111: Chapter 111 The First Strike Upon Returning Home: Slaying the Gossipy Neighbor

Jinghai City, Longhu Mountain Villa, Guanhu Residence.

On an early summer afternoon, the sun baked the manicured lawn, and the scent of green grass permeated the air.

Jiang Feng, dressed in oversized pajamas, was sprawled on the leather sofa in the living room.

In his hand was a glass of cola filled with ice cubes, its outer surface covered in beads of condensation.

He tilted his head back and took a large gulp.

The icy bubbles agitated his mouth and surged straight to the bottom of his stomach, bringing a wave of refreshment.

Compared to the earthy smell and deathly aura of the Deep Well Base in the Northwest, this glass of cola was practically nectar of the gods.

"Ding-dong— Ding-dong— Ding-dong—"

The doorbell rang rhythmically, mechanical like a robot performing a clock-in task.

Jiang Feng rolled his eyes.

He didn't even need to think to know who was standing outside.

This woman had only been back in the Location for a day, and she was already knocking on his door.

"Old Chen," Jiang Feng shouted at the top of his lungs while sinking into the sofa, "just say I'm in the late stages of brain cancer that has metastasized to my vocal cords, I can't speak today, and I'm declining visitors."

Old Chen draped his rag over the back of a chair, walked quickly to the entryway, and pulled open the front door.

Outside the door, Lu Cheng was dressed in cream-colored casual wear.

Her clothes were meticulous, with every button fastened to the very top.

She was carrying an exquisitely packaged kraft paper box in her hand.

Old Chen's tall frame blocked the doorway, showing no intention of stepping aside.

"Is Consultant Jiang in?" Lu Cheng's gaze passed over Old Chen and landed on the figure sprawled on the sofa in the living room.

"The boss is feeling unwell," Old Chen replied.

"According to the social logic of traditional interpersonal societies, after neighbors have collectively experienced a long-distance business trip and returned safely, they should logically visit each other to consolidate social connections and confirm each other's physical and mental health status."

Lu Cheng held out the kraft paper box.

"This is mung bean cake from a long-established shop in the south of the Location. According to my sociological data survey, eighty-five percent of Jinghai locals subconsciously view this type of sweet as a social symbol of goodwill."

On the sofa, Jiang Feng couldn't keep up the act anymore.

This woman's ability to turn delivering snacks into an academic report was a talent in itself.

"Old Chen, let her in." Jiang Feng grabbed a tissue to wipe his hands. "She's even brought out sociological data. If I don't eat this mung bean cake, wouldn't I be a sinner disrupting the social harmony of Jinghai City?"

Old Chen stepped aside, clearing a path.

Lu Cheng put on disposable slippers, walked to the coffee table, and placed the paper box precisely in the center of the glass surface.

Jiang Feng pinched a piece, stuffed it into his mouth, and bit off half.

"The taste is passable." Jiang Feng chewed while taking a sip of cola, eating as he pleased. "Speak up, Dr. Lu. Now that your social connection consolidation is finished, which frequency of my energy field are you measuring today?"

Lu Cheng took out a black notebook and pulled out a fountain pen.

"Consultant Jiang." Lu Cheng opened the notebook and looked directly at Jiang Feng. "While re-evaluating the energy counter-current model of Level B5 at the Deep Well Base, I encountered a logical deadlock."

"Oh?" Jiang Feng tossed the remaining half-piece of mung bean cake into his mouth and slapped the crumbs off his hands. "Your airtight materialistic brain can actually get tied in knots?"

"You said at the base before that you have a Evil-Suppressing Talisman left by an expert inside your body, which could act as a formation core to absorb the source of pollution. In terms of physics, I can barely explain this using reverse interference of homologous energy bands."

Lu Cheng tapped the tip of her pen on the paper.

"But according to my subsequent sampling and analysis results, an absolute negative energy collapse exhibiting anti-thermodynamic phenomena appeared in the residual material structure of the scene. Simply put, an explosion did not occur there; instead, it was like a miniature black hole that devoured all harmful energy, leaving not a trace behind."

She looked up, her eyes filled only with a feverish passion for unknown truths.

"I cannot use existing scientific theories to derive how a mortal physical body could withstand such a collapse without disintegrating. Therefore, I need you to provide a detailed subjective account of your feelings at that time."

Jiang Feng leaned against the back of the sofa and crossed his legs.

The Eye of Truth indicated that she was not lying.

She simply wanted to know the answer.

But that was precisely what made Jiang Feng's skin crawl.

A neighbor who held no malice toward others, yet treated you like an unsolved physics problem.

If this problem required cutting you open to see the answer, she would pick up the knife without hesitation, feeling neither guilt nor malice.

Because in her worldview, a human was just a combination of carbohydrates and electrical signals.

"Subjective feelings, huh?" Jiang Feng picked up a second piece of mung bean cake and spun it between his fingers, his tone casual.

"Dr. Lu, you science types just think too much. If you insist on trying to fit this into terms like 'black holes' and 'collapse,' of course you won't solve it."

"I'll tell you the simplest truth. Do you know why I could withstand that whatever-you-called-it energy counter-current?"

Lu Cheng gripped her pen tightly, the tip hovering over the paper, ready to record.

Jiang Feng grinned, revealing a punchable smile.

"Because I've had my fortune told; my eight characters show a Wood deficiency in my Five Elements. What was stored in that basement? bamboo slips. bamboo slips belong to the Wood element! Wood overcomes Earth, and Earth produces Metal. I sucked in a few breaths of Wood Qi in there, and it gave me a direct, massive boost."

Jiang Feng took a bite of the mung bean cake, eating with great relish.

"This is called a metaphysical closed loop. How about it, Dr. Lu? Is this logic scientific enough? Do you want to write it down and put it in your 'Shenjing Base Energy Field Anomaly Analysis and Emergency Response Report'?"

The corner of Old Chen's mouth twitched slightly; he knew his boss too well. This kind of nonsense literature could irritate the dead back to life.

Lu Cheng stared at Jiang Feng for half a minute, her pupils unmoving, as if she were extracting data.

Clearly, she failed.

"Consultant Jiang, you are using meaningless logical sophistry to attempt to obscure the core facts." Lu Cheng withdrew her gaze, unmoved.

"Say what you will." Jiang Feng spread his hands. "I'm just a fortune teller. I take people's money to avert their disasters. Now the money's taken and the disaster's averted, so everyone goes back to their own homes. If you insist on digging a theory of relativity out of me, you've found the wrong person."

Lu Cheng capped her pen and closed her notebook.

"I have one more question," Lu Cheng said.

She didn't prepare to record this question.

"Consultant Jiang, you possess the ability to predict good and bad fortune and avoid risks."

"At the Deep Well Base, you clearly knew it was an energy volcano. If your divination ability is effective, the optimal choice would have been to evacuate. However, why did you not avoid the risk, but instead repeatedly and proactively step into such extreme crises?"

In Lu Cheng's calculation model, a person who could foresee danger should have a survival probability of one hundred percent.

He would avoid all dangerous nodes.

But Jiang Feng's behavioral trajectory completely violated this survival logic.

The living room was quiet for a few seconds.

Jiang Feng leaned back on the sofa, his arms draped over the backrest, looking at her like an adult watching a child who had just learned arithmetic.

"Dr. Lu, have you stayed in the lab so long that you think the outside world also runs according to formulas?"

Jiang Feng's tone carried a hint of mockery.

"Because I'm a common man. A common man needs to pay utility bills, needs to eat, and even more so needs to earn money to treat this terminal illness in my head. A mortal being of flesh and blood like me is different from a machine like you that drinks engine oil and has nothing but code in its head."

He sat up straight and looked Lu Cheng in the eye.

"Risk and reward are directly proportional. Even the guy applying screen protectors under the overpass understands this truth. You don't understand it because you simply don't have the needs of a normal person."

These words were blunt, tearing apart the high-end academic barriers Lu Cheng took pride in.

He used the most basic survival logic to crush her data model.

Lu Cheng looked at Jiang Feng.

She didn't get angry at being called an "engine oil-drinking machine"; her emotional system seemed to lack anger.

She lowered her head thoughtfully, opened her notebook again, and seriously wrote down a line of words.

After finishing, she stood up and straightened her clothes.

"Thank you for your time, Consultant Jiang. Today's social visit was very successful. I will incorporate the 'risk and reward theory' you provided into my next step of research parameters."

Lu Cheng turned and walked toward the door with precise steps.

"I won't see you out." Jiang Feng didn't look up.

The door closed, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded away in the courtyard.

Jiang Feng slumped back onto the sofa and let out a long breath.

Dealing with this madwoman was more exhausting than negotiating with ten armed thugs.

Old Chen emerged from behind the sofa and walked to the window. Through the gaps in the blinds, he watched Lu Cheng enter the neighboring villa.

"Boss." Old Chen turned around, his voice very low and carrying a rare gravity.

"What is it?" Jiang Feng rubbed his temples.

"You asked me to re-investigate her background back then." Old Chen walked to the coffee table. "I used my intelligence contacts in my former unit to dig through deeper encrypted archives."

"The fire at the Xiangyanghua Orphanage... something isn't right."

"I looked up the police records and the settlement files from that year. That fire destroyed all the archive rooms, and the welfare home became a ruin. The final report at the time stated it was an accidental fire and that eight people died."

"But I had someone check the backup data from that year. A week before the fire, the number of registered resident children and staff at the Xiangyanghua Orphanage was seventy-two in total."

"And after that fire, whether it was the list of survivors or the number of charred remains dug out from the fire scene... added together, there were only fifty-seven people."

"Seventeen people vanished into thin air."

Jiang Feng pursed his lips.

The Xiangyanghua Orphanage, the five-year gap in Lu Cheng's resume, and people vanishing into thin air.

These clues were like an invisible net, quietly tightening.

"It seems," Jiang Feng picked up his cola and shook it, "that the trouble our science-only Dr. Lu is carrying is even bigger than I thought."