White armor

Chapter 781 Professor Luo, could you please tell me how to fix a receding hairline?

"What are your plans for the upcoming awards?" Chen Yong suddenly asked a completely unrelated question.

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"???" Chen Yong was taken aback.

Luo Hao was driving, his hands on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

The night was as dark as ink, and the flashing neon lights outside the car window reflected on Luo Hao's sharply defined profile.

The streetlights on the overpass flashed past one after another, casting flickering light spots in his deep-set eyes.

His fingers gripped the steering wheel lightly, without any unnecessary movements, just like his surgical procedures—simple and clean.

But Chen Yong sensed a rhythm that didn't exist, a rhythm as steady as the waveform on a heart monitor.

The city lights were reflected on the windshield, but not in Luo Hao's dark, deep pupils. In the distance, the LED screens of office buildings displayed changing advertisements, and the blue light swept across his taut jawline, giving that resolute curve a cold hue.

The car stereo was playing a jazz song, and the saxophone's mournful strains were particularly clear in the enclosed space.

Chen Yong saw Luo Hao purse his lips, as if he had swallowed something back.

In the rearview mirror, their eyes met briefly—Luo Hao's gaze was as calm as the surface of the sea at night, but beneath it, turbulent currents surged.

The dashboard lights cast long, thin shadows on his eyelashes, which fluttered gently with each blink. As the car entered the tunnel, darkness instantly swallowed his figure.

"It's not important anymore?" Chen Yong asked. "Your car doesn't have a starry sky roof, the girls don't like it."

His thoughts jumped again, and he said two things he didn't want to do in one sentence.

“After the bosses went to carry out their missions, I suddenly realized one day that none of these things mattered anymore,” Luo Hao emphasized.

"Funding!"

“The institute has its own funding, I don’t need it.” Luo Hao smiled. “Even if I become an academician, what then? The funding I receive won’t even be a tenth of what the institute gives me.”

"Hey, hey, hey!" Chen Yong frowned and turned to look at Luo Hao. "When did you become disillusioned with the world?"

"Uh~~~"

Luo Hao hesitated for a moment.

Chen Yong's description of "seeing through the illusions of the world" was somewhat playful, but he felt it was a very apt one.

"When the bosses went to carry out their tasks, I suddenly realized one day that my previous plans for myself were somewhat naive."

"childish?"

"I can't quite put my finger on it, but these days I sometimes have a wonderful dream, and the dream is always pretty much the same. You could say it's the same dream over and over again."

"I was floating in my dream, but not suspended in the air—I was suspended 'above,' in a direction that cannot be described in three-dimensional language."

Looking down, the whole world resembles a flattened origami sheet, with time and space unfolding simultaneously.

"Everyone's life is like a winding ribbon, from birth to death. Every fold is a choice, and every bend is a regret. The ribbon of an infant is bright and soft, while the ribbon of an old person is dry and curled, but they are all tangled together, like a ball of yarn that has been messed up by a cat."

“It’s not just about people, but also about the provincial capital. The city is no longer three-dimensional, but rather a series of overlapping slices. High-rise buildings are like overturned building blocks laid flat on the ground, traffic flows are like the tracks of ants crawling, and the flashing of traffic lights become synchronized points of light.”

"The passage of time takes shape—the alternation of dawn and dusk expands and contracts like breathing, and the changing of seasons is like a slowly rotating kaleidoscope. You see a child's life slip from the beginning to the end of a ribbon in the blink of an eye, while the long river of history is nothing more than a few intersecting streaks of light."

"Hey Hey hey!"

Chen Yong quickly stopped Luo Hao from continuing his description.

"You had an epiphany in one day? That shouldn't be the case. You're usually as busy as a dog, how could you have time to pay attention to your senses..."

“What you’re doing is spiritual practice, and scientific research is also a form of spiritual practice,” Luo Hao said firmly. “In my dreams, I see people like insects trapped in transparent amber, thinking they are moving forward, but in reality they are just futilely wriggling in a three-dimensional cage.”

I can see their past and future at the same time: the "shadow" trailing behind an old man is actually his childhood; the countless branching "possibilities" connecting lovers stretch out like tree branches toward different endings; the threads wrapped around a dying person are breaking one by one, drifting toward dimensions you cannot understand.

But in my dreams, there is always some being beyond my comprehension who notices me.

It has no eyes, yet it makes you feel stared at; it has no sound, yet it roars in your mind: Want to keep watching?

"Uh~~~"

“That feeling is very familiar. Sometimes I feel like it’s Boss Chai asking me, and sometimes I feel like it’s Boss Zhou asking me.”

"!!!"

Chen Yong's expression turned serious.

"Do you feel it too?"

“Recently, I often dream that my master is teaching me a lot of things in the back mountains of Qingcheng. I have a feeling that my master has successfully transcended the tribulation and is like a god descending to earth.”

"Hmm." Luo Hao didn't seem surprised by Chen Yong's statement; he simply nodded slightly.

"Do you think it's true?"

"I don't know, is it true or not?" Luo Hao smiled. "Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. What matters is the three major awards before the selection of academicians: the National Natural Science Award, the National Technological Invention Award, and the National Science and Technology Progress Award..."

Luo Hao paused for a moment.

“In the past, I was always thinking about receiving awards, and sometimes I even dreamed about it. But recently, I have clearly felt indifferent about the three major awards that precede the selection of academicians.”

"Is it a direct sage moment?" Chen Yong asked.

"You could say that. Men are at their strongest when they're in a long-distance relationship, you could say that," Luo Hao said, adding to Chen Yong's teasing tone.

“I had a classmate when I was a child who suffered a head injury when he was 5 years old and occasionally has epileptic seizures.” Chen Yong’s thoughts jumped again, heading in an unknown direction.

"and after."

“He had a nickname, Soy Sauce.” Chen Yong recalled the past, and his mask shifted slightly.

Feeling that the mask was getting in the way, Chen Yong took it off and explained, "Why is it called soy sauce? Because it's dark soy sauce."

"..."

This is a damn hellish joke.

Luo Hao frowned slightly and glanced at Chen Yong.

“Sigh, I didn’t know any of this when I was a kid. It’s just like what Shi Tiesheng said.”

Yes, Luo Hao realized he was overthinking it.

"Ah, right!" Chen Yong remembered something, "There's a cat cafe recently."

"Cat cafe?"

One second they were talking about how the younger generation was incredibly powerful after the older gentlemen carried out their mission. It was a kind of change after their lives were elevated to a higher dimension, so lofty and sophisticated that Luo Hao felt that whether they were academicians or not was unimportant.

The next second, Chen Yong's thoughts jumped to cat cafes.

"What's so special about it?"

"The owner of the cat cafe has a fox," Chen Yong said with a smile. "A white fox, the kind that's used to take photos of people from the south during the Ice and Snow Festival."

"One day, Lao Liu and I went to a cat cafe to sit for a while and pet the cats. I said to the owner, 'You are so lucky. You have nothing to do every day. You can just pet the cats and bask in the sun.'"

"Then, the boss gave me a demonstration. As soon as his hand landed on the cat, before he could even start petting it, the white fox jumped off his lap, took his hand in its mouth, and moved his hand away from the cat."

"Jealous? White Fox can really be jealous?" Luo Hao was taken aback.

"Probably," Chen Yong chuckled. "Go ahead and say it..."

As the saying goes, a man is a boy until he dies.

Luo Hao's phone rang, interrupting Chen Yong's rambling.

"Manager Ma, when did you get back?" Luo Hao asked after hearing a few words from the other end of the line.

"Oh, then you can take him to the hospital first thing tomorrow morning."

Luo Hao hung up the phone.

He had always looked down on Ma Zhuang, even though Ma Zhuang was terrified of Luo Hao to the point of being ingrained in his very being, Luo Hao still treated Ma Zhuang with disdain.

"what's up?"

"Ma Zhuang said he had something he wanted to ask, but he hesitated and didn't explain clearly what it was."

"He doesn't look like a good person at all?" Chen Yong laughed.

……

……

The next morning, Luo Hao arrived at the hospital and saw Ma Zhuang standing alone at the main entrance.

The morning light slanted onto the hospital steps, and Ma Zhuang's figure stood straight at the intersection of light and shadow, like a drawn sword.

He was wearing a simple black jacket with the cuffs rolled up slightly, revealing a light-colored scar on his wrist—the shape of which resembled a bullet graze.

The biggest change in Ma Zhuang was in his eyes.

Those eyes were even more profound than before, the pupils so black they seemed to absorb all light. When they looked at people, there was no longer any emotional fluctuation, only an almost mechanical scrutiny.

There were several fresh abrasions on the knuckles of his right hand, and his nails were trimmed extremely short with jagged edges, as if they had been bitten off with his teeth.

"Good morning, Manager Ma," Luo Hao greeted.

The sunlight shone on Ma Zhuang's face, but it couldn't dispel the chill that seeped from his bones—the kind of aura that only someone who had truly seen blood could possess, even his shadow was a few shades darker than others.

However, the moment Ma Zhuang saw Luo Hao, his entire demeanor changed.

He bowed, a humble smile on his face, and approached. The steely resolve he had displayed moments before vanished in an instant.

Luo Hao knew that Ma Zhuang must have had blood on his hands overseas, otherwise his demeanor wouldn't have changed so drastically.

However, he still treats himself the same way.

"Ma Zhuang, don't be so polite," Luo Hao said with a smile.

"Oh, Professor Luo, I'm troubling you again," Ma Zhuang said.

"Are you injured?" Luo Hao asked.

"No, no, no..." Ma Zhuang hesitated. Luo Hao remembered that patch that Lao Liu had given to Ma Zhuang.

Could it be that this bastard wants me to have surgery?
Seeing the change in Luo Hao's expression, Ma Zhuang quickly explained, "Professor Luo, it's like this, I met a very important person in Africa. A very important person there, many things have to go through him."

"Oh, and then?" Luo Hao was prepared to simply refuse if Ma Zhuang said anything nonsensical.

“That man has French ancestry. You know that West Africa was a French colony.”

Luo Hao didn't interrupt Ma Zhuang, but just walked towards the department.

“His connections are difficult to establish, especially difficult. Boss Lou told me to cater to his preferences, and after some research, I found that he is quite concerned about appearance.”

Upon hearing this, Luo Hao's expression softened considerably.

"Tell me what you need."

"He's almost bald, his hairline is practically at the back of his head. Hahahaha~~~" Ma Zhuang laughed loudly, as if he had remembered something funny.

"And then?" Luo Hao asked calmly.

"Professor Luo, let's get down to business. Do you have any hair growth medicine? I don't think it's reliable to just call, so I rushed back to ask you in person."

"Hair regrowth treatments are generally ineffective." Luo Hao suddenly remembered a "minor surgery." "Let me take a look at the photos."

Ma Zhuang took out his phone and found that person's photo.

Luo Hao didn't care at all who this person was or what extraordinary power they possessed. West Africa was thousands of miles away from China, and he didn't need to know that much.

Just help Ma Zhuang solve the problem.

The person in the photo does indeed have a very receding hairline; it's almost there, if not down to the waist and the back of the head.

He could use a wig to solve the problem, but Luo Hao didn't know the customs there, so it's possible that the man wouldn't accept a wig.

"Professor Luo, do you have any ideas?" Ma Zhuang asked.

"Ma Zhuang, you really put a lot of effort into doing business," Luo Hao said with a smile.

"Of course, business is easier overseas, otherwise domestic fraud groups wouldn't have an overseas branch."

"?!" Luo Hao was slightly taken aback.

"They look down on us a bit, and I wanted to roll up my sleeves and fight them, but Boss Lou said we should make more friends and fewer enemies."

"Still reading the teacher's articles?"

"Boss Lou told us to read it, but I couldn't understand it. I just felt that this sentence was right." Ma Zhuang raised his hand to scratch his head and chuckled.

"Sure, this can be done."

"What medicine!" Ma Zhuang straightened up abruptly, and the faint smell of blood wafted out.

"No medication needed, just surgery."

"???"

“It’s a minor surgery, you can go ahead and get back to work. I’ll print an AI robot. Ask this guy if it’s okay to use his data to print it. I don’t need his data, but a robot printed using his data that perfectly replicates the original, so the post-operative results will be crystal clear.”

"I understand, Professor Luo. How many days will it take?"

"If we have the data, it can be done in a day or two. The surgery can be recorded on video, and you can take the video back with you."

Ma Zhuang, full of energy, agreed.

"Professor Luo, shall I wait for your news?"

"Okay, it'll be quick." Luo Hao smiled as he got on the elevator.

The elevator doors slowly closed, and the light shining through the gaps in the metal doors gradually narrowed, cutting Luo Hao's figure into increasingly smaller fragments.

Ma Zhuang stood still, his gaze fixed on the gap as if drawn by a magnet.

His pupils contracted slightly, reflecting the soft "ding" as the elevator doors closed. The corridor lights cast blurry shadows on the gleaming metal doors, and the faint afterimage of Luo Hao's last smile could still be seen.

Only after the sound of the elevator completely disappeared did Ma Zhuang blink – a movement as slow as the shutter of an old-fashioned camera, freezing the scene on his retina forever.

As I turned around, my shadow stretched long in the morning light, like a knife slowly returning to its sheath.

Hu~~~
Ma Zhuang breathed a sigh of relief.

For some reason, even though Professor Luo Haoluo was just a professor and a doctor, Ma Zhuang always harbored a deep fear in his heart.

It was as if she deliberately suppressed her breathing when she glanced at Luo Hao.

The good news was that Luo Hao agreed, and it seemed that his goal had been achieved. Ma Zhuang felt a little relieved and turned to leave.

Ma Zhuang didn't go home; instead, he went to his cousin's restaurant.

"How's business?"

"Oh no, cousin," Ma Zhuang's cousin said with some distress. "Recently, civil servants haven't been allowed to eat out, and business is getting worse every day."

Ma Zhuang didn't take it seriously, saying, "Just do your job well and don't cause any trouble."

"Brother, we're losing money here," Ma Zhuang's cousin said cautiously.

“It’s not like I’m short of money. As long as I have a place to eat when I come back, that’s fine.” Ma Zhuang waved his hand. “Whether I make money or not is not something you’re thinking about.”

"Brother, I want to go abroad with you," Ma Zhuang's cousin mustered up his courage and said what was on his mind.

"Abroad?" Ma Zhuang's lips curled up. "Does this little brat know what it's like abroad?"

"Making money, huh? Didn't you say last time when you were drunk that you could just take anything out of China, add a zero to the end, and sell it anywhere?"

Ma Zhuang had forgotten about this and was slightly taken aback.

“I know a guy who makes a fortune selling products via live streaming on Kwai,” Ma Zhuang’s cousin continued.

"That's South America. Kwai covers that area, but it's too chaotic there. Your brother might earn the money but not live to spend it."

Ma Zhuang's cousin wanted to say something, but he moved his lips and swallowed his words.

"What are you thinking? Do you think it's that easy? With your small frame, how many fights could you possibly win overseas?" Ma Zhuang said disdainfully.

"I……"

Ma Zhuang took out his phone and found a video.

A car crashed into a wall, and there were four or five dead bodies lying haphazardly inside and outside the car.

"Look, this is a picture I took casually this morning."

Ma Zhuang's cousin stared at the dead body, stunned.

"You think... I heard from Boss Lou that things were very chaotic around here in the past. In Hegang, there was a nationally notorious murder case at the end of the last century."

"Uh, I know, it seems like not many people died."

"Not many died?" Ma Zhuang said disdainfully. "Boss Lou told me a story from the past. Once, when they were investigating corruption, the son of the person in charge was studying in Donglian City, and then he disappeared."

"?!"

Ma Zhuang's cousin stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

"Their school organized a search of the mountains, but it was the dead of winter and there was snow everywhere, so they couldn't find anyone. Then, the following summer, someone found a body in the back of the mountain."

"..."

"You're all like flowers and plants grown in a greenhouse, do you really think the world is so friendly?"

"Brother." Ma Zhuang's cousin swallowed hard, wanting to say something awkwardly.

"Stop dreaming, things are so much better back home." Ma Zhuang sighed, looking out the window at the bustling traffic. "I'm back in Africa, and I can't sleep well every night."

"Although there are drones and mercenaries everywhere outside the door, I always feel like I'll never wake up again if I take a nap."

"Uh……"

“Just like in northern Myanmar, do you think it’s all gangsters? Everyone there has connections with the highest levels of government and is just a tool for them to make money. It’s the same when we go out to sea. If we don’t have connections with the highest levels of government, it’s impossible to make money.”

"Even if you make money, how to convert it into US dollars or RMB is a big deal."

"Brother, can we send it directly to the United States?" Ma Zhuang's cousin asked.

“What are you dreaming about? Going there will cause your social status to drop by one or two levels. Can’t you just stay in China? Why do you have to go there?” Ma Zhuang waved his hand impatiently. “This shop will lose at most three to five million a year. As long as you don’t take kickbacks and keep an eye on the shop for me, that’s fine.”

"If you're really determined to go abroad, I'll take you there next year. If you can accept that, you can stay there."

Ma Zhuang's cousin was beaming with pride, and he didn't listen to a word of Ma Zhuang's fatherly lecture.

If others can earn money, why can't I?
Ma Zhuang ignored his cousin. After a year abroad, Ma Zhuang had matured a lot. He first opened his laptop, dealt with some issues, and then sat in his office, smoking a cigar, waiting.

Professor Luo asked if the surgery would involve hair transplantation.

Hair can be artificial or it can be your own. If you want to have your own hair transplanted, from which part of your body can it be transplanted?

Ma Zhuang grinned as he thought about it, almost bursting out laughing.

A day later, Ma Zhuang received a call asking him to go to the community hospital.

Driving to the community hospital, Ma Zhuang saw the menacing figure—Wang Xiaoshuai.

"Handsome guy!" Ma Zhuang knew the depth of this man's character.

If he only knew the surface of Wang Xiaoshuai before, now the more he experiences, the more afraid he becomes of Wang Xiaoshuai.

"They're here." Wang Xiaoshuai waved, beckoning Ma Zhuang over.

"Put the head into the machine," Wang Xiaoshuai said coldly.

"Handsome guy, is it a decapitation machine?" Ma Zhuang joked.

"They will record your pupil and iris data, and grant you one-time access to the community hospital."

Hearing Wang Xiaoshuai's serious tone, Ma Zhuang dared not joke anymore and put his head into the machine to gain access.

"Hello, Mr. Ma." After the examination, "Xiao Meng" took Ma Zhuang into the community hospital.

Ma Zhuang knew that "Xiao Meng" was an AI robot, but he still asked politely, "Xiao Meng, where is Professor Luo?"

"Professor Luo is at the hospital and will soon be performing remote surgery."

"You printed out the hair? No, no, Professor Luo printed out the hair so quickly?" Ma Zhuang asked.

“It’s a different surgical procedure, not a hair transplant,” “Xiao Meng” explained gently.

"Huh?" Ma Zhuang's previous guesses were all wrong, and he was slightly taken aback.

But he didn't continue questioning "Xiao Meng".

Although the AI ​​robot claims not to get angry, who knows if Professor Luo will find out about this? Only a genius knows what secrets lie hidden here.

Ma Zhuangcai wouldn't have come to Professor Luo Haoluo's "base" if it weren't for the need overseas.

Arriving outside a transparent operating room, Ma Zhuang saw an AI robot sitting inside, and other AI robots busily working.

The scene resembled a typical operating room, with medical staff preparing for surgery.

After careful consideration before the surgery, Ma Zhuang explained to Luo Hao that they did not use that person's 3D printed robot.

But the only thing the robot that was going to have surgery on had in common was the same hair as the one in the photo.

Ma Zhuang focused intently, watching every move inside the operating room through the transparent glass.

To his surprise, no one was there to operate it; the AI ​​robot handled its own task with astonishing smoothness.

The AI ​​robots in Professor Luo's lab are indeed advanced, at least a generation better than the robot girlfriends sold in Europe.

Ma Zhuang was already drooling.

In his eyes, it's all about money!
(End of this chapter)