426: Chapter 423 Water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water.

Lu Jianchuan looked around, his gaze sweeping over the dusty instruments and empty cabinets.

"Oh, it looks like there's nothing we can do." He tossed the last folder in his hand back onto the desk. "Taking these things... forget it, let's leave the rest to the professionals. This is the only clue we could find; anything more requires professionals. We can't make out anything else now."

Shen Mingyuan didn't speak.

He stood by that incubator, looking down at the residual petri dishes inside, lost in thought. After a moment, he raised his hand and lightly tapped the glass wall of the incubator.

"Alright." He turned around, his voice returning to its usual tone. "These are all experimental equipment and technological items; we can only leave them for the lab personnel to examine."

He took out his phone, snapped a few photos of various corners of the room, and then put it away.

"Let's notify them then. After that, it's about time we headed back."

Lu Jianchuan nodded.

"Let's go."

The next day, at the hospital.

When Shen Mingyuan and Lu Jianchuan pushed open the ward door, Wei Ziqing was leaning against the headboard, munching on an apple.

Crunch. Crunch. He was munching away quite happily.

"Are you alright?" Lu Jianchuan walked over and stood by the bed.

Wei Ziqing looked up, glanced at him, took another bite of the apple, and said indistinctly, "Oh, it's nothing major."

On the other side of the hospital bed, Weis Father sat in a chair, holding a peeler and slowly peeling a second apple. He looked up at the two of them, nodded, then lowered his head to continue peeling.

Lu Jianchuan asked again, "Are you really okay?"

"I'm really fine." Wei Ziqing threw the apple core into the trash and took the new apple Weis Father handed him. "I received treatment immediately after being injured. I'm mainly just in the observation period now—"

He paused and pointed to his head.

"Since we don't know what effect those special cells will have on the brain, I have to stay here for a while."

Just as he finished speaking, the door was pushed open again.

Li Mo walked in, holding a small sampling box. Ye Ouyang followed behind him, waving at Shen Mingyuan and Lu Jianchuan as soon as he entered.

"Li Mo is here!" He stepped aside. "This is Li Mo; he's been researching my Special Healing Cells."

Li Mo nodded to Shen Mingyuan.

"Hello."

Shen Mingyuan also nodded. "Hello."

Li Mo turned to Wei Ziqing, his gaze lingering on his head for a second.

"Normally, these cells have no negative impact on the brain," he said in a calm tone, as if stating an experimental conclusion. "Furthermore, they can normally regenerate damaged brain tissue. In the cases observed so far, there has been no occurrence of cognitive impairment or memory loss."

Wei Ziqing was stunned for a moment, then gave an "oh" and took another bite of the apple.

Ye Ouyang added from the side, "He's the one who's been researching my cells. He's really amazing."

Li Mo didn't respond to that and continued.

"I've been researching these cells, trying to turn them into a special potion." He paused. "Unfortunately, these cells have a very short lifespan, undergoing apoptosis exactly thirty minutes after leaving the host. They can't even reproduce. So, I've been trying to solve these issues."

Ye Ouyang scratched his head, suddenly remembering something.

"By the way, what are you doing here?"

Li Mo held up the sampling box in his hand.

"I want to draw a vial of your blood," he said. "And take some cell samples. I want to see if different environmental conditions—temperature, pH levels, nutrient solution ratios—can extend its lifespan."

Ye Ouyang gave an "oh," rolled up his sleeve, and held out his arm.

"Alright, go ahead and draw it."

Li Mo moved quickly—disinfecting, drawing blood, and tubulating—the whole process took less than two minutes. He placed the test tube into the sampling box, nodded to Ye Ouyang, then to the others, and turned to leave.

The door closed.

Shen Mingyuan turned back to Wei Ziqing.

"What exactly happened?" he asked. "How did you get injured?"

Wei Ziqing took a bite of his apple and recounted the events of that night—the Dinosaur Person, Zhou Zihui, Ye Ouyang, and the ball that flew out from the woods.

When he mentioned the ball, Zhou Zihui, who was sitting by the window, spoke up.

"Lawyer Shen."

Shen Mingyuan turned his head.

Zhou Zihui jumped down from the windowsill and walked to the bedside. He looked to be in good spirits, not at all like someone who had been heavily injured and unconscious just yesterday.

"Why are you here too?" Shen Mingyuan asked.

Zhou Zihui glanced at Wei Ziqing and then looked at Shen Mingyuan.

"I came to see you," he said. "But I didn't expect, hey, to get hit myself. But I'm mostly better now and will be discharged soon."

Shen Mingyuan nodded and brought the topic back.

"That ball, what exactly was the deal with it?"

Zhou Zihui was silent for a second.

"It was fast and powerful," he said. "And the trajectory... it wasn't thrown randomly. Every ricochet angle seemed calculated, specifically to cut off our retreat. The opponent must be an expert at throwing things."

Ye Ouyang chimed in from the side, "By the way, the body of the Dinosaur Person we defeated earlier was also there."

He paused, his expression becoming serious.

"After they threw a few balls to drive us away, they didn't pursue us further. I'm afraid they were after that corpse—I don't know what they want to do, but I feel it's very dangerous."

"Sigh, I need to get discharged quickly too." Wei Ziqing threw the apple core into the trash and pulled back the covers to get out of bed. "I need to go fight as well."

Ye Ouyang reached out to hold him down.

"Aiya, stay a bit longer." He looked serious. "Listen to the doctor."

Wei Ziqing pointed outside. "Didn't Li Mo just say it's fine for the brain?"

"Don't believe him." Ye Ouyang leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "His findings are all from lab mice. I went to his lab before and saw it; he trains the mice, then slices off a part of their brain, lets it regenerate, and then sees if they remember the previous training. He only reached that conclusion after confirming the memories remained."

He paused, his tone becoming even more solemn.

"You haven't undergone human trials; the human brain is much more complex than a mouse's. We need to be a bit more rigorous about this, okay?"

Wei Ziqing was stunned for two seconds, then sighed and leaned back against the headboard.

"Alright, alright, then I'll just lie here for a while longer."

Beside him, Weis Father, who was peeling an apple, looked up and glanced at him.

"I agree." He handed the peeled apple to Wei Ziqing. "Observe a bit more, and only go out once we're sure there's no problem."

Wei Ziqing took the apple, bit into it, and said moodily, "Fine, Father, I'll listen to you."

Lu Jianchuan stood by the bed, watching this scene, and suddenly spoke.

"In that case, I'll take care of searching for that Dinosaur Person's corpse." He stretched his shoulders. "I just got back and can't even rest; I have to continue the investigation."

Shen Mingyuan glanced at him.

"If you really can't do it, I'll go investigate," he said. "Since you need to rest, and I'm a professional after all."

Lu Jianchuan nodded.

"Sure, you do it then."

Shen Mingyuan was taken aback.

"I was just being polite, and you actually took me up on it?"

"I'm a very honest person." Lu Jianchuan patted his shoulder. "Then I'm off to rest."

He turned and walked toward the door.

Shen Mingyuan stood there, watching his back, opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"Sigh... nothing for it, I took this job on myself." He sighed and turned to Ye Ouyang. "Want to come solve a case with me?"

Ye Ouyang's eyes lit up.

"Sure!"

Just after he said it, he suddenly raised his hand.

"Wait a second, I'm going to change my clothes."

Before Shen Mingyuan could react, he had already rushed out of the ward.

A few minutes later, the door was pushed open.

Ye Ouyang was back.

He was wearing a long brown trench coat with the collar turned up and the waist belt tied loosely. Underneath was a light-colored shirt paired with dark trousers. He stood at the door, hands in his pockets, chin tilted slightly.

"How do I look?"

Shen Mingyuan stared at him for two seconds.

Then he slapped his thigh and sprang up from his chair.

"Whoa! Then I'm going to change quickly too!"

He also rushed out of the ward.

Another few minutes passed.

The door was pushed open once more.

Shen Mingyuan stood at the door, wearing a dark gray long trench coat with a folded collar and a black turtleneck underneath. He raised his hand to adjust non-existent glasses, his gaze scanning the ward deeply.

Wei Ziqing looked at the two people at the door, his apple-munching coming to a halt.

(In the Consciousness Space, Han Chengyu rolled his eyes at the light screen.

"Damn it, this damn Author cut my scenes again.")

The Author's voice came from the Void Realm: "In that case, why don't you go act in another production? It just so happens there aren't many scenes for you here lately anyway."

Han Chengyu was stunned for a moment. "Huh? Another production?"

"I've started another new book; go be the protagonist in that one. This time, I'll make you the Sect's Grand Elder directly, and you can go establish the Sect."

Han Chengyu blinked. "Fine. What about this book?"

"Whether that book gets updated or not isn't certain; it's only had one chapter in several days, so it's considered on hiatus. This book is the main focus; that one was just a sudden burst of inspiration, so I opened it in advance.")

Han Chengyu gave an "oh."

"Alright then, I'm going."

"Remember to take the System with you."

"OK. Also, this dialogue is actually just to pad the word count, isn't it?")