Aunt Qiong's Accident

The sunlight was still blinding.

Jiang Yunlu's seat was empty, making the patch of sunlight feel somewhat lonely.

She rarely arrived this late for school.

Wang Qin, sitting at the next desk, was restless. The pen in her hand spun rapidly between her fingertips, but her eyes uncontrollably darted toward Lin Mo.

She wanted to see something on Lin Mo's face, even the slightest hint of concern.

But Lin Mo just propped up his chin and looked out the window, his expression so indifferent it was as if the person missing class was just an irrelevant stranger.

However, no one knew that an invisible net, centered on him, had already enveloped the entire city of Yangcheng.

The clamor of the city, the boiling voices of people, the trajectories of the heavy traffic.

Thousands of pieces of information flooded into his perception like a tide, only to be filtered and stripped away in an instant, leaving only the single wisp of aura he wanted to track.

Jiang Yunlu had Lin Mo's spiritual sense mark on her.

A clear coordinate lit up in his mind.

At this moment, Jiang Yunlu was not at the Sansha Island villa, nor was she at her usual residence.

The next second, Lin Mo's vision pierced through tens of kilometers of reinforced concrete, accurately locking onto a hospital corridor.

Outside the operating room, the red light glared piercingly.

Jiang Yunlu's face was deathly pale. Her hands were tightly clenched, her knuckles turning white from the force.

Beside her was Jiang Chengshan, his face as dark as still water as he paced back and forth, and Jiang Chengyue, whose brows were tightly furrowed as she constantly comforted her niece.

"Brother, what exactly is going on?" Jiang Chengyue lowered her voice, her words carrying an imperceptible tremble.

Jiang Chengshan suddenly stopped. His eyes were bloodshot, and his voice was squeezed through his teeth: "I don't know, but it's definitely nothing good."

Lin Mo's spiritual sense ignored them and passed through the operating room doors without any hindrance.

On the operating table, Aunt Qiong lay there, her entire body wrapped in bandages, revealing only a bloodless face.

In the eyes of mortal doctors, she suffered from multiple fractures and internal bleeding.

But under the insight of Lin Mo's spiritual sense, the sight beneath the bandages was shocking.

The meridians in her body, upon which her existence relied, were now shattered inch by inch, like colored glass crushed by a massive force.

Her dantian, used for converting true qi, was covered in spiderweb-like cracks, and faint true qi was constantly dissipating from it.

This was not a severe injury.

This was being crippled.

For a cultivator, having their foundation completely severed was even more cruel than killing them.

Lin Mo's brows furrowed slightly.

For someone capable of doing this, killing Aunt Qiong would have been as easy as lifting a hand.

Yet the opponent deliberately chose not to, intending to use this method to send some kind of signal.

Hunting?

Aunt Qiong's strength couldn't be considered very strong. According to Zhang Gonglian, the Hidden Sect was a group of cultivators who had gone down the wrong path.

In Lin Mo's eyes, this path was extraordinarily deviant.

They would use their dantian to convert spiritual energy into true qi, and then rely on their meridians to store the converted true qi.

Finally, Lin Mo came to a conclusion.

That it was simply too much effort.

However, it wasn't impossible, much like the principle of boiling water.

Various power generation technologies ultimately relied on kinetic energy to generate electricity.

This could also be considered a kind of adaptive circuit.

It seemed he needed to have a talk with the Old Geezer. There was no need to overthink it; it was definitely someone from the Hidden Sect.

During the break, the noisy crowd instantly flooded the entire corridor.

Lin Mo leaned against the railing, ignoring the surrounding students and teachers. He simply took out his phone, paying no attention to the curious, awe-struck, or even jealous gazes cast his way.

Even the passing Dean of Students, Li Yan, seeing him like this, opened his mouth to reprimand him. But upon meeting his face, he swallowed his words and merely said to the students nearby:

"What are you looking at! Can you rank first in the whole school?"

Many of the pointing and whispering students shut their mouths. After all, Lin Mo's grades were indeed excellent.

This was probably the awesomeness of a sect's Holy Son.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Lin Mo dialed Jiang Yunlu's number.

In the hospital, under the pale lights, the phone in her pocket vibrated abruptly.

Jiang Yunlu seemed startled and hurriedly took out her phone.

When the name Lin Mo caught her eye, her breath suddenly hitched. An indescribable emotion rushed to her nose, sour and bitter, clogging her chest and making her panic.

She forced herself to press the answer button, using all her strength to make her voice sound less shaky.

"Hello? Lin Mo."

"Are you alright?" Lin Mo's gentle and steady voice came through, like a needle instantly piercing her disguised strength.

The tears that hadn't fallen no matter how scared she was before now surged out like a flood opening its gates.

She couldn't hold it in anymore. A suppressed cry squeezed out of her throat, broken and desperate.

"Aunt Qiong... Aunt Qiong is in the hospital."

Lin Mo wasn't surprised at all. His voice remained in that calm tone, as if it could soothe all anxiety: "Don't panic, take your time. What's Aunt Qiong's condition? What happened?"

"I don't know, I don't know anything!"

Jiang Yunlu's crying carried a deep sense of powerlessness. "Aunt Qiong is covered in blood. She... she's in the operating room right now. I can only wait here, I can't do anything..."

The powerlessness in Jiang Yunlu's voice sent a jolt through Lin Mo's heart.

Once upon a time, he had been like this too, only able to watch helplessly, unable to turn the tide. He never wanted to experience that bone-chilling feeling a second time in his life.

And he absolutely would not allow the people around him to experience it again.

"It's fine."

His voice was resolute and decisive, carrying an unquestionable power. "Wait for me to get there."

As soon as he finished speaking, the call was hung up, leaving only a string of busy tones.

Jiang Yunlu stared blankly at her phone, her eyes filled with tears.

She... didn't seem to have told Lin Mo where she was.

Lin Mo put away his phone and turned to walk back to the classroom.

One second it was a life-and-death race at the hospital, and the next he was back in the campus filled with the sound of reading. The strong sense of disconnect made his eyes grow a few degrees colder.

Wang Qin was the first to rush up, her face full of worry. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Yunlu's family member is hospitalized. I'm going over to check on them now," Lin Mo said concisely.

"Hospitalized?!" Wang Qin grew anxious upon hearing this. "Then I'll go too!"

Lin Mo glanced at her, his plain tone carrying a hint of teasing. "You'll go? You tell the homeroom teacher that your friend's relative is hospitalized and see if she grants you a leave of absence."

Wang Qin was instantly speechless, her face flushing red.

"You guys can't go, but I can." Lin Mo's tone sounded like it was only natural.

Lin Mo turned his head to look at Xie Yuling and Chu Miaomiao.

Xie Yuling merely nodded quietly. She understood the torment of having a family member lying in the hospital, and she understood even better that as long as Lin Mo went over, things might take a turn for the better.

Chu Miaomiao cared even less; she was just asking about Jiang Yunlu's situation in their group chat of three.

But both of them coincidentally chose to believe that Lin Mo would handle these matters well.

Having said this, Lin Mo went straight to the office to ask for leave.

The others also noticed Lin Mo walking toward the office.