After autumn arrived, Xia City became the kingdom of crows.
These ugly yet intelligent creatures were the city’s true masters.
They gathered in groups on the street trees, mocking the hurried passersby with their hoarse, monotonous cries:
“Caw, caw, may you be unlucky!”
Occasionally, they would also show off their superb flying skills under a sky filled with spoke-like clouds.
Most pedestrians looked as awful as if their parents had died.
They stared with loathing at the black shadows circling in the sky, and at the even higher, strange cloud formations.
After late September, Xia City’s sky became covered with these clouds, and in less than a week, there were 6 earthquakes of around magnitude 3, 3 of magnitude 4, and 2 of magnitude 5.
The magnitude and intensity were far from reaching the city’s endurance limit, but fragile human hearts had already begun to waver.
More than half of the sound and radio waves crisscrossing Xia City’s air were frantically screaming:
“Earthquake clouds, earthquake clouds!”
This “folk science concept,” in a civilized era on the cusp of the 22nd century, brazenly entered the discourse of various experts and scholars and appeared in media reports.
Luo Nan was somewhat affected.
As he stepped off the low-altitude public transport, clutching his ever-present black leather notebook, his wristband vibrated.
After the signal connected, his Aunt, Ms. Luo Shuqing, immediately blurted out:
“Come home tonight, your Uncle has dinner ready!”
Due to the frequent earthquakes recently, his Aunt, who had previously allowed him to live independently, immediately tore up their agreement and repeatedly ordered him to move back in so she could look after him.
Luo Nan absolutely could not agree.
He had worked so hard to get into Zhixing College; wasn't it for a life of independence and freedom?
Moreover, this was the most critical juncture; if he delayed even one day, who knew what the consequences would be!
The problem was that Luo Nan had always been inarticulate, and the reasons he offered lacked any persuasiveness.
Things became increasingly tense, and it looked as if his Aunt was about to reach through the phone and drag him back.
Just as he was getting a headache, a message came through.
Luo Nan only skimmed it but secretly sighed with good fortune, quickly adding another point:
“I need to review today; tomorrow is the society interview…”
“Interview? Which society?”
“Uh, the Mystic Research Society.”
“Mystic Research Society?”
Ms. Luo Shuqing was a bit suspicious.
Soon, she called out from her end:
“Mo Ya, Mo Ya!”
Before long, a slightly hoarse voice joined the call.
The uniquely languid tone belonged to Luo Nan’s cousin, Mo Ya, who had just graduated from Zhixing College last year.
“Oh, the Mystic Research Society, I know it.
They say it’s very rich, and the people in it are very willful.”
Ms. Luo Shuqing couldn’t stand her daughter’s attitude and immediately scolded her: “Speak properly!”
Mo Ya let out a “Ha” of laughter: “No matter how well I speak, your ‘dear son’ isn’t doing well.
It’s been a month since school started, and he’s still doing interviews; he’s clearly not fitting in!
Zhixing College is heavily promoting the integration of Eastern and Western thought, and Western thinking is very prevalent.
If he doesn’t have society life, they’ll cut his credits first.
As for advancing to higher studies or finding a mentor, the school’s recommendation letter will certainly not have anything good to say…”
These inflammatory remarks instantly ignited another mother-daughter war.
With the focus of the conflict shifted, Luo Nan, hundreds of kilometers away, was able to escape unscathed.
By this time, Luo Nan had been standing in his living room for almost half an hour.
It was already dark, and the automatically illuminated living room lights cast his silhouette into the window of the high-rise apartment The Other Side.
Luo Nan issued a command, and the curtains automatically closed.
But at this moment, a black shadow passed through the closing curtains, landing on the open balcony, and then used its thick beak to pry open the sliding glass door, strutting in with an air of complete ease.
This uninvited guest was a typical rooks, entirely black except for the grayish-white base of its beak.
It looked stout and robust, a size larger than its peers.
Under the soft light, its feathers shifted between deep black and dark blue.
After pacing a few steps in the room, the crow flapped its wings and jumped onto the living room coffee table.
Then, it leaned forward, and a thumb-sized sealed glass test tube slipped from its thick beak, landing on the coffee table.
Inside was more than half a tube of white powder.
Having spit out the foreign object from its throat, the crow felt much more comfortable and proudly cleared its throat:
“Caw, caw!”
“Ink, shut up!”
In an enclosed space, a crow’s caw was a disaster.
Luo Nan scolded it, took the test tube to clean, and then brought out pre-prepared strips of cooked meat to shut its mouth.
Named “Ink,” the crow was quite amenable and ate very elegantly.
It even gestured with its wing for Luo Nan to pour it a cup of water.
On the adjacent dining table, dinner was also laid out, perfectly matching the monotonous skill of the home AI.
The color, aroma, and taste were unremarkable, but the portion was substantial, enough to fill three or five people.
Luo Nan, however, displayed a superhuman appetite and ate very quickly, finishing at the same time as Ink.
After Ink had eaten and drunk its fill, it neatly slipped out of the sliding glass door and flew away.
Luo Nan cleared the dishes and was about to go to his study when his wristband vibrated again.
This time, it was his cousin, Mo Ya, contacting him.
Exactly like her mother, she started with a direct remark:
“How are you going to thank me this time?”
“Uh, thank you, sis.”
“Tsk, you can’t even change your routine!”
Mo Ya knew Luo Nan was not good with words and stopped teasing him, getting straight to the point: “Was that Mystic Research Society recommended by someone else, or did you choose it yourself?”
“I chose it myself…”
“Do you know what kind of place it is?”
Luo Nan thought for a moment and simply replied: “It’s a hybrid of a society and a research institute, privately funded, with strong backing, and it has a high degree of autonomy compared to the college.”
Mo Ya sneered: “Sounds great, doesn’t it?”
Luo Nan didn’t know how to answer for a moment.
Mo Ya reminded him: “That’s just a playground for rich kids.
The core members form their own clique, spending their days researching strange things to pass the time.
Students from ordinary families who go there just become errand boys.
So it looks very good, but only for that ‘clique,’ and it has nothing to do with academics or skills…”
Luo Nan interrupted Mo Ya’s lecture: “I can do experiments there.”
Mo Ya drew out her voice, exclaiming “Oh”: “It seems your experiments are getting more and more troublesome.
But little brother, you should go to physics or chemistry interest societies to do experiments.”
Luo Nan calmly responded: “Those societies require an internship period.
I already obtained the relevant Aptitude in junior high, so there’s no need to repeat previous work.”
“The Mystic Research Society allows it?”
“Yes, I looked at the introduction and the school forum.
It’s the only society where freshmen can conduct independent and free experiments, and many of them involve the Domain of psychotropic drugs, which suits my needs perfectly.”
Mo Ya scoffed at him: “An errand boy can conduct free experiments?”
“A skilled worker perhaps can, and if the boss is an amateur, that’s even better.”
Mo Ya, who was always sharp-tongued, was actually choked by Luo Nan’s single sentence and only spoke after a few seconds:
“Alright, Mr. Skilled Worker.
I’ll just remind you of one thing: changing societies at Zhixing College will definitely label you as an ‘outsider.’
For the next four years… oh no, you’re in tenth grade, so that’s eight years.
You’ll have plenty of time to regret it.”
“Oh.”
Luo Nan’s response made Mo Ya sneer: “Alright, now let’s talk about compensation.”
“Compensation?”
“I bravely took a bullet for you; is a simple thank you enough?”
“Uh, what do you want?”
“Your apartment, lend it to me for one night to host a small party.”
Luo Nan hesitated for a moment: “What date?”
“The 15th of next month, that’s 20 days from now…”
“19 days.”
“...Alright, 19 days. I don’t need you to prepare anything, just hide and move those unspeakable things, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Luo Nan calculated the time: “That should be fine, but you need to remind me 5 days in advance.”
“Not straightforward. Then so be it.”
The other side hung up the phone, and Luo Nan started to get a headache over the “temporary relocation and settlement” 19 days later.
Even so, he was still grateful to Mo Ya. If it weren't for his cousin’s years of cover, how could he have continued his dangerous experimental work right under Aunt’s nose?
Shaking his head, Luo Nan decided to leave all miscellaneous matters for tomorrow.
Now, it was 7:22 PM on September 26, 2096. The inefficient daytime had finally passed, and Luo Nan welcomed the quiet and precious night.
He walked into the study. A black briefcase was placed squarely on the desk, quite large and looking rather out of place.
He entered his fingerprint and password, then lifted the lid. Amidst a faint “hissing” sound, the neatly layered and categorized instruments inside the case lifted layer by layer, and under the traction of their respective carriers, they spread out like unfolding petals, moving one by one into their designated positions.
In an instant, the desk transformed into a simple yet fully equipped workbench.
Luo Nan then took out a portable medical cooler from the bookshelf, placed it on the desk, and opened it. Inside were various sealed raw Materials for medicine. The white powder sent by Ink was also placed inside after a series of tests confirmed it was correct.
By this point, all the Materials and tools needed for the night’s work were ready… at least, all that could be prepared were here.
After finishing all this, Luo Nan took a deep breath, then opened a secret compartment on one side of the desk and took out an old notebook.
The notebook’s cover was brown, and its format was the same as the notebook Luo Nan always carried with him—both were loose-leaf. But due to years of use, and influenced by the large amount of Ink records inside, the brown-covered notebook looked a bit looser, and its cover was somewhat swollen. There was also no paper-like soft screen inside.
Luo Nan placed his own notebook aside and carefully opened the brown-covered notebook.
In the center of the notebook’s flyleaf was a neatly hand-drawn diagram. Just like those often seen in geometry class, a triangular pyramid—to be precise, a regular tetrahedron—along with its inscribed sphere and circumscribed sphere, together formed a flawless graphic structure.
Below this diagram, someone had scrawled four seemingly coherent yet enigmatic short sentences:
My Heart is a Prison, My Heart is a Furnace;
My Heart is a Mirror, My Heart is a Nation.
Luo Nan couldn't claim to understand the true meaning of this diagram and the sixteen characters, yet whenever he turned to this page, observed and silently recited them, all his cluttered thoughts would settle, and his mind would naturally return to clarity.
After pausing on the flyleaf for a few seconds, Luo Nan turned the page, searching through the dense text for content and keywords related to pharmaceutical preparations, and then buried himself in studying the profound phrases and complex molecular formulas:
“Low-potency, substitute, simplification… Grandpa, please help me out!”
Amidst his Murmur low murmurs, time swiftly passed.
The lights outside the window lit up and went out. In front of the workbench, Luo Nan’s attention constantly shifted between the notebook and the experimental apparatus, adding various raw Materials for medicine according to the data in the notebook.
During this time, he only dozed off for about two hours during the slow reaction phase of the raw Materials.
At 3:15 AM, as the last drop of solution was added, the turbid liquid in the reaction vessel began to boil violently, and its color slowly changed.
Luo Nan stared intently at the transparent vessel, which seemed like it could explode at any moment, to confirm if the reaction met the requirements. Two minutes later, he finally stretched his somewhat stiff neck and began to clear the clutter from the experimental table, while quietly counting:
“Dimethyltryptamine stock 0, Cathinone stock 0, Methoxyphenamine 2 milligrams, Cetilistat 5 milligrams…”
As he spoke, his personal notebook, lying flat on the experimental table, with its opened paper-like soft screen flickering faintly, automatically updated the relevant data on the record sheet. The stock of most of the medicines inside had either reached zero or was infinitely approaching zero.
The clutter Luo Nan was clearing mainly consisted of the packaging containers for these medicines. He cleaned and disinfected the recyclable ones and sorted the non-recyclable ones. It took him about half an hour, and the small workbench had returned to order and cleanliness.
The pale green medicinal liquid in the reaction vessel also slowly cooled after continuous boiling. At this point, it was basically confirmed that his night's efforts had not been in vain.
However, the brown-covered notebook also contained a corresponding brief record: “Q-11 R developed multiple peripheral neuritis; Q-27 R developed allergic symptoms, near death; other test subjects showed no abnormalities… Basically has a substitute effect, side effects are difficult to determine.”
Luo Nan shook his head, estimating that there was still some time left, so he swiped the soft screen and connected to his frequently visited “Mystic Star” forum.
Although it was the early hours of the morning, the night owls on the forum were still engaged in lively debates.
The center of the debate was Xia City.
Xia City’s recent bizarre “earthquake period” had caused wave after wave of climaxes on this Mystic Research Society-leaning forum. Many people were discussing the causes of the earthquakes—geological structure, plate resonance, Origin Qi leakage… all sorts of strange topics were brought up.
Some even swore that a certain large company was currently conducting secret experiments in Xia City, which was very likely the source of this “earthquake period.”
Luo Nan had no interest in these boring topics whatsoever. If he cared, it was only about two points:
First, would the earthquakes affect his experiments?
Second, would the escalating panic lead Ms. Luo Shuqing to forcibly drag him back!
Luo Nan habitually entered his authorization password, preparing to log into the forum’s internal section, but a website prompt popped up: “Your Aptitude is insufficient, please apply to the administrator for verification.”
Startled, Luo Nan lightly tapped his forehead. Right, he had been kicked into the blacklist, and the reason for the ban was simple: during extraordinary times, all purchase posts were treated as phishing attempts.
This was a new rule established by the forum half a month ago, after the Police busted a transnational illegal drug trading network. The scrutiny was tight, but Luo Nan had walked right into it.
Being banned was a minor issue; the bigger problem was the قطع-off of his drug supply channels.
Given his current stock of raw Materials for medicine, even if Ms. Luo Shuqing didn’t intervene, he would soon be unable to continue.
He didn’t expect to get all the raw Materials from the society; as long as he could find a new procurement channel, it would be a win.
Finally, the liquid in the reaction vessel stopped boiling and rapidly cooled.
Luo Nan immediately put aside all distracting thoughts, opened the valve, and let the medicine flow into a pre-prepared needleless injector, then injected this massive dose of mental drug mixture into his upper arm vein.
From beginning to end, his expression remained unchanged.
Next, Luo Nan meticulously cleaned the experimental apparatus, then pressed the reset button to restore it to the black briefcase. Only then did he tear off his experimental gloves, carefully place the brown-covered notebook back into the secret compartment, hide the cooler in the bookshelf, and then go to the bathroom to wash up.
At 4:00 AM sharp, Luo Nan changed into a sports hoodie, carrying his ever-present black-covered notebook, and left his home to begin his unyielding daily morning run.