The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 148: Huagai
Qi Fei pushed the fabricated medical record in front of Chen Shan: "So what you want is not a son, but the incense to prolong your life."

Chen Shan's nails suddenly dug into his palms, and he vaguely heard the rustling of peeling green paint on the Experimental Elementary School fence. The clinking sound of Zhuangzhuang's schoolbag charms scraping against the iron bars that day strangely overlapped with the muffled clatter of the shackles on his wrists. "I pounced on him like a hyena that's been starving for three days!" He stared at the cracks in the floor tiles and said nervously, "These tiles are the same ones I kowtowed on at Ying Shuigen's house..."

The one-way glass suddenly reflected Qi Fei's swaying blood type report, the "O" type distorted like a snake's skin in the bright light. "I grabbed her mink collar and said, 'The bone marrow match is a one in a hundred thousand chance of survival,' and this bitch smiled like Ying Shuigen chanting an incantation! Her new acrylic nails scratched the needle marks on my arm and said, 'There's no reason to take back the offerings made to the snake fairy'—just as smooth as when she broke up with me!"
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It's time to identify the scene.

Chen Shan's shackles dragged dark red iron filings on the ferry deck. He stared at the muddy river water surging over the side of the ship, as if he had returned to that day:
The salty breeze from Jiangting Island lashed Chen Shan's face. He huddled behind the ferry's rusted railing, staring at the red Porsche fifty meters away. The echo of She Xiaohui's high heels clacking along the bluestone alleyway strangely overlapped with the crisp sound of red dates scattered at a wedding twenty years ago.

The snake-shaped bronze door knocker twisted between She Xiaohui's fingers, and the warm light leaking through the crack in the door showed the figures of two boys chasing each other.

What made him more desperate than death was She Xiaohui's ruthless trampling on his self-esteem as a man.

As he kicked open the half-open side door, his hands, painted with scarlet nail polish, clenched his crocodile leather bag. "Are you crazy enough to go to the island to seek death?" She protected the child and let them go upstairs. She knocked her diamond-encrusted phone case against the golden snake statue enshrined in the entrance hall. "Shui Gen will be back soon!"

"That charlatan can't save me, but Zhuangzhuang can!" Chen Shan roared, the veins on his neck bulging. In the house with high walls and deep courtyards, all the shouts were scattered in the air by the river wind blowing across the island, and no one could hear them.

"Does he need to have his bone marrow removed for leukemia?" She Xiaohui took off her high heels and threw them into the corner. "To tell you the truth, I won't let Zhuangzhuang have his bone marrow removed..." She suddenly smiled contemptuously. "Guess why?"

"Has your conscience been taken away by the snake fairy?!" Chen Shan grabbed She Xiaohui's hand, and the purple-red jade bracelet dangled on her struggling wrist.

"This is what Ying Shuigen gave you when I sent you to the island. You haven't taken it off in over a decade!" Chen Shan said through gritted teeth. The room was filled with a faint smell of snakes, and he felt nauseous. He didn't know if it was the smell or the woman in front of him. When She Xiaohui shook off his fingertips that were grabbing her wrist, her voice pierced her eardrums like broken ice: "Zhuangzhuang is really not your son."

"Just because I have leukemia, you can even make up such a lie?" Chen Shan heard his hoarse laughter echoing in the corridor. "If you want to lie to me, you should find a decent reason..."

She suddenly stumbled and pushed open the locker. Chen Shan watched the physical examination form rustling between her fingers. Zhuangzhuang's school physical examination form was thrown in his face - how could two parents with type A blood give birth to a child with type O blood?
As the paper slipped through Chen Shan's stiff fingers, the incandescent light on the ceiling began to spin. In a trance, he could hear the cry of a baby outside the delivery room, far down the corridor twelve years ago. The cry of "Mother and child are safe" that had once brought tears to his eyes now transformed into countless shards of glass, rushing through every blood vessel.

The glaring red and blue lights of the police car cast eerie shadows on the mottled walls. The dragging sound of Chen Shan's shackles on the ground was like the rustling of snakes on the day of the crime, like some ancient spell echoing through the ruins. In just a few days, this place had become as desolate as a graveyard, reeking of the dead.

Chen Shan looked at the staircase with the cut marks still on it, and it seemed as if he saw She Xiaohui shamelessly saying to him, "The night Ying Shuigen taught me the secret art of dual cultivation, you were still moving cement at the construction site!"

Chen Shan's knuckles suddenly turned white as he clenched his fists, and blood clung to his wrists from the shackles. Memories surged back like a tide—the toppled bronze snake statue on Ying Shuigen's altar, incense ash spilling into the cracks of the family photo frame.

"When I was rummaging through the safe on the third floor, the overturned prayer wheel rolled into a pool of blood." Chen Shan's vocal cords seemed to be soaked in corpse oil, and every word was wrapped in sticky hatred. "The family photo floating in the blood made me realize that the corpse downstairs was just a scapegoat." He suddenly laughed nervously, and the shackles on his wrists made a crisp sound like a spirit-calling bell. At that time, I thought, "Having the whole world wanted for 'Murderer Ying Shuigen', wouldn't this be much more satisfying than just hacking him to death!"

Qi Fei stared at the madness dancing in Chen Shan's pupils. He gritted his teeth and immersed himself in the pleasure of revenge.

Qi Fei stared down at the report in his hands, already soaked with body heat, before finally handing it to Chen Shan. As he read the contents, his fingernail scratched the "99.99%" in the conclusion column. His face practically pressed against the paper, his pupils trembling like pinpoints under the pale light. "Bullshit! I saw the medical report myself! Zhuangzhuang's blood type... He can't be my son!"

Qi Fei looked at him coldly and said, "You are right, you and Zhuangzhuang are indeed not father and son. The owner of the other sample is not Zhuangzhuang, but Huang Daqiu."

The air suddenly froze. Chen Shan suddenly tore up the report card. Snow-white crumbs mixed with cold sweat fell from his fingers. "What a joke! I grew up in an orphanage! They said my parents abandoned me!"

"We checked, and you were indeed abandoned at the gate of the orphanage. However, according to our understanding, it wasn't your parents who abandoned you, but your grandparents. Huang Daqiu had an affair with a female classmate named Tang Zhaoxu when he was 16. Tang Zhaoxu's parents abandoned you at the orphanage to save their daughter's reputation. I don't think they expected Huang Daqiu to become a wealthy man many years later. Of course, they never thought that, by some strange mistake, you would kill your own father."

The shackles scraped against the ground with a sharp, piercing sound. Chen Shan suddenly raised his head and laughed cruelly like a night owl: "That old charlatan Ying Shuigen is right! I am destined to be rich and powerful!" His crazed eyes turned to the broken glass jar, reflecting his own shattered image.

"You have indeed inherited Huang Daqiu's gambler genes." Zhong Kui stepped forward, his shadow looming over the man who had severed his bloodline with his own hands. "But the Lord of Huagai Star is lonely and unlucky. Your wealth and honor will eventually be replaced by the flesh and blood of your loved ones."

(End of this chapter)