HR Chapter 50
by VolareThe building in front of him was built according to the terrain, with windows and doors arranged like fish scales, neat and orderly. It was four or five stories high, and the overall color was white, with only a small door, just wide enough for two people to pass side by side.
Seeing this building, Lu Qinyuan somewhat understood why Xiao Qi disliked white. He only looked at it for a while before he felt dizzy. The white color that stretched out of sight was very dazzling.
After passing through the small door, in the very center of the wide courtyard stood a statue of Sun Simiao, holding a medicine hoe and carrying a medicine basket on his back, his feet treading on green grass and clear water, both approachable and sacred. Lu Qinyuan looked around. The building was built with the statue as the center and a hundred meters as the diameter, imitating the Hakka Tulou, a round fortress.
Si Cheng Zhengli didn’t go upstairs. He led them around the statue and through another door at the back. Behind it was another section of bluestone steps, leading directly to the top of the mountain.
Si Cheng Zhengli stroked Xiao Qi’s hair and said in a low voice, “Go back by yourself. I’ll see you when I’m done.”
Xiao Qi was still holding a handful of snake bed seeds in his hand. His face didn’t show any displeasure, but it didn’t seem like he was in a good mood either. He instructed Lu Qinyuan, “Come back early.”
Lu Qinyuan felt that Xiao Qi seemed like he was about to cry when he said this. He felt a mix of emotions in his heart, and he just nodded, watching Xiao Qi go up step by step, without his usual lightheartedness and playfulness.
Lu Qinyuan kept watching until Xiao Qi’s figure was blocked by a tree branch extending halfway up the mountain. He felt an indescribable sadness in his heart.
Si Cheng Zhengli didn’t allow him to overthink. He led him into a small, indistinct path, took a few steps, stopped, and pointed ahead, saying, “Brother Mu is ahead. After you’ve finished talking, go back to Xiao Qi. Keep it short and don’t waste too much time. I’ll go welcome the old man.” After saying that, he turned and left, and the people beside him also left together, leaving only Lu Qinyuan standing there.
Lu Qinyuan suppressed the excitement in his heart, raised his foot and walked along the path. After a slight turn, a delicate two-story villa appeared in front of him. The front of the house was planted with all kinds of flowers, and butterflies and bees danced in the flower bushes. A person stood in the flower bushes, bending over and pruning the branches. The mountain breeze blew the broken hair in front of that person’s forehead, the clothes were thin, the elegance in his gestures, peaceful like a painting, beautiful like a dream.
“Second Uncle…” Lu Qinyuan’s voice was light and Piaopiao. The man heard the voice and looked over, his face calm, only a pair of slender, watery eyes inadvertently curved into a slight arc, his eyes filled with a faint smile. He abandoned the flower branches he was pruning and walked towards Lu Qinyuan: “I am Mu Linxian, not your second uncle. Cheng Hui is dead.”
This person was as young as he was twenty years ago, handsome and aloof, but also showing delicate tenderness in the subtle places. Mu Linxian looked at Lu Qinyuan: “You are not like your father, deeply affectionate yet extremely ruthless.”
Lu Qinyuan didn’t quite understand. This didn’t seem like the Lu Jianwei he knew. He had only seen Lu Jianwei’s ruthlessness and never his affection. Mu Linxian seemed to simply sigh and asked, “Is Bai Ze’s health better?”
Back then, he had strayed onto this path of no return for the sake of Bai Ze, the child he was concerned about. He had only held him once and never seen him again. Was he doing well?
Lu Qinyuan smiled: “Bai Ze is very well. His name is Bai Ze, and he also has a nickname, Jian’er.”
“Jian’er?” Mu Linxian’s voice contained a faint smile: “Little Wolf actually believes in cheap names for easy upbringing.”
Lu Qinyuan didn’t react for a moment who the Little Wolf in Mu Linxian’s mouth was. Anyone who saw someone younger than themselves calling a big boss who had been in the underworld for many years Little Wolf would feel uncomfortable. Mu Linxian didn’t care whether Lu Qinyuan was comfortable or not and continued: “I went back once a few years ago. Everyone has changed, only I haven’t changed.” He raised his left hand to show Lu Qinyuan. There was a small, bright red cut on his index finger, like a fresh cut but not bleeding: “This was cut three months ago and hasn’t healed yet.”
Lu Qinyuan was slightly surprised in his heart, but his face remained unchanged. Mu Linxian narrated in a flat voice: “From the moment I drank that cup of tea twenty years ago, I have never changed again. I am like someone abandoned by time, stopped at that moment twenty years ago.”
Everything stopped growing, stopped at the most beautiful moment of appearance.
However, Mu Linxian smiled wryly: “It’s just beautiful on the outside.”
“Second Uncle, what exactly happened twenty years ago?” Lu Qinyuan couldn’t wait to get to the bottom of things.
Mu Linxian asked instead: “Did you see that white building when you came?”
Lu Qinyuan replied: “It’s very magnificent.”
Mu Linxian said: “Then, welcome to the human experiment base, Yuan Fen.” He paused and continued: “This is an experimental base specially built for Xiao Qi. As long as Xiao Qi doesn’t die and Si Cheng Houzai is still alive, the experiment will not stop. However, this is not a problem that can be solved by someone disappearing. If it could, that person would have died long ago and wouldn’t have waited until now.”
Mu Linxian took out a square velvet small red box and handed it to Lu Qinyuan: “I won’t go to see him. Give him this and he will understand.”
Lu Qinyuan took it and held it in his palm, and asked: “He calls your name in his dreams, are you so cruel that you won’t go see him?”
Mu Linxian stared at Lu Qinyuan: “You care about Xiao Qi very much.”
Lu Qinyuan was noncommittal: “It’s a pity that the person he cares about is not me.”
Mu Linxian pointed his finger on Lu Qinyuan’s heart: “It’s mutual, why bother?”
Lu Qinyuan’s breath stagnated, but after all, he was a junior, and he had always admired this Second Uncle, so he suppressed his temper, but his tone was full of undisguised anger: “You should at least tell me what happened twenty years ago. Cheng Ruoyu almost cried his eyes out for you. So many people remember you, why don’t you send a message when you’re alive?” His words were a bit of a complaint about Mu Linxian, and he didn’t use respectful terms anymore, without the anxiety and respect he had when he came.
Mu Linxian’s mouth slightly twitched, but he was straightforward: “Alright, let’s make it short.”
Although he said that, Mu Linxian didn’t speak for a long time. He suddenly felt that the events of twenty years ago were so distant, like something that happened in a previous life.
In the hospital, watching his Third Brother, Bai Liushen, die on the hospital bed, watching the small, fragile life inside the incubator struggle on the edge of life and death, Cheng Hui, at the age of nineteen, made a decision. He wanted to study medicine, he wanted to protect the child left behind by his Third Brother.
Edison said that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, but that one percent inspiration is the most important, even more important than that ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Cheng Hui was undoubtedly a favored genius. He only needed to put in one percent of perspiration to gain ninety-nine percent of inspiration. This allowed him to quickly become famous in the medical field. In just four years, he became a rare genius in the medical world.
It was also at this time that the authoritative Si Cheng family in the medical field extended an olive branch to him. Cheng Hui gladly accepted, went home, and went to a research institute of the Si Cheng family.
Cheng Hui was cold and aloof by nature, born with a face that kept strangers away. Others thought he was arrogant and couldn’t afford to associate with him, so they didn’t take the initiative to talk to him. Except for the necessary exchanges at work, they almost never had contact. So Cheng Hui actually didn’t have many friends, and even if he died, no one would know.
Cheng Hui didn’t die. He did hear that four people had already died before him. He heard it from a colleague who did experiments together. Sudden death, all in their twenties, probably from overwork.
The people in the research institute were slightly different from what Cheng Hui had imagined. He had personally seen a researcher die in front of him because he couldn’t find a suitable experimental subject and tried the medicine himself. Before he died, he had a smile on his face. The experiment was successful, but the person died.
Cheng Hui didn’t believe it. Maybe it was overwork, then it wasn’t overwork.
Cheng Hui could always find abnormalities in the subtle places. He paid attention, checked the names of those people, and pulled their physical examination reports. He checked bit by bit and found a problem. Before they died, they all had the same experience, drinking a cup of tea, a cup of slightly spicy Qihong tea.
A few days ago, someone told him that the director wanted to see him and was waiting for him in the office.
Cheng Hui went to the office full of doubts. Si Cheng Houzai was looking at a stack of documents. When he saw him, he pointed to the steaming teacup on the table and said, “Try it, it tastes good.”
Si Cheng Houzai usually took good care of him and was considered half of his teacher. Cheng Hui didn’t suspect him and took a sip, thinking it tasted good. He happened to be thirsty, so he drank the entire cup of tea. Si Cheng Houzai even smiled and poured him another cup, praising him for his recent performance.
So Cheng Hui knew the taste of that cup of Qihong, slightly spicy.
From that day on, Si Cheng Houzai often invited Cheng Hui to drink tea every now and then, and his eyes were full of undisguised surprise and jealousy.
Cheng Hui felt more and more uneasy. When Si Cheng Houzai invited him to drink tea again, he refused, and then he was knocked unconscious with a cloth soaked in □□ and locked in a room.
He went from a outstanding medical genius to a white mouse at the mercy of others.
Became that fifth person.
A year later, Si Cheng Houzai was very satisfied with the answers the surviving white mice gave him, but he didn’t allow anyone to be younger than him and benefit before him, and he didn’t want this secret to leak out, so he prepared a last supper to feast everyone and burn the bodies to ashes.
But in the end, he didn’t succeed.
Cheng Hui escaped and became the only survivor.
Cheng Hui was extremely angry, deceived, humiliated, and used. He couldn’t wait to take revenge.
Hearing that Si Cheng Houzai’s proud only son, Si Cheng Duyu, was driven mad by the loss of his beloved wife and only left behind a young son, he didn’t hesitate to add fuel to the fire. He told Si Cheng Houzai: “The experiment failed.”
Soon Si Cheng Houzai received a bag of information. Patient, Cheng Hui, gender, male, age, 25 years old, symptoms, organ failure. Although slow, it was visibly aging.
Before long, Cheng Hui received a reply from Si Cheng Houzai. He had found a better experimental subject, a grandson who was not yet a year old.
Si Cheng Houzai worked hard and found the mistake. He prescribed medicine to raise his young grandson from a young age so that he could adapt to the medicine when he grew up. If he succeeded, Si Cheng was the winner. If he didn’t succeed, he would just lose one person.
Cheng Hui felt cold all over when he looked at the reply. Even a tiger wouldn’t eat its cubs, but Si Cheng Houzai was crueler and more poisonous than a tiger. He didn’t know what tricks he used to deceive Si Cheng Duyu into not only agreeing but also being willing to participate in the experiment.
The author has something to say:
Xiao Qi’s father’s name has been changed. It was Si Cheng Wan before, but now it’s changed to Si Cheng Duyu. The previous ones will be modified uniformly later.