“Do you know the first time Li Siwen kidnapped me, he spoke exactly like you just did?”
Qi Ran finally managed to stop her laughter, speaking softly.
“You’ve picked up this hot potato now. Aren’t you afraid you’ll end up just like him?”
“Who can say for sure? Maybe Li Siwen simply wasn’t as good as us?” Xie Liusheng’s expression was calm. “We’ll have to try to find out.”
Qi Ran simply sighed and looked at the boy and girl sitting beside her. “Have you ever considered something? If Li Siwen truly got the secret of the Tao Family Ancient Mansion from me, then why was he still sitting in his office instead of going to find it with his allies? Did he not know that delaying only puts him in greater danger?”
After she finished, she paused slightly. Seeing that the look on Xie Liusheng’s face had soured, she added one more sentence. “That’s all I have to say. Don’t worry, I don’t care where you plan on kidnapping me to. I won’t resist anyway. If anything, being taken along by you is a good thing. Li Siwen is dead now. Instead of hiding alone in the shadows, I might as well stick by your side. Even if someone comes to attack us, at least I’ll have you all around, won’t I?”
At this point, she remembered the words Li Siwen had said before:
“Even if you go to those people now and tell them that Qi Ran knows nothing, that we didn’t get any secret from her… do you think they’d believe that? Don’t be naive. You’ve smeared the mud on yourself already. Just enjoy what comes next.”
After reciting this passage, she watched the young man’s expression with amusement.
She had long grown sick of this kind of high-and-mighty, know-it-all arrogance. Even if this young man before her now flew into a rage and killed her to vent his anger, it wouldn’t matter. She had Miss Ah Qiao’s protection. Even if she were torn into hundreds of pieces, she could be pieced back together.
Besides, if he truly lost his temper and decided to kill her now, he would be the one unable to explain himself. If she died now, to outsiders, it would look like Xie Liusheng had gotten the secret and silenced her to prevent it from spreading. For the four of them, this would probably mean they’d all turn into the current Qi Ran, each becoming a piece of tempting Tang Monk Meat, hunted for the rest of their lives without a moment’s peace.
This logic was something Li Siwen had taught her. To play a game with someone, you must know what they want and what they fear. Knowing those two things, all problems can be solved. Your opponent, for all their strength, won’t be able to apply an ounce of it.
Xie Liusheng fell silent for a moment, then asked doubtfully, “Aren’t you worried you’ll meet the same fate as Li Siwen?”
His tone was flat, not sounding like a threat, but Qi Ran detected the malice hidden within it. Her fingertips tensed slightly—this mild-mannered-looking young man was clearly not just talking.
“You’re welcome to try.”
Qi Ran paused slightly, because that wasn’t her who spoke. It was Liu Xu, still driving the car.
“What’s the meaning of this? Are you planning some friendship-is-magic act?” Xie Liusheng looked over at Liu Xu in the driver’s seat, his voice turning somewhat cold. “Or do you think you have any room left for regret?”
“This isn’t a matter of regret,” Liu Xu said, apparently not the least bit bothered by Xie Liusheng’s threat. “From the very start, we clearly laid out the rules between us. If you plan to use torture to force a confession, then you’re breaking the rules we set. Let me put it another way: aren’t we a team? The minority should yield to the majority. Nan Qiang, He Ling, what do you two think?”
“Brother Liusheng, you’re crossing the line,” the boy named He Ling sitting to Qi Ran’s left simply shook his head. “If we do something like that, when the Executors settle accounts later, we won’t be able to escape it.”
Nan Qiang’s answer was even more concise, just a single word: “No.”
This team of theirs was clearly thrown together temporarily. Qi Ran realized this abruptly. Liu Xu and Xie Liusheng were, at best, in a temporary truce. The boy He Ling counted as neutral, and Nan Qiang clearly leaned toward Liu Xu’s side. This discovery didn’t make her feel relieved. On the contrary, the fact that Xie Liusheng still held the majority of the speaking power under these circumstances meant he had to possess something that Liu Xu and Nan Qiang feared.
Was it his Syndrome?
Qi Ran searched her memory carefully but couldn’t recall any major family named Xie in Zhongnan.
“It’s clear the minority yields to the majority,” Liu Xu, one hand on the steering wheel, said calmly. “Or is it that you want to back out now? Want to leave the team? That would be a real shame.”
His manner was somewhat familiar to Qi Ran. Liu Xu had always been like that. He loved to add that little bit of sarcasm right after winning an argument, and that sarcasm was often just repeating back something the other person had said previously. Xu Yan used to slam the table in frustration because of this manner of his. She was always terrible at arguing but loved to start them.
Xie Liusheng was silent for a moment before finally letting out a somewhat helpless sigh.
He suddenly let out a light chuckle and raised his head again.
Alarm bells rang in Qi Ran’s Mind Lake. Just as she thought Xie Liusheng was about to make a direct move, she saw him pull a Letter from his pocket.
It was a very simple, pale yellow Envelope, a bit thick. In the small transparent window, Qi Ran could see half of an ID photo peeking out. She didn’t understand why this young man named Xie Liusheng had taken out this envelope, but she had a very bad feeling… as if something inside was absolutely unacceptable to her.
“Allow me to first apologize for my earlier rudeness. I beg your forgiveness, Miss Qi. Consider this shared intelligence my compensation.” His tone was remarkably sincere.
Qi Ran paused, then reached out and took the envelope. It felt slightly heavy in her hand.
She opened it and unfolded the first document.
It was a Personal Information Form. The format was somewhat familiar. The photo in the upper left corner showed a boy, no older than ten, with a neat buzz cut. The name written on the form made Qi Ran stare for a moment.
Because it read: Qi Jianguo.
She abruptly froze. And at that moment, she finally remembered why this Personal Information Form seemed familiar. Its paper format was identical to Tao Xiao’s Medical Examination Report posted on the Forum—they were both files from the Tao Family.
Her fingertips trembled slightly. She flipped to the next page. It was Qi Jianguo’s medical examination report. The page after that was another personal information form… The name was Li Wanying, but Li Wanying’s ID photo looked even younger, looking like she was only five or six years old.
She looked at the dates. The dates on both files were identical: the same year, 1984.
—The year after the Tao Family’s annihilation. Qi Ran matched the timeline in her head. Qi Jianguo was born in ’75, Li Wanying in ’77. That meant, at the time of these files, they were nine and seven years old, respectively.
What was Xie Liusheng trying to convey by giving her these files? She suppressed the doubt in her heart and kept flipping.
The content on the fifth piece of paper was someone she hadn’t expected at all.
It was Li Siwen.
What caught Qi Ran’s attention wasn’t the content of the form itself, but a slightly mottled photo attached to the paper. It was a group photo. Five people, posed like a family of five in front of a train station. The photo even had helpful labels indicating who Li Siwen and Li Wanying were. The skinny young man standing furthest to the left was Li Siwen. The young man on his right looked like his older brother, about five or six years his senior. The two seemed to have a very good relationship, laughing with arms draped over each other’s shoulders.
Qi Ran stopped abruptly. She suddenly understood something. The story Li Siwen had told her before about the Lake Cutter wasn’t entirely true. At least one part was false. The man controlled by the Lake Cutter, who had shoved a chopstick through his own neck, wasn’t a “friend” as he’d claimed… The truth was, the man who died by the Lake Cutter’s hand was his own biological brother. For some reason, he couldn’t say it was his own brother, so he had to say it was a friend.
The Tao Family hadn’t truly been annihilated. Li Wanying and Qi Jianguo had ties to the Tao Family as far back as 1984. Li Wanying and Li Siwen were biological siblings, but they had to separate and cut contact… These seemingly unconnected facts were like a net, gradually tightening around the secret at the center: the Tao Family.
Qi Ran hefted the envelope. It seemed there were still a few pieces of paper left inside.
