Xia Sanghuan forced a cheerful smile at Professor He and comforted him.
Seeing her smiling face, Professor He heaved a sigh of relief.
"Our generation is old," he said.
"The rest of the journey will have to be taken by you young people."
Leng Chuanjin thoughtfully prepared two cars for them. After a brief farewell to Professor He, Xia Sanghuan got into the car.
The driver drove silently in the direction of the Leng family mansion. Raindrops splattered on the car window, obscuring Xia Sanghuan's view of the road ahead as she sat in the back seat.
When she got home, she realized it was already the middle of the night.
So it was already this late.
Wang Fu was standing at the door waiting for her as usual. As soon as she stepped in, he brought her a towel and hot water.
She gave Wang Fu an apologetic smile.
"Uncle Wang, you should go back and rest. I can take care of myself."
The butler was still a bit reluctant to leave, but in the end, he couldn't resist her and went back to his room first.
She looked at the empty living room. Her mind was filled with Leng Chuanjin's phone call one moment and Leng Jingzhan lying on the hospital bed the next.
She knew she was exhausted, but for some reason, she couldn't feel sleepy.
She remembered seeing Leng Chuanjin in the study that night.
She quietly walked into Leng Chuanjin's study.
It was very dark inside, only briefly illuminated by the occasional flash of lightning.
After much hesitation, she turned on the light.
The view suddenly became clear.
She imitated his posture and sat down on the chair beside the desk.
The desk was very clean, with only a few books, a bottle of ink, and a feather pen that looked extremely expensive.
But there was a glaring white piece of paper sandwiched in one of the books.
After a moment of hesitation, she pulled out the paper.
It was a medical report.
The name on the report clearly read "Leng Chuanjin".
She felt a pang of unease and started reading from the top.
It showed that his neurasthenia had reached a very serious stage. If he didn't get hospitalized and treated in time, it might cause some irreversible damage to his mind and psyche.
Seeing the shocking indicator numbers on the paper, her heart started pounding.
She carefully put the report back in its original place.
She sat there stupidly for a while longer, then got up and walked back to her room.
She tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep. The image of the medical report kept flashing before her eyes.
Why didn't the second brother say anything?
Did he really like to shoulder everything on his own?
She thought it was going to be a sleepless night, but fortunately, drowsiness finally overwhelmed her after a while.
Because she had something on her mind, she didn't sleep well.
The next day, she got up early as usual. Without caring whether she was sleepy or not, she splashed some cold water on her face and then went downstairs.
The moment she saw the butler, she hurriedly asked, "Uncle Wang, did Brother Chuanjin come home last night?"
Wang Fu shook his head with a worried look on his face.
"Did he make any phone calls?"
He still shook his head.
"Miss Xia, you should have your breakfast first," he said.
He told the servant to bring some hot porridge.
"Aren't you going to school today?"
She sat down at the table absent - mindedly and took a couple of bites of the food perfunctorily.
For some reason, the breakfast tasted especially bland today.
She got into the car and called Leng Chuanjin while on the way to school.
Unlike usual, the phone rang for a long time but no one answered.
Just as she was about to hang up the phone dejectedly, it was finally answered.
"Hello, second brother," she shouted excitedly.
"Miss Xia, are you looking for Young Master Leng?"
However, it was Yun Ye's voice that came from the phone.
Hearing his voice, her heart skipped a beat.
Why was it Yun Ye answering the phone? Where was the second brother?
"Young Master Leng is dealing with something important and can't answer your call for now," Yun Ye said.
"If you have something to tell Young Master Leng, you can tell me first.
I'll report it to him when he's done."
Seeing that Xia Sanghuan didn't respond for a long time, Yun Ye added the second half of the sentence in confusion.
Hearing this, she finally felt relieved.
So he didn't answer the phone because something bad had happened.
She quickly thanked Yun Ye and said she had nothing to say, then hung up the phone.
Remembering what Old Master Xiao had said to her in the office yesterday, she guessed that the reason the second brother didn't come home last night was probably that he was interrogating the culprit who had framed Leng Jingzhan.
"Miss Xia, we're here," the driver reminded Xia Sanghuan, who was lost in thought. Only then did she realize the car had stopped.
After getting out of the car, she received everyone's "gaze" just like when school had just started.
She had been busy with Jingzhan's illness after school yesterday and had forgotten what had happened after school.
This time, their looks at her were more blatant and direct, as if they wanted to see through her appearance and understand her inner self.
This kind of look made her very uncomfortable.
She quickened her pace towards the research institute building, wanting to escape this place as soon as possible.
Fortunately, the distance between the research institute and the teaching building was quite far. After walking for a while, there weren't many classmates around her.
Just as she was walking into the research institute, Wei Linjun walked towards her.
He had his head down and was holding a folder in his arms. He walked past her in a hurry as if he hadn't seen her, heading straight for the school gate.
For some reason, his face looked very haggard.
She looked at his back in confusion.
Since she had seen him at the door of the research laboratory last time, she always felt there was something strange about him.
Because they were in the same building and the distance was short, she sometimes ran into Wei Linjun.
But he used to nod and smile at her politely but distantly. He wouldn't ignore her like he did today.
After watching his back disappear, she turned around and entered the research institute.
After entering the laboratory, she found that the cabinet full of white mice, which were the experimental subjects, had been placed on the experimental table.
She guessed that the second brother had probably asked someone to deliver them overnight.
She walked over and started observing the white mice.
The growth of the tree - like things on the skin of the white mice varied. Some were more serious, some were milder, and some were almost invisible.
She took out the rubber gloves, mask, and protective cap from the cabinet and put them on one by one.
She planned to divide the white mice into three groups according to the severity of their illness before Professor He came.
These three groups represented the early, middle, and late stages of the illness respectively.
It had to be said that Old Master Xiao was really meticulous. Although Jingzhan's illness had reached the late stage, the reactions of the early and middle stages of the illness to the medicine were also important observation indicators.
Fortunately, the glass display cases had been placed on the experimental table in advance. Otherwise, it would have taken her ages to move them by herself.