Chapter 213: Remnants

Sunlight shone in and illuminated part of the house. It also cast a shadow on the floor.

Chen Chuan walked inside and looked around. Aside from being covered in dust, nothing had changed about the furniture and decorations in the house. No one had come since he left a year ago.

Perhaps it was due to the materials used to make the house, but perhaps it was due to something else, but there weren’t any insects inside.

The old Chen Chuan had moved the valuable things out in batches, so only some furniture was left behind.

As Chen Chuan walked around the house, the old Chen Chuan’s memories surfaced in his mind. They flashed past like an old movie with a warm color filter.

They showed old Chen Chuan living here along with his parents. His life had been both happy and carefree.

But that was only until he reached five years old. After that, the number of memories with his parents started dwindling. They went off to do something and rarely came back. Meanwhile, Yu Wan occasionally showed up. Sometimes, Nian Fuli’s loud voice also entered the picture.

Then, when the old Chen Chuan turned six, his parents stopped coming back. Nian Fuli and Yu Wan took him in, but when the old Chen Chuan grew a little older, he would come back once in a while to stay in his old house for a few days, as if he missed his life from before or as if he was waiting for something.

Chen Chuan could understand that feeling really well. He sucked in a deep breath and went to his bedroom. The first thing he did was to pull back the curtains so that the room would become a little brighter. Then, he went to the bed and removed a panel under the bed and dragged a small box out.

After some thought, he stood up, went to the bedside table, removed the drawer, and took out the key stuck underneath.

The box didn’t contain anything valuable, just some old books and an expense ledger the old Chen Chuan’s parents had left behind. There were also some old newspapers, though many of them along with some notebooks had been cut to shreds and lumped together.

The old Chen Chuan didn’t know why his parents had left them behind, but he had a feeling that they were important. Since they didn’t take up any space, he had kept them.

Chen Chuan guessed that his parents had left him some clues behind but were worried about them being discovered, so they cut them to shreds and stored them separately.

After taking out the newspapers and books, he spread them on the table and took out the notebook Ni Xiaolin had given him. Then, he started comparing them and soon found the matching parts.

With great patience, he started slowly piecing them together and found that some of them had numbers at the bottom of the merged words, so he put them in order.

When he was done, he had an address with a series of numbers at the back. It was stated clearly that this was an address in Central City, but the numbers had no meaning so far.

Chen Chuan couldn’t help but think of the black card. When he asked Gao Ming to check it, he already knew that the card had been canceled for ten years. That was around the time Yu Wan took the old Chen Chuan away.

Could the address be related to the black card?

Aside from this, there was something even more puzzling.

Chen Chuan was the one who wanted to get into Martial Valor University. That was his own choice. While the old Chen Chuan was curious about Martial Valor University and admired martial artists, he never thought about getting into the university.

The old Chen Chuan’s greatest wish was to leave Yangzhi City and become an adventurer. He wanted to see whether the places mentioned in novels and movies were as amazing as they were depicted.

Meanwhile, Ni Xiaolin had all but said that Yu Zhen was certain that he was going to get into Martial Valor University, yet those who could make it into the university usually started practicing martial arts from a young age. As a martial artist, Yu Zhen shouldn’t have neglected teaching the old Chen Chuan martial arts, but he had no experience in this area, and no one even thought about mentioning it to him.

Did something go wrong?

Did the old Chen Chuan’s death have something to do with this?

As he pondered over this, Chen Chuan came to the conclusion that he had far too few clues, and he wasn’t going to be able to figure out anything like this.

So, he took a look at the address instead. He might find some answers after locating that place in Central City.

Chen Chuan memorized the address and numbers before scrambling the shredded pieces of paper again. He then stuffed them into the box and placed it back where it belonged.

Once he was done, Chen Chuan took a look outside. It was still bright.

Since he was already here, he might as well clean up the place.

He grabbed some cleaning tools and cleaned up the house. In the basement, he found a sealed can of tea leaves. His father should have left this behind, though he had never noticed it before.

There was also an algae fuel generator in the basement that could generate electricity at night. He checked it and found that it was still usable, so he decided to boil a pot of water. After brewing the tea, he got a chair out into the corridor and sat down to admire the forest and river outside.

The autumn scenery was always mixed with bits of gold and red. When the warm sun shone down, the shadows of the branches landed on the eaves. Occasionally, some leaves fell.

The old Chen Chuan’s memories from when he lived here as a child were clear as day. He often played in the river with Meng Shu. Later on, they became classmates. Perhaps it was because of this that Meng Shu saw him differently. After all, they spent the best moments of their childhood together.

Speaking of which, after he went to Central City, he might meet her again.

After finishing the pot of tea, Chen Chuan stood up and went back to finish cleaning before locking the door and walking down the wooden steps. Then, he got on his bicycle and took a final look at the house and the surrounding area before stepping on the pedals and leaving.

Nothing happened on his way back, and he returned to the university an hour later. Once he was back in his room, he pushed all the memories to the back of his mind. Regardless of what they were, what Chen Chuan needed to face right now was a brighter and broader future.

Over the next few days, he started using the medicine he got from the operation committee to help his training.

This medicine was much better than what he got previously. Even if he used only a bit of it, it already got the effects he wanted. Based on how much his second self blurred out, the damage he suffered wasn’t that much higher either. That in itself was rare. It was no wonder why Lao Feng had said that this was solely for members of the government.

Chen Chuan tallied up the amount of medicine he had. If he didn’t use anything extra, he had enough for around a hundred days. It might last until he went to Central City.

After his day training, he practiced the basic breathing technique in the evening while also taking time to read. Lately, most of his reading was focused on the stack of documents about cults and rituals.

They should have been dull and boring, but Chen Chuan found them interesting. The ridiculously complicated arrays would have kept anyone else at arm’s length, but Chen Chuan studied them all. He found his own fun in them.

His attention was especially focused on the rituals that bound and controlled supernatural beings. Supernatural-related missions might lead him to encounter such situations. He was also wondering about whether he could use these rituals to help him take out certain supernatural beings.

He lived every day to the fullest until in the middle of October, Lei Guangcheng called him.

“Chen Chuan, we’ve identified the person.”

Chen Chuan’s interest was piqued, because he immediately knew that Lei Guangcheng was talking about the person who used the ritual to take vital energy from other people.

“The man is Han Chang, an elder of the Blood Scars Gang. The members call him Uncle Han. After days of looking into this, we’ve found him. When the Blood Scars Gang was going into a decline, he took a group of gang members and hid in a village outside the city. They’re still there.

“I believe that he has Life Cult members with him. The Cult Investigation Bureau needs someone to take him and the cultists out. Chen Chuan, you have experience fighting against cults and armed groups outside the city.

“I now ask you, in the name of the Cult Investigation Bureau: will you take up this mission and eliminate the cultists and all those connected to the cult?”

“No problem. I’m willing to take up this mission, Mr. Lei,” Chen Chuan immediately replied.

He was a sophomore and could now accept missions in his own name. He could also ask Gao Ming for help when it came to the procedure, but he didn’t think it was necessary for the time being.

Ren Shu’s company had given him many benefits, so he should repay the favor. Missions from governmental departments could increase the company’s reputation and give them more reputation points.

That was why he asked Lei Guangcheng to hand the mission to the company, and he would take it in the company’s name.

Lei Guangcheng didn’t care under whose name Chen Chuan took the mission, as long as he was the one to carry it out in the end. “I’ll send the details to you later. Just get rid of them when you’re free.”

“Okay,” Chen Chuan promised.

Since it was the government working, less than half an hour after he hung up, the details were delivered to the campus. After Chen Chuan signed the receipt, he went back to his room and began reading.

Han Chang was very observant and acted quickly. When the senior leadership of the Blood Scars Gang was killed, he sensed that something was off and left the city with a group of people to observe the situation.

Of course, what happened later didn’t need any elaboration. Even though the remaining Blood Scars Gang members were taken out after Black Orchid Co.’s downfall, no one had bothered to eliminate Han Chang’s group since they had left the city long ago and were not the main targets.

But things were different now. Since the Cult Investigation Bureau had found evidence that Han Chang had ties with a cult and his hiding location, they weren’t going to let him go.

Chen Chuan took a look at the hiding place and felt a jolt in his heart. The location was all too familiar to him. It was close to Cai Hamlet, where he went while chasing Fang Dawei’s gang.