Chapter 50: The Vanishing Value

Meng Hua looked blankly at the veteran detective in front of him, having no idea why he had been brought here.

He had been following Academician Tang's instructions, engrossed in reading thermodynamics textbooks, when several police officers suddenly escorted him out of the laboratory and began questioning him about his recent whereabouts.

His movements, however, were easy to trace. For the past two days, he had remained strictly within the academy grounds, maintaining a rigid routine of moving between the cafeteria, the laboratory, and the library—a classic triangular path. With numerous witnesses to vouch for him, the police quickly verified his timeline.

Yet, the matter was far from over. Once the questioning concluded, he was escorted to the city center in a convoy led by police cars. Meng Hua recognized the area; it was the city's central hub, surrounded by national-level administrative departments of all sizes. The police cars drove him straight into one of these unflagging, anonymous institutions.

From there, he was led into a spacious room.

Shortly afterward, the veteran detective in front of him pushed open the door, holding a notebook, and took a seat opposite him.

Based on Meng Hua's intuition, something major must have happened. Recently, the atmosphere had been turbulent, heavy with the oppressive tension of an impending storm.

He watched the veteran detective, waiting for him to break the silence.

The veteran detective sized Meng Hua up for a moment, then uttered words that seemed utterly unbelievable.

"Academician Tang passed away last night at 11:23 in his Yantai 79 Research Institute, sacrificing his life for the country."

Hearing this, Meng Hua's mind went completely blank, leaving him utterly unresponsive.

His head was empty, echoing only with the memory of his past conversation with Academician Tang.

Most of the academician's words were blurred in his memory, but three sentences stood out with agonizing clarity.

"When I go back, I'm going to verify a few things. If there's any news, I'll let you know, and this string of items won't be needed."

"If I lose touch, or... if I end up just like your teacher, then this set of numbers will be the clue I leave behind for you..."

"If I become like your teacher, decode these numbers and report them upward. They will understand what is going on."

Subconsciously, Meng Hua touched his chest. In the inner lining of his clothes was a pocket containing a string of numbers written by Academician Tang, carefully preserved inside an envelope to prevent wear and tear.

He felt the tactile feedback of the envelope, a sensation that brought a faint trace of clarity back to his mind.

"Academician Tang... passed away? Why? How... did he pass away?"

Meng Hua's voice sounded sluggish, yet he still felt compelled to confirm the news.

"It was multiple organ failure. He passed away alone in his laboratory. Even with a team of doctors present, it would have been fundamentally beyond saving."

Meng Hua let out a low murmur, lowered his head, and continued, "Then... isn't that just like my teacher? Was it that so-called massive accumulation of free radicals leading to total organ collapse?"

"Precisely." The veteran detective confirmed his suspicion. "I brought you here to confirm what you said to Academician Tang back then. That might very well be the reason for his death."

***

"Nothing much. Just some of Elder Ge's research materials and an interrogation document."

When Meng Hua said this, his tone carried the weight of a heavy decision—so much so that even the veteran detective paused before recording it, unable to help staring at him.

Meng Hua raised his head and looked at the detective. "May I borrow your pen?"

The veteran detective froze for a second, then, almost mechanically, handed his pen directly to Meng Hua.

As soon as he regained his composure, he looked down at his own hand in confusion, seemingly unable to fathom why he had just handed over his pen so readily.

Then, thinking better of it, he relaxed. After all, this wasn't a formal interrogation; the notebook was merely a personal habit rather than a strict requirement. Let him have it. He wanted to see what tricks this kid could pull off.

Meng Hua drew the envelope from the inner pocket of his clothes and spread the paper covered in numbers alongside the envelope out on the table, then unlocked his phone.

The string of numbers left by Academician Tang was quite straightforward to decipher. It was a rudimentary code—if it could even be called a code at all—since it simply recorded page numbers, line numbers, and character counts based directly on the reference material. By cross-referencing them one by one, the underlying message became obvious.

The sole purpose of those numbers was to ensure that Meng Hua would not immediately grasp the contents of the message at the time it was given.

Academician Tang had been unable to tell him precisely what he had discovered because, much like Elder Ge, he lacked absolute certainty and realized that if his suspicions proved correct, his own fate would be grim.

Therefore, he dared only leave behind a message that was momentarily incomprehensible yet easily unlocked, ensuring that if the worst befell him, Meng Hua would not be left completely without a direction.

The reference documents were saved in order on his phone. Meng Hua checked them, then began writing characters one by one on the back of the envelope, staring at the sequence of numbers with growing bewilderment.

Did this string of numbers look different now?

He wrung his brain, desperately recalling the moment he watched Academician Tang write them down. It seemed... well, it didn't seem any different... right?

Meng Hua pressed the pad of his index finger against the surface of the paper, tracing over the string of numbers, looking at them repeatedly. The digits appeared entirely normal.

Pushing his doubts aside, he began translating the sequence into the hidden message behind it.

[The value is increasing. The value is decreasing.]

After writing it down, Meng Hua dropped the pen, cold sweat pouring down his face.

He had betrayed Academician Tang's trust; the note had been tampered with!

Pain and despair washed over his face. He had failed to preserve the information Academician Tang entrusted to him—his failure rendered the academician's sacrifice completely meaningless!

He had become a sinner.

The veteran detective instantly sensed that something was wrong with Meng Hua. Stepping forward to comfort him, he glanced at what Meng Hua had written on the envelope.

With his rich experience, the detective immediately recognized that this was likely a classified message left for Meng Hua by the academician, though he could not make sense of the words Meng Hua had written.

***

"Value? What value?" the detective muttered to himself.

He looked at Meng Hua, who had plunged into a state of profound despair, and after a moment of thought, he peeled a piece of candy from his pocket and popped it into Meng Hua's mouth.

He had once heard an expert claim that the sweetness of candy could trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, bringing a brief sense of joy and relaxation. It was supposedly very effective in coping with stress, easing bad moods, or providing psychological comfort.

He figured it might help.

However, Meng Hua felt only an intense bitterness spreading across his tongue—a physiological phenomenon caused by overwhelming stress and a massive surge of stress hormones in his body. He couldn't taste even a hint of sweetness.

Yet, this overwhelming feeling dissipated quickly, as it was merely a short-term regulatory response of the human body.

A moment later, Meng Hua began to perceive the sweet flavor in his mouth. Though he remained deeply depressed, he looked up at the veteran detective with a gaze full of confusion, utterly baffled as to why he had just been fed a piece of candy.

"Kid, let me ask you, is this the message left by Academician Tang? What is this 'value' thing?" Seeing that Meng Hua had recovered slightly, the detective immediately pressed on.

Meng Hua shook his head at the veteran detective.

"It's meaningless... Completely meaningless..."

"What do you mean, meaningless?" the detective pursued further. "Even if it's meaningless, you need to explain *why* it's meaningless."

"The values in the experiments, the values in the documents... There are simply too many. There's no way of knowing which one it refers to..." Once again, Meng Hua touched the paper left by Academician Tang in anguish. "How could this be? How could this be? The value Academician Tang left behind should have been specific. Why has it vanished?"

Realizing the gravity of the situation, the veteran detective also leaned in to examine the classified note, hoping to spot some trace of evidence.

But he found nothing.

He patted Meng Hua on the shoulder. "Don't panic. Think carefully. Perhaps it's not this note?"

"No, Academician Tang only wrote this single sheet... I recognize his handwriting... This is what he wrote. He must have recorded the value he believed in..."

The veteran detective examined the paper once more, running his fingers across it. If the ink had somehow vanished while the indentation marks remained, there might still be a way.

Yet, he felt no indentations.

After a brief pause, he offered words of comfort to Meng Hua.

"Don't be discouraged. At the very least, this note tells you that something is wrong with a certain value. Why don't you go back and study it further? I will take this classified note and your codebook... and bring them back to let the forensics department take a look."