After Sui Yuesheng answered the phone, he heard Jing Ning ask, “Is Tao Fengche home? If so, please call him for me. I just tried to call him, but it showed that his phone was off. It’s almost ten o’clock; is he still sleeping in? That’s not like him.”

Sui Yuesheng met Jiang Jingyun’s concerned gaze and shook his head slightly, signaling that things were not developing as he had hoped.

“What’s wrong?” Sui Yuesheng didn’t answer directly but threw out a question.

Jing Ning replied honestly, “Tao Fengche joined a project group during his internship at the research institute this summer, but now there’s a problem with the experimental report he’s responsible for.”

Sui Yuesheng: “?!”

“The intern who took over Tao Fengche’s work contacted the project leader and said he couldn’t understand the experimental records left by Tao Fengche. The leader couldn’t make sense of it either, so he turned to me. I looked at it just now, and I couldn’t understand how he got this set of data.” Jing Ning shook his head helplessly, “Redoing the experiment takes a lot of time, but if this data is indeed wrong and we’ve already based the next phase of work on it, it’ll have a significant impact. I thought I’d call and ask him.”

Although Sui Yuesheng knew that the chances of Jing Ning, a researcher, knowing Tao Fengche’s whereabouts were slim, seeing Yu Hebai’s confident demeanor still gave him a flicker of hope.

When that hard-won hope was dashed, the sense of defeat became even more intense.

Sui Yuesheng closed his eyes tightly, burying that fleeting fragility, and slowly replied, “I don’t know where Tao Fengche is. He’s been kidnapped.”

Jing Ning fell silent for a moment, digesting this huge amount of information, then fired off a series of questions: “When did this happen? Is there a clue? Have you contacted Jiang Jingyun? If the Tao family can’t find him, maybe the government or police can help. Surveillance, wiretapping, signal positioning…”

Sui Yuesheng interrupted before Jing Ning could list every crime-solving method he knew: “It happened yesterday afternoon. Jiang Jingyun and I are at the police station right now; a special task force has been set up, but so far, there are no clues. We’ve tried basically every method you can think of. The SIM card is completely destroyed; the last location was near Tao Fengche’s school, but the surveillance didn’t capture anything, and Zhao Jiayang changed cars too many times…”

Jing Ning suddenly interjected sharply, “It was Zhao Jiayang who did it?!”

“Right.” Since they were already this deep into the conversation, Sui Yuesheng simply laid out everything that had happened over the past couple of days: “Tao Fengche was taken away by him after school. Early yesterday morning, Zhao Jiayang called from an encrypted virtual number and proposed the condition: to publicly disclose the existence of artificial pheromones, and then arrange for them to be marketed.”

This time, the silence on the other end of the phone felt particularly prolonged.

Just when Sui Yuesheng began to doubt if there was a problem with the signal, Jing Ning’s incredulous voice came through: “Is he crazy?”

Sui Yuesheng chuckled bitterly, “That’s what I thought too.”

Another suffocating silence ensued, and suddenly, Jing Ning asked, “Did you try the subcutaneous positioning?”

The sudden unfamiliar term left Sui Yuesheng confused; he instinctively asked, “What?”

“You don’t know?” Jing Ning was surprised and then proactively explained before Sui Yuesheng could respond, “It’s the positioning chip that was implanted when Tao Fengche got vaccinated two years ago.”

Sui Yuesheng frowned as he recalled, unable to find any relevant information in his memory, and shook his head: “I didn’t know. Master Tao never mentioned it to me. But it’s likely that Zhao Jiayang has already dug it out.”

Just thinking about Tao Fengche’s body being cut with blades and the bloody scene after the chip was dug out made Sui Yuesheng feel a bit breathless, and his vision darkened.

His heart was racing, and his complexion was growing paler. Jiang Jingyun and Yu Hebai looked at him with concern, but Sui Yuesheng waved his hand, signaling that he was fine.

He knew he hadn’t slept all night, and combined with the heightened tension and emotional fluctuations, all these reactions were silent protests from his body.

But he could no longer afford to care about these things.

“Actually, that’s not certain.” Jing Ning spoke slowly, offering his speculation, “This technology has remained classified until now. It was Master Tao’s idea to implant it in Tao Fengche. He doesn’t like being followed by bodyguards and dislikes being monitored, so it was done covertly during his vaccination.”

“I personally administered the vaccine and implanted the chip; even Xu Song wasn’t aware. I always thought you knew, but it seems that since Master Tao didn’t tell you, then Zhao Jiayang…”

Jing Ning elongated the last syllable, leaving Sui Yuesheng ample room for imagination.

Sui Yuesheng furrowed his brows, finding Jing Ning’s suggestion absurd.

Aside from Tao Zhixing, no one knew about the existence of this chip. What was the point of its existence? What if something happened to Tao Zhixing?

…No.

That’s not right.

Tao Zhixing couldn’t have anticipated his own death.

Since the age of eighteen, Sui Yuesheng had been secretly trained by Tao Zhixing as a backup for Tao Fengche. If everything had gone according to Tao Zhixing’s original plan, then after he relinquished power, Tao Fengche would take over the Tao Research Institute, holding core technologies while Sui Yuesheng would be responsible for managing the Tao corporation and gradually cleaning up their secret businesses, ultimately handing it back to Tao Fengche.

He was the sharpest knife Tao Zhixing left for Tao Fengche.

But that car accident had come too suddenly and too unexpectedly.

He received a message from Lawyer Li during a meeting, instructing him to suspend all work and take trusted subordinates back to the country on a private jet, without any further explanation. He had a vague sense that something big might have happened and didn’t dare to delay for half a minute; he took his people and left immediately.

Lawyer Li was waiting for him on the tarmac at Jingpu Airport. After flying for more than ten hours, he had barely set foot on the ground when Lawyer Li said, “Master Tao has passed away.”

It was no exaggeration to say it was like a bolt from the blue.

Tao Zhixing’s sudden death left no last words; apart from the will that was updated every year at the end of the year, he left behind no other messages. There were many things that Tao Zhixing hadn’t had time to explain to him. The Tao family was large and attracting attention, with countless eyes watching; both sides of their businesses had traps set for him, and internally, some were eager to try—whether to seize power or to carve out a share…

During the six months since his return, he had indeed walked on eggshells, busy every day, yet still ended up suffering some losses.

Since Tao Zhixing hadn’t had time to explain business matters, nor left any last words for Tao Fengche, then… it was normal that he hadn’t mentioned the chip.

Moreover, such a tight confidentiality method was indeed something that the suspicious Tao Zhixing would do—only on the day the will was announced did everyone, including Zhao Jiayang, learn about Sui Yuesheng’s existence.

As he thought, Sui Yuesheng’s eyes gradually lit up, and a hint of joy appeared on his face.

Jiang Jingyun, seeing his expression, was somewhat surprised—was Yu Hebai’s prediction actually coming true?

Seeing this, Yu Hebai triumphantly poked Jiang Jingyun’s waist and teasingly winked at him.

Jiang Jingyun couldn’t help but laugh, squeezing Yu Hebai’s hand under the table, but it was a fleeting touch.

Just then, amidst their affectionate exchange, Sui Yuesheng suddenly stood up. The legs of the chair made a grating sound against the tiles, drawing the attention of several officers, but Sui Yuesheng was oblivious, speaking sharply into the phone: “Where are you now? I’ll send someone over immediately…”

“No.” Sui Yuesheng quickly denied that half-sentence, speaking faster, “I’ll come to find you myself right now.”

In contrast to Sui Yuesheng’s rare loss of composure, Jing Ning remained much calmer: “I’m at the research institute working overtime, but you don’t need to come over. The main control terminal, or the main control program, isn’t with me.”

“Then where is it?!” Sui Yuesheng tilted his head, awkwardly wedging his phone between his shoulder and ear, struggling to put on his coat, completely forgetting to just put the phone down and connect his Bluetooth headset.

“I don’t know either.” Jing Ning shrugged on the other end of the phone. “Do you think he would tell me? I didn’t even know what Tao Zhixing would do after we handed that terminal over to him.”

That colorful soap bubble named hope was once again cruelly popped by someone, and Sui Yuesheng felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice and cold water over him, leaving him frozen in place.

His throat tightened a bit: “Then…”

“Maybe you could try looking for it at the Tao mansion. Besides the study, it would be best to check Tao Zhixing’s room too. From what I know of him, something so important would definitely be kept in the safest spot, and subconsciously, he really cared about family.”

“Since when did you get a Ph.D. in psychology?” Sui Yuesheng chuckled bitterly. “You’re just guessing, right?”

“Yes.” Jing Ning admitted without any psychological burden and added, “Just consider it a researcher’s intuition. There’s one more thing I need to tell you: the terminal we made is probably about the size of a USB flash drive, but what actually works inside is just a very small chip. It’s highly likely that Master Tao found another group of people, took out the chip, and put it into an electronic device.”

“But personally, I think the chances of it being a phone are very low,” Jing Ning concluded.

“…Thanks.” Sui Yuesheng stepped to the conference room door and pushed it open.

From behind, he could faintly hear Yu Hebai calling out, “Where are you rushing off to?”

“Going back to the Tao mansion. Jing Ning said there might be clues over there.” Sui Yuesheng, anxious, replied hurriedly.

Yu Hebai exchanged glances with Jiang Jingyun, who nodded slightly. So, he quickly grabbed the car keys from the table and rushed outside: “Are you planning to walk back to the mansion?! You can’t drive like this; wait! I’ll give you a ride!”

Sui Yuesheng hurried to the door, taking two steps at a time, while Yu Hebai followed behind, loudly shouting in the police station without restraint. Jiang Jingyun watched as his boyfriend and friend suddenly regained their energy and blinked, breaking into a smile.

The weather forecast said it would be cloudy that day, and the sky had been showing just that. But at that moment, the fog and clouds blocking the sunlight suddenly cleared a bit, allowing a beam of golden warmth to shine through the gaps in the clouds, directly illuminating the computer screen that Sui Yuesheng had been staring at all night.

It was like a subtle prophecy.