Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

In the dim light, the notebook lay open in the center of the wooden table, revealing its owner's secrets to the two Avengers.

Han Xiao and Xu Suyuan sat side by side at the table, their shadows elongated by the light and cast onto the wall covered with photos of dead people, creating an eerie atmosphere.

"The handwriting is very messy; it must have been written casually by Xu Changming in his early years."

Xu Suyuan pointed to a passage on a yellowed page and read it softly: "...That kid Donghai is bold. He dragged me to steal watermelons from the west end of the village. We were chased by dogs for two miles, but we refused to give them up. He said that once he got something, he wouldn't give it up."

She looked up, a hint of realization in her eyes: "So they're childhood friends from the same village. No wonder Wei Donghai trusts him so much, even entrusting him with full responsibility for a critical project like Chenxi Biotechnology."

"The strongest relationships in the world are often those formed through shared criminal experiences or the bond of growing up together like brothers."

Han Xiao snorted coldly and stretched out his right hand to turn the page.

But when his hand touched the edge of the paper, his movements froze for a moment.

Because of the missing little finger, the habitual grasping motion became somewhat unbalanced, and the finger slipped on the page, unable to turn the page immediately.

The air seemed to freeze for a second.

A slender hand reached out.

Xu Suyuan didn't say anything, but silently reached out her finger to press down the curled-up page foot for him, and then gently turned the page for him.

Han Xiao's fingers twitched slightly, then he casually turned his gaze back to the paper.

Look here.

His voice regained its composure as he pointed his finger at one of the lines of a record where the dates were not consecutive.

"We couldn't find any pattern in Wei Donghai's private schedule because this old fox kept his itinerary extremely secret and had almost no fixed habits. However, this diary repeatedly mentions one date."

Xu Suyuan leaned closer to take a closer look.

The records, scattered across different years and months, all remarkably consistently mention the date "the 15th".

[...Today is the fifteenth, and Donghai turned down a dinner invitation in the city and went to the Nanshan Ci'an Nursing Home as usual.]

"...It's the fifteenth again. I need to prepare the medicine for Uncle Changshou. Although Donghai is ruthless and vicious, he's undeniably filial. That's why I'm willing to follow him—a man who's good to his father can't be too bad to his brothers."

"Nanshan Ci'an Nursing Home..." Han Xiao quickly pulled out a detailed map of Chenxi City, his gaze sweeping across the mountainous area in the south of the map like that of a hawk.

Soon, he heavily circled a hidden coordinate point with his red pen.

Han Xiao's eyes flashed with a sharp light. "So Wei Donghai has a father, Wei Changshou. This information was hidden too well. In conventional investigations and online searches, Wei Donghai's direct ancestors have long been listed as 'deceased' or 'unidentified.' So he hid it here."

"The 15th of every month," Xu Suyuan glanced at the calendar on the wall, "that's the day after tomorrow."

"Yes, the day after tomorrow." Han Xiao's voice carried a hint of bloodlust. "This paralyzed old man is Wei Donghai's Achilles' heel."

Xu Suyuan stared at Xu Changming's remark in the diary: "Donghai is ruthless... but when it comes to filial piety..."

She suddenly asked softly, "Uncle Han, what kind of person is your father?"

Han Xiao paused for a moment while studying the map.

He was silent for a moment before slowly speaking, his voice somewhat ethereal, as if it had traveled through a long period of time: "An ordinary worker. He had a terrible temper. I still remember when I was in junior high school, I got injured and broke my leg. He carried me for three kilometers to the hospital. He kept calling me stupid the whole way."

At this point, a slight smile appeared on Han Xiao's usually bitter and resentful face: "But when we got to the hospital and the doctor said he needed to sign the consent form for surgery, I saw his hand was shaking so badly he couldn't even hold the pen."

As Xu Suyuan listened, a hint of envy and loneliness flashed in her eyes.

"I hardly remember my dad anymore." She lowered her head. "The only thing I remember is a taste, the taste of fruit candy. Every time he came home, he would always produce a handful of colorful candies from his pocket."

A brief silence fell over the basement.

In this moment of tranquility, two avengers burdened with deep-seated hatred cautiously touch the most tender scars in their hearts.

"Sizzle."

The sound of tearing plastic wrapping paper broke the silence.

Han Xiao pulled out a half-pack of crumpled mints from the corner of the drawer and pushed it in front of Xu Suyuan.

"No fruit candies," he said curtly. "Only this, to keep you alert. Eat this and get back to work."

Xu Suyuan paused for a moment, then peeled one open and put it in her mouth.

The cool and spicy flavor exploded on the tip of my tongue, slightly diluting the bitterness in my heart.

She carefully folded the candy wrapper and placed it aside, then turned her gaze back to the open diary.

Han Xiao also suppressed that barely perceptible smile, his fingertips tracing the pages as he continued to flip through them.

He turned to a page in the inner compartment of the diary.

A faded old photograph slipped out from between the cracks.

It was a black and white photograph with a huge old locust tree in the background.

In the photo, a young man with features somewhat similar to Wei Donghai, but more savage, is holding a thick wooden stick and wearing a chilling grin.

Several people with blood-covered faces were tied to the tree trunk behind him.

On the back of the photo is a line of blurry pen writing: [Autumn, XXXX, dealing with traitors].

Next to the photo, Xu Changming added a note in red pen:

The old man was a local bully in his youth, his hands stained with blood, not clean at all. When Donghai returned from his first "big job," his hands were trembling. The old man glanced at him and said only one sentence: "Either don't do it at all, or do it thoroughly. If you don't cut the weeds at the root, they'll grow back in the spring." I still remember the look in Donghai's eyes after hearing that; it was the look of a wolf cub who had finally seen blood.

"The beam is not straight." Xu Suyuan looked at the photo and felt a chill rise from the soles of her feet.

"So the family's moral compass is completely warped." Han Xiao sneered, casually tossing the photo onto the table. "Wei Donghai's ruthlessness wasn't innate; it was instilled by this distorted family education. This family is rotten to the core."

He stood up and pinned the surrounding topographical map of Nanshan Ci'an Nursing Home to the wall.

"Alright. Now let's start making a plan."

Han Xiao's demeanor instantly changed, transforming him back into the special forces soldier who struck fear into the hearts of his enemies.

"Come and take a look."

He circled a green area on the map with a pencil.

"This is the woods to the east of the nursing home, which connects to the back mountain. If it were an ordinary person, they would most likely choose this as their route for infiltration or retreat."