MCL CH34

Chapter 34: “It really was just like that, a sudden loss…”

Don’t be fooled by Samuel’s perpetual air of nobility and elegance. Underneath his aristocratic, showy exterior, his decisive actions have never been inferior to Yan Xingzhou’s. After hearing Lin Xi’s response, he simply smiled with satisfaction, but he didn’t look away. Instead, he continued to walk, making no attempt to hide the scrutiny in his expression.

It wasn’t until he entered Yan Xingzhou’s study that he spoke again, his tone incredibly sincere: “Mr. Lin Ni, for some reason, you give me a very familiar feeling. May I ask if we have met somewhere before?”

“No.” The smile on Lin Xi’s face remained. “I am just a very ordinary Chinese citizen. My awakened ability is even so weak that it’s only enough to make a passable lunch for Mr. Yan. I’ve never had much opportunity to interact with top-level ability users. Today should be our first meeting, Mr. Samuel.”

Samuel narrowed his eyes slightly: “Is… that… so?”

Lin Xi: “Yes, it is.”

Yan Xingzhou had already walked to the desk and opened his laptop: “You can come over now.”

Samuel’s attention was finally drawn away. He immediately stopped his back-and-forth with Lin Xi and walked over.

Before they arrived, Ju Ze had already efficiently completed all the preparations.

The encrypted file sent by the joint office was now displayed on Yan Xingzhou’s laptop screen. As the mouse clicked, the key interface for identity verification appeared.

Watching Yan Xingzhou pass the identity verification with an understated ease, a look of surprise appeared on Samuel’s face: “Isn’t that the joint office’s encryption format? After you caused such a scene back then, they still haven’t revoked your identity authority. Although you have an old saying that ‘couples fight in bed but make up afterward,’ they can’t possibly be waiting for a day to reconcile with you, can they?”

Yan Xingzhou: “…Using fewer idioms whose meaning you don’t understand might make your Chinese language skills seem more advanced.”

Samuel scoffed: “What do you know? This is called practicing spoken language. When I have some free time, I’m even planning to take a language proficiency test again.”

Yan Xingzhou: “Oh, knowing you’re so motivated, your Chinese language teacher must be very pleased.”

Lin Xi: “…”

He suddenly became a little curious about how much ‘spoken language practice’ Samuel had subjected Yan Xingzhou to over the years. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be holding so much resentment.

Although Samuel’s words were imprecise, he had indeed very keenly grasped the intention of the joint office.

Even though he hadn’t personally witnessed Yan Xingzhou rushing into the headquarters building, it wasn’t hard to see from the clues he had previously found that the atmosphere at the time was tense, and the two sides had definitely had a very ugly falling out.

Whether it was the incident at the time or the subsequent establishment of the Wanyuan Group after they parted ways, Yan Xingzhou’s repeated actions were basically stomping all over the joint office’s dignity. And despite this, Gu Baiqiu, after taking over as the Chief Executive, still left Yan Xingzhou’s top-tier authority intact. The only reason was undoubtedly the man’s identity as a dual-ability X-code user.

The joint office had indeed adopted the lowest possible stance. Even if they couldn’t hope for a complete reconciliation with Yan Xingzhou, they at least hoped to keep the relationship in a relatively relaxed state.

Lin Xi had been in the position of Chief Executive, so he instantly understood Gu Baiqiu’s current predicament. After all, he could rely on his own strength to have enough authority to speak, while Gu Baiqiu was only a relatively top-tier dual-ability user. After the joint office had lost two X-ability users one after another, he still had to deal with the International Ability User Administration, and he probably had to put up with a lot.

This was evident from Samuel’s dismissive attitude toward the entire joint office when he first appeared yesterday.

Samuel didn’t know if he was already used to Yan Xingzhou’s critiques of his Chinese language skills or if he really didn’t understand the underlying sarcasm, but he wasn’t annoyed at all. He leaned closer: “Come on, let me see what great stuff Gu Baiqiu sent you.”

Unexpectedly, Yan Xingzhou reached out and stopped him: “What are you doing?”

Yan Xingzhou: “Move back.”

Samuel: “?”

He was clearly puzzled by what was happening, but with a look of confusion, he cooperated and took a step back.

Then he saw Yan Xingzhou beckon to Lin Xi: “Come here.”

Samuel: “???”

He widened his eyes slightly: “Is that appropriate?”

“It’s appropriate.” Yan Xingzhou saw that Lin Xi wasn’t moving and said again, “Come here.”

Lin Xi’s eyebrow slightly raised. He glanced at Samuel’s jealous expression and still walked over.

“Look,” Yan Xingzhou said, directly pushing the laptop in front of him. He put his other hand on the mouse and unhurriedly expanded the document to full size.

Lin Xi had already glimpsed a few familiar names before, and now with one look, he instantly understood the contents of the list.

After clearing the Super S-Class Rift, as was customary, Lin Xi and the other joint office members who participated in the operation underwent a period of post-incident observation in an independent isolation room. The people on this list were, in fact, the staff who had interacted with him at that time.

Some of these people were from the joint office, responsible for assisting him, the Executive, with his daily work. Some were from the Comprehensive Aid Station, mainly responsible for his daily contamination value monitoring. And some were from the Central Research Institute. Although the Calamity was not the first contaminant he had devoured, as the first Super S-Class contaminant humanity had encountered, everyone had to prepare for the worst.

Yes, the worst-case scenario.

Lin Xi slightly narrowed his eyes.

Ability users would not get sick after contact with contaminants, but they could lose control due to the overly frequent use of their abilities.

This kind of ability loss of control happened almost every month at the joint office. But Lin Xi was different from others—the loss of control of an X-code user was not something that could be taken lightly. If not handled properly, it could be a world-ending disaster.

“So, these are the people who had contact with Lin at the time?” Samuel’s anger came and went quickly. In the blink of an eye, he had leaned over again. Yan Xingzhou had already pulled up another chair for Lin Xi to sit on. Now, he was resting his arms on both their shoulders, squeezing his head in the middle to look at the screen. “From the notes on their positions, they are all legitimate workers. They all look quite normal. Yan, are you sure someone here has a problem?”

Yan Xingzhou replied: “I am sure.”

“But…” Samuel was about to say something, but he stopped when he remembered Lin Xi was there.

Yan Xingzhou: “It’s okay, don’t hold back. You can speak freely.”

There were only the three of them in the study now. Even Ju Ze was arranged to wait outside. Samuel didn’t expect Yan Xingzhou to trust this Mr. Lin, whom he supposedly just met, to this extent.

However, he had always trusted Yan Xingzhou’s judgment. Since he said so, he spoke without any reservation: 

“As you said before, the joint office’s explanation was that Lin suddenly lost control of his ability, and to avoid causing too much damage, they were forced to arrange that siege. Although it was publicly announced that he died in the line of duty while clearing the rift, you could somewhat argue that they deliberately covered up the loss of control to protect Lin’s reputation after his death. I’ve watched that video carefully every time it’s been played. Although the people from the joint office were a bit ruthless in their actions, you can tell from the chaos in the footage that Lin’s state was indeed not right.”

Yan Xingzhou interrupted Samuel’s words unhurriedly: “That’s still not a reason for the joint office to act.”

The atmosphere subtly froze for a moment.

A moment later, Samuel laughed heartily: “Yan, you’re being a bit unreasonable now.”

He slowly got up, a rare look of seriousness on his face: “I don’t want to see anything happen to Lin either. If there’s really a conspiracy behind this, I will do everything in my power to avenge him. But if the loss of control of his ability was a fact, you and I both know what the consequences would be. Personal feelings are one thing. If they hadn’t taken action in that situation, it could have endangered the entire world.”

Yan Xingzhou: “So what?”

Samuel was momentarily in disbelief, thinking he was hallucinating: “What did you say?”

Yan Xingzhou slowly raised his eyes. There was a faint, emotionless smile in them. He repeated with great patience: “I said, so what? A world without him, no matter what it becomes, has no meaning to me.”

Samuel was speechless for a moment. He frowned, and all his expressions ultimately turned into one of concern: “Assistant Ju told me you have been seeing a psychiatrist regularly. Please promise me you will not stop your treatment.”

“Thank you for your concern. My mental state is very stable. And the loss of control of his ability is not the point. I asked Gu Baiqiu for this list to figure out what happened behind the scenes.” Yan Xingzhou said, silently pushing the man who was leaning too close away a little. “It’s getting late. Go back, or your diplomat will come looking for you. As for this list, if you’re still interested in participating in the investigation, I’ll send you a copy.”

Samuel was at a loss for words: “Are you kicking me out?”

Yan Xingzhou didn’t answer. Instead, he took out his phone and dialed a number.

A moment later, Ju Ze, who was waiting outside, pushed open the study door: “Mr. Samuel, the car is waiting downstairs.”

Samuel was about to say something when his phone rang. He looked down and saw the diplomat’s name on the screen: “…”

He gave Yan Xingzhou an angry look and could only press the accept button as he walked out with large strides: “Hi, my dearest, I’m on my way back. Oh, believe me, I really didn’t run around while you were resting. Am I the kind of person who likes to cause trouble everywhere?”

As the study door closed, the voices and footsteps outside faded away.

Finally, only the two of them were left in the room. Yan Xingzhou turned around and saw Lin Xi looking thoughtfully at the list on the computer. He asked, “Did you find anything?”

“I’m not sure if it counts as a discovery yet.”

Lin Xi shifted his attention from the computer to Yan Xingzhou. He had obviously heard all of their conversation, and his tone now carried a hint of teasing. “I don’t know if I should praise you. Even Samuel has started questioning your mental state. Mr. Yan, are you really not afraid that those words, once they get out, will be used against you by people with ulterior motives?”

“I don’t care. I’m just stating a fact.”

Yan Xingzhou walked over and slowly closed the laptop screen. He looked at Lin Xi intently: “The person getting in the way is gone. Now you can tell me. So, what happened that day when I wasn’t there?”

His words seemed calm, and his expression wasn’t very rippled, but as they left his mouth, a subtle tension could be detected in his voice.

With the sudden closeness, their eyes met. Lin Xi was silent for a moment and then smiled quietly: “Gu Baiqiu didn’t deliberately find an excuse to stall you about what happened that day. Just as you heard from the joint office, although it’s a bit too coincidental, at that time, my ability really did—just suddenly lose control.”