Chapter 120.2

A Taboo Constraint Seems To Be Breaking Through Step By Step

It was as if some kind of taboo restraint was being broken through bit by bit.

He longed to hear more screams and wails.

After three steps of the Three-Step Praise, his figure flickered. Like an eagle, he seized the backs of the two fleeing men's necks with both hands.

Bang!

He slammed both of them to the ground, giving their faces an intimate encounter with the concrete.

Lin Shuyou moved his arms, using their faces and blood to paint across the ground.

He had only opened the face, not entered trance.

But even with only the face opened, he still possessed the skill to dodge bullets.

Dealing with these five "melancholy-tempered" boys was effortless.

"Child, stop!"

Tan Wenbin's shout came from outside the wall by the shed.

He did not show himself, nor did he call out "Ayou."

As the son of a criminal police officer, he still had that much family training.

Lin Shuyou paused for a moment, then continued applying force with both hands.

"Child, I told you to stop!"

Tan Wenbin raised his voice, his tone turning deeper and sterner.

Unwillingness and anger showed in Lin Shuyou's eyes.

Just as he was about to press harder with both hands, his left hand suddenly slipped out of control and scratched across his own face, leaving a flaw in the freshly painted facial makeup.

Lin Shuyou's eyes cleared.

He stood up, kicked the two men beneath him away with one foot each, then lowered his center of gravity, preparing to leap onto the shed.

From outside the wall, Tan Wenbin said, "Jump to the building across from you."

Lin Shuyou immediately changed direction. In front of him stood a five-story staff dormitory building. He leaped onto it, then used both hands and feet, and under the gaze of the five men on the ground below, scaled the exterior wall at astonishing speed, reached the rooftop, and vanished.

Tan Wenbin let out a breath of relief. That way, when those five little idiots gave their statements, they would tell the police:

A man in black with painted facial makeup had descended from the sky, beaten them up, then with a whoosh vaulted onto the wall and disappeared.

That would thoroughly contaminate their testimony.

Ignoring the cries of pain and calls for help coming from the other side of the wall, Tan Wenbin returned to the dormitory, went upstairs, and pushed open the room door.

Lin Shuyou was sitting at the desk, holding a pen in his right hand and chewing the nails on his left.

His face was still wet, with traces of paint lingering at the corners.

Tan Wenbin pulled out his towel and tossed it onto Lin Shuyou's face.

"Wipe it clean."

"Okay." Lin Shuyou immediately started wiping.

"Have the people in your dorm ever seen your opera costume?"

"No."

"If this happens again, you are not to make a move without my permission first. Understood?"

"Mm."

Lin Shuyou nodded like a pecking chicken.

Tan Wenbin inhaled and suggested, "How about you paint the facial makeup back on? It would make it easier for us to talk."

Lin Shuyou immediately shook his head like a rattle drum.

Tan Wenbin picked up a banana, peeled it, and took three bites in a row.

"Brother Bin, these questions are so hard. How do you usually solve them?"

"Just like this."

"Huh? Brother Bin, you're amazing. You can even understand something this complicated."

"It doesn't matter if I can't understand it. Little Yuanhou will tailor a secret method for me."

Lin Shuyou: "..."

Tan Wenbin glanced at the suitcase. "Keep working on the problems. If Little Yuanhou comes back, tell him my mom asked me to deliver some things to Zhou Yunyun's family."

"Got it, Brother Bin. Do your best."

"Do your best, my foot."

"Sister-in-law is really nice. Very gentle."

"Huh? I already felt something was off yesterday. Did you talk to her or something?"

"N-no, no way!"

"Why are you so nervous?"

"I-I'm not nervous~"

"She and I aren't at that stage."

Until he had accompanied Little Yuanhou through the river walk and helped Zheng Haiyang get revenge, he did not want to think about such things.

But he could not use that as an excuse, nor could he make up some reason and ask her to wait for him.

"Oh, right. When Little Yuanhou comes back later, take the initiative and confess your crime."

"My crime?"

"Acting on your own without obeying orders is a major team taboo."

"I... I can join the team?"

"You can dream on."

Tan Wenbin vigorously ruffled Lin Shuyou's hair until it became a bird's nest, then pointed at the answer sheet.

"Don't think about writing the most perfect answer. You're not at that level. Just write down whatever you can think through. What Little Yuanhou wants is not your answer, but your attitude."

Lin Shuyou suddenly felt a flash of enlightenment.

Tan Wenbin pushed his suitcase out of the dormitory and went to the shop, where he picked up the telephone.

Runsheng was squatting behind the counter, fiddling with a color television and a VCR. Beside him was a stack of videotapes, all triad movies.

Tan Wenbin said, "Well now, been holding it in too long, huh? Hahaha, now you've got plenty to watch."

Runsheng smiled. He really had wanted to watch movies for a long time, but he still said, "They're all secondhand."

Tan Wenbin said, "Why not buy new ones? It's not like you can't afford them."

Runsheng shook his head. "Need to save the money for a pickup."

"When are you buying it?"

"Soon. Mengmeng is getting ready to sign up for driving school. Which one did you register with?"

"The one next to the school. Students get a discount there, and they can prioritize your practice sessions and exam."

"Is getting a driver's license hard?"

"Not hard. Just spend some time practicing." Tan Wenbin took out his wallet, pulled out a slip of paper, and got ready to make a call.

Runsheng pointed outside and said, "People from the security office and the infirmary came just now. They carried away several people with broken arms and legs."

"Mm. Lin Shuyou did that. They came to the dorm looking for me."

"Little Yuanhou..."

"Little Yuanhou isn't in the dorm."

"You should have cleaned things up better." Runsheng picked up a rag and wiped his hands. "Will they come again?"

"They're already in that miserable state. How would they dare? Students from another school came to our campus to cause trouble. Do you think the security office is useless?"

Runsheng said nothing more and went back to tinkering with the VCR.

Tan Wenbin dialed the number. The dorm supervisor auntie answered.

It was said that some schools with excellent conditions would install a telephone in every dorm room, but those were only a very small minority. At the moment, the cost of installing a phone was extremely high.

After giving Zhou Yunyun's dorm room number and name, Tan Wenbin had expected some waiting time, but the dorm supervisor on the other end said directly:

"Zhou Yunyun? Zhou Yunyun was just sent to the hospital."

Tan Wenbin's heart immediately skipped a beat, and he hurriedly asked, "What happened to her?"

There was a brief hesitation on the other end before the woman said:

"Anyway, she was taken to the hospital. I don't know anything else."

"Which hospital?"

"The Sixth Hospital."

Tan Wenbin hung up, his expression grave.

"Something happened?" Runsheng turned to look at him.

"Runsheng, help me make a call. Dorm 519, ask for Little Wang. You're a coworker of her dad."

Runsheng picked up the phone and asked while dialing, "Who's Little Wang?"

"There's probably someone surnamed Wang in their dorm."

The call connected, and Runsheng repeated what Tan Wenbin had told him to say.

Then Runsheng moved the receiver aside. "There really is someone surnamed Wang. She went to fetch her from the dorm to answer."

Tan Wenbin took the receiver and waited a moment. A girl's voice came from the other end, sounding as though she were crying:

"Hello, may I ask which uncle this is?"

"Hello, classmate. I'm Zhou Yunyun's friend. Did something happen to her?"

"Yunyun, she... Yunyun, she... wuwuwu..."

Tan Wenbin took a deep breath and bit his lip.

"Please tell me exactly what happened to Zhou Yunyun, all right? Cry afterward."

"Yunyun wasn't feeling well this morning. Just now she suddenly seemed to go mad, shouting that they mustn't tear off her skin, refusing to let anyone get near her, and she drove all the rest of us out of the dorm. Then the counselor and the school doctor broke the door open, forcibly took her away, and sent her to the hospital, wuwuwu..."

"The Sixth Hospital, right?"

"Yes."

The Sixth Hospital mainly treated mental illness.

From a realistic point of view, once a university student was sent to that kind of hospital, even a slight mishandling could seriously affect her future.

From an unrealistic point of view, these symptoms... were obviously strange, as if she had been affected by something unclean.

The dorm supervisor's earlier reluctance to say more clearly suggested she thought the same.

Was a new wave arriving?

Impossible. According to Little Yuanhou's theory, it could not come that quickly.

Which meant Zhou Yunyun, as an isolated case, had simply run into something unclean on her own?

But no matter what, he could not ignore it.

"Runsheng, something happened to Zhou Yunyun. The abnormal kind."

Hearing this, Runsheng bent down, took out a bulging hiking pack from beneath the counter, and slung it directly onto his back.

"Come on, let's go get Little Yuanhou. We'll all go together."

...

When Li Zhuiyuan returned to the dorm, he glanced at Lin Shuyou's answer sheet, saw that he had already written quite a bit, and nodded.

Then he poured himself a cup of water. Just as he was about to sit back down at his desk, Lin Shuyou turned around to face him and said very formally:

"Little Yuanhou, I am guilty."

Li Zhuiyuan listened to Lin Shuyou's account.

Then he asked:

"Did anyone die?"

"N-no. They all just got broken arms and legs."

"Oh."

Li Zhuiyuan responded, took a sip of water, and sat back down at his desk.

Lin Shuyou blinked. He felt that Little Yuanhou's reaction was a little too calm, as if he did not care at all.

Scratching his head, Lin Shuyou suddenly realized that in the past, he probably belonged to the "doesn't care at all" category too.

Now he ought to have improved to caring a little, right? Even if... only just the tiniest bit?

Li Zhuiyuan opened The Zhuiyuan Secret Scroll.

Yesterday, he had only recorded the big fish incident and had neglected the extensions and reflections.

Ordinary summarizing was simple, but the problem now was that, through his white glove hypothesis, he felt he ought to prepare something in advance.

If a man has no long-term concerns, he will have near-term worries. If all he did was answer questions single-mindedly, that would be far too mechanical and dogmatic.

He needed to think more from the perspective of the one setting the questions.

Was pursuing absolute perfection every single time really a good thing?

If he handled every incident cleanly and efficiently, what consequences would that bring?

Would it quietly give him a very high performance score, then factor that into the hidden difficulty of the next wave?

And if his performance was too outstanding every time, could that trigger an early weakening directed at the white glove?

Li Zhuiyuan's eyes showed thought.

He was considering one thing:

Score control.

Perhaps when the next wave came, he could try manipulating it.

If he could figure out the patterns and make it work, then in the future he would not only be able to choose the type of question himself, but also regulate its difficulty.

That would absolutely be a path no river walker in history had ever imagined.

And if he could achieve that step, there would be even higher levels above it, one after another.

Until, in the end, he reached what Li Zhuiyuan truly wanted to pursue:

I will set my own questions and test myself.

But all of that was still too far away.

The first wave had been resolved early. The second had been resolved even earlier. Theoretically, as long as he did not actively trigger it, there should still be a long time before the third wave arrived.

During that period, he planned to do two things.

First, get the White Crane Child initially adjusted and design a basic ghost-control technique for Zhuangzhuang.

Second, complete a new round of iteration for the team's equipment.

Actually, everyone now carrying a hiking pack and a standard set of tools and supplies was already much more organized than before, but it still was not enough.

There was no need for every person to carry the exact same set of things. Instead, while keeping a basic allocation, each person could carry equipment tailored to their own needs.

For example, Runsheng's Yellow River Spade could be remade into a new one, sturdier, more durable, and better suited to bringing out his strengths.

Yin Meng's Demon-Suppressing Whip could be customized again to make poisoning it more convenient. In addition, some outdoor cooking gear could be assigned to her, making poison preparation easier.

As for Tan Wenbin... he ought to get some sort of container for storing ghosts.

Also, should they custom-make a set of clothes and boots more suitable for field operations? Standardize their style a little?

In fact, there was one more thing Li Zhuiyuan needed to do. Yuxuzi had left behind so many incomplete array fragments, and he needed to use the Black Book to complete them.

Yuxuzi's attainments in high-level grand arrays were only average. What he excelled at was creating all sorts of subtle wonders within small arrays, which suited Li Zhuiyuan's practical needs perfectly.

Because in the overwhelming majority of cases, a high-level grand array could not be set up by just a few people. At minimum, you needed a construction crew.

For the new equipment and clothing design, he could ask Ah Li to help. Right now Ah Li was drawing the big fish and Yuxuzi. Once she finished, she would have something else to do.

One could not play chess all day long, and Ah Li was not suited to going to crowded places, so Li Zhuiyuan really liked the feeling of working together with Ah Li. The two of them dividing the work and completing things one by one truly gave him a sense of fulfillment.

Li Zhuiyuan took out a notebook and began listing materials.

He had just finished writing when the dorm room door was pushed open and Tan Wenbin and Runsheng came in, Tan Wenbin still panting.

"Little Yuanhou, something happened to Zhou Yunyun."

"What happened?"

Tan Wenbin quickly recounted the news he had learned from the phone call.

"Oh."

Li Zhuiyuan responded and handed the notebook to Runsheng. "Brother Runsheng, go prepare the materials on this list. Also notify Mengmeng and have her make a separate list for me of the properties and storage conditions of some commonly used poisons."

"All right." Runsheng took the notebook, then very naturally took off the hiking pack.

Li Zhuiyuan glanced at Lin Shuyou.

Runsheng then handed the hiking pack to Lin Shuyou.

Lin Shuyou felt as though happiness had come too suddenly. He hurriedly took the pack and slung it on his back.

"Brother Binbin, let's go. To the Sixth Hospital."

The three of them went downstairs together. As they walked toward the school gate, Tan Wenbin asked worriedly, "Little Yuanhou, could this be the third wave?"

"It won't be." Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. "That would be too fast. It doesn't fit its aesthetic."

The one setting the questions had its own pride.

It could lay traps in the questions, devise clever twists and loops, but it would never try to crush you with a high-frequency barrage of endless questions.

Li Zhuiyuan said, "Brother Binbin, you don't need to blame yourself and think you dragged her into this. It should just be that her luck was bad and she happened to run into something unclean. Fortunately, she knew you and had just met you again. You are the lucky star in her life."

After saying that, Li Zhuiyuan let out a quiet breath. Clearly, those words had been difficult, painful, even disgusting for him to say.

But in the end, he had forced himself to say them.

Hearing that, Tan Wenbin nodded, and the tension on his face eased at once.

Ever since he took the call, he had been distracted, worried that Zhou Yunyun had come to harm because she had gotten close to him.

Behind them, Lin Shuyou, carrying the hiking pack, tilted his head. He envied the gentleness Little Yuanhou showed Brother Bin.

Since it had already been judged an isolated, accidental incident, there was no need for the whole team to mobilize.

And against the kind of evil thing that could possess someone and perhaps had no visible form, Runsheng was actually less useful than Lin Shuyou, who could open vertical pupils. At the very least, Shuyou could serve as a kind of radar.

Besides, if Runsheng were there, Lin Shuyou would have no chance to perform. That would not be good for gathering experimental data, and would also affect the progress of designing a secret method for Binbin.

Zhuangzhuang's role was irreplaceable, but the weakness in his basic strength was undoubtedly one of the team's current shortcomings, and it had to be addressed.

Therefore, from the standpoint of the team's overall reasonable development, some risks had to be taken.

The three of them got into a taxi and headed straight for the Sixth Hospital.

Although the Sixth Hospital specialized in mental illness, it was also a general hospital, not as tightly sealed off from outsiders as a traditional psychiatric institution.

The three of them had just entered the hospital gates and had not yet walked into the main building when startled cries rang out all around them, and many figures appeared on the rooftop.

They looked up.

A girl in a patient's gown was standing barefoot on the edge of the roof.

Her shoulder-length hair was being whipped into disarray by the wind. Her face was streaked with tears, and she looked like a frightened little deer. Her body swayed back and forth, as if she might jump at any moment.

From time to time she looked behind her. Medical staff were hurrying up from behind, but what she was looking at was probably not them, because every time she turned, her body trembled as if she had seen some kind of horror.

"Zhou Yunyun?"

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