"It's done. Everything's arranged."
In the afternoon, Lu Feng, who had disappeared for the entire day, finally came back with a cheeky grin. While Ji Jue was washing his hands, he let his guard down for a moment, and Lu Feng had already sprawled out on his hospital bed, picking his feet without the slightest trace of courtesy.
"Mom took Er Niu and the others back to the village for a few days. The repair shop's closed for now. We'll reopen it after everything's settled.
I went to your place too. I fixed the door, but the refrigerator's completely done for. Later, move the one from the shop back home and make do with it for now.
Also, I got your Little Lamb into the hospital parking shed. You can pick it up yourself when you're discharged."
As he spoke, he pulled the vehicle keys from his pocket and set them on the table.
With the same two fingers that had just been picking his feet...
Ji Jue's eyelids twitched violently. He wanted to speak, but held back. I don't want these keys anymore. Can you get me a new one?
But then he remembered that his pink Little Lamb had been Lu Feng's secondhand scooter—originally bought after he traded in his Small Three-Wheeler—and had been practically given to Ji Jue. For all he knew, Lu Feng had already picked his feet on the seat countless times...
Could he still list it on the Seafood Market app now?
After the usual round of disgust, he at least gave Lu Feng half an apple. He watched as Lu Feng ate it in two bites without even washing his hands, making a "ku-cha, ku-cha" sound. Ji Jue couldn't help giving a thumbs-up to the digestive system Lu Feng had trained in Central Earth.
But physiques really were different.
Apart from getting shocked by electricity, Ji Jue had merely tumbled around a couple of times. He barely had any bruises on him, yet he could still only shuffle along when he walked. Lu Feng, on the other hand, had fought those ghostly things at close range, taken a bullet by the end, and suffered who knew how many major and minor injuries. Yet after sleeping once, he was already lively enough to leap around.
"Jealous, little brother?"
Lu Feng showed off his biceps and grinned. "I told you to exercise ages ago, but you wouldn't. You can barely run a thousand meters without collapsing. Regretting it now, huh?"
Ji Jue rolled his eyes and ignored him.
Seeing Lu Feng bouncing around so energetically, it would have been a lie to say he wasn't jealous. But what Ji Jue cared about more was whether Cousin had changed in any way. Unfortunately, there was a change—but only a little one.
Apart from extracting Aberrant Spirit Essence to his heart's content and bringing the progress bar back up to 99, the golden-covered [0] on the Watch Dial had finally changed.
If the original coverage had been eighty percent, it was now around ninety-nine percent. Only the tiniest spot remained uncovered.
Unfortunately, it still hadn't achieved the great breakthrough from 0 to 1.
The progress bar had jammed.
No matter how anxious Ji Jue became, it remained utterly motionless, leaving that small section unfilled. It irritated his obsessive-compulsive tendencies so badly that he wished he could dismantle the Watch Dial and fill the spot himself.
All he could do was burn incense and kowtow in his heart, hoping Cousin hadn't picked up the bad habits of certain shopping websites from before the Calamity Era—where 99 was followed by another 99, with no end in sight.
Otherwise, he might spend the rest of his life stuck at zero.
"Here, this is for you too. Hold on to it for now."
Lu Feng pulled something wrapped in two layers of black plastic bags from a cloth sack beside him and stuffed it beneath Ji Jue's pillow. When Ji Jue made out the object's shape, he couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath.
A gun!
His face went pale with fright.
"Eldest Brother, this is a hospital! What do I need this thing for?!"
He lowered his voice, but halfway through, he suddenly realized something and warily fixed his eyes on Lu Feng. "Why are you suddenly handing out equipment? Don't tell me the Security Bureau conscripted you?"
"Am I crazy? I barely crawled out of the Military Department's quagmire, and now I'm supposed to dive headfirst into the Security Bureau's cave? Without a Military Department requisition notice, they can dream on if they think they can touch my personnel file in the Federation."
Lu Feng waved his hand, covering up his embarrassment. "I'm going away to avoid the heat and lie low for a while... If a woman with a scar around her neck comes asking about me these next few days, you absolutely mustn't tell her anything!"
"What did you do this time?" Ji Jue stared at him suspiciously.
"You think getting all those things didn't cost money?"
Lu Feng rolled his eyes and said in a low voice, "The cheapest handgun, with twelve rounds of ammunition, costs twenty-eight thousand. Then there are middlemen piling on layer after layer of markup.
Damn it, for this little bit of stuff, I had to lie and coax people until I was practically selling my ass. If I don't run fast, I'll have to sell my essence to pay off the debt and get dragged away to become a Star Slave!"
Ji Jue fell silent.
He stared straight at Lu Feng for a long while before slowly patting him on the shoulder in consolation. "Feng Ge, don't think too much about it. People have standards even for male prostitutes. They want education and a good face."
That Ji guy, you motherf...
The unexpected stab struck Lu Feng's weak point, and he instantly broke.
"If they want education and a good face, then why don't you go instead? It's all for the sake of this family anyway!"
Halfway through his speech, Lu Feng's eyes suddenly lit up.
Right. Why hadn't he thought of that?
"Isn't that how it always goes in those tragic romance dramas?"
Lu Feng earnestly advised him, "The eldest brother gambled away a mountain of debt, the parents fell ill, the younger siblings had no money for school, and Er Niu finally got into the Heavenly Gate. As her big brother, don't you think you should show some support? You have to at least buy her a computer or a phone, right?
There's no use in boys studying. As long as you loosen your belt a little, the whole family will have everything they need!"
"Get lost, get lost, get lost!"
Ji Jue kicked him off his bed in exasperation. Watching Lu Feng stagger away with his entire body swaying, Ji Jue's tightly wound mood eased somewhat.
If Lu Feng could still joke around, then things probably weren't too serious—at least, not that serious. Calling each other comrades all day long, huh? Could it be the kind of comrades who often exchanged technical knowledge in the artillery battalion?
"The brothers have such a good relationship."
On the bed beside them, a thin, elderly man with his leg in a cast sighed and muttered, "Ai, my own brothers... We haven't kept in touch for so many years. The two boys in my family don't get along either. They fight every day."
"Ah, children are always mischievous. They'll understand once they grow up a little."
The old woman on another bed comforted him. "My second and third boys were the same. Once they got older and realized how hard life was, they understood that family was still the most dependable. I visited them a couple of days ago, and they were so close they slept under the same quilt. The eldest even goes over to stay with them sometimes."
The old man sighed. "When the family is harmonious, everything prospers. Elder Sister, you're blessed."
Only Ji Jue, who sat beside them with his jaw hanging open, found himself several times wanting to speak, then wanting to stop, then wanting to speak again.
In the end, he didn't dare say anything.
He lay down on the bed and drifted into a beautiful dream of breaking through from zero to one as soon as possible.
Outside the window, dusk was settling in.
In the distant wind came the earth-shaking roar of an explosion.
A plume of thick smoke slowly rose from the foothills on the other side of Yacheng.
.
.
"What happened?"
Inside the violently shaking office, smoke billowed through the air. In the courtyard outside the windows, employees shrieked as they transformed into inhuman monsters and swarmed toward the intruders.
Only the CEO's office, which had just received a new nameplate, was deathly silent.
An aged man crouched behind the window, staring blankly.
He frantically dialed the phone in his hand again and again. At last, after endless busy signals, the call connected, and he could no longer restrain his fury. "What happened? Lawrence, what the hell are you doing?!"
Lu Wending was almost fainting from terror. He trembled violently. "Didn't you say it was foolproof?!"
"The experiment was indeed foolproof."
The steady, gentle voice on the other end replied, "Please rest assured. Your sacrifice will not be in vain."
"What do you mean?"
Lu Wending felt as though he had fallen into an icy abyss and screamed, "Don't forget who pulled you out of that muddy pit! If it weren't for me..."
"Sixteen patents capable of generating long-term profits and multiplying your company's valuation several times over—aren't they enough?"
Lawrence laughed. "Besides, I've already exhausted all my strength to complete ten standard Longevity Drugs and Sin Corruption Stabilizers without any side effects, all to help you rise smoothly through the ranks.
As for the minor troubles they've caused, they're merely inevitable side effects. As a pharmaceutical company CEO, surely you don't never read the instructions?
Our contract has ended, Mr. Lu. Thank you for all your support and efforts over the years. In future papers, I'll give you my deepest thanks.
This is a great achievement destined to be engraved in medical history!"
"Achieve your motherfucking ass!"
Amid the approaching thunderous explosions, Lu Wending roared into the phone, "Don't forget—without me, who would have found qualified test subjects for you? After all this time, you've only raised so many defective products. Even that whore who showed the only decent results is dead.
Wait, I can still..."
Snap!
Before he could finish, a crisp sound rang out.
A golden chain materialized in midair, then shattered apart.
The Heavenly Origin Contract had broken.
"Now, please make your final sacrifice to our shared great cause."
In that instant, Lu Wending froze in place. He breathed heavily, then suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood. Crimson spread from the corners of his mouth, his veins bulged, and both hands rapidly grew into sharp claws.
Immediately afterward, another twisted head sprouted from his shoulder.
His body swelled, then swelled again!
In the space of a few seconds, it smashed through the restraints of the walls and rolled out as though it were made of flesh. Eyes covered every inch of its body. The despair within them faded, leaving only bestial hunger and madness.
Amid the rustling Dust falling through the ruins, the voice on the phone continued.
"Oh, right. I forgot to tell you. Don't worry—the experiment will certainly yield results."
Lawrence smiled, filled with delight. "I've already found a better [vessel]. No, I should say—the genuine article, a true Calamity [Artifact]!"
But Lu Wending could no longer hear him.
The Aberrant Ghoul, weighing dozens of tons, was like a mountain range. Limbs and arms extended from its body, while a gigantic mouth split open across its middle, spewing poison and acid.
Just a twist of its body cast a vast shadow.
It slowly turned its head toward the intruders who did not belong here, opened its mouth, and lunged!
Then it flew back in the exact same manner, crashed into the Factory building, and landed in the production workshop, where a crystal Giant Pillar that appeared from thin air pinned it to the ground.
Wen Wen had barely noticed what she had casually hurled out.
At that moment, surrounded by countless ghouls, she frowned and listened with one ear to the phone call that had just connected. Her irritation grew stronger by the second. "Could you please speak like a human?"
Before you continue