Chapter Forty-One: Lies

After confirming that the item in the trash bag was indeed a Dieffenbachia, Fu Lan first steadied himself to check his own condition.

His mouth felt no stinging or itching, and his stomach felt fine; he hadn't ingested any. This plant’s toxicity takes effect quickly; if he had actually consumed it, symptoms would likely have appeared by now.

Since he wasn't the one being poisoned, there was only one conclusion for why Fu Linxing had secretly prepared it:

He intended to poison himself!

That little brat... To others, this might seem like an overreaction, but Fu Lan knew his son’s temperament well enough to know he was truly capable of such a thing.

The entire plan was glaringly obvious: he would stop the divorce registration at any cost.

The appointment at the Civil Affairs Bureau was at 9:30 AM. Fu Lan checked the time. Given the congestion of Monday morning rush hour, he honestly wasn't sure if he could resolve the situation and arrive on time.

Regardless, he had to act immediately.

He asked the janitor for a clean bag and re-packed the Dieffenbachia, just in case he needed to take it to the hospital.

He then walked out of the residential complex while calling Fu Linxing.

The automated voice informed him that the phone was powered off.

At this point, he had completely pushed the Civil Affairs Bureau to the back of his mind; his worry for his son had eclipsed any lingering resentment.

If the boy had intended to ingest the poison at school to attract attention and force him into submission, it wouldn't have been so troublesome. But now that he was missing with a lethal substance, the situation was far more severe.

Fu Lan calmed down and tried to think, finally finding the number of one of his son’s friends.

There was a boy named Zhong Zihao whom he hung out with often. Because they frequently visited each other’s homes, both sets of parents had exchanged numbers, just in case their phones died while they were out.

However, it was now the morning study period, and Zhong Zihao wouldn't be able to answer.

Schools generally forbade mobile phones. Even though many students ignored the rules and brought them anyway, they would never dare to use them openly during class. Fu Lan simply sent Zhong Zihao a text message, asking if Fu Linxing had acted out of the ordinary today.

But he couldn't just sit and wait for a reply. He composed himself and called his son’s homeroom teacher.

"Hello, Teacher Wei. This is Fu Linxing’s father. Has he arrived at school yet?"

"Ah, Linxing’s father. I was just about to call you. When I went down to check on the class earlier, the discipline committee member said he was late and hasn't shown up yet. Was he held up by something at home?" Sensing the nuance in Fu Lan’s inquiry, Teacher Wei added, "Or did you have a disagreement, and he’s skipping school out of spite?"

"Er... something like that. He actually just..."

Fu Lan brushed it off with a few vague excuses, not wanting to reveal the truth.

He couldn't be certain exactly what Fu Linxing had done; everything was just speculation. The problem was that the boy had turned off his phone, complicating matters.

Even if it eventually came to calling the police to find him, he needed to clarify the direction first, or else he would only create more chaos.

As he pondered, the voice on the other end continued: "We really need to find him quickly. But... if he were at school, we teachers could help, but now, you see..."

The homeroom teacher’s stance was clear: since the student hadn't entered the school grounds, it was the parent's responsibility.

Fu Lan didn't want to make a scene, so finding Fu Linxing himself was the best option.

"Oh, I understand," he said, maintaining his composure. "He shouldn't have gone anywhere dangerous. I have a general idea of where to look."

"...These children in their puberty are incredibly sensitive; they’re prone to extreme behavior. You really need to be more attentive. Especially when parents are dealing with family issues, you must not ignore his feelings," the teacher hinted cryptically.

"Yes, yes, I will be careful... Alright, thank you... I promise, I will report back to you as soon as I find him."

Delayed for a moment by the teacher’s well-meaning advice, Fu Lan finally ended the call after promising to find his son and communicate with him. It seemed the teacher knew about their family situation; that kid Fu Linxing really did tell everyone everything...

Phone off, didn't go to school—this kid was really playing for keeps.

Fu Lan stopped and looked around; he had reached the breakfast stall where they had parted ways earlier.

He pulled his son's photo out of his phone and asked around, but it was early morning, and the nearby shopkeepers were too busy to pay attention to a single student. Passersby also found it difficult to distinguish Fu Linxing from the sea of students wearing the same uniform.

Fu Lan changed his approach. Since his son hadn't entered the school, he must have taken a different route than the other students, and that trait should be distinctive enough.

He ran to a few more places and gathered some ambiguous clues until someone told him they had seen a student skip the school bus and ride a shared bicycle down a certain road.

Just as he was wondering if that person could be Fu Linxing, his phone rang.

Fu Lan was startled, almost hanging up instinctively.

He hesitated for a moment before answering the call from He Yue.

"Why aren't you here yet?"

It was already 9:30 AM.

"Traffic jam." Fu Lan looked at the road; if he were in a car, he would indeed be stuck.

Forget it, there was no point in making excuses; he was just lying out of habit.

There was no resentment in He Yue’s voice, only a coldness that he found unbearable to face: "How much longer?"

"Hard to say, I'll try to be as fast as I can."

"Fine." No matter how cold she was, she still added, "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Fu Lan stared down the road the passerby had pointed out. With so much time having passed, even if he had the right direction, how could he catch up?

Fu Linxing’s phone didn't have any parental monitoring software, and they had never pried for his passwords, so the phone’s location tracking was naturally inaccessible. Fu Lan regretted having respected his privacy so much in the past.

*Black Coral should be at Gray Island by now. If she were still here, she could definitely...*

No. Fu Lan rubbed his temples hard; why was he getting used to asking that woman for help?

As for his own magic, casting a perception net over the entire city would be a significant burden, but if used only to lock onto a target for a short time, it wouldn't be unbearable.

Calculating the time, Fu Linxing couldn't have made it to the other side of the city; the search radius wouldn't actually be that large.

It was just that the commotion would be too great. And he loathed this feeling: as if, without magic, he couldn't accomplish anything as an ordinary person.

Was he forced to call the police?

If that brat had crawled into some unseen, hidden corner and wasn't found in time, he might just...

After searching in vain for a while longer, Fu Lan finally received a response from his son’s classmate during the break.

Zhong Zihao said the same thing as the homeroom teacher: Fu Linxing hadn't been to school at all today. Furthermore, he had sent him a message: if he hadn't made contact by noon, he wanted Zhong Zihao to find a way to wipe his cloud drive accounts and the like.

"What do I do, Uncle Fu? He isn't going to do something foolish, is he?"

Fu Lan told Zhong Zihao he would handle it properly and urged him not to worry, but he began to sense something wrong with this message.

For a child of Fu Linxing’s age, deleting his accounts was a very significant request, as he didn't have his own computer; his phone and these online accounts were essentially the sum total of his privacy.

The Dieffenbachia was indeed potentially lethal. If he wasn't committing intentional suicide but wanted to ensure his accounts were handled in case he accidentally died after ingesting the poison, it seemed logical.

But why hadn't he mentioned the phone? Had he forgotten, or was it subconscious?

At that moment, He Yue called for a second time, interrupting Fu Lan’s doubts.