Forty-Sixth Chapter

"I haven't forgotten. I still remember."

Fang Chuan felt wronged. "Why? What makes me worse than Master Liu?"

Yan Xiu replied calmly, "Probably your thick skin."

Fang Chuan thought it over and decided that made sense. He couldn't help sighing. "You're right. Our Master Liu really is thicker-skinned than everyone else. But now that I think about it, aside from occasionally getting into trouble, that girl is pretty cute!"

Yan Xiu glanced at him at that remark. For some reason, Fang Chuan felt a chill run down his back.

"Get out." Before he could think about it any further, Yan Xiu's cool voice rang out.

Fang Chuan looked out the window. They had arrived at his place.

The car quickly disappeared into the night. Fang Chuan stood in the biting wind, huddling into his coat. He'd known he wouldn't get anything out of Yan Xiu. His hopes of getting some gossip had come to nothing, and he was disappointed.

With the New Year approaching, everyone was especially busy. The Special Case Investigation Section was doing all right, though. They'd wrapped up a major case before the holiday, so this year's bonus was guaranteed.

After Xu Yongshuang was transferred to the capital, the Qingcheng team no longer needed to continue investigating. The case was considered closed.

Xu Yonglin was kept behind because they needed his Gu techniques. Since he had turned himself in and rendered meritorious service, Fang Chuan submitted a report, and Xu Yonglin's sentencing was postponed.

Before Xu Yongshuang was taken away, he insisted on seeing his younger brother. After asking Xu Yonglin, they arranged a meeting.

As expected, Xu Yongshuang hated his own brother for betraying him. Unfortunately, he couldn't move freely, so he could only glare viciously at Xu Yonglin and roar at him. "Xu Yonglin, you'll die a horrible death! I won't let you off, and neither will they!"

"Even if I hadn't reported you, you weren't going to let me off, were you?" Xu Yonglin suddenly asked.

He wasn't stupid. The fortune-teller who had read his fate had said he wouldn't live long. His life had indeed been hard, but his body was healthy. Under what circumstances would he suddenly die? Of course, when someone wanted him dead.

Xu Yongshuang glared at him viciously without saying a word.

Xu Yonglin didn't expect him to answer. He simply went on, "I always thought you came looking for me because I was your brother. Later, I realized that wasn't it at all. It was only because I'd been sent to the Main Family as a child and raised by our uncle for a few years, wasn't it? You couldn't find him, so you came to me."

Back then, the Xu Family's Main Branch had been flourishing. Many talented children from the collateral branches were sent there to be raised together, and he had been one of them.

But the Main Family had soon run into trouble. He survived, but his parents never came looking for him. His uncle found him an adoptive family, and after that, they never saw each other again.

During his days at the police station, he kept replaying things his older brother had said after finding him. He hadn't paid attention at the time, but now he realized his brother had been probing for information about their uncle almost every time.

He didn't want to think so badly of his own brother, but the truth was that there had never been any real brotherly love. It had all been about profit.

Later, he hadn't been "discarded," probably because of his talent for refining Gu. He'd improved the Longevity Gu and minimized its effects on people. In his brother's eyes, he must have become useful.

After his brief bout of madness, Xu Yongshuang finally calmed down. His eyes bloodshot, he stared fixedly at Xu Yonglin. When Xu Yonglin had finished speaking, he bared his white teeth. "You're right. You were just an accessory to the Longevity Gu. Even if you took the censer from me, you couldn't save those fools with Gu worms in them. They'll all die, and so will you."

He looked mockingly at the two officers behind Xu Yonglin. "You think the police consider you a good person just because you sold me out? They're only using you. Once you're no longer useful, you'll end up just like me."

Xu Yonglin looked at Xu Yongshuang. "Those people won't die, and I won't end up like you."

"We'll see."

The two brothers were led away separately. They probably wouldn't get another chance to meet in this lifetime.

After Xu Yongshuang was taken away, Xu Yonglin devoted himself entirely to researching the Longevity Gu.

The two Gu Masters from the capital spent several days studying it but got nowhere. Their schools were different, and their methods of making Gu were completely different, too. The Longevity Gu was a semi-finished product passed down by the Xu Family, and only the Xu Family knew it best. In the end, the two had no choice but to step back and become Xu Yonglin's assistants.

However, they gave Xu Yonglin an idea. If their goal wasn't to control the Gu worms but simply to cure illnesses and save lives, perhaps they could stop trying to control the worms and instead research how to make them more stable.

The more active the Longevity Gu was, the greater its effects on the human body. The Gu in Zhuo Ran was the earliest kind—immature and extremely active.

After Xu Yonglin's improvements, it had become much more stable. If the Longevity Gu could be made to sleep for decades, beyond the reach of anything that might awaken it, it could no longer be controlled. Even asleep, it could still slowly affect the human body. It was a slower but relatively safer method.

After dozens of experiments, they confirmed that this approach worked.

After undergoing a special refinement process, the sleeping Longevity Gu was placed inside lab animals suffering from various illnesses. Within a few days, the animals gradually regained their mobility, and their test results were even better than normal.

More importantly, the sleeping Longevity Gu couldn't be awakened, which meant it could no longer be removed using the censer as before.

Gu Masters weren't all that rigorous in their research. After all, it involved knowledge that couldn't be explained by conventional means. At this point, the experiment could basically be declared a success.

But then another problem came up.

Xu Yonglin hadn't kept the method for putting the Longevity Gu to sleep a secret. He taught it to the other two Gu Masters, but the exact same method didn't work at all when they tried it.

In the end, they concluded it had something to do with bloodline.

Perhaps during the Longevity Gu's original refinement, the Xu Family had used blood or something similar to nurture it, causing the Gu to recognize only the Xu Family bloodline.

So even though Xu Yonglin had made his research public, the formula was, at its core, still his alone.

A safe method with no hidden risks, one that could restore patients to health and even give them a chance to live longer.

At first, he'd only researched it to make amends for his mistakes. But the results represented enormous benefits beyond anyone's imagination.

No one would object to living a little better. Even without extending their lifespan, having a higher quality of life and staying healthy until old age was a luxury for most people.

And plenty of people would be willing to pay dearly for such a chance.

When Gu Lan learned of the research results, she didn't dare waste a moment. She reported them to headquarters immediately, and the next day, headquarters sent someone over.

The Longevity Gu couldn't possibly be left in Xu Yonglin's hands, but he was the only one who knew how to refine it. Cooperation would benefit both sides.

In the world of the occult, being free of illness wasn't difficult, and there were methods for prolonging life, too. But they usually required enormous investment. Xu Yonglin's method was relatively inexpensive, which made it especially valuable.

Even so, if the Longevity Gu were ever to be used on people, it would probably need years of further testing and cultivation.

Still, this was already a very good beginning—and a very good ending.

Fang Chuan had never dreamed that Xu Yonglin would be brought in as a suspect, only to be taken back to headquarters with the results of his groundbreaking research. What was more, when the Longevity Gu was eventually approved for sale, Xu Yonglin would receive a share of the profits.

On the day Xu Yonglin left Qingcheng, the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, he wore a thick cotton coat and waited with the people from headquarters for his flight to the capital.

In the capital, his seriously ill younger sister was waiting for him. The money he'd earned by scamming people had failed to cure her, and neither had the money he'd borrowed from his older brother. But now he had a better way—a method he'd developed himself that could keep her alive.

A sentencing hearing still awaited him, but Xu Yonglin was no longer afraid. Just as the fortune-teller had said, he'd changed his own fate with his own hands. From then on, everything would be different.

On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, Fang Chuan tricked Liu Mumu into going out for barbecue.

He didn't really have anything to ask her. Xu Yonglin's case had just shocked him so much that he needed to see the master with his own eyes and hear a few words of guidance before he could calm down.

He'd thought that after watching Xu Yonglin turn himself in, nothing could shock him anymore. Later, he realized he'd been far too young and naive.

Liu Mumu told him to look for himself. Fang Chuan did, and then felt as if he were witnessing some extraordinary moment in history. It was almost impossible to believe.

Liu Mumu arrived at the barbecue restaurant on time, only to find Captain Fang, with his square face, sitting there and offending the eyes. Yan Xiu was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Yan Xiu?" Liu Mumu tried to spot him.

Fang Chuan cleared his throat. "He had to go out of town on business. Then he'll head straight back to the capital for the New Year. He won't be back until after the holiday."

Liu Mumu instantly puffed up like an angry pufferfish. She almost wanted to take Fang Chuan down with her.

In the end, Master Liu was so moved by Fang Chuan's sincere compliments that ten minutes later, she decided to do him the favor of sharing a barbecue meal.

Liu Mumu happily gnawed on chicken necks while listening to Fang Chuan praise her. The barbecue tasted especially good today.

"Will Xu Yonglin be sentenced?" Liu Mumu asked.

Fang Chuan shook his head. "He didn't take part in any murders. Before headquarters discussed working with him, they had three masters assess his fate, and all confirmed he was innocent. On top of that, he rendered major meritorious service. The most likely outcome is a suspended sentence."

All the Longevity Gu inside the victims had gone dormant. The police hadn't disturbed them, and the victims might never find out what they'd been through.

The only thing this unexpected ordeal had left them was healthy bodies for many years to come, right up until they died of old age.

"That's all right." Liu Mumu nodded. It was about what she'd expected.

"It's more than all right. If nothing goes wrong, he'll even become a specially appointed consultant for headquarters. He's reached the pinnacle of life in the blink of an eye."

Fang Chuan was a little envious of Xu Yonglin. Ordinary people couldn't master a technique like that, so all he could do was admire him.

But what impressed him most was Liu Mumu. There was some gossip going around at headquarters. After those masters assessed Xu Yonglin's fate, they all said he'd been terribly unlucky and shouldn't have turned himself in. It was even more unlikely that he'd research and improve the Longevity Gu. But his fate changed the moment he turned himself in.

His life had gone from one of hardship to a smooth road ahead. It was rare for someone's fate to change, and rarer still for it to change as completely as his had.

Watching Liu Mumu poke at the beef on the grill with her chopsticks, Fang Chuan thought that the greatest stroke of luck in Xu Yonglin's life had probably been meeting Liu Mumu that morning.