Help Request

Chen Miemie had lost the argument and returned home looking utterly dejected.

The oddities in the house all rallied to his defense.

“Moretti is such a dishonest bastard. He’s deliberately switching concepts around. What is obviously the production of an addictive substance becomes, in his mouth, a lifeline for the poor,” Origami said indignantly.

“He’s very cunning. He’s using crimes that haven’t even happened yet as a shield, ignoring the continuity of the threatening act, and actually portraying himself as the victim.” Daidai was stunned by the bishop’s shamelessness.

That point was indeed rather unreasonable. If someone came charging at you with a knife, you would naturally defend yourself in advance. You couldn’t cling to some rigid principle and insist on waiting until you were stabbed before fighting back.

“Hmph, why waste time talking about it? He’s a professional charlatan. His job is to deceive people every day. We should just beat him up,” Loop suggested.

Qinghua knew Chen Miemie well. “Even if the other person is only arguing sophistically, Miemie would never simply flip the table and hit them. We should look for Moretti’s weakness instead.”

Chen Miemie stared blankly for a while before finally coming back to himself.

“Actually, I do admire Bishop Moliti to some extent.

“It’s true that he has his own ulterior motives, but the way he built his influence was by targeting a genuine pain point in the city.

“Many people can’t afford to visit a clinic, be hospitalized, or undergo surgery. Those are all facts.

“Father Jing before him, and Moretti now—they’re both bishops, but they’ve spent years personally working on the front lines, receiving believers who came to them in desperate need. They’ve seen the real hardships of ordinary people with their own eyes.

“I’ve only been a shopkeeper for three months, and I’ve already seen so many problems in society and human nature. They’ve spent over a decade receiving believers who came to ask for help. They must have seen far more.

“Have you noticed? Both of them, without exception, chose medical aid as a means of controlling people.

“Father Jing used two medical aid quotas before. Once, he used one to hire someone to deal with the Ashes, and another time, he used one to arrange for someone to damage a seal. Both were extremely dangerous tasks, yet people were still willing to do them in exchange for medical treatment.

“So the root of the problem lies in solving the medical crisis.”

As a veteran medical professional, Loop was unusually pessimistic.

“Birth, aging, illness, death, and all kinds of accidents—there will never be an end to injuries and diseases. Even if clinics operate without seeking profit and don’t make a single penny, no amount of municipal funding would ever be enough to treat everyone.”

Pure Water sighed in much the same way.

“All living things instinctively pursue benefits and avoid harm, but some injuries and illnesses are simply calamities. Medicine is essentially an attempt to defy fate and alter destiny. The resources consumed to save one person far exceed that individual’s own value, and ordinary people can hardly bear such losses. That’s why, even now, with medicine developed and widespread, common people several eras ago didn’t even have the opportunity to sell everything they owned to pay for treatment.”

Chen Miemie suddenly asked, “What about insurance?”

The oddities all looked at him.

“What is insurance?”

“Forget it. It’s too complicated to explain. I’ll talk to [Zhiliao] next time and see if he can set up a small pilot program at the Moon Library.”

After the discussion had veered completely off course, everyone returned to the matter of deciding on their final stance toward Moretti.

“I can’t shake the feeling that he’ll cause a major disaster if we leave him alone.”

“We don’t need to do anything. The various factions in Sixiang City are already reaching the limit of their patience with him. They’ll move against him soon. His Rainbow Brew is powerful, but it relies mainly on his own [Mystery], making its source far too limited. As long as something happens to him, the supply of Rainbow Brew will naturally be cut off.”

“Fine. We’ll wait and see for now.”

After the meeting, Chen Miemie was just about to take an afternoon nap when someone knocked on the door.

Loop opened it.

A strange middle-aged woman stood outside.

“I heard Chen Miemie was back. Is he home?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m his classmate, Yi Shuangzi.”

Chen Miemie welcomed Yi Shuangzi warmly.

“You’re as changeable as ever. You even changed your voice. If you hadn’t introduced yourself, I wouldn’t have recognized you at all.”

Yi Shuangzi huffed angrily. “Chen Miemie, you’ve really made it big. You’ve even become the representative of a new species. Your old classmate is being bullied—you have to help me.”

“Oh? Who bullied you?”

“Who else? That new bishop of the Moon Church, Moretti. Controlling the Moon Cathedral wasn’t enough for him. He’s even reached his hands into the Sun Cathedral and started treating himself as the person in charge of both sides.”

Chen Miemie laughed. “That’s not a complaint. You’re praising him. I believe in the Moon, too. All I can do is congratulate him on a job well done.”

“Go ahead and laugh. If you knew what he was planning, you wouldn’t be laughing.”

Chen Miemie quickly adjusted his expression. “What is he planning?”

“One night, I secretly disguised myself as a member of the Moon Church and infiltrated the cellar where he makes Rainbow Brew. Guess what I saw?”

Chen Miemie played along. “What did you see?”

“Moretti claims that making Rainbow Brew requires the brewer to provide an entire test tube of blood. But that isn’t true.

“I discovered that he only uses half a tube. He mixes that half-tube of blood with a large amount of herbal juice and turns it back into a full tube of Rainbow Brew. He keeps the other half for himself. Since the total volume never changes, no one noticed.

“Right now, everyone’s attention is focused on the addictive nature of Rainbow Brew. But they don’t realize that’s merely a decoy he deliberately put forward. His real goal is to collect the blood of everyone in the city!”

Chen Miemie found that strange. “Why didn’t you report this to Dean Deng at the school or to City Hall? Why come to me?”

Yi Shuangzi collapsed backward against the sofa.

“I sent them messages, but they clearly didn’t believe me. Chen Miemie, you have no idea—I’m wanted throughout the entire city now.”

“Wanted by Moretti?”

“No. Wanted by the whole city. Moretti discovered me that very night. I managed to escape, but he knew his secret had been exposed, so he retaliated.

“He sent people disguised as me to assassinate the enemies of the Yi family.”

“Disguised as you?”

“Yes. Since no one knows what I really look like, anyone could be me. Moretti took advantage of that. He sent people under his control to carry out assassinations, then have them identify themselves as members of the Yi family.”

“But people aren’t stupid. They believed that? And you’re the current head of the Yi family. How could they condemn you based on such a simple frame-up?”

Yi Shuangzi sighed.

“Chen Miemie, having someone like me in the city—someone who can appear anywhere without warning—makes a lot of people uneasy. No one wants an enemy suddenly appearing beside them wearing the face of a relative.

“Right now, the entire city is hostile toward the churches, and the Yi family itself is part of the Sun Church’s faction. Whether the assassin was really me wasn’t important. What mattered was that people had been given a reason to attack me.

“Look at what happened in the end. I was wanted. They said that if I had nothing to hide, why couldn’t I simply turn myself in for investigation?”

Chen Miemie understood. “That’s Moretti’s goal. He turned you into a ‘criminal,’ forcing you to worry about your own survival. That makes everything you say far less credible.”

“Exactly. He’s a very dangerous man.”

“Do you know why he’s collecting the blood?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t know if you’ve heard—about a month and a half ago, a city lord in Bloodline City tried to advance to [Mystery] 7 by sacrificing more than half the city’s population. In the end, he failed, and his advancement sacrifice ritual was exposed.”

Chen Miemie was wide awake now.

“I heard about that. You think he’s planning a sacrifice too?!”

Yi Shuangzi shrugged. “It’s only a guess. He’s [Mystery] 6 and needs to advance. He’s been secretly collecting blood from everyone in the city. He’s a member of the Church, so there’s a very good chance he knows about that sacrificial ritual. I’d say the possibility is quite high. You can judge for yourself.”

Chen Miemie frowned.

What was there to judge? Better safe than sorry, obviously.

“Fine. Your information is very useful. How do you want me to help you?”

“Now that our house has fallen, everyone’s kicking us while we’re down. Give the Yi family a hand and get my warrant revoked. Teacher Fengling has been personally hunting me lately, so it’s hard for me to do anything.”