Meteor thought for a long time but couldn’t come up with a suitable explanation or find anything special about the badge.
She eventually deactivated her Transformation and gave up.
When she returned to the Classroom to prepare for the next exam, she saw Wang Zixian had returned to that fanatical study state from before.
Even with only ten minutes left until the exam, he refused to put down his notes, studying as if every second counted.
“Phew…”
After a soft sigh, Lin Yiyi stopped worrying about him and waited for the exam to begin.
In the blink of an eye, their teacher walked in and began distributing the papers for this week’s Weekly Exam.
Lin Yiyi patted her cheeks to wake herself up, fully concentrating on the test as she began to answer the questions.
Time flew by, and the moon gave way to the sun.
Soon, it was Saturday at 12:00 PM.
After turning in her answer sheet early and leaving School, Lin Yiyi returned to her neighborhood.
There, she found Sapphire tutoring Xu Wenxing and Lu Ren on the phone.
“Hello… Good afternoon, you three.”
“Good afternoon. Are you out for the day?” Sapphire waved at her and asked.
“Yeah, I have one day off. I have to go back for evening study sessions on Sunday night. By the way, did anything big happen while I was gone?”
“No, it’s been quite peaceful lately. We haven’t even seen the shadow of a Shadow Beast,” Jiang Yuening said, shaking her head.
“I see…”
Lin Yiyi responded, taking the Black Star Badge Wang Zixian had given her out of her pocket, lost in thought.
She was a bit worried. If she told Lu Ren and the others about her doubts regarding this star badge, would they laugh at her for being paranoid?
She truly felt that Wang Zixian was acting strange, but she couldn’t find any clues.
She could only point to his bizarre attitude toward studying.
‘Ugh… This is so annoying.’
While Lin Yiyi was caught in her dilemma, Lu Ren, who was standing nearby on the phone, raised an eyebrow.
He noticed the unique badge in her hand.
After explaining the situation to the person on the other end and hanging up, he walked over to Lin Yiyi and asked, “Where did you get that badge? Did someone from the Fanxing Church give it to you?”
“Ah, I — I borrowed it from a classmate.”
“Borrowed it?”
Lu Ren wore a confused expression.
Seeing Lu Ren’s reaction, Lin Yiyi panicked and hurriedly added, “Well, there’s a student in my class… When he was walking down the street, someone pulled him into a church and gave him a box of yogurt and this badge.”
“I noticed his attitude toward studying changed recently, so I wondered if it was because of this badge. That’s why I borrowed it from him.”
“But no matter how I look at it, this badge looks completely ordinary. There’s nothing special about it.”
After finishing, Lin Yiyi lowered her head in embarrassment, not daring to meet their gaze.
Even she felt her reasoning was flimsy, as if she were some neurotic person suspicious of everything.
She desperately wanted to go home, lie on her Bed, and sleep so she wouldn’t have to wait for Lu Ren’s response.
After a long silence, Lu Ren finally replied slowly, “Your reasoning is indeed very flimsy. It’s like subjectively deciding someone is a criminal and then starting a mysterious investigation into their whereabouts.”
“Ugh… I — I’m sorry,” Lin Yiyi apologized repeatedly.
“It’s fine. It’s understandable that you’d think that way,” Lu Ren added.
“After all, the church that issued this badge is very abnormal. They are definitely not a legitimate church.”
“…Eh?”
Lin Yiyi was stunned for a moment. Then, she looked up in shock, not expecting Lu Ren to give such a response.
Lu Ren looked at her startled expression, pondered for a few seconds, and explained, “I was just on the phone with Director Xu. We were talking about the Fanxing Church that gives out these badges. I asked him about their financial situation.”
“He told me that while their finances look normal, the source of their funding is extremely eerie. It doesn’t seem like something a Human could achieve.”
“If I were to use a metaphor, it’s like a Divinity’s hand is shifting the scales of wealth.”
Lin Yiyi was completely confused. She didn’t understand why Lu Ren would describe a church’s funding in such a way.
Lu Ren just shook his head slightly, took a deep breath, and explained, “The Fanxing Church’s funds come from all over the world. Approximately 10,000,000 people transferred one yuan to their account.”
“The transfers happened five years ago on December 25, from 12:12:30 PM to 12:12:35 PM. No exceptions.”
“Furthermore, that one yuan was cleverly disguised as taxes, service fees, and various other costs. To this day, no one has noticed. Even the major domestic banks maintain a high level of trust in this source of funding.”
“Can you understand how we felt when we heard about this?”
Lu Ren looked at Lin Yiyi, asking for her opinion.
Lin Yiyi found it unbelievable, but at the same time, she quickly recalled another instance that was very similar.
“If you put it that way, isn’t that exactly like the situation in the Jia Yi Case? It’s the same thing where the source of the equipment couldn’t be found, and strange phenomena occurred.”
“Indeed, you’re right.”
Hearing Meteor say that, Lu Ren also immediately recalled the details of the Missing Persons Case.
High-end equipment from a Hardware Store, twelve cameras failing simultaneously, and 1,200,000 yuan mysteriously appearing in an account…
The level of absurdity was comparable to today’s discovery.
Thinking about it this way, the situation was basically confirmed.
The Monsters who worship the Night Lord are behind the Fanxing Church. Those Monsters are using this church to set the stage.
They must have been preparing for a long time and only now have the time to begin implementing their plan.
The situation was truly critical.
“Um, Lu Ren, can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead,” Lu Ren nodded.
“Did Director Xu and the others find anything out about this badge? For example, does it make people unusually excited or especially fond of studying?”
Lin Yiyi watched his expression and asked tentatively.
Lu Ren fell silent for a moment before shaking his head. “No. Director Xu and the others didn’t find anything strange about the badge.”
“At first, they also thought the church was preparing some divine conspiracy by giving these out. However, after extensive tracking and my own active testing of the badge, it was confirmed to be just an ordinary badge. There’s nothing special about it.”
“Aside from being slightly heavy, everything is normal.”
As Lu Ren spoke, he looked at the Black Star Badge in Lin Yiyi’s hand with a calm expression.
As for Lin Yiyi, she sighed after hearing Lu Ren’s explanation and muttered to herself, “I see. I really was overthinking it. I should return the badge to him as soon as possible.”
” — No, you can keep it. Return it when that classmate comes looking for you.”
“Huh?”
“Intuition. Although I haven’t found anything strange, I also feel there’s a problem with the badge,” Lu Ren smiled. “So, you can hold onto it for now and see what happens.”
“Ah… O — okay. Then I’ll keep it for now.”
Although she didn’t know why Lu Ren shared her feelings, Lin Yiyi chose to trust him and decided to keep the badge temporarily.
‘Yeah! I have to believe in myself! I’ll just observe a little longer!’