Zhuo Liangmu also realized the gravity of the situation: the medicine had been swapped! He immediately questioned his grandson in a chilling voice: “Did you do this against your conscience? Get on your knees and tell the truth.”

Zhuo Dong’s mind went blank, and his knees hit the floor with a heavy thud. After a long while, he remembered something: “…I brought A-Mian to the lab before, but I swear, I only let her stay for less than ten minutes. It couldn’t be her…” He murmured to himself, his voice growing softer as he fell into doubt.

Bai Ling frowned. “A-Mian?”

Zhuo Dong: “My fiancée…”

Zhuo Liangmu slapped his thigh in rage. “Stupid! So stupid! I told you long ago she came from lowly origins and had no good intentions. I told you to marry a high-achieving student with good morals, but you wouldn’t listen!”

Now that the lab’s medicine had been tampered with, the entire vault had to be re-inspected. To be safe, all existing drugs had to be destroyed and remade. And that was the optimistic scenario. If things were worse, the lab’s patented formula for the mental supplement was likely already circulating on the black market. They wouldn’t just lose their reputation; they would lose a massive number of clients. The entire clinic going bankrupt wasn’t out of the question.

Under Bai Ling’s cold, lethal gaze, Zhuo Dong hurriedly performed a chemical analysis. Wiping away sweat, he whispered:

“The bad news is, the replacement drug is at triple the dosage. Over-consumption causes mental derangement, kidney failure, gastric dysfunction, and various other problems.”

Bai Ling’s gaze turned icy as he recalled the merman’s poor appetite over the last two days and the way he frowned, unable to eat.

“The good news is…” Zhuo Dong stole a glance at the cold man before him, “it was caught early. The course hasn’t even hit a month. Treatment is still in time.”

Bai Ling breathed a small sigh of relief.

But the woman who planted the poison, she had to be hunted down to the end. Unsurprisingly, that threatening letter was also a “lure the tiger from the mountain” tactic, meant to sideline the more troublesome Old Woodpecker.

Zhuo Liangmu sighed with lingering fear. “It’s lucky this gentleman came in time. Otherwise, if a catastrophe had occurred, I couldn’t atone even with my death.”

They discussed it and decided that since the matter was grave, they had to report it to the police.

The Little Woodpecker was still in a daze, unable to understand why his “fiancée” would betray him when they were so compatible, feeling like kindred spirits who met too late.

Zhuo Liangmu snatched his grandson’s terminal, finding the woman’s photo to upload for a wanted warrant. Bai Ling stood by with his arms crossed, watching. When his gaze swept across the virtual screen, his shoulders suddenly jolted.

That face… He knew it!

This woman called “A-Mian” was identical to the military doctor Hai Mian from his previous life, though she looked much younger ten years in the past.

How could it be such a coincidence? Then those suppressants he took, those suspected overdoses of alpha-hormones…

Bai Ling suddenly felt a cramp in his stomach and a violent urge to vomit.

In the Revolutionary Army, as their leader, what he had always emphasized wasn’t ability, but trust. Especially toward the military doctors; considering it wasn’t easy for them to adapt to a battlefield, he had always given them the best resources, the highest respect, and total trust in any advice or treatment they gave for injuries. On the battlefield, the only person a wounded soldier can rely on nearby is a doctor.

And now he was being told that the doctor he respected so much, the one for whom he had repeatedly forced the rowdy alphas in his squad to apologize, had been harboring ill intentions from the very start?

Faint bloodshot veins appeared in Bai Ling’s eyes. This debt of betrayal, along with the harm done to Yu Chen, will definitely be repayed.

He contacted the AI and screened the name through the database, finding Hai Mian’s resume.

Unexpectedly, “Hai Mian” was her real name. Her species was a marine Sub-species, belonging to the class Demospongiae, specifically the Caribbean fire sponge (Tedania ignis). This organism looks like a worm and has many pores, a perfect match for the “Pecking Hole” Woodpecker’s preference for pecking holes to eat worms.

Bai Ling said slowly, “This Hai Mian isn’t the ‘slum girl’ or ‘pitiful pregnant woman’ you thought she was. She comes from a prominent family, studied in the Federation from a young age, and graduated from the Federation’s First Medical University, two years younger than the age you got your PhD.”

The Old Woodpecker hadn’t liked this “granddaughter-in-law” and had wanted his grandson to marry a like-minded high-achiever; as it turned out, she was one.

Bai Ling’s pupils shrank into needles. “Most importantly, she is a senior researcher for Rayco Pharmaceutical Company.”

Rayco Pharmaceutical was the unscrupulous medical giant that had caused the Mecha World Cup accident. Strictly speaking, they were competitors with private labs like the Woodpeckers’.

The Little Woodpecker said blankly, “…No wonder she listened so intently every time I talked about those boring experimental data. I thought I had found a soulmate.”

Zhuo Liangmu: “……”

The grandson has a high IQ, huh? He traded it for EQ.

Bai Ling looked out the window. On the dark horizon, a smear of blood-red glowed. A blurry feeling gradually rose in his heart.

Deep in the shadows of his past life, it seemed there had always been a force hurting him and Yu Chen. Perhaps the purpose was…

To prevent the two of them from ever meeting.

The Underwater Metropolis: “Poseidon”

Inside a Duke’s mansion as luxurious as a palace, the Swordfish Grand Duke was stroking a photo of his son, a rare flicker of pain showing in his brutal eyes:

“Gram, my son, my little Swordfish… Father will surely avenge you.”

The Swordfish Grand Duke had been ill for five years. He was too old, nearly two hundred, with total organ failure. Because he was a pureblood, he couldn’t match with suitable organs and had never been able to undergo transplant surgery, forced to live in a treatment pod filled with tubes to maintain his life.

But a few days ago, internal organs with a 99% match for him had suddenly appeared on the black market. The Duke was overjoyed, purchased them immediately in full, and found that they worked perfectly after installation with almost no rejection. He thought he could finally leave the pod and enjoy life with his younger son, but instead, he emerged to the devastating news of his son’s death.

When his son’s remains were delivered, an anonymous person sent him a report in an extremely humble tone. The investigation report showed that Gram was very likely killed by a mecha pilot named “Bai Ling.”

The Swordfish Grand Duke decided to avenge his son.

“Destroy that ‘Bai Zero,’ make him wish he were dead…” A vicious look flashed across the Duke’s withered face. “Better yet, find a way to make him contract a chronic disease, so he has to watch himself die without a cure, slowly wasting away!”

No one knew that the Swordfish Grand Duke was actually the true owner of the unscrupulous medical giant [Rayco].

On his communicator’s channel, the avatar with the codename “Sponge” lit up, and a voice replied: “I will do as you wish. By the day after tomorrow at the latest, I will let you see his blood spilled on Major General Gram’s tombstone with your own eyes.”

The Grand Duke rolled his cloudy eyes. “How do you plan to do it, Hai Mian?”

“The club ‘Bai Ling’ belongs to is recruiting a psychological doctor. I can apply for the position of their team doctor.”

At the same time, the Captain of the club received an application message.

[Psychological Doctor]: Hello, Captain of the “Eloquent Crows and Sparrows” club. I heard you are looking for a therapist for your mentally unstable pilots. Here is my resume. I have extensive professional experience and can start tomorrow.

The Captain hadn’t expected things to go so smoothly. Considering Bai Ling’s mental stability was at the bottom of the tournament rankings, he intended to win over and cultivate him, so he thought of finding a therapist to treat Bai Ling properly.

Since the doctor could start tomorrow, once Bai Ling finished the treatment, he could also have a detailed talk with this little white bird.

Talk about… whether he would join his Wild Planet Revolutionary Team.