CHAPTER 57: CHAPTER 57 CLUES AND ANALYSIS_1

"Come here, I have to ask you something." Zheng Qiuling stared at Lu Yuan with a scowl on her face.

Lu Yuan obediently walked over, his 1.8-meter-tall figure seeming as small as a quail.

"What time is it? Why did you come back so late? Did you get into another fight?" Zheng Qiuling started with the Three Soul Questions.

Lu Yuan quickly shook his head, "No. I’ve told you, Mom, I didn’t fight anyone. If I did, I’d be a dog!"

Lu Yuan said this confidently and honestly.

Because what he fought tonight... strictly speaking, it wasn’t even human!

"Really?" Zheng Qiuling looked doubtful, pulling Lu Yuan over and examining him closely.

Lu Yuan wasn’t worried. He had already checked while taking his shower; apart from some scratches, the rat man and the giant rat hadn’t left any trace on him.

The fight tonight was dangerous, but it ended very quickly. It didn’t last long.

"Then why did you come back so late?" Unable to find any fault with Lu Yuan, Zheng Qiuling persisted.

Lu Yuan honestly answered, "I accidentally fell into a ditch on the way home. Somebody had removed the manhole cover, and I was in a hurry and didn’t see it... Even my phone screen got shattered."

"No wonder there’s a smell." Zheng Qiuling frowned, but her doubts eased considerably.

She then began to worry if Lu Yuan was hurt. She advised him not to come home so late in the future, not to take shortcuts at night, and to watch where he was going. She also expressed her sympathy for Lu Yuan’s shattered phone screen.

With considerable effort, he managed to appease her.

Lu Yuan glanced in the direction of his parents’ room, finding the lights turned off. After chatting for a while, he didn’t see Lu Xinghua come out, so he asked, "Isn’t Dad coming back tonight? Isn’t he going to pick up Grandpa from the hospital tomorrow?"

"Sigh." Zheng Qiuling sighed, responding somewhat vexedly, "He was supposed to be back. He got a call after ten o’clock about going after someone, and he hasn’t returned yet."

"Who did he go after? The one who owes us money?"

"Who else could it be? That guy owes money to more than just us. Your dad and a few others have teamed up, spending their days roaming the city, acting like they’re filming a cop movie."

"Then why didn’t they just call the cops, Mom?"

"Call them? We did. But the police can’t do anything if the person can’t be found. Alright, alright, stop asking so many questions. Hurry and go to sleep."

Zheng Qiuling said a few more words, insisting that Lu Yuan go back to his room to sleep. She, too, was tired and had yawned several times.

As Lu Yuan went back to his room, he saw her sitting in the living room, probably waiting for his old man, Lu Xinghua, to come back.

Once in his room, Lu Yuan didn’t turn on the light or the air conditioning. He opened the window to let in the cool breeze from outside. Shirtless, he sat at his desk, not feeling too hot.

Lu Yuan stared at an anime poster taped to the wall in front of him for a while. He quickly straightened up as if snapping out of his thoughts.

First, I’ll check the gains on the job panel.

Lu Yuan summoned the job panel, scanning the prompts one by one.

[You experienced a battle, Job Experience +235]

The first message brought Lu Yuan a pleasant surprise. The fight with the rat man and the giant rat had increased his Job Experience by over two hundred points.

Job Experience was hard to come by; every point required a lot of time and effort to acquire. This large amount of experience saved Lu Yuan almost a week of hard work.

[Your skill: Advanced Leg Skill has been upgraded, Experience +24]

[Your skill: Advanced Fist Skills has been upgraded, Experience +30]

[Your skill: Basic Step Skill has been upgraded, Experience +45]

...

Scrolling further up revealed experience gain notifications for his ordinary skills.

Each one showed significant gains, much more than he usually acquired from training.

Altogether, Advanced Leg Skill and Advanced Fist Skills both increased by over a hundred points, and Advanced Fist Skills rose to Lv.2. Basic Step Skill was just short of maxing out at Lv.5, while Basic Capture also increased by several tens of points.

It was a bountiful harvest indeed.

However, what disappointed Lu Yuan was that despite successfully using the Crane Cry Punch—triggered by a Flash of Insight—against the rat man in their final showdown, he still hadn’t unlocked any new skills on the panel.

The only change was that a new grey skill point had begun to float on the Fighter’s panel.

The location of this illuminated grey skill point was much higher than that of the intermediate Crane-shaped Pile.

What a shame, I don’t have any spare skill points right now; otherwise, I could try to see if I could unlock it by directly adding a point.

Lu Yuan felt regretful.

After examining the gains on the panel, Lu Yuan began to contemplate the events of the night.

The rat man incident had a significant impact on Lu Yuan. If it weren’t for his transmigration experience, his worldview would have been shattered.

Lu Yuan reviewed the incident from start to finish.

The first time I saw the giant rat, it tried to attack me.

I originally thought it was just a chance encounter, but now, thinking back, it must have been specifically targeting me.

If he had only been attacked twice, Lu Yuan wouldn’t have thought much of it. But the second time—specifically, tonight—seemed particularly strange.

It actually knew to use a red hair clip to lure me in and even pretended to be a woman!

A red hair clip. A woman. These two points were very interesting.

Lu Yuan had not forgotten. A month ago, he saved a kidnapped girl in a rainy alley because he found her discarded red hair clip on the ground.

Could things be this coincidental?

Lu Yuan became more convinced that this was a trap specifically set for him. It was directed specifically at him.

Why? It could only be because of those thugs he’d helped put in jail.

Lu Yuan turned on the computer on his desk and searched the web for a news report about the kidnapping case that was broadcast a month ago by Burnt Rock City’s TV station.

He watched it carefully from beginning to end.

"...Yesterday, local police successfully cracked a kidnapping case and arrested eight Cult gang members..."

Cult... gang...

Lu Yuan noted these two words. He couldn’t help but associate them with the unintelligible syllables the rat man had uttered twice during their battle.

Ah... ka... lu...

Lu Yuan tried to mimic the sounds. He had a good memory and could still clearly remember those syllables. However, some of the words had very awkward pronunciations that he couldn’t replicate immediately.

He randomly pulled out a book from his desk, Ancient Language Research, the one he used for grinding "Student" Job Experience points.

He flicked through it. Lu Yuan felt that some of the syllables were somewhat similar to the two White Mountain Era ancient languages he had been self-studying for some time.

Could it also be one of the minor ancient languages from that era? That wasn’t impossible.

I’ll go to the library tomorrow and look for related texts.

The White Mountain Era was chaotic and barbaric, yet it left behind many incredible cultural relics and treasures. It was a period that many experts and scholars in this world were passionate about studying, and there was no shortage of relevant literature.

The police were playing their cards close to their chest, so Lu Yuan had to find out the truth by himself.

What worried him more now was the rat man that had disappeared.

He had clearly punched half of the rat man’s head off, and its muscles had been slowly melting. Yet, when he’d looked away for just a moment, it had vanished.

Either it wasn’t completely dead and was pretending to be, in order to trick him, or it had companions like the giant rat that had dragged its body away.

Either possibility was troublesome.

Who knows if it will return to retaliate later...

If it only comes after me, that would be manageable...

Lu Yuan subconsciously clenched his fist.

But if it changes targets and goes after my family...

HUUUFF—

Lu Yuan let out a long sigh. Feeling a bit frustrated, he closed the web page and walked to the window.

There was no moon tonight, and the stars were sparse.

The road downstairs was peaceful, with few pedestrians and vehicles. He could clearly hear the intermittent chirping of crickets.

Lu Yuan stood quietly by the window for a while.

A small pickup truck suddenly drove up in the distance. It slowed down as it approached and finally stopped at the curb on the road directly below him.

Lu Yuan saw a familiar figure getting out of the car. It was his father, Lu Xinghua.

After getting out of the car, Lu Xinghua didn’t immediately come upstairs. Instead, he leaned against the car and quietly lit a cigarette.

Another fruitless search? Lu Yuan wondered. He retreated to his bed, lay there for a long time, and eventually fell asleep, unsure exactly when.