Chapter 47: Luo Yuandao (Part ½)
The husband maintained his firm stance and Luo Shuqing didn’t speak much more. She only sneered: “You think this is something that can be tossed away? This is your prideful daughter!”
In any case, thanks to Uncle diverting Aunty’s anger, Luo Nan was able to excuse himself from the battlefield and go up the stairs to change clothes and wash up.
Who would have imagined that there would be so many things destined to happen this morning? Luo Nan just finished showering up and changing clothes when he received a message via the HexaEar. It was an unfamiliar number. Luo Nan thought for a bit before picking up the call. But just as he was about to ask who it was, a few words were thrown at him:
“F*ck you *****!”
Luo Nan was stunned for a time. What kind of nutjob was this? There were these sorts of people in the Society? Then the voice shouted in an uncontrollable manner:
“Just go duck inside that scheming woman’s pants then! I’ll show you all sooner or later!”
This person sounded like he was drunk. The words he spat out weren’t too clear, carrying obscenities. It didn’t take half a minute before a long series of curses had been shouted out.
Luo Nan finally came to at this time. Scheming woman….... Did he mean He Yueyin? Then that means this was related to the operation on the 28th.
From looking at this person’s nasty attitude and the displayed avatar, Luo Nan was soon able to surmise the obvious:
“Black Beetle?”
This fellow. That's right. He couldn't take He Yueyin's criticism that night. Wasn't he the one who abandoned the team midway? He and the unfortunate Black Wolf had the same assessment in the Society’s brief; they both received a score of zero.
From what he could see now, it seemed like this person had an extremely nasty temperament…… The Society really did have all sorts of people.
Even a buddha would be angry when pelted with a shower of profanity. Let alone Luo Nan.
He furrowed his brows when he responded: “You’re threatening me openly and your behavior is intense. I believe that you may be controlled by the Human-Faced Arachnid?”
Black Beetle suddenly stopped, having been smashed with this label. Then he gritted his teeth and said: “Kid. Don’t believe psychics are amazing. We can slowly play together in the future!”
Luo Nan responded with cold and prickling words: “I’m down anytime!”
Both sides hung up the call. Luo Nan realized that he had spoken out loud in agitation. He lightly patted his cheeks and peaked out from the head of the stairs. It was quiet on the first floor. The husband and wife were still looking straight at each other. It seemed that Aunty still had some residual anger.
He relaxed his breath and walked down the stairs.
Seeing Luo Nan come down, both Uncle and Aunty turned to look at him at the same time. Uncle indicated him to sit down: “Come. Eat breakfast. Warm congee is very tasty.”
Mo Haihang had worked many years working for the authority agency. His stature wasn’t tall, but he had a grave complexion. He was habitually silent and looked to be hard to get close to.
But actually, he was your standard homemaker dad within the house. As long as he was home, all three meals from morning to night were all his responsibility.
It wasn’t that he was henpecked or something. In reality, Aunt's cooking skills were the same as the day she first started cooking; they were quite underwhelming.
As for their children. Mo Ya perfectly inherited Aunty’s powerful gifts and that included her extremely tragic level of cooking skills. Even if she dared cook, no one dared eat.
There was also Mo Peng, Luo Nan’s older male cousin who was the same age as him. How would it be possible for Mo Peng to crawl out of bed on the weekends before 10 AM? The family was too lazy to call him down for breakfast.
The depressive atmosphere lasted a long time, probably due to the seriousness of Mo Ya running away from home. Uncle had encountered several similar circumstances in and out of work, so he watched the news calmly while drinking his congee.
Luo Nan found it hard to talk, so he just shut his mouth and ate. The amount of food he ate just simply disappeared; the congee appetizer was certainly not enough to satisfy him. But his Uncle had taken this into account when making breakfast. He included beef for nutrition, specifically so that Luo Nan could become full.
Even though it had been a month, this was still an extremely typical breakfast for the Mo family. Still, Luo Nan felt that something was off today.
This was because of his mental senses that were activated at all times, spreading out. He was able to see his Uncle and Aunt even though his head was lowered. He saw them swap glances seemingly more frequently than usual.
Were they like this before? Or was it that his mental senses were too active today?
Seeing that Luo Nan had just about eaten his fill, Aunty suddenly opened her mouth: “You. Luo Nan.”
“Aunty?”
“You’re not busy today right?”
“Uh. Not really……”
“Then let’s all go to Anhai1 and see your grandfather.”
Luo Nan was obviously stunned, but soon he resounded with an answer: “Okay!”
But he felt a bit uneasy in the next instant: “Did Grandfather’s condition turn worse?”
“Nope. Don’t guess blindly!” His Aunt nodded. “Go. Today you clean up the dishes!”
Luo Nan did not object.
Anhai Medical Treatment Center was a famous mental illness sanatorium in Xia City. It was located on the outskirts of the city and was 200 kilometers away from the main city district. It was about an hour’s drive away.
When the entire family had an outing, riding shotgun was the prime seat location. No one wanted to sit in the back row next to the Aunt with her sincere advice giving nature. This time Luo Nan scrambled to get to the front seat before Mo Peng could wake up. He let out a breath of relief upon sitting down.
An hour of driving wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short.
But for Mo Peng, this hour of driving will obviously be endless. Luo Nan had plenty of things he could do during this time.
He opened the notebook he always carried with him and looked at the interface of the flexible e-ink screen.The new icon of the visualization diagram was still in a “downloading” state. Thirty hours had passed, but the degree of progress only reached 2%.
Alright, that’s fine. Good thing there was this “2”, otherwise, it might have been stuck.
Luo Nan was unable to estimate just how much data he had scooped from the Human-Faced Arachnid’s body. Or maybe the external neuron had its analyzation speed restricted upon breaking away from the laboratory’s abundant energy back in Gear?
There was about 50% battery left in the flexible e-ink screen. This consumption was already quite excessive. But this was still nothing compared to the output of the independent power station of Gear’s laboratory.
He could give it a try when he goes back to school tomorrow.
Luo Nan opened the drawing software and entered into the second layer interface2. Then appeared a pyramid structure that was formed from five layers consisting of student, office worker, technician, clergy, and politician.
But he immediately furrowed his brows. Was it a misconception? This feeling that the interface had turned “dirty”? It was a bit darker for some reason, and there was some slight shaking…...
Before he could observe in more detail, the Uncle who was driving turned his head over:
“Are you researching the social format diagram? Oh, you’ve changed screens.”
This driver had things quite leisurely while the car was on autopilot, but his gaze was quite sharp.
Luo Nan went “Oh”, wanting to brush away this topic by being vague.
A rarely seen smile appeared on this uncle’s face: “During the year 79, I was pressured by a certain someone into opening a research project on the organization’s supercomputer. I established the model of the format diagram and I used Xia City’s thirty years of access privilege data and credit data to do so. I won’t mention what disciplinary action I was subjected to, but I was still blamed by your grandfather for trying the impossible…… This is what you see in front of you.”
Luo Nan knew that this certain someone was his father, Luo Zhongheng.
It seemed that the relationship between his father and uncle was quite decent, for his uncle kept on trying to change Luo Nan’s impression towards his father all these years. But all these words were useless. Luo Nan would never forgive someone who used his grandfather’s blood in exchange for freedom, that coward who left behind no trace of where he went!
He grunted in response, not wishing to talk.
From behind, Mo Peng saw that his dad opened his mouth and found it to be a golden opportunity to break free from his mother’s oppressive control. He slid his chair forward and forced himself in the conversation:
“My bro. In my opinion, your five-level model of society is far too sketch. Why the heck are clergy ranked higher than technicians? And politicians are ranked higher than clergies? These aren’t even the same fields. You’re saying that clergies are higher than office workers. You’ll get in a fight if you show this in public. No two ways about it.”
1. Anhai (安海, literally Peaceful Sea)
2. Second Layer Interface. This interface was first shown in Chapter 33.1 where Xie Junping points out that the pyramid diagram was similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Of note is the fact that this Second Layer Interface is now referred as the social format diagram. Chapter 5 indicates the main levels of Luo Nan's grandfather's Formatting Theory: the self, society, and heaven and earth. The Second Layer Interface matches with the second level of Formatting Theory, society.