The place where Gu Sheng had his physical exam was the Capital City University Hospital.
Because the Capital University Medical School was considered a top medical school in the world, the university hospital was also among the best in the nation—only, the hospital was not really open to the general public.
Thanks to his shrewd disposition, Gu Sheng’s reaction to the heavy blow he received today appeared outwardly calm, but his much slower responses than usual made it clear he was in a daze.
As it happened, Doctor Nian had already reached the entrance to the main building of the university hospital when he suddenly realized Gu Sheng hadn’t kept up at all.
He had no choice but to take out his phone, trying to contact Gu Sheng as he turned back.
Gu Sheng didn’t pay any attention to his buzzing phone—he could tell from the ringtone it wasn’t his dad, and right now, if it wasn’t his dad calling, he really didn’t want to deal with them. He needed some time to recover his thoughts.
Since his sister was kidnapped but safe about a month ago... What exactly had happened in all this time?!
His father had recently been given special attention by the Officials, but suddenly... with a commotion like this, the more he thought about it, the more things felt strange. His dad... what kind of extraordinary thing had he caused again this time?!
Just as doubt was swirling in his mind, a broad shadow suddenly loomed over him. He looked up and instantly lost his mood. “Why did you come back? You should’ve just left me here.”
Doctor Nian wouldn’t indulge that bad habit of his. “Feeling aggrieved? Suck it up for now. Come with me. Otherwise I’ll report to the Professor, and the Professor will send someone to haul you or carry you back.”
Gu Sheng stood up. “Let’s go.”
He could tell—Doctor Nian’s attitude toward him was almost certainly because his father had spoken first. No matter how biased his dad was, he hadn’t seemed this impatient with him in the beginning.
Thinking of this, Gu Sheng couldn’t help but give a bitter laugh. Just how much had he missed out on lately! Seeing his dad in a bit, surely his dad wouldn’t refuse to tell him what he’d been busy with all this time?
Meanwhile, today was a scheduled rest day—Qin Jingzhou truly kept his promise. He only allowed the mecha pilots and maintenance engineers five or six hours of sleep daily, but at the same time guaranteed them strict weekends off during training...
The pilots and engineers all took the opportunity to catch up on sleep. After getting up for a bite, they went back to their single dorms to “voluntarily overachieve”—reviewing and previewing their studies. As for playing games, watching short videos, reading novels to relax, none of that existed in their world!
The person in charge of managing this group of over-achievers was the former chief coordinator—the same one who’d been in the car with Qin Jingzhou during the Xiaoxiao incident, responsible for liaison and communication. Discovering that none of the pilots followed requirements to relax during rest time, the coordinator quickly filed a report.
The pilots had endured five days of intense training, and if they didn’t take the dedicated rest day to unwind, Qin Jingzhou predicted that within half a year... either their minds or bodies would break down.
Just then, Doctor Nian and Gu Sheng arrived together. When Doctor Nian respectfully handed over the medical record, Qin Jingzhou instructed Ling Jing and Doctor Nian to go visit the pilots’ dorms and common areas.
Ling Jing was publicly known as a communications technology prodigy, so the mecha pilots and students all had her as their instructor for related courses.
In just a week, whether pilot, student, or expert researcher, everyone was sincerely convinced by her, so much so that she easily kept the prideful pilots in line, even if they never admitted their respect.
Once Ling Jing and Doctor Nian left, Gu Sheng, not understanding, assumed his father’s girlfriend was tactfully making space for father and son... After all, since his father had seen the medical report, he probably now knew about his “unspeakable condition.”
Now the spacious living room was left with just the two of them, so Gu Sheng took the initiative and started the conversation. “Honestly, I don’t know why either. Learning this result, I wasn’t even that angry... It’s as if I’d expected it all along, like this is the end I was always going to face...”
Qin Jingzhou placed the medical record on the coffee table at his side. “Correct. Very self-aware.”
Gu Sheng tried defending himself. “Dad, I’ve always been cautious. This time with Elizabeth was an exception. Maybe subconsciously I thought a kid with a rich mom wouldn’t lose out.”
The System chimed in, “From what I see, he really just cares more about the kids brought home in a ‘runaway with baby’ situation.”
“He might just have a particular taste,” Qin Jingzhou deliberately commented to Gu Sheng, “All my children are born in wedlock, so I can’t quite understand your perspective or feelings.”
Gu Sheng: ...
A sudden epiphany hit him. Maybe now he understood why his dad had never been very fond of him! His sister didn’t just look like their father—her way of doing things was just like him too!
And his father and mother were college classmates, practically childhood sweethearts if you wanted to put it that way... Fine, the key was he himself had been so blind...
Just at that moment, he suddenly remembered Doctor Nian had called him an ordinary person... but what kind of ordinary person, again?
Qin Jingzhou saw through his train of thought, picked up a mecha pilot and maintenance engineer admissions brochure, and tossed it to him.
Gu Sheng caught it, stared at the cover, and was instantly frozen. What’s this? Why did mechas suddenly get involved?
He immediately flipped to check the publication date: sure enough, a month ago... There was even a red official seal at the end, further proving this recruitment was no nonsense or prank.
One of his strengths was leaving questions temporarily unsettled if something was unclear and simply reading on. The brochure wasn’t long, and there were only a handful of new terms he didn’t know, so after reading it through, he looked up at his dad and asked, “I’m an ordinary person with no mecha piloting talent? Dad, you and my sister...?”
Qin Jingzhou stood up. “I’m taking you to broaden your horizons.” He turned to call toward the second floor. “Daughter, I’m taking your brother to the lab. Are you coming?”
Mi Xiaoxiao’s voice called out immediately, “Coming! Dad, wait for me!”
Five minutes later, Mi Xiaoxiao appeared at the stairway with Gu Zhiyuan, the two holding hands.
Mi Xiaoxiao sized up her brother. “Mm, looks like he took a blow. Dad, is it time to reveal a little of our family’s secret to him?”
Qin Jingzhou grunted assent. “Can’t be helped, he’s my own son, my own responsibility.”
Gu Sheng’s heartstrings were tugged by this remark—his father had surely never stopped providing for him... His dad was indeed responsible, but this seemed like the bare minimum level of responsibility.
Filled with complicated feelings, Gu Sheng followed his father out the door, got into his father’s personal car, and rode through the experts’ residential compound. Watching the fenced-off areas lining both sides, his misgivings only deepened—just how high was his father’s status now, that longtime residents of these experts’ buildings had vacated for him?
When the car stopped at the newly refurbished laboratory building, Gu Sheng simply followed behind his father, face full of worry, but he didn’t miss how every staff member they encountered greeted or acknowledged his father with smiles.
In the end, after following his father into the lab building’s third underground floor, Gu Sheng was left utterly stupefied—a jet-black mechanical spider, six meters tall, sat quietly at the center of the hall.
Gu Sheng stared at the mechanical spider, swallowing hard several times. “Is this... am I inside a sci-fi movie?”
For anyone seeing a mechanical spider for the first time, the visual impact was extreme, shaking your very understanding of reality...
Let alone when Qin Jingzhou next attached a neural interface chip and, in front of his cheap son, demonstrated the basic functions of the mechanical spider.
Then he “kindly and thoughtfully” handed the neural chip to his cheap son, offering him a test drive.
Gu Sheng was so excited his hands were trembling. Following his father’s directions, he attached the neural chip and managed to make the spider walk forward three paces and lift its left foreleg... before collapsing. His vision went black and he passed out instantly.
When he came to, he found himself being supported steadily by two uniformed bodyguards, one on each side, while his father was already removing the neural interface from behind his ear.
Bewildered, he heard his father say, “Rest for half an hour, then go take the tests. Give him the full workup—otherwise he’ll complain as if he wasn’t even my son.”
A girl in a black uniform standing at the spider’s feet immediately responded, “Yes, Professor.”
He then remembered the admissions brochure he’d just read... Now he more or less understood what he’d be tested for.
Gu Sheng started with a set of written questions. As Fate’s Son, he had relied on his own ability to study all his life—although he wasn’t a traditional exam ace, a set of basic questions to assess intelligence and psychological resilience was no real challenge.
His results came out less than five minutes after submitting the answers.
Qin Jingzhou glanced over the results, quite satisfied. “Smart kid, and not too many mental pitfalls.”
Gu Sheng could tell his dad was praising him.
Next came the key test. Under staff guidance, he sat in the improved testing device for spiritual power.
The improved device gave a percentile score of the tester’s spiritual power.
Qin Jingzhou’s baseline spiritual power was 100, Ling Jing scored 98, Mi Xiaoxiao 72, Gu Zhiyuan 65, while an ordinary person was below 40.
Currently, the lowest spiritual power required to be a mecha pilot or maintenance engineer was set at 60.
Gu Sheng scored a straight 38. He’d only managed to make the mechanical spider move three steps before temporarily passing out from overusing his mind.
Seeing his result and comparing his spiritual power with others, he was dazed. “Dad, you do all these big things, but nobody ever tells me or looks after me...” He wiped his face. “I’m the only mortal in the family.”
Mi Xiaoxiao considered giving her self-absorbed brother a wake-up slap. “Elizabeth got pregnant with your child, but besides you, everyone else couldn’t care less.”
Gu Zhiyuan helpfully added, “Even the cleaning and security teams here have an average spiritual power of 50. If you knew how hard people fight for a chance to appear before Uncle Mi, you’d realize how intense the competition is.”
Gu Sheng: ...I feel like I’m not just a mere mortal, I might actually be... a total failure...
In a daze, Gu Sheng returned home. He received Elizabeth’s routine text, but this time, she told him bluntly: Unless something unexpected happens, you’ll probably only ever have one child. Without a child, how will you inherit your father’s fortune? Do you really plan to hand all those black technology patents over to your sister?
Truth be told, Gu Sheng still did not want to give up on his biological child, although it was just a wish.
After such a day, his worldview had pretty much shattered, and he simply replied, “I give up all rights to the child. Do whatever you wish,” then decisively blocked Elizabeth’s contact number.
He tossed and turned on his bed, unable to sleep, and thinking about the “inside man” in the house bought off by Elizabeth’s people, he summoned up the courage to ask his dad, “Can I move in and live with you?”
Qin Jingzhou only responded the next morning. “No. But you can find a place in the neighborhood by the experts’ compound.”
After such a tumultuous day and a half, Gu Sheng hurriedly had his assistant help him look for a place to rent or buy near the experts’ compound, and immediately made an appointment with a psychologist...
That afternoon, he posted on his Moments, saying he’d finally found a bit of peace after moving into a convalescent home.