Chapter 75: Money or Your Life?

"Let go!"

"Qi Yu, do you want to be a murderer?!"

A cruel arc curved at the corners of Qi Yu's lips. Just as his foster father's face flushed a deep red, he released his grip. The body, having lost its support, collapsed limply to the floor, then began to gasp for air.

"Cough... cough cough!"

Qi Yu turned and walked into the kitchen, returning with a kitchen knife that glinted with a cold light. He dragged over a wooden stool, sat down with his legs slightly apart, and slammed the knife into the corner of the table. He leaned forward slightly: "Let's play a multiple-choice game: money or your life?"

The youth pointed casually at his trembling foster father, the smile at the corner of his mouth slowly freezing, his sharp gaze lingering on him: "You choose."

The dilapidated rental apartment was deathly silent.

The foster parents' eyes fell upon the kitchen knife. They stammered, looking at Qi Yu as if they were seeing a demon crawled up from hell.

"Heh."

"He won't choose?" Qi Yu let out a cold laugh, raised his hand to pull the knife out, and pointed the blade at his foster mother: "Then it's your turn to choose."

The youth held the handle of the kitchen knife, scraping it against the table bit by bit, emitting a harsh, grating sound like a death-summoning incantation: "I never force people against their will. I'll give you 20 seconds to think. In a place like the Lower City District, so dirty and chaotic, two dead bodies can be carried out of the alleys every few days; even the Police are too lazy to care."

He shifted his gaze from the blade to their ugly faces, his eyes slithering like a viper, and asked a question: "Hey, how many ways do you think I have to kill the two of you?"

Foster mother: "I... I..."

Qi Yu stood up with the kitchen knife: "20 seconds are up."

"Money is a good thing; no one can do without it."

In a place like Sike Academy, which wears a mask of high morality and upper-class society, Qi Yu still knew how to be a person who understands the times and how to be duplicitous. But in a place like the Lower City District, moral ethics and showing weakness don't work; survival only requires one word: "Kill!"

Be fierce and ruthless.

You have to be more ruthless and more vicious than your enemy!

Compared to respect, in a place like the Lower City District, you must be able to make people afraid.

"We don't want it anymore... we don't want the money anymore, we... we'll leave right now... leave right now!"

"Too late." Qi Yu stood before them with the knife, the corners of his mouth pulling into an arc, slow and deliberate, like a Rakshasa wearing a smiling mask to disguise itself as a human. He raised the butcher's knife high, ready to strike at any moment.

A white blade-light swept across.

"Ah!"

A sharp, mournful cry pierced through the entire rental apartment.

The kitchen knife in Qi Yu's hand grazed the top of the foster father's head, the force and distance controlled with extreme precision, slicing off a layer of skin and hair from the top of his head before hacking into the wall, carving out a terrifying mark. The blade was stained with fresh blood and hair...

A smell of urine permeated the air.

Qi Yu looked down and saw that the foster father's crotch was soaked.

The foster mother was too terrified to speak.

Qi Yu leaned down and patted his face, his posture intimate: "As the saying goes, the grace of raising is greater than the grace of birth. This time it was just a bit of your flesh, next time it will be stripping your bones."

"Understand? You old piece of trash."

The youth took the bit of skin and flesh stuck to the kitchen knife and pressed it onto the foster mother's face, staring into her eyes as he asked: "Do you like it?"

The foster mother retched: "I... I like it."

"Good if you like it. You can get out once you've mopped the floor clean." Qi Yu patted her shoulder as well, his movements lazy: "Remember to come back and ask me for money next time; you're always welcome."

Yin Family.

Inside the black thorn-patterned iron gate was a beautiful castle. The Yin Family's Jinghe Manor covered an area of about sixty thousand square kilometers and was extremely extravagant, featuring meticulously crafted artificial lakes, golf courses, and horse-riding tracks.

Yin Huaiyu had not returned all night.

He was wearing a floral shirt with several buttons undone. As he walked into the living room, he was stopped by an enraged Yin Shuyi: "Stop!"

"Where have you been fooling around again?"

Yin Huaiyu looked languid, his jacket draped over his arm. He shrugged and laughed as if he didn't care: "Racing at Changshan Road with Shao Yu and the others last night, what's the matter?"

"You want to control this too?"

Yin Shuyi was true to his name; wearing silver-rimmed glasses and holding a newspaper, he appeared exceptionally refined. There was no trace of a merchant's vulgarity about him; his every gesture carried the elegance of a scholar. He even wore an old-fashioned Zhongshan suit, making him appear pedantic and old-fashioned.

He looked stern: "Racing?"

"Your uncle was in a car accident, do you know that?!" Yin Shuyi slapped the newspaper onto the table, his face cold and dark, clearly furious: "You didn't even answer your phone."

Yin Cilan is dead?

A car accident?

He did recall that Yu Shixue had answered a call from the Police last night, saying someone had died. So it turned out the death had come to the Yin Family.

Yin Huaiyu licked his dry lower lip. His expression was stunned for only two seconds before he quickly returned to his calm and composed self. He walked over to the sofa and sat down: "Oh."

"If he's dead, he's dead. Aren't you happy there's one less person to split the family fortune with?"

"It's not like I hit him."

What did it have to do with him?

Yin Huaiyu grabbed a longan from the fruit platter with his slender, attractive fingers, peeled it, and put it in his mouth. A look of contempt appeared on his androgynous face: "Dad, look, I told you long ago that praying to gods and Buddhas is useless. If it were useful, my uncle would count as a devout believer, right? The amount of money he spent every year repairing temples and gilding statues wasn't small."

"Yet those Bodhisattvas and Buddhas didn't protect him."

"Otherwise, it wouldn't have been his turn to die."

He didn't have much affection for this uncle. Born into a wealthy and prestigious family, family ties were as thin as water, and besides, Yin Cilan had left the Empire to travel the world when Yin Huaiyu was very young.

Yin Shuyi said in a deep voice: "That is your uncle!"

He looked at this eldest son, the legitimate heir of the Yin Family.

His entire demeanor was becoming more and more like his own from back in the day.

Cruel, cold-blooded, and heartless.

"Uncle? That sounds nice, but why didn't you stop yourself from driving him abroad?" Yin Huaiyu threw the longan shell onto the coffee table, crossed his legs, and folded his arms across his chest: "Do you think I don't know?"

"If he wanted to believe in Buddha, where couldn't he do it? That temple of ours..."

His voice paused for a moment.

Yin Huaiyu recalled again: "Right, Chanxin Si, world-renowned, a thousand-year-old temple, and it even holds the titles of 'Ancestral Court' and 'Source of Buddhism' for the Empire."

The living room was silent and desolate.

Yin Shuyi's sharp gaze looked over through his lenses: "Rebellious son! What nonsense are you spouting?"

The servants didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

The butler nearby hurriedly signaled Yin Huaiyu with his eyes.

The latter clearly ignored him completely.

Yin Huaiyu repeated: "Nonsense?"

"In this house, it is you who cannot tolerate him."

How could someone like Yin Shuyi, who was like gold on the outside but rotten on the inside, tolerate anyone else competing with him for the family fortune?

Yin Huaiyu took after his father and understood the profit relationships of businessmen better: "You just feel that him dying inexplicably outside has caused the Yin Family to lose face, and furthermore, the Elder Council will suspect that you were the one who sent people to do it."

He spread his hands.

"Dad, why be hypocritical?"

"How many of us in this family are actually upright and honest?" Yin Huaiyu tugged at his collar carelessly: "It's fine to put on an act outside, but you're still acting in front of me?"