Volume One, Chapter 54: Xiao Yue’s Mother

Mr. Zou crouched on the ground, his trembling hands gathering the strands of hair that had fallen.
“No, no, I can’t die—I must live! My vitality, all my vitality is vanishing!”
His appearance was terrifying; even Huang Yusen shrank back in fear.
Chi Xingwan watched him coldly. “Life and death are beyond our control. You have a terminal illness. What you should do is seek proper treatment, not resort to such sinister means to steal the life force of others.”
Mr. Zou’s face twisted with rage. “What do you know? People like you, healthy and whole, can’t possibly understand my pain. I’m still so young! There’s so much in life I haven’t enjoyed—I can’t die!”
Chen Yixuan snapped, “You really don’t understand. Do you realize that by committing such wicked acts, you’re inviting calamity upon yourself? The life force you steal can only keep you alive for a while. In the end, you’ll have to pay it back with interest.”
Mr. Zou clutched his head in agony. “No, that’s not true! He told me that as long as I didn’t kill anyone, there’d be no consequences. If it weren’t for you, nothing would have happened to me!”
“Who is ‘he’?” Chi Xingwan pressed. “Who helped you set up this formation?”
“It was… it was…” Suddenly, Mr. Zou’s hands shot up and gripped his own throat, squeezing with such force it seemed he meant to strangle himself.
In a flash, Chi Xingwan lunged forward and slapped a talisman onto his body. Only then did his hands relax, and he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
“Tsk. Someone’s cursed him,” Chi Xingwan said in clear displeasure.
Huang Yusen, shaking all over, hurried to help Mr. Zou up. “Will my senior be alright?”
“He’s finished,” Chi Xingwan replied bluntly. “Most likely he’ll end up in a vegetative state. Even if he wakes, he’ll be little more than an imbecile.”
“Why? What happened?” Huang Yusen was gripped by terror.
Chi Xingwan thought of Yu Dongli, and couldn’t help but ask, “What’s your relationship with him? How did you get involved?”
“He’s my senior from sports school. He graduated already. A few months back he approached me and suggested we open a basketball club together. I agreed and even invested some money.”
Huang Yusen’s head spun. He’d put in money; he was one of the club’s shareholders. Now that trouble had come, there was no way to distance himself.
Sure enough, as soon as the police arrived, they took him away without delay.
After meeting with the client, Chi Xingwan and the others returned to campus. As expected, before they even entered the dorm, they could hear Yu Dongli weeping.

“How could he do this to me? He was only with me for the money—he never really loved me…”
Xu Mingyue and Wen Jing offered no comfort, watching her coldly instead. Xu Mingyue even put on her headphones to block out the sound of crying.
When Chi Xingwan returned, Xu Mingyue immediately messaged her to explain.
It turned out all the money Huang Yusen used to join the basketball club had come from Yu Dongli. Now that the scandal had broken, Huang Yusen twisted the facts, claiming joining the club had been Yu Dongli’s idea and that he was a victim, used by both Mr. Zou and Yu Dongli.
Yu Dongli was summoned for questioning and only then saw Huang Yusen’s true colors.
Fortunately, his lies were exposed and Yu Dongli had just been released.
[I really can’t stand people who let love cloud their brains. How did she even get into college with a head like that?]
[So annoying. We’ll have to listen to her sob for days now.]
[If she still doesn’t wake up after all this, she’s truly hopeless. But it’s not my problem. After graduation, we’ll go our separate ways and never contact each other again.]
Xu Mingyue sent a rapid string of complaints. Chi Xingwan smiled helplessly; it seemed Xu Mingyue was truly done with Yu Dongli and wouldn’t forgive her this time.
The strange atmosphere in the dorm didn’t bother Chi Xingwan. She lay on her bed, poring over documents borrowed from the Spiritualists’ Association.
During this period, she’d found several clues that seemed related to the Nalan family, but after careful checking, they all turned out to be false leads. Apart from that jade thumb ring at the beginning, she hadn’t found anything connected to the Nalan family in a long time.
Dai Dai lay by her side, his dark eyes also fixed on the documents.
He didn’t really know why he was reading, but something deep inside urged him to memorize everything in these documents.
That night, Xiao Yue woke to find a message from Yu Huan.
He immediately called her.
On her end, Yu Huan was already waiting for his call at nearly eleven. Knowing Xiao Yue was pressed for time, she got straight to the point.
“Xiao Yue, I found your mother Lan Yan’s foster parents. They passed away decades ago, but I visited their village. Luckily, some people there still remember your mother.”
“They said your mother’s birth mother, your grandmother, rented a room from the foster parents. She became gravely ill, and before she died, entrusted your mother to their care.”

Xiao Yue pressed his lips together. “Do you know what illness she had?”
“No,” Yu Huan replied. “Villagers only said she had a terminal illness, but no one knows what exactly it was. But there’s something odd—the villager said your grandmother seemed to know exactly when she would die.”
Xiao Yue felt a chill. “When?”
“She told them herself she would die on her thirtieth birthday. And she really did—she passed away that very day. It wasn’t suicide or an accident; she simply succumbed to her illness, just as she’d said.”
At this point, Yu Huan herself found it all quite uncanny.
The blade that had hung over his heart finally fell, and Xiao Yue felt a strange calm. “Thank you, Yu Huan.”
Yu Huan sounded awkward. “Hey, we’ve been friends—frenemies, even—for years. Now you’re thanking me? That’s weird.”
Xiao Yue smiled faintly. “Still, thank you for making the trip. I’ll reimburse all your expenses.”
Yu Huan chuckled. “I was planning to ask for the money anyway. There’s another thing: after your grandmother and your mother’s foster parents died, their belongings were left to the village. I’m negotiating with them now. If possible, I’ll buy up everything and send it to you.”
It was an unexpected windfall. “Alright,” Xiao Yue said. “Besides expenses, I’ll pay you a fee.”
Once the call ended, Xiao Yue sat by the window, gazing out at the pitch-black garden.
He’d always been skeptical of fate, but now he found it impossible not to believe.
He pictured Chi Xingwan in his mind.
As Dai Dai, he had spent nearly every moment at her side, watching her plunge into her research whenever she had a spare moment, all in hopes of finding a single clue among thousands of documents—
Just one clue that could save him and the entire Nalan family.
Before, he might have been content not to know. But now that he did, how could he remain indifferent?
He got up and left the room, seeking out Grandma Xiao.
“Grandma, there’s something I need to tell you.”