You're already divorced, why are you so anxious about him becoming a succubus?

Inside an office of a national-level materials laboratory in Jiangcheng.

The old man who had a chance encounter with Lu Ci at the airport that day was now sitting behind his desk.

His name is Huang Bo'an, a leading figure in the field of carbon nanomaterials research in China, and a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Huang Bo'an looked at the pile of experimental data reports in front of him, his brows furrowed tightly, and his gray hair looked even more ashen than a few days ago.

"Knock knock knock".

A knock sounded at the door. Huang Bo'an didn't look up, but simply replied wearily, "Come in."

The door was pushed open, and a man in his early thirties wearing a white coat walked in.

His eyes were sunken, and he held a stack of newly printed lab reports in his hand, his tone revealing an undisguised dejection:

"Teacher, the latest experimental data just came out... This set of data failed again."

Huang Bo'an sighed deeply before slowly raising his head and taking the report from the student.

He glanced at it a few times, then reluctantly took off his reading glasses and rubbed his dry temples.

"Sigh... Magnetic field strength, temperature gradient, plasma flow rate, these core aspects are intertwined, and moving one affects the whole body."

If any data is incorrect, the experiment will absolutely fail. A small error can lead to a huge mistake...

Huang Bo'an put down the report and looked up at his student. Seeing the heavy dark circles under the student's eyes—as if he'd been punched—he forced a bitter smile.

"Let's pause the experiment for now. Tell everyone in the group to go home and rest early, give them a few days off. If we keep working like headless flies like this, our lab's budget won't be able to keep up."

The old man paused for a moment, his tone revealing a sense of melancholy in the twilight of a hero: "I've been working on carbon nanotubes for years, leading you students in the prime of your lives through this ordeal, but we haven't achieved anything substantial."

I'm getting old and will soon be retiring. Before I leave, I plan to apply to my superiors to change your research direction and see if we can achieve something in other fields. I can't let you hinder your future.

Hearing his mentor's words, the man felt disappointed. He offered a few words of comfort to the old man, his throat tightening, but he knew that in the face of scientific bottlenecks, any words would be inadequate.

Huang Bo'an waved his hand and habitually reached into the pocket of his coat hanging on the back of the chair, wanting to take out the cigarettes and lighter inside to relieve his fatigue.

But just as my fingers touched the cigarette box, they unexpectedly pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Huang Bo'an was stunned for a moment. He didn't remember when he had ever stuffed such notebook papers in his pocket.

He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, then squinted and slowly unfolded the folded paper.

When he saw the complex derivation formulas and several sets of parameters written on it, he remembered that it was written to him by the young man wearing a mask when he was picking up documents at the airport yesterday.

Huang Bo'an paused slightly in the hand holding the cigarette, stared at the note for a moment, and involuntarily recalled the young man's extremely confident tone at the time: "Actually, this is the right path."

Rationally, as a scientist, he absolutely did not believe that a few parameters casually written down by a young man on the street could solve a problem that had plagued the world.

But at this moment, looking at the logically consistent data derivations on the paper, a strange feeling arose in his heart.

After all, the experiment is about to stop, so what's wrong with trying one more time before it ends?

The contents of this note are definitely not something a layman could fabricate.

Huang Bo'an wondered: Could that young man... be a member of some laboratory abroad?

If you're researching carbon nanomaterials in the country, you absolutely can't ignore Huang Bo'an.

Could it be that the young man deliberately used a "chance encounter" to secretly transmit the latest research progress from abroad back to China?

Thinking of this possibility, a light shone in Huang Bo'an's eyes.

Without any further hesitation, he handed the note to the student who was still standing in front of the table, stunned:

"Refer to the parameters above and repeat the experiment."

The student took the note with a curious look and glanced at it. Although he was completely confused, he still responded loudly and turned to walk quickly towards the laboratory.

With a cigarette between his fingers, Huang Bo'an slowly stood up and walked to the window, a flutter rising in his heart for some unknown reason.

……

The sound of water in the bathroom had just stopped when Qin Meng walked into the bedroom, smelling sweetly.

As soon as she entered the room, she saw Lu Ci sitting against the headboard, his eyes shining as he stared intently at her.

Recalling the near-discovery by her aunt, Qin Meng's pretty face flushed instantly. She quickly lowered her voice and said coquettishly:

"No... Auntie heard everything, it's so embarrassing!"

Lu Ci's lips curled into a wicked smile, and he suddenly reached out and pulled her to the bedside.

He leaned slightly and whispered something in Qin Meng's ear.

Upon hearing this, Qin Meng froze, her beautiful eyes widening instantly. She waved her hands frantically, shaking her head like a rattle-drum, her voice barely audible.

"No... I... I can't..."

Lu Ci leaned back against the headboard, a smile playing on his lips as he uttered four words:

"Learn by doing."

Qin Meng felt her cheeks burning hot. She bit her moist red lips, her face flushed, and moved her body closer and closer, little by little.

In the dimly lit room, the moonlight shone like water.

Lu Ci reached out and gently stroked Qin Meng's cheek, quietly admiring the beauty mark at the corner of her eye.

The early winter sun streamed in through the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows.

The caregiver got up early and was busy in the kitchen, setting out fried eggs on the dining table.

Hearing the sound of a bedroom door opening at the end of the corridor, the aunt smiled and said:

"Mengmeng, why are you up so early today? Why didn't you sleep a little longer...?"

She had only spoken halfway when the aunt looked up and froze on the spot.

The person who came out of Qin Meng's bedroom was actually a boy.

"Good morning, Auntie." Lu Ci waved to the petrified auntie.

It took the aunt a long time to come to her senses.

As someone who had been through it all, a meaningful smile immediately appeared on her face, and she nodded repeatedly:

"Little Lu is here! Come and have some breakfast."

As she spoke, the aunt glanced curiously at the crack in the bedroom door that wasn't fully closed.

At this moment, she finally understood what those strange "noises" she heard when she got up in the middle of the night yesterday were all about.

……

After having breakfast, Lu Ci went downstairs and took a taxi to the airport.

Qin Meng had woken up long ago, but she was too shy to come out and see him off, so she stayed in her bedroom.

In the taxi on the way to the airport, Lu Ci was looking at the street scene outside the window when his phone suddenly rang in his pocket.

The caller ID showed Gu Xiaowei.

As soon as Lu Ci swiped to answer the call, his assistant's anxious voice came from the other end:

"Are you alright?!"

Lu Ci was completely bewildered by her abrupt and nonsensical question: "What do you mean, 'is it okay or not'?"

"Oh dear! Are you alright?!" Gu Xiaowei said anxiously, "I just saw a video saying that you were attacked by bad guys in Jiangcheng last night!"

In the video, you were fighting with a large group of people, and then someone even tried to run you over with a van! What exactly happened?!

Upon hearing this, Lu Ci frowned instantly.

The video of the attack has been uploaded online?

His first thought was that the security guard at Wangjiang Mingyuan had leaked the surveillance footage. But upon closer reflection, he realized that was unlikely.

After the incident yesterday, the property management executives there called to express their condolences. Knowing he was a celebrity, they assured him that they would never leak the surveillance video.

As for the police, that's even more impossible.

"I'm not injured. I went back to the set this afternoon," Lu Ci reassured her. "I'll hang up now. I'll go check out what happened in that video."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Ci immediately opened a short video app on his phone.

He didn't even need to actively search; as soon as he opened the app, the first video on the recommendation page popped up, already prominently displayed at the top of the trending list.

Popular celebrity Lu Ci was attacked by thugs in the street late at night! He fought off eight armed thugs single-handedly!

Lu Ci clicked on the video.

The video does indeed show him being attacked at the entrance of his residential compound last night, but the angle of the shot is clearly not from the compound's high-definition surveillance camera. Instead, it was taken from a corner of the green belt some distance away across the street.

Lu Ci guessed that this was probably a paparazzo who had been staking out Wangjiang Mingyuan for a long time. He originally wanted to take some gossip and scandals, but unexpectedly, he captured such an action blockbuster.