Chapter 131: More Interesting Discoveries About This Investment

Chapter 131: Chapter 131: More Interesting Discoveries About This Investment

Xavier stopped in his tracks. His gaze immediately shifted toward a young woman standing outside a bakery farther down the street.

She was furtively gathering pieces of expired bread that the shopkeeper had discarded.

For a moment, Xavier simply stared at her. Then a broad smile spread across his face.

"An unawakened Calamity Toxin? And another human investment target!"

This was the fourth eligible target he had encountered.

He had originally assumed that such opportunities would be relatively rare, but it seemed he had merely needed to get out and explore the world a little more.

His mood lifted considerably. He had come to Silver Lake intending to settle a score with the Lindsay family.

Unexpectedly, he had stumbled upon another opportunity to benefit from his system before even reaching their doorstep.

Without hesitation, Xavier headed toward the young woman.

* * *

The girl carefully gathered the discarded bread, bowed politely to the bakery owner, and walked away.

Xavier did not follow her immediately. Instead, he approached the middle aged shopkeeper, whose business appeared to be preparing to close for the night.

He had noticed something earlier: before throwing the expired bread away, the shopkeeper had glanced at the girl.

That suggested this was not the first time she had come looking for food.

Although Xavier was eager to invest in her, he was not about to help someone without first learning a little about her character.

The system might identify people with extraordinary potential, but that did not mean every eligible target deserved his assistance.

If the girl turned out to have a terrible disposition, he would have no reason to rush into helping her.

"Boss, what’s the story with that young woman?" Xavier asked.

The shopkeeper turned toward him warily.

"Who are you? Why are you asking about her?" he said.

Xavier did not bother explaining himself. Instead, he took out his A-rank identification card from the Extraordinary Division and showed it to the man.

The shopkeeper’s expression changed immediately.

"So you’re an A-rank expert from the Extraordinary Division!" he exclaimed, his earlier suspicion giving way to enthusiasm.

"That girl is Maya Knox. She’s a poor thing, really." He sighed before continuing.

"I don’t know much about her past. She showed up around here two months ago and said she’d come from the countryside to look for her mother. I believe she mentioned that her name was Sarah, though I’m not entirely certain. I’ve been running this bakery for more than twenty years, and I’ve never heard of her before."

The man paused, recalling the girl’s appearance.

"She has all these little pustules covering her face," he said.

"It’s quite alarming to look at, but she’s a polite child with a good heart. She always treats people respectfully, even when she’s in a difficult situation." He shook his head regretfully.

"Unfortunately, my shop doesn’t need any more workers, or I might have offered her a job. There’s only so much I can do for her."

The bakery owner continued sharing what little he knew about the girl, recounting the details of her brief time in the neighborhood.

Xavier listened attentively, his interest in the mysterious young woman growing with every word.

Meanwhile, Inside a large cement pipe at an abandoned construction site, Maya Knox returned to her makeshift shelter with a bag of bread in her hands.

The narrow pipe was barely large enough for a person to lie down in.

A worn out quilt covered part of the ground, serving as her bed and the only thing she could call home.

Maya sat down, took a few sips from a bottle of cold water, and began eating the bread she had brought back.

"Dad, you told me Mom was here in Silver Lake, but I’ve been searching for three months without finding a single clue," she murmured, her voice barely audible in the empty pipe.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

She lowered her head, staring at the bread in her hands. Confusion and helplessness weighed heavily on her heart.

She had come all this way hoping to find her mother, yet after three months of searching, she was no closer to discovering where the woman lived.

Maya had grown up in a small rural village.

Her father was a farmer, and her grandparents had died when she was still very young.

From then on, it had been just the two of them, struggling through life together.

As a child, she had often wondered why the other children had mothers while she did not. Whenever she asked her father about it, he would fall silent.

He never offered an explanation, no matter how many times she brought up the subject.

Eventually, Maya stopped asking.

She had few friends and rarely interacted with anyone beyond her father.

Ever since she could remember, strange white pustules had covered her body, particularly her face.

Other children found her appearance frightening and unpleasant, and most people preferred to keep their distance.

But her father’s love had never changed. He treated her as his precious daughter, never making her feel that there was anything wrong with her.

Thanks to him, Maya had gradually learned to accept her appearance, even if the rest of the world could not.

When she turned ten, her father spent a considerable portion of his meager savings to buy her a smartphone. He wanted her to have something that would make her happy.

A year later, he began teaching her how to make friends online, hoping she would not feel so lonely.

When she was twelve, he bought her another phone, allowing her to keep the old one for playing games, listening to music, and reading books.

As the years passed, her father continued doing whatever he could to give her a comfortable life, even when their circumstances made it difficult.

There were only two things Maya had ever truly struggled with: her appearance and the bitter medicines her father insisted she take.

He would travel considerable distances and spend what little money he had to obtain different medications, always hoping they might finally cure the persistent pustules covering her body.

Maya never complained about taking them. She understood that her father was trying to help her, and every bitter dose reminded her of how much he cared.

For eighteen years, she had lived a simple but peaceful life. She had little contact with the outside world, but she had her father, and that had always been enough.

Then, four months ago, everything fell apart.

On the day of her eighteenth birthday, her father suddenly collapsed.

Only the day before, he had seemed perfectly healthy, working on the farm as usual.

Seeing him lying helplessly before her, his face drained of color and his body alarmingly frail, Maya broke down in tears.

She begged him to get better. She prayed desperately, hoping that someone would answer her pleas.

But no matter how hard she prayed, her father never recovered. He fought for another week before finally passing away. The villagers helped bury him, and Maya watched as the only person who had ever loved her unconditionally was laid to rest.

With his death, the village that had been her home for eighteen years suddenly felt unbearable.

But before he died, her father had finally revealed the truth about her mother. It was a secret he had kept for most of his life.

According to him, Maya’s mother had been the eldest daughter of a powerful martial arts family.

Despite the family’s status and expectations, she had fallen in love with an ordinary farmer and eloped with him.

That farmer was Maya’s father.

The two had lived together for a time and eventually had a daughter.

However, when Maya was still an infant, members of her mother’s family discovered their whereabouts and forcibly took the woman away.

Her father had been powerless to stop them. He was nothing more than an ordinary farmer, with neither the strength nor the connections to challenge a powerful martial arts family.

Worse still, he had been explicitly warned against searching for his wife again.

Fearing what might happen to him and his infant daughter if he disobeyed, he had no choice but to remain in the village and raise Maya alone.

Her mother’s name was Sarah. And the name Maya had been given carried a piece of her father’s longing for the woman he had lost.

On his deathbed, he explained that he was telling her the truth because he wanted her to know that she had another family member somewhere in the world who might love her.

He did not want Maya to spend the rest of her life believing she had no mother. More than anything, he wanted her to keep living, even after he was gone.

He had also warned her not to seek out Sarah’s family recklessly.

They were powerful people with influence far beyond anything an ordinary girl like Maya could imagine. Approaching them without protection could put her life in danger.

Under normal circumstances, Maya might have listened to his warning and remained in the village.

But on the day before his death, her father had briefly fallen into a delirious state.

Amid his confusion, he had murmured something about the place where he and Sarah had first met.

Silver Lake City.

Mount Auric.

Greenfield Residential Area.

Those words had become Maya’s only lead.

After burying her father, she left the village and traveled to Silver Lake, determined to find her mother.

She did not care how difficult the search might be.

She had already lost the only family she had ever known, and she could not bear the thought of living the rest of her life without even seeing her mother once.