The Frenzied Savior - Chapter 25

Father Fu’s hesitation didn’t escape Mother Fu’s notice. She shot him a cold, sharp look. “Thinking of backing out?”

After all, Fu Qingya was her own flesh and blood. Even if she didn’t like him, she couldn’t allow him to end up with nothing, struggling just to survive.

This didn’t stem from love. It was simply because she couldn’t bear to see someone who looked like her, someone who bore the title of her biological son, fall into a state of destitution so pathetic it would embarrass her. She could handle losing a status symbol to brag about, but she couldn’t accept gaining a reason for others to mock her.

Mother Fu was far more volatile and headstrong than Father Fu. Her competitive nature meant she refused to let anyone look down on her in any aspect of life. Thus, once she decided to give Fu Qingya half of her assets, Father Fu had to do the same.

Knowing exactly how terrifying Mother Fu could be when she lost her temper, Father Fu’s expression shifted instantly. He denied it repeatedly, “How could I? My word is my bond, I won’t go back on it.”

“This afternoon, I’ll have someone deliver the agreement this afternoon.”

As he spoke, Father Fu felt a sharp pang in his heart. That was half of his fortune. If it weren’t for the sake of divorcing the woman across from him and giving his lover and their child a legitimate status, he never would have parted with it.

With a dark expression, Father Fu nodded at Mother Fu. He checked his watch and, without giving Fu Qingya a chance to speak, turned to leave.

“I have a meeting to attend. I’m leaving.”

Seeing Fu Qingya now only reminded him of the half of his wealth he had just been forced to sign away, making his heart ache. He felt as though staying any longer would cost him even more, so he pulled away and left without staying a single minute more.

“A coward with no spine, always the same old tricks.”

Mother Fu rolled her eyes at his retreating back with utter contempt, then turned to look at Fu Qingya, who remained standing several paces away.

She didn’t truly understand this child she had given birth to. She only knew him as a quiet, exceptionally intelligent boy with an aloof temperament. Looking at Fu Qingya’s cold, indifferent face, she didn’t offer so much as a hint of a smile.

“Don’t be stubborn. Don’t bother with that ‘noble’ morality. If you want to live well and freely in this world, having a moral compass that’s too high won’t work.”

Unlike Father Fu, who had an older brother to handle everything and ensure he never went hungry, Mother Fu came from a family with a cutthroat “survival of the fittest” culture. Everything she owned was earned through her own struggle. She had navigated the deceptions of the business world long ago, and her moral floor had dropped lower and lower until she was unrecognizable.

“Take what we’re giving you. It’s no more than what you deserve. After this, we are completely finished. Whatever happens to you in the future, we won’t interfere again.”

Fu Qingya’s expression was incredibly complex. In his past life, he had fallen ill around this time and was taken in by his aunt and uncle to recover. He hadn’t encountered the couple then. He had simply learned one day that they had divorced and started their own families, leaving him entirely forgotten in this massive villa until the apocalypse arrived and they never set foot inside again.

It turned out they had come for him in his previous life, but not out of love, it was out of interest and reputation.

But regardless of the truth, Fu Qingya, who had long since made peace with it, didn’t care. He naturally disliked trouble, and accepting their property meant trouble.

However, he knew exactly what kind of person Mother Fu was. If she wanted something done and failed, she would stop at nothing to achieve it. Fu Qingya had no desire to stay entangled with her.

After a few seconds of hesitation, he nodded in agreement but raised a condition.

“I’ll accept, but I want this kept quiet. I don’t like people coming to my door looking for trouble.”

Mother Fu, who happened to want to discuss that very point to secure her position as the company’s general manager, looked at him in surprise. After a moment, a rare, faint smile appeared on her face.

“You’re as smart as ever. Don’t worry, we’ve already planned for that. Our assets will be transferred secretly. No one will know except for our own trusted lawyers.”

Fu Qingya realized he should have expected that. As seasoned businesspeople, no matter how impulsive they might be, they knew the stakes. These matters would naturally be handled privately.

The trouble was nipped in the bud.

“That’s fine then.”

Fu Qingya and Mother Fu never had much to talk about. Now that the divorce arrangements were settled, they naturally went their separate ways.

Mother Fu gave him a slight nod, turned, picked up her bag, and left the villa.

With a natural expression, Fu Qingya closed the villa door. To prevent strangers from entering his private space again, he changed the main gate code and expanded the AI’s control to the entire villa. At the same time, he added those of his own bloodline to the “No Entry” list.

If those two hadn’t entered his villa without any resistance or triggering an AI alert, he wouldn’t have remembered that the system lacked a genetic blacklist.

Because this AI was relatively outdated for the year Star Calendar 27, it used a “Bloodline Whitelist” system. Any direct relative of the system host was automatically placed on a whitelist that allowed silent entry.

This whitelist algorithm was unfortunately hard-coded into the core of the butler system that powered the AI, making it an unremovable piece of original programming.

Unless he built a new core from new materials, the bloodline whitelist couldn’t be disabled. Fortunately, he was able to hastily build a bloodline blacklist for the system, which solved the problem indirectly.

When Fu Qingya had reconstructed this AI butler, he only did so because the core materials he gathered at the time were only sufficient for a first-generation system. Having grown used to living like an orphan, he hadn’t thought to add a blacklist.

The police guard outside didn’t know how Fu Qingya felt about his parents. Seeing that they had the code to the villa, they didn’t dare stop them, leading to today’s misunderstanding.

Fortunately, the couple had never been curious about Fu Qingya’s affairs, and the various systems in the villa required Fu Qingya to personally open the door before they would fully activate. Otherwise…

Fu Qingya had no wish for certain things to be exposed prematurely. He first ordered the robot, Xiao Yuan, to scrub the villa of all traces of anyone but himself, then began tinkering with the access control.

He brought up various materials from the basement and personally built a smart monitoring device that could remotely monitor, intercept, and even control the villa’s internal butler system, water, and electricity.

This device wasn’t just capable of connecting to satellite systems, its encryption level far exceeded that of any nation or organization on Earth. Therefore, no one but Fu Qingya could crack the firewall or intercept information from him.

With this incident behind him, Fu Qingya began a thorough inspection of the villa’s systems and equipment for any hidden vulnerabilities. After several hours of tinkering, he finally patched every loophole and completed the renovations.

Only after testing the functionality of every device did, he feel at ease enough to go to the basement to experiment with new inspiration.

In this round of modifications, he integrated elements unique to Country A’s culture, even combining colors and technical features from previous eras.

Fu Qingya didn’t stay busy for long this time. His stint as an exchange student at the Second Middle School had ended, and he had returned to his original school. To avoid the excessive concern of his well-meaning homeroom teacher and “socially hyperactive” classmates, Fu Qingya allowed himself to be pulled out of the underground lab by the robot, Xiao Fang. After washing up and eating the breakfast Xiao Yuan brought him, he lowered his eyelids and, at his usual sluggish pace, walked toward school with his eyes half-closed.

With a sense of déjà vu, he walked into the classroom with his eyes shut, sat down, habitually slumped over his desk, and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

Fu Qingya’s desk mate marveled at this out of habit, then leaned back and lowered his voice, continuing to probe into a matter he was very curious about.

The desk mate, wearing black-rimmed glasses, leaned in and whispered softly, “You just said someone else at the Twelfth Middle School next door committed suicide last night. How many suicides is that for their school this week?”

“Even if high schoolers are prone to mental health issues from study pressure, it shouldn’t be nearly ten times in one week, right? What exactly is going on over at the Twelfth?”

Sitting behind the boy in glasses was a tall, sturdy “social butterfly” with friends everywhere. His information was always top-notch, often reaching him even before the teachers.

Hearing the question, he also leaned in, his face tight and solemn.

“According to reliable info from my friend’s friend’s brother, who has a younger brother at the Twelfth, whether those dozens or so cases were actually caused by pressure and emotional breakdowns is still up for debate.”

“Word is, the students who killed themselves had happy families and excellent grades. They didn’t have any academic pressure and never showed any signs of wanting to end their lives. Several of them were even out having a great time with friends right before it happened…”

“If you ask me, this whole thing is incredibly eerie. We all know the Twelfth is famous for being relaxed, natural, and chill, right? They don’t even have extra classes when exams are near. Everyone there is easygoing. With that kind of environment, how could they be committing suicide over academic pressure?”

“And the ones dying are all happy, top-tier students with bright futures. Plus, they all died the same way, with no abnormalities beforehand. Then, the next day, they’re just found dead by various methods.”

The boy in glasses gasped. “That sounds seriously creepy. Did they call the police? What are the cops saying?”

Those were twelve young lives, gone one after another in less than seven days. It was both shocking and spine-chilling.

Why would they suddenly seek death in such various ways?

And if it wasn’t suicide, why were there no traces of anyone else at the crime scenes besides the victims?

The boy in glasses was both terrified and curious, peeking around for more information like a stray dog looking for a scrap of news.

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