Chapter 321

With only a camera in hand, to collect the maximum amount of evidence, he had to appear at key moments. Tailing the protagonist team was undoubtedly a good method, but what he needed to do was create his own plot, not follow someone else’s.

Besides, if he were to constantly follow the protagonist team and only appear at the end as usual, how would he showcase the new ability he designed? This ability could only be demonstrated during a battle.

Stepping out of the room, the ground outside had changed drastically. Several small teams were patrolling with flashlights, clearly searching for something.

Among them, Li Shu was perhaps the most eye-catching. He was dressed in a black silk pajama set that looked to be of high quality, standing in the middle of an open space with a cold expression, directing the patrol teams. Clothes make the man, as they say. At this moment, he almost had the air of a young nobleman, much like Si Zhaohua.

“Lord Li Shu, the Family Head hopes you can resolve this trouble quickly and not disturb everyone’s rest,” a subordinate, dressed more lavishly than the other patrol members, said in a respectful tone. However, the content of his words held little actual respect.

Li Shu seemed completely oblivious to the disrespect hidden beneath the deferential exterior, smiling as gently as a model student. “Is that so? I understand.”

Su Bei, standing nearby, could see a faint glimmer in Li Shu’s eyes. In the next moment, the light in the subordinate’s eyes vanished, and he lifted his foot and walked straight towards the edge of the small island.

Due to the chaotic scene, most people didn’t notice his strange behavior at first. A few who did notice didn’t stop him, unsure of what was happening. It wasn’t until the subordinate fell into the lake with a “plop” that everyone turned to look in shock.

While others were rescuing the man, another subordinate who had been watching the whole time cautiously asked the seemingly temperamental young man, “Lord Li Shu, what was that…”

Li Shu revealed his usual gentle smile. “That person was so careless, wasn’t he? How did he fall into the river? Don’t you agree?”

Looking into those eyes, which held no trace of a smile, the subordinate felt only an intense threat. He broke out in a cold sweat and replied with repeated agreement, “…Y-yes, yes, so careless indeed!”

“Little Shu, you’ve really changed. How could you treat a subordinate like that?” A man in a suit walked over, speaking to Li Shu with a hint of a smile in his voice. However, his eyes also held no mirth. In this regard, the two were surprisingly similar.

The invisible Su Bei raised an eyebrow, guessing the relationship between the two. Judging by his age, he probably wasn’t the father, so he must be the older brother.

As expected, a trace of annoyance appeared in Li Shu’s eyes. “No matter how little Father favors me, my status on this island is not something a mere subordinate can question, is it, Big Brother?”

“And that’s why I didn’t stop you from punishing him, isn’t it?” Big Brother maintained his sanctimonious demeanor. “I was just wondering, are you no longer worried about displeasing Father?”

“Hasn’t Father always disliked me? Since he dislikes me anyway, it doesn’t matter if I go a little further, right?” Li Shu lowered his gaze and laughed neurotically.

Big Brother gave him a deep look before changing the subject. “Do you know who the troublemakers are this time?”

Without concealing anything, Li Shu nodded magnanimously. “It should be that bunch of idiot classmates of mine.”

Something like this couldn’t be hidden. As soon as he returned, the island was invaded. It was obvious it had something to do with him. Plus, since the intruders didn’t seem to be destroying or stealing anything, a little thought was all it took for Li Shu to guess who it was.

This answer made Big Brother’s expression tighten. “What do you mean? You’ve drawn the attention of your school?”

But Li Shu showed no sign of tension, just shaking his head impatiently. “No, they probably just came to check on me because I suddenly dropped out of school.”

Big Brother didn’t quite believe this answer, looking at him suspiciously. “Then why not ask you directly, or pay a formal visit, instead of using such a sneaky method? Little Shu, you aren’t deliberately hiding something to cover up a mistake, are you? Or perhaps… you’ve developed feelings for your idiot classmates?”

“Heh, I’ve already blocked them all. Could they still use the two methods you mentioned?” Li Shu sneered, then feigned obedience. “Big Brother, if you suspect me, you can have Father judge me personally. As for these baseless suspicions of yours, I won’t waste my time answering them.”

This attitude reassured Big Brother somewhat. In fact, if Li Shu had explained nicely, it would have only deepened his suspicion. “You…”

Just as he uttered a single word, someone suddenly shouted, “Over there!”

Instantly, everyone swarmed in the direction the person was pointing, determined to catch the intruders. Big Brother also looked in that direction. “Looks like the little mice are about to be caught. For the sake of them being your classmates, perhaps we’ll spare their lives, eh?”

Li Shu’s hand, hanging by his side, clenched slightly. His face remained calm as he said, “They are the precious treasures of this year’s class at ‘Endless Ability Academy.’ If you have the guts to kill them, then I’ll admire you.”

“Little Shu, you’re so cute. Too bad Big Brother doesn’t fall for goading.” Hearing his words, Big Brother finally remembered that Li Shu used to be a student in the S-Class of Endless Ability Academy, which meant his classmates were also from the S-Class.

Those really weren’t people they could kill easily. After all, the Li family didn’t have the ability to escape an all-out investigation from Endless Ability Academy without leaving a trace. His expression darkened slightly. He could only hope that these uninvited students hadn’t discovered any secrets. Otherwise, even at the risk of offending Endless Ability Academy, they would have to kill them. After all, the Li family’s secrets could not be revealed.

Watching their departing figures, Su Bei wore a thoughtful expression. It was clear that Li Shu was not favored by the Family Head in the Li family, and thus, others were prone to looking down on him. From Big Brother’s words, it seemed the original Li Shu would have chosen to endure this situation to gain his father’s favor, but the current him would strike back without hesitation.

Although the explanation he gave was sound, Su Bei still saw the crux of the issue. With a personality like Li Shu’s, which was prone to obsessively caring about one person, the change in his attitude towards the Li family’s subordinates was not just due to a shift in mindset. More importantly, it was likely that he no longer cared as much about this so-called father.

Because now he had someone else to care about. Perhaps Jiang Tianming’s importance to him wasn’t yet on par with his father’s, but it was certainly enough to divert some of his attention. It was precisely because he had a substitute that Li Shu no longer valued his father’s opinion as much.

However, this wasn’t particularly useful information for Su Bei. He simply analyzed it briefly before filtering it out to focus on more important matters.

Su Bei was well aware that the Li family’s island held an unspeakable secret, even without Big Brother mentioning it, so that wasn’t the main point either.

The real point of focus was—the place Big Brother had come from.

It was obvious that Big Brother held a relatively high position in the Li family and was more favored by their father. Therefore, the place he lived would be closer to his father. He either lived in the same villa as the Family Head, or in the villa right next to it.

Su Bei’s goal was to find the Family Head. While Jiang Tianming and the others were attracting their attention for the first two days, he would sneak into the man’s room to see if he could find anything useful.

After some thought, he maxed out his luck value. Taking advantage of the fact that their attention was diverted, Su Bei walked straight into the villa next to the other one.

Although it was nighttime, the villa was brightly lit, possibly because of the incident outside. Two pink-haired maids were standing guard in the first-floor hall, doing some cleaning on the side.

Seeing them, Su Bei suddenly realized that everyone on the Li family island seemed to be a member of the Li family. The iconic pink hair was the best proof. Not counting the children, he had already seen forty or fifty adults along the way, which was enough to show how large the Li family was.

Something was wrong. There weren’t enough rooms on the island.

Su Bei quickly identified the problem. The female doctor had said before that she was constantly giving birth. It wasn’t just her; everyone in the Li family, male or female, was frantically having children, and each person had multiple births at once.

Under these circumstances, the number of children that the adults he had just seen could produce would far exceed the island’s room capacity. Not to mention there were surely many more adults on the island he hadn’t seen; the number of children could only be higher, not lower.

Even if all the children slept in extremely crowded dormitories, given the time the Li family had been developing, the number of rooms was still far from sufficient.

According to Qi Huang’s investigation, the Li family had only started to rise with the current Family Head. Undoubtedly, his ability played a huge role. If he didn’t know there was something wrong with the man, Su Bei would probably have great admiration for such a self-made, first-generation wealthy person.

Back to the main point. Based on the number of beds, either not everyone in the Li family was required to constantly have children, only a portion of them were. Or, the vast majority of the children born did not remain on the island, thus not requiring so many beds. If it were the latter, there were two possibilities for not staying on the island. One was death, the other was being given away.

As he pondered, Su Bei walked into the villa and headed straight upstairs. He didn’t know if this was the Family Head’s villa, nor which rooms were occupied. But since he had already set his luck to maximum, he would just follow his intuition.

Arriving at the innermost room on the third floor, he first used his Mental Energy to check if anyone was inside. After confirming it was empty, Su Bei pushed open the door and his first sight was a family photo placed on the bedside table.

There were only three people in the family photo: a couple and the Big Brother he had just seen. Su Bei raised an eyebrow; it seemed he had come to the right place. Even if this wasn’t the Family Head’s room, it was definitely Big Brother’s room.

Su Bei walked over and picked up the photo frame, carefully observing the three people inside. Of the three, the only one he had seen before was Big Brother. The Big Brother in the photo was much younger than he was now, looking to be only fourteen or fifteen. Thankfully, his appearance hadn’t changed much since childhood, allowing Su Bei to recognize him at first glance.

The couple seemed to have a decent relationship, like a normal husband and wife, looking to be in their thirties. However, what was more noteworthy was that, if Su Bei recalled correctly, the Li family had also risen to prominence around this time.

If his previous speculation was correct, and all those people were able to have so many children because of the Family Head’s ability, then as their first child, and one born without the influence of the ability, it was perfectly reasonable for Big Brother to be the most favored by the Family Head.

After searching the various furnishings in the room, Su Bei quickly confirmed the identity of the room’s owner. Contrary to what he had just thought, this was Big Brother’s room. Big Brother’s room certainly wouldn’t have as much information as the Family Head’s, but its advantage was that it was definitely very safe.

After a brief search of the drawers and finding nothing useful, Su Bei decisively opened the computer. Not everyone in this world set a password for their computer, and that was true even in the comic world.

This lovely Big Brother hadn’t set any password. He hadn’t even shut down the computer before leaving the room. Su Bei easily opened the computer, skillfully clicked into the chat software that was still running, and began to check the chat history.

This was clearly a work account, with many contacts labeled Client 1, Client 2, and so on, up to Client 73. But the chat logs had all been cleared, with only the one at the very top remaining. It was a conversation with Client 34, containing only two lines—

—“I’m coming today, are the goods ready? The people I brought have been preparing for a long time, and they can’t wait much longer.”

“Of course, we won’t disappoint you.”

Seeing this conversation, Su Bei immediately thought of the ship they encountered on their way here. Although the scene was chaotic at the time, Su Bei had noticed a few people disembarking from the ship.

He couldn’t help it; that group of people were all dressed in black, clearly trying to hide their appearance. It was hard for him not to pay attention to people who were obviously up to no good.

However, the transaction on the island hadn’t started since they arrived. So, what he needed to do was find the transacting party. By following them, Su Bei was certain he could find out what they were trading.

Wait, there was an even more convenient method: guarding the operating room. According to what the two doctors had said earlier, some pervert would watch the surgery from a luxurious sofa. Su Bei guessed that this “pervert” referred to these clients. As for the people being operated on, they were most likely the children.

Initially, Su Bei suspected they were sending the children away. After all, many slightly wealthy families didn’t want to have children themselves, and these infants, available for adoption right after birth, were quite popular. The physical examinations were to ensure they received the healthiest child.

This guess wasn’t entirely wrong; Su Bei estimated that a portion of the children were certainly sent away. But what about the rest? Not to mention, there were many children on Li family island who had already grown up.

These children would definitely not be adopted. It was possible they were being used for human trafficking, but if it were human trafficking, such a detailed physical examination would be unnecessary. A simple health certificate would suffice; why list all the data so clearly?

Thinking back to that health certificate, the data on it looked normal, apart from being overly detailed. Since there was an abnormality, the problem must lie with that abnormality.

Thanks to his good memory, Su Bei could clearly recall what items were on the list. Unlike a regular full-body check-up, this one included much more data on the heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and kidneys.

Although these were also relatively routine examination items, they were far too extravagant for these consumables that the Li family clearly didn’t care about. It didn’t seem like a well-intentioned examination, but rather one with an ulterior motive.

Until he saw this chat log.

It’s organ transplantation, Su Bei realized.

That would make sense. The Li family was producing so many children to serve as an organ reserve for those willing to pay. No matter what age group of organs was needed, the Li family island could provide it.

The reason they had to undergo physical examinations periodically was also because of this. The Li family had to constantly confirm the condition of their organs to ensure no problems would arise at a critical moment.

No wonder the Li family could get rich so quickly. This kind of business was inherently a get-rich-quick scheme. With the ability to have many children at once, they only needed to pay low rearing costs to sell the children for a high price.

Suitable organs were hard to find these days, but there were always many sick people. To keep a patient alive, someone would surely be willing to pay a large sum of money to the Li family to purchase organs.

Because the children themselves belonged to the Li family, as long as the family members didn’t talk, and the buyers didn’t talk, this business could be kept very well hidden.

To expose them, he needed two things: a video of the surgery and the transaction ledger.

From the chat log, it was clear that this buyer couldn’t wait much longer. Even though there were clearly intruders on the island, the surgery would definitely take place today or tomorrow.

Since they came at night, they certainly didn’t want anyone to know about this. Therefore, the surgery would also be performed at night, so he could get the recording soon.

As for the ledger, he would probably have to go to the Family Head’s room to find it. And as for where the Family Head’s room was, Su Bei estimated it was probably not in this villa.

If the other party had the ledger, his room must be a top secret among top secrets. A place hiding such a secret couldn’t possibly be guarded by only a few people. Before entering this villa, Su Bei had scanned it with his Mental Energy; there were no hidden guards here.

As he walked out, he checked the time on his phone. It was 10 PM, plenty of time left. He needed to go back to the operating room first to place the hidden camera in a good spot.

Arriving at the operating room, Su Bei couldn’t help but sigh silently. He was a step too late. The operating room was no longer empty as it had been before. Several Li family members were guarding the place, debugging equipment, sterilizing supplies, setting up defensive measures…

In short, a large group of people was crowded in here, making it impossible for him to install a hidden camera.

Right now, the best method would certainly be for him to record directly with his camera. With the help of the Invisibility Talisman, these people wouldn’t be able to discover him at all.

But the problem was, compared to the video, the ledger was definitely the more important item. If he stayed here recording, he wouldn’t have time to get the ledger. Su Bei didn’t know much about organ transplant surgery, but he imagined it wouldn’t be over quickly.

Moreover, the protagonist team might cause trouble midway. After all, the whole protagonist team was here; they couldn’t possibly let such a wicked surgery proceed smoothly. If he stayed here the whole time, his path would overlap with the protagonist team’s.

After some thought, Su Bei still walked into the operating room. He was grateful they hadn’t closed the door, otherwise, it would have been very troublesome for him to get in. Speaking of which, it seemed he was often trapped by doors while invisible. Once they closed the door, if he didn’t want to attract attention, it would be very difficult to open it.

Maybe I should get an item that lets me pass through walls, Su Bei thought to himself.

He had been to the operating room before and was familiar with its layout. He had already considered where to place the camera on his way here. So, as soon as he entered, he walked straight to the wall opposite the main door, attached an Invisibility Talisman to the micro-camera, and then placed it on a flowerpot on the windowsill.

The leaves provided cover, and ordinary people wouldn’t idly reach out to touch it. Of course, if he was really that unlucky and the camera was discovered, there was nothing he could do.

As he’d said before, the ledger was the top priority. The video was just the icing on the cake. He had to make a choice.

But despite this, Su Bei still adjusted the camera’s luck. A lucky camera should mean it won’t be discovered, right? After all, once discovered, it would likely be destroyed.

He had done what he could. Su Bei wasted no more time and turned to leave the operating room. He had to hurry and find the ledger. Otherwise, once the Family Head realized they were exploring the Li family’s secrets, he would likely move the all-important ledger to another location, and it would be much harder to find it then.

Back on the surface, the sounds of fighting erupted again, followed by a blaze that lit up the sky. Qi Huang sat on her Flame Phoenix, its wings spread wide as it flew high in the air. Mu Tieren sat in front of her like a damsel in distress, spraying the people below with a machine gun.

The machine gun in his hand was a custom version that wouldn’t kill people; it was loaded with nothing but tranquilizers. Li Shu was on the ground, talking to them, “I don’t think Teacher Meng agreed to you coming here. I’ve already called the teacher. I advise you to surrender immediately. Otherwise, you’ll be in for it when the teacher arrives.”

It was a very threatening statement, seemingly aimed at stopping the S-Class students from further investigating the secrets of the Li family island. But Su Bei heard something amiss.

No matter what, Li Shu shouldn’t be trying to trick them into coming down.

First, it was certain that he hadn’t turned into a villain. Playing the same trick too many times would get boring; the protagonist team couldn’t always be running into bad guys. Besides, from Li Shu’s earlier reactions, it was clear he no longer idolized his father as much and cared a little for Jiang Tianming. He shouldn’t be trying to trap them.

Thinking of the worst-case scenario, even if he only wanted to save Jiang Tianming’s life, he wouldn’t ask Qi Huang and the others to come down at this time. The Li family surely had methods of interrogating prisoners. Once Qi Huang and Mu Tieren were captured, it would be difficult for Jiang Tianming’s group of three to remain hidden. They might even reveal themselves willingly to save their friends.

With this understanding, he could analyze that, logically and emotionally, Li Shu would not call them down. Qi Huang, flying in the sky, could hold her own for a while, even if she wasn’t invincible. The Li family seemed to have no flying Ability users, so they were helpless against them for the time being.

But once they came down, it would be a case of ‘the fish on the chopping block,’ left to the mercy of others.

The Li family’s attitude towards Qi Huang and the others was that if they didn’t know the family’s secrets, they might be spared. But if they did know, they would surely be killed. Without being certain whether Qi Huang and the others had discovered anything, Li Shu would never ask them to come down.

Working backward, it could be deduced that even if Qi Huang and Mu Tieren did come down, he must have a way to ensure their safety.

And his guarantee could only be—Teacher Meng Huai!