The Cabbage Matues (Continued)

She could tell that Lou Yu's eyes were filled with love when he looked at the white-haired man. Regardless of whether Lou Qing's claim that the three children were born to this man was true or not, Bai Yan sincerely wished them well.

Another thing that comforted Bai Yan was that Lou Yu was smiling in all three photos, a stark contrast to his cold and lifeless demeanor when he left the Central Base a few years ago.

This proves that Lou Yu is doing very well now, with personal freedom, a comfortable life, and a healthy and happy family—a life that couldn't be more perfect.

Bai Yan's eyes were red-rimmed, but the corners of her mouth were turned up.

Lou Qing's gaze never left her face. Seeing her joy, his cold and stern features softened slightly.

Bai Yan took a few deep breaths, composed herself, and handed the photo back to Lou Qing.

Why didn't she tell Lou Qing? She thanked him; it was Lou Qing who rushed to send her the message, not that she insisted on seeing it.

Despite having seen it countless times, Lou Qing still felt a sharp pain in his heart every time he saw Bai Yan's indifferent expression when she looked at him.

"I've given you the photo. You love Lou Yu so much, keep it as a keepsake."

Bai Yan had no intention of accepting anything from Lou Qing; the price to pay would be far too high.

Back then, she only accepted Lou Qing's umbrella on a rainy day, and Lou Qing ruined half of her life.

Bai Yan placed the photo on the ground, then decisively turned around, closed the door, and didn't look at Lou Qing again.

Bai Yan stood at the door for a long time; she needed to make sure Lou Qing had left before she could truly feel at ease.

Even though Lou Qing hadn't forced her to do anything since their divorce, the years of torment still made Bai Yan very wary of Lou Qing's madness.

About five or six minutes later, Bai Yan heard Lou Qing's voice coming from outside again.

"You shouldn't make any more public statements opposing the awakening experiment. It will bring you a lot of unnecessary trouble. Wouldn't it be better to cherish your life like before, A-Yan? You don't want Lou Yu's far away at the Yong'an Base, to receive bad news from you, do you?"

Lou Qing addressed Lou Yu by name repeatedly, his tone extremely cold, as if he were referring to a stranger rather than his own son.

However, he truly had no feelings for Lou Yu. He only gave birth to him to keep Bai Yan under control. Back then, when Lou Yu was escaping with Bai Yan, Lou Qing would have killed Lou Yu if Bai Yan hadn't risked her life to protect him.

He was collecting information about Lou Yu's current situation so he could talk to Bai Yan more. Mentioning Lou Yu now was also to warn Bai Yan to be careful with her words and actions and not to put herself in danger.

Bai Yan was horrified by the mortality rate of the superpower awakening experiment and was extremely averse to it. Currently, several major families in the Central Base were researching Awakening Reagent, and 99% of the researchers were scrambling to get a share of the profits from this project. Only Bai Yan avoided it like the plague and was extremely disgusted by it.

Lou Qing understood this, so no matter how strong Bai Yan's team's research capabilities were, Lou Qing did not allow them to participate in the reagent development. Even when the older men tried to force Bai Yan to participate, Lou Qing managed to stop them.

Bai Yan had expressed her resistance to the awakening experiment in public on more than one occasion, and was once considered to be the open spokesperson for the awakening experiment and the opposition to superhumans.

It wasn't until later, when Bai Yan repeatedly criticized the opposition's armed violence, saying it had harmed too many innocent people and that many in the opposition were just mindless brutes, that people believed she wasn't a member of the opposition.

Now Bai Yan is in a lose-lose situation, with both sides wanting to take action against her.

Lou Qing was afraid he wouldn't be able to protect her.

After giving the reminder, Lou Qing didn't linger any longer. Bai Yan listened to his footsteps gradually fading into the distance before her tense body slowly relaxed.

Bai Yan cooked herself a meal, and after eating, she silently washed the dishes and tidied up the kitchen.

It was late at night when she brought a cup of hot water to the study, wanting to read the old book she had bought from the market a few days ago. But after turning to the first page, she couldn't read a single word.

She was thinking about Lou Qing, Lou Yu and his girlfriend and child, and also about the words Lou Qing said before he left.

Bai Yan knew perfectly well the saying "trouble comes from the mouth," but she still wanted to express her thoughts.

Bai Yan rejects the awakening plan, partly because her own son, Lou Yu, almost died from awakening his supernatural abilities.

Lou Yu participated in the awakening experiment under an assumed name in order to find evidence to avenge his comrades. He paid the price of becoming a defective product in the experiment to find evidence that the Shen Family's illegal experiments caused an excessively high mortality rate among awakened individuals. In the end, however, he benefited the Lou Family and several other families.

If this matter were to be exposed, and the other families were to add fuel to the fire, the Shen Family would definitely suffer a severe blow. Therefore, the Shen Family had no choice but to share the Awakening Reagent technology with the other families in order to obtain the cooperation of the major families to cover up this scandal.

The culprit remains at large, which Lou Yu finds intolerable. He launches a private assassination attempt, which leads to a manhunt by the Shen Family.

At the time, the other families did not initially intend to do their best to protect Lou Yu, even though they were able to obtain the reagent technology entirely thanks to Lou Yu.

It was Lou Yu's influential comrades who had been working tirelessly for him. Bai Yan also went to the Lou Family to pressure Lou Qing and several old men in the Lou Family to take action, threatening to expose their schemes otherwise. The Lou Family had no choice but to step in and join forces with other families to put pressure on the Shen Family, which is why the Shen Family dared not target Lou Yu openly anymore.

When Lou Yu left the Central Base, everyone thought he wouldn't live much longer. Unexpectedly, he became the first flawed individual to overcome the backlash of his superpowers.

Immediately, those people changed their tune again, doing everything they could to get Lou Yu back.

As for the second reason, it's similar to the opposition's: the mortality rate of the awakening experiments was too high.

The awakening experiments have high physical requirements for the awakened individuals, so most of the participants are soldiers and mercenaries. These people are mostly born into poor and ordinary families and are the backbone of protecting humanity.

They were thrown into experiments like lab rats, and most of them died in despair and agony.

It contains righteous individuals willing to sacrifice themselves for the experiment, speculators hoping to rise above others through a high-stakes gamble, and possibly innocent people forced to participate.

Those scions of truly powerful families would never inject themselves with a single reagent until the mortality rate of the awakening experiment was reduced to a minimum.

Bai Yan had also wondered how the Shen Family knew that only those with strong physiques could withstand the pain of the experiments before announcing the existence of the Awakening Reagent. And where did the initial participants in the experiments come from?

Bai Yan was born in a slum, so of course she knew it was a paradise of evil. It was perfectly normal for five or six people to disappear every month, and even if she reported it to the police, they wouldn't investigate.

As for where the missing people went, perhaps only they themselves know.

Bai Yan also criticized the opposition for this point. She believed that the opposition's original intentions were good, and that there were many insightful people in the organization who cared about the people and humanity.

However, many scoundrels in the opposition, under the guise of resisting the privileged class and saving the people, swindle and deceive ordinary people, coaxing them to contribute their life savings as funds for their extravagant lifestyles.

The violent protests they organized not only vandalized and burned shops, vehicles, and homes, but also killed many people. Yet, the property and the dead were mostly ordinary citizens whom they claimed to be protecting.

To be precise, what Bai Yan despised was not the awakening experiments or the opposition, but rather the illegal and immoral acts involved.

Over the years, she has dedicated herself to researching drugs that optimize the human body, aiming to strengthen the human body in a gentle and effective way, so that humans can have longer lifespans, stronger bodies, fewer illnesses and deaths, and a greater chance of survival in the face of mutated monsters.

She wasn't alone; other researchers were also working to create stronger weapons that were better suited to the modern era.

Many people are striving for the continuation of humanity.

But those in power don't want a steady, long-term approach; they want the best results in the shortest amount of time. The emergence of superhumans is what they desire, even if each superhuman's emergence is built upon mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Bai Yan's personal will cannot represent all of humanity. Perhaps a hundred or a thousand years from now, people will think that awakening superpowers is the way to salvation, and that people like her are merciful fools who are slowing down humanity's progress.

But Bai Yan will not change her mind about the possible future insults. She has chosen this path, and even if it means sacrificing her life in the end, she will bravely continue on it.

Yong'an Base.

Lou Quan leaned back in his chair, his gaze falling on the researcher giving a presentation in front of him.

"We discovered a highly active energy within the crop seeds that Mr. Tao gave us; this should be the manifestation of Mr. Tao's supernatural energy."

They were all present when Tao Qiu accelerated the growth of crops, but they couldn't see or feel the supernatural power he released. Only when his power acted on specific objects could they, as ordinary people, glimpse it through scientific instruments.

Lou Quan tapped his fingers lightly on the table, calmly stating his idea, "The crops that Tao Qiu cultivated using her supernatural abilities can strengthen the body when consumed, indicating that this energy has the effects of 'medicine' and 'supplement.' If we add this energy to medicines, or rather, make medicine from energy, wouldn't the effects be even more significant?"

Lou Quan could also ask Tao Qiu to accelerate the growth of the herbs, which might enhance their medicinal properties and thus produce more effective medicines.

But this is similar to eating food; it's all about nourishment, and it takes time to accumulate gradually.

What Lou Quan wanted was a stronger and more immediate-acting drug.

The supernatural energy is mostly absorbed by crops, with only a portion acting on the human body. If the effects are already so good, what if it bypasses crops and acts directly on the human body? Would the effects be doubled?

A few days ago, when Lou Quan visited Tao Qiu and her three children in the planting area, he jokingly asked Tao Qiu if supernatural energy could be transferred into the human body in the same way it is transferred to plants.

Tao Qiu said, "No, you can't. Are you afraid of him?" He didn't believe her and even unleashed his supernatural power right there and then.