Great! I'm surrounded by villains!-Chapter 359 - 278: Mouse Droppings

This might be the most bustling academic summit in history, as many who should not have been there turned up uninvited.

Take, for example, the senior member of the Mandala Consortium, the 172-year-old Saintfield VI.

Like Morgan VII, he came from one of the oldest families of the Shan Clan.

The Shan Clan People put great emphasis on the purity of bloodline, and even within their own ranks, there was a strict hierarchy of status, with the rulers always being heirs of pure bloodline.

The old gentleman had arrived early at the venue, sitting in a wheelchair, his frame withered, eyelids drooping, his body adorned with life support devices.

Fu Ling couldn’t help but worry for the elderly gentleman in her heart; Saintfield VI looked like a candle flickering in the wind, and she genuinely feared he might meet with an untimely death on the Eco-Ship.

The Saintfield family invested an incalculable fortune into the research of the Life Science Domain every year, and his life support arrangements were developed by the Department of Life Sciences. Being a major shareholder, when the Saintfield family indicated they wanted to attend this academic summit, Fu Ling had no choice but to unwillingly arrange everything, despite her reluctance.

And now, she had to muster a smile to welcome the arrival of Saintfield VI.

The old man merely glanced at her before shifting his gaze elsewhere.

Tsk, damn these social niceties.

Fu Ling complained in her heart.

This made the situation somewhat awkward. The current leader of the Consortium, through his actions, expressed dissatisfaction with the new director, and Saintfield VI’s butler tried to smooth things over by stating that the old man’s weariness was due to his long journey and he meant no disrespect to Fu Ling.

The butler was just over thirty and had taken on this role less than a year ago.

This was all due to Saintfield VI’s tenacious vitality, having personally seen off two butlers and attended their funerals.

Except for Morgan VII, who had escaped into the Digitalized World, all of his contemporaries were now in their graves.

After the ceremonial gestures were complete, Fu Ling refrained from making a fuss. She was fully aware of the reason why Saintfield VI was attending the summit—not for an interest in life sciences themselves, but to personally ensure that Mingyuan and the Blue Star People would not appear on this Eco-Ship.

The family was determined to prevail, for earlier today, "Prison Break" was enacted once more.

This meant that the Blue Star People never left Prison Planet, from beginning to end.

It was not that they didn’t want to, but rather they couldn’t.

They, along with the Prison Planet, were shifted to some godforsaken place and were unable to come back.

For the Shan Clan People, this was extraordinarily good news. Compared to that, the losses at the casinos were negligible. If the money was seen as an investment to trap the Transcenders, it was undoubtedly a huge profit.

Fu Ling’s feelings were mixed.

Although she was the new director of the Department of Life Sciences and should consider matters from the perspective of the Shan Clan People, she never liked their modus operandi. She also was acutely aware that as a mixed-blood outsider, she was always a pawn expendable at any moment.

It was a busy day.

Fu Ling had no time to grieve for Mingyuan and others trapped on Prison Planet. Scholars invited to the summit were arriving in a relentless stream, and this was her first time in charge of overseeing and coordinating the event, a task her mentor always used to take care of. From early in the morning, she was in front of the venue, exchanging a few words of greeting with everyone.

Nearly every scholar who attended the conference expressed sorrow for the crash involving Bai Kou—Fu Ling spent the whole morning in mourning for her mentor.

It was quite astonishing.

Because before his crash, her mentor had a poor reputation in academia, with people believing he had been too obsessed with the power of the directorship, neglecting his scholarly research. Now, in their mouths, he had become the most outstanding scholar, and his death a significant loss to the entire universe.

The second most mentioned topic was about Mingyuan.

Many people came to this summit specifically for the academic rising star who claimed to have solved "Dehydration Syndrome," but unfortunately, Fu Ling couldn’t bring them good news. As far as she knew, this morning, the academic star was still planning to shoot the first season of "Prison Break" on a planet that was over a dozen Star Zones away from them.

Fu Ling had to accept reality; perhaps she had grown accustomed to miracles and subconsciously believed that no matter what difficulties arose, Duan Mingyuan would manage to handle them.

With less than half an hour left before the conference was to officially start, scholars began to enter the venue one after another. Over the next few days, the Eco-Ship would become a cradle of academia.

This was a time of year Fu Ling always looked forward to, hoping that, as in previous years, she could put aside everything unrelated to academia and engage in discussion and exchange with the top scholars in the field of life sciences.

However, on the other hand, the arrival of Saintfield VI had long doomed the family to scheme and stir up some trouble during the academic summit.

Fu Ling glanced at Saintfield out of the corner of her eye; the latter looked at his watch, his face displaying an intermingled smile of relief and excitement.

Everyone was lamenting the absence of Duan Mingyuan from the summit, but Saintfield VI smiled as if he had won the lottery.

Keep laughing.

After all, there won’t be many chances in the future.

Fu Ling held no affection for Saintfield, nor did she welcome his arrival.

The annual life sciences summit was akin to a pilgrimage, but the family was like a rat’s dropping, ruining the solemn atmosphere.

When the summit officially began, Saintfield VI would still have to pretend to deliver a speech, and every person in the venue would have to pretend to applaud.

Fu Ling’s internal mocking was interrupted by an abrupt silence, and she happened to see Saintfield VI’s frozen smile on his face—he had his eyes bulging as if he might pass out at any moment.

Following his gaze, Fu Ling saw a black vortex appear out of thin air in the hall of the venue.

This sudden vortex tore through space yet did not cause much of a disturbance.

Soon after, a familiar figure emerged from the vortex.

He was dressed in a white lab coat, looking somewhat ill at ease.

Feeling the eyes of everyone on him, he awkwardly nodded to the people around and strode towards the entrance of the venue; he quickly signed in on the electronic register and then, without looking back, walked towards the interior of the venue.

"Hold on a second!"

Fu Ling shattered the silence, and time, which seemed to have stopped, began to flow again.

Her hand rested on the man’s shoulder.

She considered herself well-informed, but she had never witnessed a scene like this.

Why would someone who just created a black hole sign in to a meeting as if nothing happened?

"Long time no see."

Duan Mingyuan greeted Fu Ling with stiff cordiality.

"Don’t you have something to explain to me?"

Upon hearing this, the man before her sighed deeply, "Your powers of observation are as sharp as ever, ah. Since you’ve noticed, there’s nothing I can do."

Duan Mingyuan lowered his voice, expressing sincere apologies, "This lab coat is a size too small; I simply couldn’t find a fitting one."

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