Chapter 234: Re: Covenantor

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Chapter 234: Re: Covenantor

Shang Ze died just as the experiment was on the verge of success—just when he finally had a chance to recover from being a Covenantor stripped of emotion and return to being a normal person. Worse still, he died at the hands of his own elder brother.

Lu Xiufan held the blood-soaked Shang Ze in his arms, feeling as though he had fallen into an icy abyss. His mind had nearly lost the ability to think. All he could do was watch helplessly as those bright eyes slowly lost their light, silently bidding farewell to this world with lingering attachment and regret.

“Little Ze!” he cried out in anguish, utterly unable to accept the reality before him.

At that moment, he suddenly felt a drop of liquid fall onto his fingertips. Lu Xiufan looked up and saw that, at some point, a tear had slipped from the corner of Shang Ze’s closed right eye.

Everyone believed Covenantors were incapable of emotion. But his Little Ze had cried. At the moment of death, he had cried. With that single tear, he shattered the curse that had imprisoned Covenantors.

Lu Xiufan’s body trembled uncontrollably.

His Little Ze had emotions! He loved life more deeply than anyone, which was why he cried because he could not bear to leave—why he cried from sorrow.

“Little Ze!” Lu Xiufan clutched him tightly, grief overwhelming him.

The laboratory was in chaos. The berserk Lu Xiuqi was forcibly taken to a hospital room by the guards, while the situation was immediately reported to the Queen.

Lu Xiufan handled the aftermath with his usual swift decisiveness. Outwardly, he seemed no different than before, but those closest to him could all sense that something had changed.

The ferocity with which he investigated the truth behind the incident made his hatred for the mastermind unmistakable. A berserk-inducing drug was detected in Lu Xiuqi’s body—the same special psychotropic drug Shang Ze’s stepmother had secretly injected into Shang Ze years ago, capable of triggering manic symptoms resembling infection by the Mental Virus.

Lu Xiuqi was the Queen’s husband. If anything happened to him while he was inspecting the results of Lu Xiufan’s experiment, the Queen would inevitably become suspicious of Lu Xiufan. The culprit had clearly intended to use Lu Xiuqi to drive a wedge between the brothers and the Queen, never expecting that the treatment drug had already been successfully developed. Lu Xiufan therefore had no reason whatsoever to harm Lu Xiuqi merely to avoid inspection.

And those research results had been bought with Shang Ze’s life.

Lu Xiufan threw himself completely into the investigation, reopening every previous lead and scrutinizing every former suspect. His ruthless methods and terrifying efficiency struck fear into everyone who heard of them. They had awakened a sleeping beast, and it began a brutal hunt. The nobles and bureaucrats entered the most frightening winter in their history. A killing chill hung over Soya, and even ordinary citizens sensed the gathering storm.

Two years later, Lu Xiufan had dismantled three deeply entrenched networks of vested interests. From criminal organizations to bank officials, from underground trade to provincial governors, from foreign commerce to the Minister of Finance—he investigated them one by one, working from the bottom all the way to the top. Most shocking of all was the Minister of Science, Gerson. An authority in the scientific community and once regarded as a source of national pride, he turned out to be a shameless foreign spy who had sold an unknown amount of state intelligence over the course of several decades.

Lu Xiufan paid a terrible price for those investigations. He lost the sight in his right eye, suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and hovered on the edge of death several times. Every day was lived under danger and threat.

An ordinary person would long since have backed down or at least begun acting discreetly. Lu Xiufan, however, feared nothing and struck without hesitation. When a powerful, shrewd, and capable man was willing to stake his life on bringing down his enemies, almost no one could escape his net. Moreover, he had the support of Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Consort Lu Xiuqi. As long as the evidence was conclusive and the plan airtight, he could take his opponents down one by one and reshuffle the center of power with thunderous force.

Two years was not enough to purge everyone involved, but Lu Xiufan’s relentless offensive had already crippled them. Pushing any further would likely cross the Queen’s bottom line.

Lu Xiufan himself did not care, but he could not ignore the consequences for his brother and his family. He relinquished most of his authority, retaining only his title and a position as an adviser to the Queen before withdrawing from the front lines.

For the remainder of his time, he devoted most of his energy to researching and developing treatment drugs for the Mental Virus. The breakthrough had been bought with Shang Ze’s life, and it also represented Shang Ze’s final wish: to extend the lives of Covenantors, grant them the respect and status they deserved, and allow them to return to society.

After discussing it with the other researchers, Lu Xiufan decided to name the drug “Shang Formula No. 1.” “Shang” was the surname Yue Ze had used after becoming a Covenantor, and Lu Xiufan had always called him Shang Ze. The Yue Family no longer deserved to have their surname attached to his name.

“Cough, cough!” Lu Xiufan casually wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes utterly indifferent.

Years of overwork and accumulated injuries had ruined his health, but he paid it no mind. Not only did he ignore his doctors’ instructions to recuperate, he frequently used powerful drugs to suppress his condition, overdrawing his own vitality.

A pleasant musical chime sounded, reminding Lu Xiufan that it was time to rest.

The familiar chime remained, but the person who had set it was gone.

Shang Ze had always planned everything meticulously, filling every minute and second with something meaningful. Every day spent by his side had been a happy one.

Lu Xiufan left the study and slowly walked into the bedroom. The vast room was as cold and silent as ever.

He took Shang Ze’s personal computer from a drawer, activated the screen, and leaned against the headboard as he browsed through the files inside.

He had gone through these files hundreds, even thousands, of times. Some were study materials Shang Ze had collected, some were films and games he had downloaded, and others were blueprints and recipes he had designed himself. Each viewing stirred something new in Lu Xiufan. Shang Ze’s hobbies, his diligence, his many talents… all of it unfolded before him. He only hated that he had not tried to understand or care for Shang Ze sooner. Now he could only remember him through the words, images, and traces he had left behind.

He clicked and browsed through them again and again until, suddenly, a nearly invisible icon flashed at the bottom of the screen. Lu Xiufan’s heart stirred. He moved the cursor back and forth several times, and the icon flashed again. It appeared only for an instant and was almost transparent; an ordinary person would probably never have noticed it.

After several attempts, Lu Xiufan finally made out the image: a lock with wings.

“Is this… a hidden file?” Shang Ze’s computer actually contained a hidden file?

The lock meant that a key was required to open it.

Shang Ze’s encryption was sophisticated. Even with Lu Xiufan’s skills, it took him quite some time to crack it.

With a crisp unlocking sound, an exquisite treasure chest appeared on the screen. Where the keyhole should have been was a fingerprint-verification panel.

Lu Xiufan assumed it would require Shang Ze’s fingerprint. To his surprise, the treasure chest opened the moment he casually touched the panel himself.

As gentle music began to play, photographs appeared across the screen one after another—789 in total.

The first was a panoramic photograph of the villa. Next came Butler Fei Lin watering the flowers. The third showed Lu Xiufan in formal attire. In the photograph, he stood amid a sea of purple flowers, posture straight and gaze deep. Pale golden sunlight softened his normally austere presence by an almost imperceptible degree.

He continued. The fourth photograph showed a hand holding a pen, sketching an unfinished cake on a sheet of white paper. The date read July 19—Shang Ze’s birthday.

Lu Xiufan’s heart clenched. He instinctively covered his mouth.

He had taken Shang Ze’s constant accommodation for granted, yet left him to celebrate his birthday alone in this way, with nothing but a hand-drawn cake as his birthday gift.

“Little Ze…” Lu Xiufan lowered his head and clenched both fists, desperately suppressing his emotions.

After a while, he managed to compose himself slightly and continued scrolling.

The photographs that followed covered everything imaginable: teacups, vases, decorative paintings, crystal lamps, bathtubs, the kitchen, slippers, cufflinks, snacks… and, outside the villa, towering buildings, vehicles, landscaped gardens, novelty toys, racing scenes, and countless other details of everyday life. Food, clothing, shelter, travel—nothing was absent. Shang Ze seemed to have been observing and recording the entire world in his own way.

After that, most of the photographs were of Lu Xiufan: Lu Xiufan lost in thought, Lu Xiufan socializing, Lu Xiufan reading, Lu Xiufan smiling faintly, Lu Xiufan drinking tea, Lu Xiufan angry, Lu Xiufan stern, Lu Xiufan asleep…

So this was how he had looked in Shang Ze’s eyes?

A vivid, living man of flesh and blood.

Lu Xiufan spent a full six hours looking through all 789 photographs. Only in the very last one did Shang Ze himself finally appear.

He sat calmly in a garden pavilion, back straight and gaze gentle, with several flower petals drifting around him. He looked like an elegant prince.

The photograph had obviously been taken by someone else—and Shang Ze had clearly agreed to it.

Later, Lu Xiufan asked his butler whether he had ever taken a photograph of Shang Ze.

Fei Lin sighed with emotion. “Yes. That time, Young Master Ze asked me to take a photograph of the two of you together. He waited for you in the garden specially, but something came up at the last minute and you never came back. So I took one of him alone first. I thought there would always be another chance. Who could have known…”

Fei Lin did not need to finish. Lu Xiufan knew the rest all too well. Three days after that photograph was taken, Shang Ze left him forever.

Lu Xiufan could no longer hold back his tears. He covered his mouth, sobbing until he could barely breathe.

Shang Ze had loved him.

In the unique way of a Covenantor, he had loved him deeply.

A few days later, Lu Xiufan took a photograph of himself and placed it beside Shang Ze’s.

“Little Ze, you left behind one world through your eyes. I’ll use my own eyes to leave another world behind for you.”

From then on, Lu Xiufan became devoted to photography. He photographed everything he saw and experienced, then stored the images in the treasure chest that belonged to him and Shang Ze.

Those 789 photographs eventually became 256,915.

And he continued until the day illness finally took his life, at the age of forty-eight.

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