Chapter 98: Blunt and Direct

“It seems... no. Before she died, how could she have imagined that one day the Xu family would be ruined, that my brother would run off with a huge loan, and that he would end up here in this restaurant?”

Zhong Huayan sat down on the floor in dejection, listening as the mechanism ground to a stop again.

There was no pattern to it at all.

Her weary gaze suddenly fell upon the sheet of paper on the ground.

The Heavenly Way is divided into forty-nine paths, with only the Path of Reincarnation missing, signifying that all things leave room for a sliver of hope.

A sliver of hope...

The Path of Reincarnation...

The mechanism had turned back to its starting point. They had found no secret door and were almost trapped in this endless cycle of turning.

Zhong Huayan rose shakily to her feet. Though slight and slender, there was a fierce strength in her bones. She looked around, then slowly walked to the center enclosed by the coffin, half-lidded her eyes, and looked up.

And suddenly she saw it: in the room of darkness, there was actually a thread of light above her head.

It was as if she had found a spring in a barren desert. Excited, she cried out,

“Xu Chuyin! Put out every light.”

He hurriedly extinguished all the lights and turned off the flashlight on his phone.

The two of them looked up at that faint glow. Little by little, the light grew brighter, changing from white to a searing red. It did not look like ordinary red light; it looked more like a tongue of flame rushing toward them through dust motes and layers of wooden cover.

Then came a thunderous blast that shook heaven and earth.

Gray talisman papers fluttered down from the ceiling, and both of them got dust in their eyes. They quickly cheered and scrambled into a corner to hide. If this had been before, they might have been afraid, but now, action was better than stillness. Any commotion was better than none at all.

“That thing just now probably wasn’t light at all. Someone was trying to blow an exit open. Damn it, only Xu Yaochuan and Fu Yanyan would be crazy enough to do something like that!”

The corners of Zhong Huayan’s mouth lifted, and she grabbed the man’s sleeve.

“Don’t curse them anymore. At least they finally went crazy in the right place. But I’m a little worried—what if they miss the spot with the blast...”

“What’s there to fear? At least there’s still a sliver of hope. Otherwise, we’d only be clinging to life for a few more days before turning into starving ghosts.”

Zhong Huayan thought of what it would be like to be starved to death alive, and it would be agonizing. If she were blown to death, that might hurt less. The more she thought about it, the more she felt she had a grudge against fire. Surely she couldn’t die by fire every time.

He silently tightened his hand around hers.

Xu Chuyin suddenly felt that he was rather young and romantic after all. At this moment, all he wanted was to die beside his little mermaid.

When people are young and full of fire, the one they love always seems beyond the mountains and seas, and yet mountains and seas can be crossed. And when death comes, if love is before one’s eyes, it can still bloom into flowers from the ashes of fear.

Xu Chuyin suddenly remembered the performance of South of a Dream that she had once put on.

He had memorized those lines and that melody for a long time, through the turmoil of that dusty, unstable room.

In a low voice, he began to sing the words from the Kunqu opera South of a Dream.

“All forms are emptiness; all laws are but consciousness. With the finite span of my life, I offer myself wholly to the infinite. In universal salvation, the heartless seem almost tender. In this mortal world, rulers, ministers, and kin differ no more from ants; all suffering and joy, rise and fall, are alike in South of a Dream. A long dream lasts but a little while; a short dream leaves no grave marker. Laughing at the rootless blossoms at the corner of the eye, the dream entangles the dreamer...”

Zhong Huayan turned her head slightly to look at him. This was the Kunqu piece she had performed on her very first day at Jingfu University.

The sound of Kunqu seemed to teeter on the edge of collapse, and in such a gloomy, dim room, it became all the more heavy and desolate.

Yet he sang it with a youthful, rich freshness, a little shy, and a little wicked.

—

An hour earlier.

In the bamboo grove, a fresh breeze was blowing.

Fu Yanyan, dressed in a black Tang-style robe, stood there like a prodigy beyond reproach, one of heaven’s favored sons. Just as he stepped into the bamboo grove of the pavilion courtyard, a cry sharp with panic rang out. His heart clenched. With a slight force of his hand, the prayer beads in his palm snapped apart, scattering bead after bead onto the ground. When he lifted his head, his eyes were full of blood and slaughter.

The assistant at his side immediately sensed disaster. After running to check the situation, he said shakily,

“Madam and the mercenary are gone. They’re in the room next door.”

Fu Yanyan gave a cold laugh. That laugh was enough to kill.

He kicked open the courtyard door in the bamboo grove with the sole of his shoe, and though the door opened, it was badly damaged as well.

He strode straight into the innermost room. Before the man and woman could finish winding themselves around each other in their soft, lingering intimacy, he casually drew a knife from the wall. As the wind brushed the hilt and the blade flashed with a cold glint, his left hand swung back and struck the delicate woman hard across the face.

The woman cried out and fell straight to the floor. The fierce pain sent tears streaming down her face. Two of her teeth were knocked out, and every time she opened her mouth, blood dripped slowly from between her lips.

The assistant behind him immediately led the others in to pin her down, and without the slightest tenderness, pressed a knife to her throat.

Fu Yanyan placed one hand on the man’s neck, his long, powerful knee driving mercilessly into the man’s lower body. The sharp blade, with the slightest movement, could take his life.

“Mm...” the man groaned reflexively.

Xu Yaochuan was drenched in sweat. Just as he had been about to reach the peak of pleasure, he was pinned down so brutally that he truly felt he might go mad.

But seeing the cold edge at his throat and the dark mass of armed mercenaries behind him, he deflated and simply flopped back onto the sofa. His temples throbbed. If this had been anyone else, he would have killed them to vent his rage. But unfortunately, it was this great lord.

Lying there, he asked with no temper left at all,

“What now? What did I do to offend you this time? You come running here every few days.”

“Just now, my wife disappeared from your restaurant.”

“Damn it, impossible. She must be somewhere in here playing hide-and-seek with you. Don’t drag innocent bystanders into this.”

Fu Yanyan smiled faintly, then pressed his knee harder. The knife instantly bit into the man’s flesh. Xu Yaochuan’s face, already stripped of flesh, was now twisted by the pain. He let out a muffled groan. He had just tried to rise and resist, but when he glanced at the commotion outside, he lost his nerve again.

“You damn lunatic, what the hell are you on about? I really don’t know. If I were really planning to mess with that little girl, would I still be sitting here fooling around with a woman so defenseless? I may be a loafer, but I’m not that stupid!”

The assistant took the computer handed over from behind, put on white gloves, and set it before him.

Inside the surveillance footage, it was crystal clear: a crack had split open live across the redwood floor of that room. Then a young man emerged from the darkness at the side and shoved the person together with him straight into the hidden door beside them. The mercenary who fell through the redwood floor vanished without a trace.

“Damn it, what the hell is this? I remember that room didn’t have a camera!”

Fu Yanyan slowly traced the knife against his throat and then said softly,

“The day I left, I had them installed all over your restaurant.”

Xu Yaochuan’s mouth twitched. He felt the cold and pain at his throat, and the flesh beneath was being cut raw.

“I’m not blaming you. Install them if you want—who could be more voyeuristic than you? But I swear to you, I really didn’t know this restaurant had a structure like this. How long have I even been here? I didn’t build this place. I had no idea.”

“Then I’ll go blow it up right now.”

Fu Yanyan’s tone was light and airy. It was a simple, brutal sentence, not the least bit like he was asking for permission. When he said it, he only raised his brows a little, as casually as if he were deciding where to eat.

“Blow what up? My younger brother is still in there. If he gets blown to pieces, are you going to pay me back with another one?”

“Blowing your brother to death is exactly what I intend to do.”

Xu Yaochuan suddenly flared up. He pressed his throat against the blade, and at last those cold, heartless phoenix eyes showed a trace of human feeling. He set his tongue against his palate, roguishly unrestrained, entirely drunk on emotion and no longer caring about life or death.

“No! If you’ve got the guts, then try it!”

“Hah. Try it, then.”

Xu Yaochuan was furious beyond measure. He no longer cared that blood was slowly seeping from his neck.

“What if something happens to Li Yanyan too? If she gets blown up, you...”

Before he could finish, he heard the man’s utterly confident and certain voice.

“I won’t let her die. But you and your brother must die.”