Chapter 35: Stealing From the Henhouse
“What?” Su Han fought to suppress the shock surging through him. “Shen Chengyin is a space-element user? That’s impossible. Who said that?”
The ability user cast a suspicious glance at Su Han. “Didn’t you two arrive together? You didn’t know? The news broke right after last night’s meeting ended.”
“I had no idea about this. I’m going to ask the Chief.”
Su Han whipped around and took off, a cold sweat breaking out across his back.
What the hell is going on? Where did things go off the rails?
He shoved his way through the congested streets, heading straight for Cheng Yibin’s office.
Because of the granary theft, the entire Revival Base had devolved into absolute chaos.
People along the way recognized Su Han, and knowing his ties to Shen Chengyin, grabbed him and unleashed a barrage of indiscriminate abuse.
“You ungrateful white-eyed wolves! Revival Base took you in out of the kindness of our hearts, and you came here to be thieves?!”
“Heartless bastards! What did our base ever do to wrong you?!”
“What a waste of that pretty face—go sell your ass in the red-light district where you belong!”
Su Han’s expression turned increasingly grim. Seeing the crowd thickening by the second, several survivors deliberately stepped into his path, blocking the way forward.
Taking a deep breath, Su Han asked, “The results of the investigation aren’t even out yet. What do you think you’re doing?”
“What are we doing? Keeping an eye on you, of course. What if you two thieves are running a syndicate and steal something else?” The man in the lead sneered.
“Cheng Ruoyan summoned me for a talk. By blocking me right now, are you showing blatant disrespect to the young miss of your base? Or… perhaps you don’t give a damn about the Chief himself?”
Su Han let out a light laugh, lacing his words with biting mockery.
Revival Base was fundamentally different from Hope Base; it held remnants of formal military forces, and Cheng Yibin had once been an official of considerable rank.
Using Cheng Ruoyan as a shield at a moment like this ensured that no one would dare step out of line.
Sure enough, a flicker of nervous hesitation crossed the faces of the people blocking him. After agonizing over it for a few beats, they finally stepped aside to clear a path.
“Fine, fine, go on then. We’ll let you off easy this time, but next time you see us, you’d better take the long way around.”
“Give me a break. Next time, they’ll probably be locked in the base dungeon together. How would they run into us on the street?”
“Hahaha, true. By then, Shen Chengyin will probably be dead anyway.”
Su Han didn’t waste a single breath on them, quickening his pace to leave.
Reaching Cheng Yibin’s office, he found that neither Cheng Yibin nor Cheng Ruoyan was there. Waiting in the lounge area was an unfamiliar face Su Han had never seen before.
The man looked to be in his early thirties, with delicate, scholarly features. Strictly judging by appearance, it was impossible to connect him to the grim realities of an apocalypse.
Su Han took a quick measure of him; the man shared a thirty percent resemblance with Cheng Ruoyan.
This had to be Cheng Ruoyan’s uncle, Cheng Gaolang.
Cheng Gaolang didn’t recognize Su Han, but surmising that he was likely one of the base’s ability users, he offered a polite nod.
Su Han nodded back with equal courtesy and took a seat beside Cheng Gaolang.
System 111 egged him on in his mind: [Didn’t you say you were going to kill him? Now’s your golden chance! If you slaughter him right here, won’t the supplies bursting from his space solve everything instantly?]
Su Han didn’t move an inch.
“Cheng Gaolang can’t die.”
[Why?] The system was stunned.
Did this cold, calculating Su Han actually have an inner saint after all?
“Did you ever stop to think: what happens if Cheng Gaolang didn’t steal the supplies in the warehouse?”
Su Han drew a deep breath, his hands and feet turning icy cold.
In the original novel, the male lead had been thrown into prison on false accusations of theft. Because he was an exceedingly rare dual-ability user, he was subsequently transferred to the research institute and subjected to horrifying, inhumane human experimentation.
During that stretch of time, his mind and body were thoroughly broken, battered day after day by unspeakable torture.
It wasn’t until several months later, when the male lead finally suffered a complete psychological collapse, that his mental ability awakened. He telepathically forced all the researchers in the institute to commit suicide, finally breaking free from Revival Base.
Yet from beginning to end, the true culprit was never explicitly named in the main story.
Cheng Gaolang was simply the prime suspect. If Su Han murdered him right now only for his space to turn up completely empty, Shen Chengyin’s guilt would be set in stone.
Both he and Shen Chengyin would be dead meat.
Su Han and Cheng Gaolang waited outside Cheng Yibin’s office for over ten minutes before Cheng Ruoyan and Cheng Yibin finally hurried back.
Su Han shot to his feet immediately. “Where is Shen Chengyin?”
Cheng Ruoyan cast a dismissive glance at Su Han, ignoring him completely, and turned to speak to Cheng Gaolang at his side. “Uncle, come with me. We need to go to the research institute; they might need your cooperation for a few tests.”
Cheng Gaolang’s expression remained composed. “Of course. Anything to prove my innocence.”
“Shen Chengyin is at the institute too? I’m coming along,” Su Han demanded with righteous indignation. “The whole city is cursing my name right now. I need to confront him to his face—I don’t believe for a second that he has a space ability!”
The more dramatic his reaction, the more Cheng Ruoyan’s guard would drop.
Su Han couldn’t care less about appearances anymore.
He had to see Shen Chengyin right this second, verify his safety, and make damn sure these scumbags hadn’t harmed a single hair on his head.
They’d better not have.
Cheng Ruoyan frowned, but Cheng Yibin spoke up: “Fine. Since you’re so eager to come, tag along.”
Apocalypse: Becoming The White Moonlight Of A Possessive Mad Dog
