yet unstoppable nothingness engulfing everything outside.
His sharp gaze swept over the key data points that had been "accidentally" resolved thanks to Feng Qian, over the almost perfectly stable green indicators on the screen representing the safe house's status, and finally, it would thoughtfully land on the figure surrounded by goodwill in the crowd.
Cheng Linzhou's eyes held a scrutinizing glint, like an undercurrent beneath a layer of ice.
After a long silence, Cheng Linzhou picked up the encrypted communicator and issued the command in a low voice, "Retrieve surveillance footage from all public areas in Zone A for the past week, focusing on marking Feng Qian's location and any 'abnormal' events that occurred before and after that time."
Beneath the calm surface, undercurrents began to stir.
The initial crack was so small that it was almost Neglect.
It happened after a routine structural stress check of the safe house. A team responsible for field maintenance (limited to the outermost area of the safe house where people could stay for short periods) reported finding an extremely small, almost invisible damp spot at a joint of a high-purity gold-sealed pipe near the main load-bearing structure in the northwest corner.
"Director Cheng, it's very minor. Could it be condensation? Or... residual moisture from our installation?" The maintenance team leader's voice was uncertain over the comms. "We've wiped it repeatedly and marked it, but there's no sign of it spreading."
Gold pipes? Condensate? Under conditions of constant temperature and humidity inside the safe house, and with the pipes themselves possessing robust self-cleaning and sealing designs? This report, like a tiny thorn, pierced Cheng Linzhou's mind. He didn't immediately respond, but simply ordered, "Closely monitor all parameter changes at this location, reporting hourly. Analyze possible sources."
A few days later, even more disturbing news came from the Equipment Department. A top-level protective suit, which was kept in an absolutely sealed inert gas protective chamber, was found to have extremely slight, non-natural attenuation damage to its inner nanoscale energy buffer layer during routine testing.
The damage was extremely minor, almost undetectable by instruments, but the trend was abnormal. This protective suit was one of Cheng Linzhou's ultimate trump cards, theoretically possessing a near-infinite lifespan.
"The cause is unknown, Director Cheng." The equipment supervisor's voice carried a hint of barely perceptible fear. "We checked all environmental parameters and storage conditions, and they fully meet the standards. This damage... is like... like 'time' itself has been accelerated by such a negligible amount." He used the imprecise yet remarkably vivid metaphor of "time acceleration."
These two incidents, taken individually, seem like insignificant technical glitches, or even just testing errors. But when they are combined with Feng Qian's increasingly prominent "good fortune," they paint an unsettling picture in Cheng Linzhou's mind.
He began to observe consciously. In the control room, when Feng Qian accidentally knocked over a water glass and "coincidentally" restored a stuck control valve to normal operation, Cheng Linzhou's gaze did not fall on the indicator light that had returned to normal, but instead stared intently at the clean, spotless alloy floor beneath Feng Qian's feet.
His pupils contracted slightly, as if he had caught a fleeting glimpse of light and shadow distortion, like the distortion of vision caused by hot air, around Feng Qian's ankle. It was so fast that it seemed like an illusion.
In the living area corridor, Feng Qian accidentally knocked over a cleaning robot. The robot went out of control and crashed into the wall, but unexpectedly triggered a hidden maintenance panel, revealing a dusty spare filter that could effectively filter out certain trace amounts of inert decay particles in the air, which solved a small problem in the ecological area.
As everyone once again marveled at Feng Qian's "good luck," Cheng Linzhou stood on the periphery of the crowd and saw the bewilderment on Feng Qian's face.
Suspicion, like a vine, grew wildly in Cheng Linzhou's mind. He remained outwardly calm, but devoted more resources to the covert monitoring of Feng Qian's surroundings. The technical department was required to provide more detailed and covert detection data.
Every time Feng Qian brought a "lucky" event, Cheng Linzhou would use the encrypted terminal to retrieve millisecond-level records of the safe house's core energy reserves, structural stress distribution, and even the rate of damage to the protective suit's buffer layer.
Data is cold and cruel. After each "lucky" peak, there is always an extremely subtle but real fluctuation in a key indicator of the safe house system as a whole—a tiny energy trough or an inexplicable stress peak.
[Cost]
These two words, like a cold, venomous snake, coiled around Cheng Linzhou's heart.
In fact, researchers from the Investigation Bureau had previously suggested that Feng Qian's good fortune did not arise out of thin air; it's just that his luck wasn't frequently manifested at that time. Moreover, since Feng Qian was a Ghost Tamer, no one would allow him to participate in overly dangerous experiments.
Unexpectedly, as soon as Feng Qian entered the post-apocalyptic safe house, his "luck" began to show obvious signs of spiraling out of control.
Cheng Linzhou had guessed that Feng Qian's "luck" stemmed from absorbing the fortunes of those close to him, but now it seemed the price was more severe than he had imagined!
Feng Qian's "good fortune" wasn't about sucking the blood of one person, but the blood of the entire group! He seemed to be drawing the "life force" of this doomsday fortress as fuel in some incomprehensible way.
At first Cheng Linzhou only had doubts, but what ultimately pushed those doubts to near certainty was a scene that occurred in Old Master Cheng Yuanshan's study.
Cheng Yuanshan had a habit of sitting quietly in his study every afternoon, polishing and playing with his treasured possession that he never parted with—a Imperial Seal.
Imperial Seal who know, know. After all, it's almost the end of the world, and keeping it in a museum would only mean waiting to be erased. It's better to bring it back and preserve it for the country.
The Imperial Seal was used by the emperor and is said to contain a trace of the remaining fortune of the feudal dynasty. Ever since Cheng Linzhou brought it back, it has been regarded as a family heirloom by the old master Cheng, and it is now the old master's last spiritual sustenance in the apocalypse. The old master regards it as a spiritual totem, and his movements of wiping it are devout and focused.
That afternoon, Feng Qian was lucky enough to resolve a minor malfunction in the safe house. As he passed the open doorway of the study, he tripped over the edge of the thick carpet and swayed violently. To regain his balance, he instinctively reached out and grabbed the doorframe of the study.
The instant his hand touched the cold metal door frame—
"Smack!"
A crisp, subtle sound, yet as powerful as a thunderclap, shattered in the Silence study!
In the study, Old Master Cheng Yuanshan was intently wiping the Imperial Seal with a soft velvet cloth. Just as Feng Qian grabbed the door frame, the old man's hand suddenly froze. His cloudy but sharp eyes widened abruptly, staring intently at the majestic dragon knob at the top of the Imperial Seal.
Beneath the slightly raised claw of the dragon, on the smooth, mirror-like jade surface that bore the weight of history, a fine, yet shocking crack suddenly and clearly appeared!
Although the crack was small, it was like an ugly scar, instantly ruining the natural perfection and majesty of the Imperial Seal. An indescribable aura of decay and decay seemed to silently emanate from the crack.
Cheng Yuanshan's fingers trembled violently, and the color drained from his aged face, leaving only immense shock and... deep fear. He abruptly raised his head, his gaze like two cold, sharp swords, instantly piercing through the space at the study doorway and fixing itself firmly on Feng Qian's face, who had just regained his footing and was still looking bewildered!
That gaze was no longer the serene indifference of before; it was filled with unbelievable anger and a chilling terror as if one had discovered some terrible truth! It was as if one were looking at a harbinger of misfortune!
Feng Qian was completely bewildered, not knowing what this old man was up to, so he politely asked, "Grandpa, what's wrong?"
Cheng Yuanshan did not answer. He slowly withdrew his gaze, which was filled with shock and anger. After a few seconds of deathly silence, he lowered his head, his wrinkled fingers trembling as he gently stroked the hideous crack on the Imperial Seal.
Just then, a series of hurried and heavy footsteps approached from afar. Cheng Linzhou's figure appeared at the end of the corridor, his face as cold as ice, his eyes sharp enough to pierce through steel.
He had clearly heard the unusual cracking sound, or received an alarm. His gaze first swept over his father's distraught figure in the study and the cracked Imperial Seal. His pupils suddenly contracted, and then, his eyes, filled with fear and unease, slammed into Feng Qian like a heavy hammer!
He had considered kicking Feng Qian out of the safe house, or even killing him.
But that won't work!
Feng Qian's "luck" was all-encompassing; anyone who harbored ill will suffer misfortune.
The sudden shattering of the Imperial Seal gave Cheng Linzhou an extremely ominous premonition.
What goes around comes around.
"Come with me." Cheng Linzhou's voice was dejected.
Feng Qian seemed to have thought of something as well. Following behind Cheng Linzhou, the two walked through the brightly lit but deathly silent corridor. The staff they encountered along the way felt the heavy, almost suffocating atmosphere and subconsciously held their breath, quickly stepping aside. Their suspicious gazes swept back and forth between the director and the "lucky star".
The destination was a highly classified tactical analysis room next to the core control room. The heavy alloy door slid open and closed silently, completely isolating the outside world.
The room was bathed in cold, white light, with only a large, curved tactical console in the center emitting a faint blue glow. Cheng Linzhou walked to the console, his fingers tracing the cold surface rapidly. With a soft hum, several screens were projected into the center of the room.
The screen doesn't display a virtual map of the outside world, nor a structural diagram of the safe house, but rather a dense stream of timeline data accurate to the millisecond, along with corresponding monitoring footage clips.
The main character in the picture is only one person— Feng Qian.
Each stroke of good luck he had added a touch of "normal" malfunction to this doomsday fortress. These malfunctions occurred naturally, and although they were extremely low-probability events according to probability theory, they were still possible. However, after Feng Qian's "luck," these low-probability events seemed to become inevitable.
"Don't you have anything to say?" Cheng Linzhou finally spoke. His voice wasn't loud, but it Chanyin slightly. "What exactly is your good luck consuming?"
"Director Cheng, I don't know what to say when you ask me that." Feng Qian opened his innocent eyes, feigning ignorance.
"Actually, this was everyone's 'oversight,' and this 'oversight' might also stem from your strange good luck." Cheng Linzhou's face remained expressionless.
When the Supernatural was just beginning to revive, what did you consume each time you supposedly "turned misfortune into good fortune" or "survived calamity into blessing"? Was it your future luck? Or the luck of your family and friends?
"No! None of those! The answer is more abstract. I suspect you've overdrawn the luck of your group!"
"You probably haven't even noticed it yourself, have you? You survived a Supernatural event by sheer luck, but the unit you worked for suffered a terrible fate. Even after you were transferred, that unit continued to have a run of bad luck. You rose rapidly through the ranks to enter the Investigation Bureau, a key national agency. By absorbing the Investigation Bureau's good fortune, you are, in a sense, indirectly consuming... the nation's fortune."
"Faced with the Supernatural Revival, the nation has repeatedly made wrong decisions. The leadership of the Investigation Bureau is either all dead or blinded by greed, running headlong down the wrong path. I think you might be a crucial link in this chain."
Having been unfairly blamed, Feng Qian was naturally indignant. "I don't accept what Director Cheng said. What right do I have to interfere with the fate of the nation..."