Chapter 00005: The Strange Man
# The Strange Man
Chapter 5
Novel: Abandon The Universe
Chapter 5: The Strange Man
"Where is Lan Xiaobu?" Early the next morning, upon arriving at the classroom, the first thing Su Cen did was to look for Lan Xiaobu.
In the past, Lan Xiaobu was no different from other classmates in her eyes. However, after she went looking for Lan Xiaobu yesterday, she was left with a particularly strange feeling, almost as if she and Lan Xiaobu were husband and wife, despite how absurd that notion was.
If it were only an absurd feeling, she could dismiss it, but last night, her dreams were filled with Lan Xiaobu. She saw herself and Lan Xiaobu living in a not-so-large city, relying on each other for survival. She saw herself afflicted with a terrible disease, and Lan Xiaobu tirelessly performing surgeries day and night to earn money for her treatment...
She saw Lan Xiaobu, only in his thirties, exhausted to the point of resembling a sixty or seventy-year-old man. Perhaps her illness had not yet been cured, but Lan Xiaobu had already collapsed from exhaustion on the operating table. Unable to bear it any longer, she struggled to get up and rushed out of the protective city...
What was this protective city? Why did she and Lan Xiaobu have to hide inside it? What was it protecting them from?
Su Cen struggled in her sleep, unable to comprehend. Despite the early autumn chill, she awoke drenched in cold sweat, unable to fall back asleep for the rest of the night. She and Lan Xiaobu had no prior interactions, and if it were any other classmate, she, as the class monitor, would have comforted them just the same. But this dream was too terrifying, as real as reality itself.
So, upon arriving at class today, the first thing she did was to look for Lan Xiaobu, even though she didn’t know why.
The classmates who arrived early were all surprised to see Su Cen looking for Lan Xiaobu so early in the morning.
The counselor's voice came from the door, "Lan Xiaobu has withdrawn from school. I was just about to inquire about it."
Lan Xiaobu withdrew from school? The entire class was shocked. It was so difficult to get into medical school, and Lan Xiaobu had excellent grades. Why would he withdraw? Could it be because of Xue Dongjian's humiliation yesterday? If so, wasn't Lan Xiaobu being too fragile?
Su Cen was stunned for a while before she said, "Even if he wants to withdraw, it takes time to process the paperwork. Where is he?"
The counselor rubbed his forehead, "I don't know what happened either. He just sent me a message saying he was withdrawing, without requesting any paperwork. When I tried to call him, his phone was already turned off."
"Where is Lan Xiaobu's home?" Su Cen asked unwillingly.
"You don't need to go to his home; he probably won't return there. You know about the Lansong Group, right..."
The counselor didn't need to continue; everyone knew Lan Xiaobu's background. Ten years ago, the Lansong Group was a giant corporation in Huaxia.
Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, this colossal company fell apart internally, and within two years, a century-old enterprise vanished. Except for a few individuals who fled overseas, the rest either disappeared or ended up in prison. The few who survived were likely driven mad by debt.
No one expected Lan Xiaobu to be the young master of the Lansong Group. Could the young master of the Lansong Group still be doing well?
Regardless of whether Lan Xiaobu was a descendant of the Lansong Group's leaders, anyone with the surname Lan in the Lansong Group could be called a young master.
...
Lan Xiaobu had already left Haiyang and was sitting on a train bound for Tingjiang.
Tingjiang was Lan Xiaobu's hometown, where he and his mother lived for seven years. Until he was admitted to the Haiyang Medical University's youth class, his mother left Tingjiang and never returned.
He had often thought that if he hadn't been admitted to the youth class back then, his mother wouldn't have left Tingjiang. Unfortunately, he was reborn at eighteen, not fourteen.
This time, he had a very clear goal. After retrieving the UFO, he wouldn't return to Tingjiang, so before leaving, he wanted to take a handful of his homeland's soil with him. Perhaps one day, when he awaited death in the vast cosmos, he would at least have a handful of his homeland's soil to accompany him.
After going to Tingjiang, Lan Xiaobu planned to stay next in Hu Prefecture.
Hu Prefecture was a very young city, having been established for only twenty years. It was a city that rose due to tourism, and in just twenty years, its population exceeded four million.
Lan Xiaobu chose Hu Prefecture mainly because it was close to Kunlun Mountain. Besides having less air pollution, it would also be convenient for his actions.
A year later, because of its proximity to Kunlun, the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi in Hu Prefecture would be denser than in other places. This would lead to a sharp rise in housing prices, making buying a house there more expensive than in coastal cities.
It took twelve hours to travel from Haiyang to Hu Prefecture. The first thing Lan Xiaobu did after sitting down was to open his old laptop and frantically download various martial arts techniques online.
These martial arts techniques were undoubtedly a mix of truth and falsehood. Regardless, he downloaded them first. In a short time, Lan Xiaobu downloaded over twenty Inner Qi breathing techniques, including the Muscle-Tendon Altering Sutra and the Pure Yang Limitless Technique. As for various fist and foot techniques, they were queued up in a long list for download. Even if he had to pay, he recharged without hesitation.
A violent cough from across him made Lan Xiaobu, who was immersed in searching for various techniques, look up. Sitting opposite him was a middle-aged man, covering his mouth and coughing.
Lan Xiaobu sighed and frowned slightly. Nowadays, respiratory diseases caused by breathing were far too common. The reason medical studies were so popular now was because the sky was too polluted. Endless dust and smog made it impossible to find a place on Earth where one could breathe freely.
Seeing Lan Xiaobu looking at him with a slight frown, the middle-aged man quickly apologized, "Sorry, sorry, it's an old problem, cough, cough..."
Lan Xiaobu smiled, "It's fine."
This type of bronchitis and pneumoconiosis caused by dust pollution was something Lan Xiaobu had developed a massage technique to cure. It required at most seven sessions, combined with a few medicinal ingredients, to completely cure the patient. However, Lan Xiaobu didn't say anything. The other party wouldn't believe him, and he couldn't possibly have the person follow him for seven days.
The middle-aged man apologetically smiled again and then put on a mask. Despite wearing a mask, the man occasionally coughed a few times.
Previously, Lan Xiaobu was focused on searching for various techniques online and didn't pay attention to the middle-aged man. Now, as Lan Xiaobu let his computer download while he rested his eyes, he noticed something was off when the man coughed again.
Soon, Lan Xiaobu determined that this man was faking his cough.
In his previous life, Lan Xiaobu had seen countless patients with various symptoms. He had seen too many cases of coughs caused by respiratory issues. He could naturally tell when someone was deliberately making themselves cough occasionally.
Why would a perfectly healthy person pretend to cough? Lan Xiaobu instinctively glanced at the middle-aged man and sensed a faint aura of hostility.
In his previous life, Lan Xiaobu had witnessed too much slaughter and violence. He was confident he wasn't mistaken; this middle-aged man was not ordinary and had definitely killed someone. Just as he thought of this, the middle-aged man suddenly spoke, "Are you a student?"
Lan Xiaobu smiled, "I just graduated and am planning to find a job in Bin'an."
Lan Xiaobu's intended destination was Hu Prefecture, and to retrieve the UFO in Kunlun Mountain, he didn't plan to let anyone know his whereabouts. With this man pretending to cough for no reason, Lan Xiaobu was even more unwilling to engage in conversation with him.
"Which school did you graduate from?" the middle-aged man continued to ask.
"Jin City University of Technology..." Lan Xiaobu said, then added, "My name is Shang Wei, and I graduated from the Physics and Electronics program at Jin City University of Technology."
Lan Xiaobu felt that if he didn't make things clear, the man would keep asking. It was a matter of intuition and experience, so he decided to lay out his background clearly.
Shang Wei was the one who, in the previous life, found the UFO, left Earth with it, and eventually brought external forces that led to Earth's disaster. Pretending to be Shang Wei in front of this seemingly hostile man, Lan Xiaobu felt no guilt.
However, after speaking, Lan Xiaobu was a bit dazed. Shang Wei was a Physics and Electronics major, while he was a medical major. If opening the UFO required knowledge of Physics and Electronics, finding it would be useless to him.
Thinking of this, Lan Xiaobu was startled. Whether or not the UFO required Physics and Electronics knowledge, he had to seize this time to study.
The middle-aged man praised, "That's a good major, very impressive. I have something here that probably requires knowledge in Physics to understand. It's of no use to me. Since we've met by chance, I'll give it to you."
As he spoke, the middle-aged man took out an ancient wooden box and handed it to Lan Xiaobu.
What did this mean? Was there such a gesture for strangers? While Lan Xiaobu was still puzzled, the middle-aged man had already placed the wooden box in Lan Xiaobu's hands, then closed his eyes and said, "I'll take a nap, cough, cough..."
(First update requesting recommendation votes! Old Five thanks all new and old friends for the rewards for the new book. If you haven't added it to your bookshelf, fellow Daoists, please do so! Good night, friends!)
(End of Chapter)