Illegitimate Child

"Is this what you call saving my life?"

Lin Mo looked at Fang Jun before him with clear annoyance.

Fang Jun chalked his pool cue casually. "I just figured you’d be tired from studying alone at home, so I called you out for a game of pool."

An Yuexin was also there, though Mai Chuwen was absent.

With just the two of them playing, it made sense they’d drag Lin Mo along.

Lin Mo sat to the side, sipping on a soda.

"You didn’t call me out just for this. You’ve got something to say, don’t you?"

Fang Jun took his shot, sending the cue ball spinning into a pocket. An Yuexin grinned in triumph.

"Hey, what was that shot?"

After sitting down, Fang Jun said, "I posted everything about Qin Ran from Class 12 on the forum yesterday. I’ve got an alt-account as a sub-moderator, and even though people kept demanding the post be taken down, I ignored them."

Lin Mo raised an eyebrow—he’d nearly forgotten about that.

He pulled out his phone and checked the forum.

Sure enough, the posts were still up: Huang X Lin’s debt-dodging scandal and Qin Ran, the Class 12 monitor, falsely accusing a Class 8 student of bringing a phone to school—only to get his own phone confiscated.

The threads had already blown up to 600 replies, with the heat still rising.

"Man, that Qin Ran really seems like a piece of work. A bunch of anonymous accounts claiming to be from Class 12 popped up, calling him a pretentious wannabe who acts like some big-shot class officer."

Lin Mo nodded, scrolling through the comments. There were indeed plenty of such remarks.

But he set his phone down, frowning. "Huang X Lin said he had connections. Aren’t you worried?"

"Pfft, if he had connections, my post wouldn’t still be up. Besides, didn’t Flathead arrest him? If he had real backing, would he have gotten caught?"

Connections were the kind of thing that only showed when they were needed. Most of the time, they stayed hidden.

Still, Lin Mo found himself curious about Qin Ran.

The little punk seemed like small fry, even less significant than Lei Qi.

Though Lei Qi and his aunt had long since gone quiet after their earlier uproar.

But as for Qin Ran… well, they’d just have to wait for the villain’s next move.

Wasn’t that how slice-of-life protagonists worked? They rarely took the initiative.

After all, even One-Punch Man only showed up at the last second to deliver the final blow.

Once the pool game ended, Fang Jun treated Lin Mo to dinner—a hearty meal of roasted lamb leg for the three of them.

While eating, Fang Jun checked his phone and suddenly frowned.

"What the—? The post is gone! Let me check!"

Sub-moderator Fang Jun immediately started digging.

A second later, he cursed. "The head mod stepped in and deleted it."

An Yuexin, mid-bite into a piece of lamb, asked, "Who’s the head mod? A teacher?"

"Probably. For school forums, teachers can apply for mod status with official verification."

Lin Mo tapped the table thoughtfully.

"Maybe Qin Ran really does have connections after all."

The other two looked up at him.

"Don’t worry. If the post got deleted, just make another one."

This was still 2012—internet regulations weren’t that strict yet.

Phone number verification wasn’t even a thing.

......

Unsurprisingly, every repost was swiftly deleted.

But the forum gave no explanation.

It was like tossing a stone into the sea—no ripple, no trace.

Even during Monday’s flag-raising ceremony, there was no school-wide announcement about Qin Ran’s misconduct.

But Lin Mo, using his spiritual sense, noticed Qin Ran had switched to a new phone.

An iPhone 4, no less.

Rich kid, huh?

After morning exercises, Fang Jun went off to gather intel while Lin Mo kept an eye on Qin Ran’s classroom.

Qin Ran had been stripped of his monitor position, but he didn’t seem fazed. In fact, during break, he confronted the new monitor directly.

"Remember—I’m still the real monitor here."

"Y-yes, of course!"

What a joke. Like some shadow shogun MacArthur.

The more he acted like this, the more it screamed that Qin Ran had something backing him up.

Guess they’d just have to wait for the villain’s next move.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that Fang Jun finally got the full scoop.

"Lin Mo! Got the info—Qin Ran really is connected! Rumor has it he’s got ties to the city government. No idea whose kid he is, though."

Lin Mo immediately glanced at Lin Jiajun beside him.

"Any big shots in the city surnamed Qin?"

Lin Jiajun thought for a moment, then shook his head. "None among the top brass, but Goat City’s political circles are huge."

Lin Mo agreed.

If Qin Ran wasn’t linked to the real power players, then it had to be some mid-level official.

Given the iPhone 4, probably not the cleanest either.

In that case… winter was coming for the Qin family.

......

That night, Lin Mo followed the spiritual mark he’d left on Qin Ran straight to the Qin household.

Surprisingly, the Qin residence looked utterly ordinary.

A modest apartment, around 70 square meters—two bedrooms, one living room.

Qin Ran was an only child.

At the moment, he was flirting with a girl from his class on QQ.

So engrossed that he was wriggling on his bed like a worm.

But the real focus was outside Qin Ran’s room.

Lin Mo conducted a thorough sweep of the place.

And reached one conclusion: Qin Ran was a love child.

The apartment had belongings for three people, but only two living there.

No wedding photos, barely any trace of the man of the house.

Only two possibilities:

Either the man was a trucker, never home.

Or this was a "golden cage" for a kept woman.

The master bedroom’s vanity was loaded with high-end cosmetics and jewelry.

The closet stuffed with designer clothes.

All telling signs.

The woman in the bed, though pushing forty, was still strikingly beautiful.

Without hesitation, Lin Mo used soul-capture to make her spill everything.

Soon, he had the full picture.

Just as he’d guessed—Qin Ran was illegitimate.

His father was someone in the education bureau.

Which explained the forum takedowns.

Following the trail, Lin Mo gathered every scrap of dirt on Qin Ran’s father.

Armed with this, he found himself looking forward to Qin Ran’s next misstep.

This was probably why the final boss didn’t crush the protagonist the moment they appeared.

To the boss, the protagonist wasn’t even an ant yet.

And to Lin Mo now, Qin Ran was just a clown adding spice to life.

As for the clown?

He’d let him linger—for the sake of future entertainment.

Lin Mo wasn’t sparing him. Just saving him for later.

The moment he returned to his rented place, the system popped up out of nowhere.

[Host’s requested "Trace-the-Wire" feature has been borrowed by this invincible system. Please complete the following task.]

[Special Mission: Form a Golden Core. Seek/Craft a Natal Spirit Artifact.]

Wait, forming a Golden Core made sense—but what was this about a Natal Spirit Artifact?