Two Visitors with Different Motives — Noli Me Tángere

Sleepless with guilt, Ibarra works through the night on experiments until Elias arrives with news that Maria Clara has fever. The pilot explains he quieted the riot by appealing to brothers whose father died under Civil Guard beatings, then warns that when misfortune singles out a family all its members perish like fruit on one blighted branch and that Crisostomo's name is already circled on more than one list.

Lucas, brother of the derrick victim, demands immediate payment for his dead kin and mutters that Ibarra inherits Don Saturnino's cruelty when refused. Ibarra rushes to Maria Clara while Lucas calculates that generosity could buy friendship and a future favour from whichever friar pays better for provocation dressed as mourning and a widow's tears priced by the peso.

Rizal pairs genuine remorse with mercenary grief, showing how colonial violence turns even mourning into leverage and how guilt blinds reformers to predators circling their pain while the girl they love burns with fever behind a door Tiago may never open again to the man the church has marked as excommunicate, while Elias leaves him with a warning heavier than any sermon, and the laboratory lamps burn on like false hope while Lucas counts coins in the corridor.