Lian Yufan wanted to ask, Did something happen when your Xuyang District squad was doing group training? How come none of you can grasp the important point? Is this a question of money or food?

He’d thought that Cen Xiao was the only normal person in this squad. Why was he also being irrational?! 

“Ahem!” Director Xiao, presiding over the scene, gave an energetic cough. “Everyone put away your personal relationships and listen carefully to Captain Lian’s report.” 

Only then did the Xuyang District squad calm down. It hadn’t only been You Zhengping and Cen Xiao. The squad’s five other members had also started tearing up when they’d seen the phone. 

So much hard work had gone into buying that phone! 

Lian Yufan said, “The important point here is, why would Yu Hua break the phone? A normal person couldn’t crush a phone like this with his hand. I suspect he used a hammer or other heavy implement to smash it. If he used a tool to break it, that shows that it wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate.” 

“I think that the fact that the phone can be broken actually shows that Yu Hua isn’t a Destroyer,” You Zhengping explained seriously. “According to our investigation into Zhen Li’s phone, Destroyers’ phones are equipped with an app we can’t see. If that app is present, human strength has no way of breaking the phone. While interrogating Zhen Li, we used a ten-ton force to press on the phone. The phone manifested a nearly undetectable power shield that could withstand water pressure ten thousand meters or more under the sea.” 

Lian Yufan said, “I didn’t say that this phone was equipped with the app. Given the functions of modern smartphones, I think that Yu Hua accidentally disclosed certain information on the phone, and to be absolutely safe, he smashed the phone like this. Unfortunately, he didn’t know that there was someone with a power like mine among the Protectors.” 

Lian Yufan smiled in self-satisfaction. The reason he hadn’t immediately restored the phone was so that everyone could clearly see how thoroughly it had been wrecked. 

His hand touched the pieces of the phone, and the phone was completely repaired, restored to its original form and power level. 

Lian Yufan didn’t know the code, so he passed the phone to You Zhengping. You Zhengping had never snuck a look at his husband’s phone, so naturally he didn’t know, either. 

Yu Hua had set up a fingerprint lock and a passcode. You Zhengping input Yu Hua’s birthday, the day he had given him the phone. That was wrong. Then he put in his own birthday and their wedding day. Those were wrong, too. 

You Zhengping frowned in thought, then input the date he’d just seen on the calendar, the rainbow-colored day when the two of them had first met. He succeeded in unlocking the phone. 

You Zhengping lowered his head and smiled, feeling sweetness in his heart. 

He hadn’t thought that that day would be so important to Yu Hua. Actually, for You Zhengping, that day was simply a disaster. He had lost all face for the rest of his life that day. 

Afterwards, since he had already revealed himself, he didn’t cover up his true nature at all. Anyway, Yu Hua had seen the worst of it. What was there to conceal? 

Before meeting Yu Hua, aside from occasionally fooling around with his underlings, You Zhengping had been fairly proper in front of Director Xiao and his elders, or rather, his mood had been strained. 

But with Yu Hua’s care, You Zhengping’s mood had gradually steadied, and his true character had been revealed. Yu Hua had spoiled him so that he became more and more lawless. 

Lian Yufan took the phone and found the shopping links Yu Hua had used to change the household goods, as well as some photographs and communication logs. All of it was normal. 

There was only one hidden folder. It was encoded. Even You Zhengping couldn’t unlock it. Lian Yufan thought that he had him at last. After getting the technicians to unlock it, he saw a training chart for back strength exercises. 

You Zhengping: “…” 

“This might be some kind of code. I’ll ask the cipher group to decipher it,” Lian Yufan said. 

“No, no, no need!” You Zhengping snatched away the phone. “You don’t need to worry about that.” 

“Comrade You Zhengping!” Lian Yufan said in displeasure. “You keep getting in the way of my work. Are you protecting your family member?” 

Of course not, he was protecting his own face. He wasn’t about to let Lian Yufan investigate the frequency of their conjugal relations. You Zhengping touched his face and said, “This isn’t important. Tell us about the other evidence.” 

Next, Lian Yufan laid out a comparison between Yu Hua’s high school basketball grades and the basketball throwing video from eight days ago, proving that Yu Hua’s basketball throwing technique had changed greatly. 

In short, he was a different person. 

You Zhengping wouldn’t acknowledge Lian Yufan’s evidence. He thought that while these things had suspicious aspects, they couldn’t serve as conclusive evidence. There were some explanations he could directly ask Yu Hua for. Yu Hua wouldn’t refuse to answer. 

Lian Yufan, however, thought that You Zhengping was simply being childish to consider asking him directly. Wouldn’t that alert the enemy? 

The atmosphere in the room was strained. Director Xiao saw that neither side was going to back down. He knocked on the desk and said, “I also have evidence here that Captain Lian overlooked.” 

“That I overlooked?” Lian Yufan was taken aback. “Director, have you also been investigating?” 

Director Xiao sighed and said, “Seeing how worked up you two were in the office today, how could I completely let it go? When you called everyone to the base tonight, I thought you were being too hasty. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, and you’re already issuing a conclusion. Aren’t you afraid that there’s something you haven’t noticed?” 

“I’m certain that I’ve investigated Yu Hua’s movements, internet chat logs, purchase records, input frequency of commonly used expressions, and so on,” Lian Yufan said. “At the moment, I can’t think of any other content to investigate.” 

Director Xiao took a folder out of a drawer. “On the day of the basketball throwing, Yu Hua bought a hundred scratch-and-win lottery tickets at a lottery ticket stand next to the arcade. Did you find that?” 

At the mention of the scratch-and-win lottery tickets, You Zhengping felt pained. He’d held back and not asked Yu Hua why he had gone to the lottery ticket stand. Now You Zhengping’s breathing became labored, and he asked, “Did he win?” 

“No,” Director Xiao said heartlessly. “He doesn’t seem to have good luck. After drawing his tickets, he asked at the lottery ticket stand how to cash in. When he found out, he was very disappointed and left.” 

Lian Yufan frowned and said, “I really didn’t find that, but buying scratch-and-win lottery tickets isn’t something that needs to be noticed, is it?” 

Director Xiao nodded. “The lottery tickets only show that his luck is bad. He bought a hundred in a row at two yuan each and didn’t win any. But it can also be indirect proof that, since his luck is bad, he could have stumbled on Zhen Li’s studio while looking for work.” 

Lian Yufan said, “…Director, did you reach that conclusion because you’re presupposing that he isn’t a Destroyer?” 

Director Xiao said, “I just wanted to tell you that when Yu Hua went to the arcade, he didn’t only shoot hoops and play Whac-A-Mole, he also bought lottery tickets, and you overlooked that. Also, when he went to the job center, he didn’t only go to look for work. He also went to another place. You only investigated his movements, but you didn’t look deeply into the concrete details of the terrain.” 

“Where else did he go?” You Zhengping asked in concern. 

Director Xiao took a medical report out of the folder. Sighing, he said, “Leaving the job center by the back door, there’s an office building across the street with a psychological consultation office in it. Starting six days ago, Yu Hua has gone to get psychological consultation each day when he goes to look for work. These are his consultation records. Do you want to read them?” 

These were things his husband didn’t want him to know. You Zhengping didn’t want to read them in secret. He hesitated, and the records were taken by Lian Yufan. 

Since Yu Hua had dared to go directly to Zhen Li’s studio to apply, he had naturally made complete preparations. How could he not have expected that the World Protection Organization would find some of his unusual records?

No matter who was looking at it, accidentally injuring an executive, frequently changing household goods, practicing shooting hoops (and getting onto the hot searches because of Zhen Li’s popularity), buying the scratch-and-win lottery tickets (and being disappointed after checking out the process of cashing in, since he couldn’t use lottery tickets as a way to launder money), and replacing the phone, were all very suspicious. 

Yu Hua hadn’t chosen to cover up these traces. He had calmly let the Protection Organization investigate. 

The furniture and dishes had already been thrown in the trash and disposed of. The Protection Organization couldn’t find the furniture he had accidentally broken in the mountainous piles of trash. Also, the sanitation workers wouldn’t take close care of the cast-off goods while removing the trash. Their methods of disposing of them were very crude. It would be impossible to tell how the furniture had originally been broken. 

The phone was the only thing Yu Hua couldn’t stand to throw away. He had to reluctantly use a hammer to break the phone he had originally crushed into more pieces. When he had broken the phone behind You Zhengping’s back, Yu Hua’s heart had dripped blood. 

After preparing all of this, Yu Hua had gone to the psychological consultation office in an extremely secret fashion. 

He had wanted to let the Protection Organization first find some obvious evidence, then, when they had practically determined that he was a leveler, to find the psychological consultation office and overturn their ideas. 

Yu Hua had gotten five psychological consultations in all, five days in a row, once per day. The first two days, he had acted resistant. The result of the psychological test had been that his condition was good. 

The third time, under the psychologists’s expert guidance, he had started gradually “letting down his defenses,” admitting that he had deliberately chosen answers on the test that would lead to a good outcome. Yu Hua had been a senior manager in human resources; he had a certain level of knowledge of the field of psychology. There were some test questions whose outcomes he even had memorized. Naturally he could choose the most ideal answers. 

The fourth time, clearing away psychological obstructions, he had openly acknowledged his destructive tendencies. When he had been supporting the executive, he had suddenly wanted to beat up this person who normally made him work overtime and who exploited and inconvenienced him. After injuring the executive, he had felt very conscience-stricken. He had never thought he would become like this. 

Even though his colleagues had spoken up for him, Yu Hua had still insisted on resigning, afraid that there would be another instance of assault. 

He had been worried that he would hurt You Zhengping and didn’t touch his husband for a long time. But the excessive restraint had instead backfired. When his husband left home, he would smash household goods, enjoying the pleasure of destruction. 

He had also openly acknowledged another thing, that he hadn’t cooked for his husband in a week. The seemingly tasty food had all been half-prepared products he had bought or simply takeout from home cooking restaurants. 

This state of affairs had lasted for seven or eight days, until he had inadvertently broken the phone that his husband had given him. Then Yu Hua had become aware that there was a problem and had started actively facing it and solving it. 

He had at first tried having contact with more people at the mall. And when he had played Whac-A-Mole at the arcade, he had deliberately missed all of them, attempting to use a hitting game to control his desire to destroy. And it wasn’t that he couldn’t get a basketball into a hoop. It was that he had been considering his strength. 

He had even bought a hundred scratch-and-win lottery tickets to enjoy the destructive action of scratching.

He had been afraid of his husband finding out about these things, so he had hidden all of it. 

During the fifth consultation, Yu Hua’s attitude had improved considerably. He said that he couldn’t let his husband undertake strenuous economic pressure, so he had decided to go interview for a job. He wanted to try out a low-stress, more creative workplace. It didn’t matter that it was a briefcase company. That sort of boss would probably have something on his conscience. If Yu Hua really couldn’t control the desire to beat someone up and beat up his boss, he wouldn’t dare to go to the police. 

Everyone who had read the psychological consultation record: “…” 

Cen Xiao thought of Zhen Li’s foolishness and nodded. “Yu Hua is very clever. Zhen Li definitely wouldn’t dare to go to the police if he got beaten up.” 

You Zhengping, however, remembered that Yu Hua had said during dinner that Zhen Li lacked social common sense and was a perfectly controllable superior. He hadn’t understood the subtext behind Yu Hua’s words then. He hadn’t thought there would also be a secret like this. 

“Captain You, pay close attention to your husband’s circumstances in private,” Director Xiao said solicitously. “He can influence your emotions and help you stabilize your special ability. You can’t do without him.” 

“It’s my fault for making up a job with too low a salary at the beginning! If I’d known earlier, I’d have made up one with a higher salary!” You Zhengping said. 

He had rather enjoyed the feeling of being supported by Yu Hua, so he hadn’t changed jobs. It was all his fault. He had put too much pressure on Yu Hua.

Director Xiao said, “Ahem!” 

The story Yu Hua had prepared was perfectly sound. Most of the Protectors had already been convinced. Only Lian Yufan was still unwilling. 

He clenched his teeth and said, “Director, he may have prepared all of this. I can’t completely trust this conclusion. I’m requesting a crisis test and would like Captain You to cooperate.” 

---

Author's Note

Yu Hua: In predicting reasoning, no one can match me.