Chapter 261: Fanning the Flames
Lu Weiyi looked where Li Zhuang was pointing and saw base soldiers approaching in a trained and coordinated manner.
“Xu Sa must’ve noticed too,” Li Zhuang said, gesturing at Liu Rui, whom Xu Sa had just held back.
He’d also seen what happened between the two. Now seeing Li Zhuang holding back Lu Weiyi, he realized Xu Sa’s teammates were trying to defend him.
Xu Sa smiled and shook his head at Lu Weiyi.
Li Zhuang quickly pulled a bag of crystal cores from his pocket and quietly scattered them on the ground. Then he shouted, “Whose crystal cores fell all over the place?”
Switching to a different voice, he yelled again, “Crystal cores! Quick, grab them!”
The crowd, curious onlookers until now, looked down and indeed saw crystal cores scattered on the ground. They started shouting and scrambling to grab them.
Li Zhuang seized the moment, moved close to Lu Weiyi, and whispered, “Toss a few near that guy.”
Lu Weiyi immediately manipulated his little green vine to fling some toward Qin Zhifei.
“Crystal cores!”
“Real crystal cores!”
Someone shouted, and the crowd fell into chaos, swarming especially around Qin Zhifei, where the most crystals were.
Li Zhuang held onto Lu Weiyi and protected Zhuang Ai Yi, nodding toward Xu Sa.
Xu Sa understood, quickly pocketed the crystal cores he’d earned from selling, and pulled Liu Rui away from the crowd.
By the time the base soldiers arrived, they saw only chaos—people pushing and shoving, and Qin Zhifei using his powers on nearby civilians.
As for Xu Sa’s group, they stood on the outer edge of the crowd, looking like bystanders.
Everyone saw that from start to finish, Qin Zhifei had been the only one making trouble. Xu Sa barely even talked back. Since most of the surrounding people were ordinary civilians, seeing this kind of abuse in what was supposed to be a peaceful era sparked strong resentment toward those in power.
When someone tried to take Xu Sa’s group in for questioning, others in the crowd immediately voiced their doubts about the authorities’ motives.
After some back and forth, Lu Weiyi called in some favors from the influential Zhuang family, which finally allowed him to lead Xu Sa and Liu Rui away.
The group of four adults and one child made their way back to the villa. Both Lu Weiyi and Liu Rui were in low spirits—Liu Rui even burst into tears.
Xu Sa felt overwhelmed. No matter who he tried to comfort first, it would seem wrong.
He patted Liu Rui on the shoulder a couple of times, but that only made him cry harder.
“Shut up. Cry one more time, and I’ll tell you to get lost,” Xu Sa snapped.
Liu Rui hiccupped and looked at him, not daring to make another sound.
Xu Sa wiped the tears off his face and looked over at Lu Weiyi, who hadn’t said a word since getting in the car.
“Don’t be mad. I’m fine, aren’t I?” Xu Sa patted him on the shoulder.
Lu Weiyi remained silent.
“This time, I didn’t retaliate because I felt like he was deliberately trying to provoke me,” Xu Sa explained calmly. “Think about it—I’m a lightning-type user. You think I’d be scared of his little fire tricks?”
“We should take them out tonight,” Lu Weiyi said, surprisingly harsh.
Li Zhuang found it a bit exciting and turned to smile at him.
“Not now,” Xu Sa said seriously. “Something’s off. I think some faction in the Capital base has its eye on us. We need to get out of here first.”
Seeing Lu Weiyi still burning with anger, Xu Sa added, “When the time is right, we’ll come back and settle this properly. In this world, it’s easier than ever to deal with people like them.”
“We can’t let a small grudge jeopardize the entire team, right?”
After a long round of persuading, Lu Weiyi finally cooled down.
As soon as he stepped inside, he heard that Zhuang Mingxu had left the Zhuang family and had not yet returned.
Lu Weiyi immediately had a bad feeling.
He didn’t even enter the house—he turned around and headed straight for the Zhuang residence.
Perhaps because they were already familiar with his behavior, no one from the Zhuang family tried to stop him. Steward Zhou, who clearly knew why he had come, didn’t even wait for Lu Weiyi to ask before informing him that Zhuang Mingxu was with the old master in the study and told him to wait a moment.
Lu Weiyi sat down on the sofa. Out of habit, he tried to listen in on their conversation. A small green vine extended outward and discovered that they were trying to persuade Zhuang Mingxu to undergo an ability surgery.
Ability surgery.
That term sounded familiar.
Lu Weiyi frowned, thinking hard. He tried to recall the few serious matters from the dull life of his previous lifetime.
It seemed he had heard something like this before.
More precisely, it was called “ability transplant surgery.” In simple terms, it involved transplanting the crystal core of an ability user into an ordinary person—much like a bone marrow or organ transplant. After matching and adjustments, a surgery would be performed.
This never became widespread in his previous life. Lu Wei only had limited knowledge, having heard Zhuang Mingxu mention it briefly. He remembered asking whether it worked well.
Zhuang Mingxu had sneered and said, “Something that doesn’t belong to you will never be stable. Problems are only a matter of time.”
But he hadn’t said exactly what kind of problems.
Back then, Lu Weiyi hadn’t cared and didn’t ask further.
Now he really regretted that. Despite being reborn, it seemed like aside from some advantages early on, it was becoming less and less useful.
Still, he knew one thing for certain—Zhuang Mingxu must not go through with this.
It had only been a year since the apocalypse began. Even the most talented researchers would’ve only just started. It had taken decades for organ transplants to become reliable. Lu Weiyi did not believe they had already achieved high success rates with this.
To him, pushing Zhuang Mingxu into this was no different from using him as a lab rat—for others to test the path ahead.
When he “saw” Zhuang Mingxu holding a thin stack of papers and seriously reading them, Lu Weiyi felt a surge of anger.
Just yesterday, they had clearly agreed to be wary of everyone and be ready to leave at any time. Yet in just one day, Zhuang Mingxu was already reading that stack of documents with such focus.
Combined with what had happened to Xu Sa earlier, the fury that Lu Weiyi had barely held back instantly erupted.
Despite the hardships of the past year, life had gone relatively smoothly for him. That made him overlook the darker aspects of this world—abilities he hadn’t paid attention to, and the fact that even with his high-level powers, he wasn’t invulnerable.
As he entered with barely restrained anger, the fine web-like energy scattered around the villa began to subtly invade his mind, drawn in by his emotions. Meanwhile, in the study, Zhuang Mobai’s lips curled into a calculating smile.
Lu Weiyi made no attempt to hide his fury as he got up and strode toward the study.
“Young Master Lu, you can’t go in there,” Steward Zhou stepped in to stop him.
“Move.” Lu Weiyi shot him a cold glance and gave him a light push.
He didn’t use much strength, but Steward Zhou was flung hard against the wall, sliding to the ground with a pained expression.
Although awakening abilities had strengthened his body to some extent, he had always been physically weak, and even after the change, he wasn’t stronger than a well-trained ordinary person.
Lu Weiyi was briefly stunned by the sight but didn’t dwell on it.
He was sure he hadn’t used excessive force.
“Grandpa Zhou, what happened to you?!” Xia Xue, who had been playing games in the living room, saw what happened and burst into loud sobs, immediately drawing the attention of the Zhuang family.
Lu Weiyi’s first reaction: Steward Zhou was faking. No wonder he managed an entire household so well.
He ignored him and walked straight toward the study.
Inside the study, Zhuang Mobai spoke at just the right moment: “I didn’t originally plan to tell you this so soon, but since you don’t intend to stay in the capital, who knows when we’ll meet again?”
“You don’t have any powers right now, and being out there alone without your family—anything could happen. Especially in a team full of ability users… sigh…”
He patted Zhuang Mingxu’s shoulder with a worried expression. “I’m just telling you this so you know. You don’t have to decide right away. As for Weiyi…” he clicked his tongue, “he’s done right by you. No matter what choice he makes, you can’t fault him.”
“As for your grandfather attacking him back then—he probably knew, or else he wouldn’t be so against our family. We were in the wrong. The fact that he still brought you back shows he’s already gone above and beyond…”
As soon as he finished, the old master became unhappy. “Who says we were in the wrong? So what if I attacked him?”
Before the words had even fully landed, the door burst open with a bang from a kick, and Lu Weiyi stood at the entrance, his expression as cold as frost.
Zhuang Mingxu’s heart clenched. He turned quickly. “Weiyi…” He felt the guilt of someone caught doing something wrong.
But Lu Weiyi didn’t look at him. His gaze was fixed on the old master.
“So you finally admit it,” he said. “I thought you’d keep pretending and try to gloss everything over.”
Unnoticed by anyone, the scattered ability energy in the room drifted like a spider’s web, brushing against everyone inside.
“What’s there not to admit?” the old master snapped.
“My most talented grandson gave up everything for a man. I wanted to kill you—what’s wrong with that?”
“Grandpa!” Zhuang Mingxu shouted angrily.
All those dark deeds—he had shielded Lu Weiyi from most of them. But there were always slip-ups. Lu Weiyi had still suffered injuries. Especially Lin Yimu, who had stayed by his side. The worst time, Lin Yimu had nearly died on the operating table.
Zhuang Mingxu had always felt deeply guilty—because he had selfishly dragged Lu Weiyi into this path, and yet couldn’t protect him fully.
At that moment, seeing the two of them confront each other so openly, all the things that had been tacitly hidden by everyone were suddenly torn open, exposing a filthy corner.
And yet, Old Master Zhuang, the executioner in this matter, could still stand so righteously in front of the victim, not feeling the slightest bit of guilt.
Even Zhuang Mingxu felt heartache for Lu Weiyi upon hearing all this.
“That’s right,” Lu Weiyi smiled coldly, looking calmly at Old Master Zhuang as he delivered the cruelest blow straight to his heart. “Which is why your Zhuang family no longer has a single grandson capable of holding up the roof.”
Lu Weiyi walked over to Zhuang Mingxu and yanked him over, meeting the old man’s eyes. “Without this person, who else in the Zhuang family is worth anything? Zhuang Mingwen, that sickly weakling? Zhuang Mingwu, the coward who’s been scared out of his wits? Or that newly acknowledged illegitimate child?”
