42: Chapter 42 The Weight of a Signature

Lin Yuan sat in the tea room all night.

The first clue in the encrypted storage device was like a rusty nail, driven diagonally into all the understanding he had built over the past two months.

—Dr. Li.

The person who stopped him outside the ancient tomb and saw through his soul seal at a glance. The person who taught him the Earth Vein Arts, helped him suppress the curse of resentment, and handed him a lamp during the darkest moment at Luoxia Mountain.

The calm look in her eyes when she taught him "Earthly Origin Fetal Breath," the pause when she mentioned Luoxia Mountain as the "Heartbroken Land," the tone in which she would calmly say "Recovering well" after taking his pulse.

—Were those all real?

Or was the agreement signed in her name twenty-one years ago the truth that had never been spoken?

Lin Yuan did not go to see Dr. Li immediately.

He contacted Boss Qian first.

"Check someone for me," his voice was very flat. "Li Cian, licensed physician, specializing in spiritual energy erosion. Where was he practicing twenty-one years ago to twenty-two years ago, which institutions did he collaborate with, and were there any changes to real estate or long-term lease agreements under his name?"

Boss Qian didn't ask why. At 3:30 AM, thirty-two encrypted search results were sent back.

Lin Yuan dragged two of them out separately.

The first one, July, twenty-two years ago. The practice registration of Cian Tang Chinese Medicine Clinic changed, with Li Cian as the legal representative, and an additional item: "Research on Spiritual Energy Guidance and Earth Vein Correlation." The remarks column for cooperating units read: Summer Palace Management Office.

The second one, March, twenty-one years ago. A bank account under Li Cian's name received a large remittance, with the remark "Earth Vein Survey Consulting Service Fee," paid by an engineering construction company that had already been deregistered. Boss Qian added a note: The actual controller of this company, after penetrating three layers of equity holding, pointed to the contractor responsible for the Summer Palace renovation project at that time, which had gone bankrupt and been liquidated, and the legal representative was unreachable.

The timeline matched.

The project was established twenty-two years ago, and the funds were received and the agreement signed twenty-one years ago. That same year, seven vein-locking nails were driven into the Earth Veins of Luoxia Mountain.

Lin Yuan closed the interface and closed his eyes for three seconds.

He remembered that when Dr. Li took his pulse, her fingers had lingered near his soul seal for a long time. She said it was "sequelae from old injuries, more sensitive to similar energy traces."

—Of course she was sensitive.

She had personally signed the installation permit for the vein-locking nails.

At 6:00 AM, outside the ancient tomb.

Dr. Li's clinic had no door sign, only an old wind lamp that had been extinguished for twenty years hanging at the entrance. Lin Yuan stood in the morning mist without knocking.

Five minutes later, the door opened from the inside.

Dr. Li was wearing that gray cloth robe washed to white, her hair bun meticulous, and her expression as calm as ever. She looked at Lin Yuan, her gaze lingering on his clenched fists for a moment, then she stepped aside to clear the doorway.

"Come in."

The clinic was not lit. Dr. Li sat on the wooden chair that had accompanied her for twenty years and poured herself a cup of cold tea.

"You found out."

It wasn't a question.

Lin Yuan stood at the doorway without sitting down. He was silent for a long time before speaking in a hoarse voice:

"You saved me. You taught me so much. The Earth Spirit of Luoxia Mountain, Uncle Zhou, every pill to suppress the soul seal, every risk warning for 'counter-current tempering'—those were all real. Right?"

Dr. Li raised her eyes.

She had aged. It was only at this moment that Lin Yuan truly saw that the white hair at her temples wasn't just a few strands, but a whole patch. It was just that her gaze had always been so steady before that he had overlooked all the traces left by time.

"Real," she said, her voice very light. "Every single thing was real."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Dr. Li did not avoid his gaze. "Tell you that twenty-one years ago I was stupid enough to believe in an 'Earth Vein Restoration Plan' and signed a stack of agreement attachments I hadn't reviewed item by item? Tell you that the day the vein-locking nails were driven into Luoxia Mountain, I thought I was saving the spiritual energy foundation of this city, only to find out three days later that they were power supply lines for the ten thousand infant banner? Tell you that 'Mr. Mo,' who always came to the clinic for tea and claimed to be a folk culture researcher, said to my face, 'Dr. Li, academic cooperation and ethical responsibility are two different things; your name is on the agreement, I'm just borrowing your credentials'?"

By the time she finished, her tone had no fluctuations, like she was reading an accident report that should have been filed twenty-one years ago.

The clinic was silent.

Lin Yuan heard his own heartbeat. Heavy and slow.

"He let you choose."

"He didn't let me choose." Dr. Li put down the cold tea, her fingers not trembling. "He just took me to see that abandoned palace behind the Summer Palace, saw the prototype of the ten thousand infant banner, and saw the seven vein-locking nails that had just been driven into the Earth Veins, still oozing the residual breath of the Earth Spirit."

"Then he told me: the agreement had already taken effect, the nails had already been driven in, and the Earth Veins were already pumping into the ten thousand infant banner. What was on the table now wasn't 'whether to do it,' but 'in whose name to handle the aftermath.'"

"If I withdrew in the name of 'signing by mistake and proactively rectifying,' the matter would be suppressed as an academic accident. The clinic would be kept, the practicing qualifications would be kept, and no one would mention it again for twenty years."

"If I didn't withdraw, he would submit the complete chain of evidence of my 'deep participation in the core links of Earth Vein modification' to the Divine Realm Financial Regulatory Commission. My name would be forever nailed to the list of the first batch of collaborators for the ten thousand infant banner."

She paused, her tone like she was stating someone else's medical record.

"I signed the withdrawal."

Lin Yuan didn't respond.

He thought, that wasn't a "choice."

It was domestication.

Making an idealist personally sign a permit for evil, and then using the evil itself as a leash. Not threatening her with death, but using the tragedy she helped create to make her unable to speak.

Because speaking meant admitting—

You were a co-conspirator from the very beginning.

Twenty-one years. She had guarded this clinic without a door sign, treating patients eroded by spiritual energy, like some kind of endless suspended sentence.

"The emerald jade badge at Luoxia Mountain," Lin Yuan said, "was not the first time you awakened the Earth Spirit."

"No," Dr. Li's gaze fell into the void. "I tried twenty-one years ago too. Using higher authority and stronger arrays, trying to reverse the extraction efficiency of the vein-locking nails. I failed and almost lost myself in the process."

"The Earth Spirit trusted humans once, and in exchange, its seventy years of vitality were used as fuel. It wouldn't trust easily a second time."

"Then why did it trust this time?"

Dr. Li finally raised her eyes and looked at Lin Yuan.

"Because you are different," she said. "You didn't come to save it. You came to live with it."

Another long silence.

Lin Yuan sat down on another wooden chair. This was the first time in two months he had sat across from Dr. Li from this perspective—not as a patient, not as someone being helped, not as a junior.

But as someone who had just clearly seen how his own name had been written on an attachment to an agreement.

"Mr. Mo knows you are still doing these things," he said. "The soul seal, the Earth Vein Arts, the traces of the Land Nourishing Array at Luoxia Mountain. He can find out."

"He knows," Dr. Li said calmly. "For twenty-one years, he has never stopped monitoring me. Every patient I have treated who was eroded by a soul seal, thirty percent were 'test samples' he deliberately sent over. He was waiting for when I couldn't help it and used those methods he taught me, which I shouldn't know."

"You still taught me."

"Because you can't wait twenty years," Dr. Li looked at him. "Your sister is in the ICU, you signed that devil's contract, you were pinned down by the soul seal yet still thinking of counter-killing—you can't even wait three months."

She paused, revealing a faint, almost helpless smile for the first time:

"Besides, you learn very quickly. Faster than I did when I was young."

Lin Yuan lowered his eyes.

The morning light seeped in through the gaps in the old wooden door, falling on the floor between them like a dividing line without temperature.

"That agreement," he said. "The withdrawal statement you signed twenty-one years ago—who has the original?"

Dr. Li's fingers paused.

This was the first time she had an emotional pause this morning.

"Lingxiao Capital," she said. "The Chess Player."

Lin Yuan was not surprised.

"Has he shown it to you?"

"Once a year," Dr. Li's voice was very light. "Every year on my birthday, he sends someone to deliver a copy. Not a threat, no attachments. Just letting me know the original is still there."

The clinic fell into silence again.

Lin Yuan was silent for a long time.

Then he spoke, his voice very low:

"When you signed that agreement twenty-one years ago, you thought you were restoring the Earth Veins."

Dr. Li did not answer.

"When I signed that betting agreement at Lingxiao Capital three months ago, I thought I was buying a life," Lin Yuan said. "I knew it was usury when I signed it, and I knew I would lose everything if I defaulted. But I had no second option."

"You didn't either."

He stood up.

"I am not qualified to forgive your twenty-one-year-old self for you," he said. "I only know that everything you have taught me in these two months has not made me more like a co-conspirator."

He walked to the door and put his hand on the door frame.

"As for that agreement—"

He did not look back.

"I will make it disappear from your birthday."

Lin Yuan did not return to the ancient tomb.

He stood on the morning street, opened the encrypted storage device, and flipped to the second red-marked item.

June, twenty-one years ago. Transaction type: Special funding for spiritual energy research.

Funder: Lingxiao Capital Corporate Social Responsibility Department.

Project leader: Li Cian.

Project name: "Feasibility Study on Urban Earth Vein Depletion and Artificial Intervention Restoration."

Signature abbreviation of the project approval reviewer: W. X.

Lin Yuan looked at it for a long time.

He thought, this is the whole reason why The Chess Player gave him this information.

Not to let him question Dr. Li.

Not to let him choose a side.

—It was to let him see clearly:

Twenty-one years ago, it wasn't Mr. Mo who guided Li Cian onto that path.

It was her father.

He established the project, he approved the funding, and he personally handed the research topic to his daughter.

Then Mr. Mo came to knock on the door and said, "I have an Earth Vein restoration plan that requires your academic qualifications to cooperate."

After the vein-locking nails were driven in, The Chess Player didn't expose it, didn't stop it, and didn't even warn her.

He just kept the withdrawal statement his daughter signed.

—Sending a copy every year on her birthday.

This wasn't a father punishing his daughter.

This was a chess player preserving a piece he could never drop.

Lin Yuan closed the interface.

He did not go to question The Chess Player. Nor did he go back to Dr. Li's clinic.

He returned to his meditation room and opened the list of access materials for "Divine Profession Asset Standardization Rating."

Three complete corporate Optimization cases.

Fifty or more valid belief connections.

A third-party verifiable roadmap for Divine Profession expansion.

Within seven days.

He wrote down item by item.

The sun outside the window had fully risen, shining on those dense desk records, data charts, and screenshots of customer feedback.

Divine Debt countdown: 16 days, 3 hours.

He didn't know when Taoist Mo's next killing blow would fall.

He didn't know from which angle Lingxiao Capital's rating review would cut the first blow.

But for the first time, Lin Yuan felt that many people's names had been signed on that agreement.

—It was Taoist Mo's turn.