The elusive cause

"I feed you cat food, and you still play favorites? You spoiled little... spoiled little..."

Fang Yuan reached out to poke the orange cat, barely using any force. He just wanted to tease it.

Unexpectedly, the orange cat bristled at a single touch.

Meow!!!

The orange cat bared its teeth and let out a fierce yowl.

"Hey! I bought you cat food, and you dare bare your teeth at me? You're out of control."

Fang Yuan remembered the cat videos he had watched before. The cat would act fierce when its owner tried to pet it, refusing to be touched, but the moment a cleaver was set beside it, it behaved.

Meow!!!

The orange cat cried even louder and reached out a paw to scratch him.

"You dare raise your claws too? Think you can take on the heavens?"

Fang Yuan pulled the cat food back, confiscating all of it.

Both cats began meowing angrily, looking ready to battle the food-snatching demon for three hundred rounds.

Originally, Fang Yuan had only wanted to tame these two strays so they would not be too wild. It would be bad if they scratched Fang Xiaozhu.

What he had not expected was that when these two cats bristled and bared their teeth, they actually generated rage.

His Rage Points began rising by +1 and +3.

"Huh, I can actually absorb Rage Points from animals."

A mischievous grin immediately spread across Fang Yuan's face. He offered them the dish of cat food, pulled it back, offered it again, then pulled it back again.

The two cats yowled at his teasing, producing a string of Rage Points.

After a dozen or so rounds, the cats wised up and began looking pitiful, meowing at Fang Xiaozhu.

"Brother, stop bullying them." Fang Xiaozhu immediately came over to fight him for the cat food.

Fang Yuan hid the cat food behind his back and began teasing the girl.

After a few rounds, he had annoyed her too.

His Rage Points rose another notch.

After jumping around for a while, Fang Xiaozhu suddenly stopped and began gasping for breath.

The sight immediately frightened Fang Yuan. He hurriedly carried her back to sit on the bed and said, "Deep breaths, deep breaths. Don't get worked up. I was just playing with you. Do you feel any better?"

Fang Xiaozhu took a few breaths before she steadied, then grinned. "I'm fine. I was fooling you."

"Lie down first." Fang Yuan straightened her pillow and had her lie down.

With Fang Xiaozhu's illness, she could faint at any moment, or even go into shock.

Every episode of shock was extremely dangerous. Once, before she was hospitalized, they had taken her to the hospital, and the doctor had said she would have died if they had arrived any later.

That was why the sight of her struggling to breathe had frightened Fang Yuan immediately.

Fang Yuan felt her forehead, then checked her pulse. Only after confirming she was fine did he relax.

Fang Xiaozhu tried to climb out of bed.

Fang Yuan held her down and said, "Stay lying down. That makes it easier for blood to reach your head, so your brain won't be short of oxygen."

"Little Orange and Little Gray haven't eaten yet," Fang Xiaozhu mumbled.

"I'll feed them."

Fang Yuan put the dish of cat food back on the windowsill and said, "Eat it or don't. If you don't, you won't get any more."

Lying in bed, Fang Xiaozhu gestured at the two cats and whispered, "Hurry up and eat..."

The two cats lowered their heads and began crunching away at the cat food.

Fang Yuan took a plastic bowl, filled it with water, and set it on the windowsill.

"Are you going to work?" Fang Xiaozhu suddenly asked.

"No."

Since the girl had just had trouble breathing, Fang Yuan decided not to go to the martial arts gym.

The member who had booked the lessons had never shown up anyway. Going there would just mean idling around and hitting the punching bag.

"What if Dad gets his pay docked?" Fang Xiaozhu sounded a little worried.

"He won't. His pay will at least triple this month. Once he gets paid, we'll have him take us out for a feast," Fang Yuan said with a smile.

Coaches at the martial arts gym received commissions on lessons. All the lessons priced at ten times the normal rate had sold out this month, so his pay was bound to multiply.

"How could it go up that much?"

"Because your brother is amazing. I'm already the gym's star coach." Fang Yuan gave a thumbs-up and bragged.

After finishing their food, the two cats meowed a few times.

Only after Fang Xiaozhu waved to them did they jump off the windowsill and slip away along the courtyard wall.

Remembering something, Fang Yuan picked up his schoolbag, took out a phone watch, and put it on Fang Xiaozhu's wrist.

"What's this?" Fang Xiaozhu asked curiously.

"It's a phone watch. I've saved Mom's, Dad's, and my numbers in it. Call me if anything happens."

Making calls was only one of its functions. What Fang Yuan had actually wanted were its location tracking and heart rate functions.

Installing an app on his phone would let him check the watch's location at any time, which was very convenient.

He had bought the watch mainly as a precaution.

After all, the threat from the Spear of God still existed.

Fang Yuan reminded her, "This watch is waterproof, so you don't have to take it off even when you shower."

"I've seen classmates wearing these. They cost several thousand yuan. Brother, did you strike it rich?" Fang Xiaozhu liked the watch very much and kept tapping away at it.

"I'm doing all right. It cost two drinks," Fang Yuan said with a smile.

Fang Yuan was already extravagant enough to buy energy drinks at 800 yuan a bottle, so buying a watch was nothing much.

"No way! Two drinks cost less than ten yuan. Brother, did someone scam you?" Fang Xiaozhu frowned. The more she looked at the watch on her wrist, the more something seemed wrong.

Fang Yuan nearly spat out a mouthful of wonton soup. "What? I meant energy drinks."

Just then.

The television finished its drama interlude and began showing the main feature-commercials. The ad happened to be for that energy drink that cost only 7,999 yuan.

On the television, a Golden Dragon churned up clouds and rain before finally flying into the energy drink bottle.

The special effects in that ad were worth fifty cents, not a cent more.

The energy drink was called Golden Dragon, quite an imposing brand name.

Fang Xiaozhu pointed at the television and asked, "That kind of energy drink?"

"Something like that," Fang Yuan replied casually.

"Brother, didn't you say last time that this kind of energy drink was an idiot tax? Is your IQ in arrears?" Fang Xiaozhu looked at Fang Yuan with a strange expression.

Pfft!

The soup he had managed not to spit out earlier came spraying out this time.

All he had done was train hard and reward himself with a bottle of energy drink when he got tired, yet this girl had roasted him for it.

"I mean the kind that costs 800 yuan a bottle. The best value for money," Fang Yuan corrected her.

"That's a whole zero less. That's way too big a difference."

Fang Xiaozhu began tapping at her watch again, and the more she looked at it, the more she liked it.

Two bottles of energy drink meant 1,600 yuan. A watch that expensive definitely could not be a fake.

Finding that he could not beat the girl in a battle of words, Fang Yuan immediately changed tactics. He pinched her cheeks, subduing her with force.

After a bout of horseplay.

The intern, Zhou Weiya, came in to deliver a message. "The attending physician wants you in his office."

Fang Yuan got up and went out with her, arriving at the attending physician's office.

The three of them began discussing the cause of Fang Xiaozhu's illness.

"Your sister has been hospitalized for so long, and we've done every test we can, but we still haven't found the cause. While chatting with Dr. Zhou, I mentioned some unusual cases, so I asked you here to discuss them," the attending physician said.

"What kind of cases?" Fang Yuan asked.

"Have you considered that your sister's illness might have been caused by something external?" the attending physician said thoughtfully.

Something stirred in Fang Yuan's mind, and he asked uncertainly, "What sort of external thing do you mean, Doctor?"

Sitting beside them, Zhou Weiya joined the discussion. "For example, taking medicine of unknown origin, or touching something strange. As you know, in the Star Power era, many strange things are difficult to explain."

Fang Yuan immediately thought of the Triangular Star Core. That certainly counted as something strange.

In fact, Fang Yuan had already harbored suspicions along those lines.

However, he could only keep that suspicion to himself. He could not tell anyone else.

Pretending to think, Fang Yuan answered, "Probably not. Our family is pretty strict. My sister wouldn't even dare accept candy from a neighbor."

The three discussed it for half an hour. When the workday ended, they said goodbye and went their separate ways.