Chapter 28: The Demon Unleashed

My father suspected I wasn’t his son! At the time, I fully believed it.

Later, at home, I paid close attention, hoping to find the leftover medicine my grandmother never used up.

What am I doing? Hah! I’m going to follow my grandmother’s example and send the man I called Dad for over a decade to his grave!

Ever since my aunt told me that “secret,” she’d been hinting every few days that my father was plotting to kill me on some specific day.

So I had to save myself! The only way to save myself was to strike first! And since the old man was so ruthless, I couldn’t let him live—otherwise, my life was still in danger!

During that time, the person closest to me was my aunt. As for my mother, she was practically the least noticeable person in the house. After giving birth to me, for some reason, she never got pregnant again—which only strengthened my belief that I wasn’t my father’s son, that he couldn’t father children at all! This also reinforced my desire to poison him—he not only beat me, he beat my mother too! So he had to die!

Not long after, I found a packet of mysterious powder. I secretly took it to my aunt; she glanced at it and said firmly: “Yes, that’s it—the same thing I saw your grandmother use.”

I was still young and didn’t think much about it—I slipped the packet into my pocket. One day, my father told me to go buy him liquor—only he and my grandfather drank at home, so I thought, Isn’t this my chance?

That night, I watched them drink up a full jin of white liquor laced with the powder—and no blood poured from their eyes, nose, or mouth like my aunt had described! I panicked. And that night, my aunt was nowhere to be found—she’d vanished.

Just as I didn’t know what to do, I saw them act as if nothing had happened and collapsed into bed. Seeing no reaction, I slowly calmed down, wondering if the poison had expired.

Two days later, in the morning, my grandfather suddenly started bleeding from his mouth and nose—then my father began bleeding from his gums, and soon after, like my grandfather, he started bleeding from his nose too.

Both panicked, but the old man had experience—he froze for a moment, then said, “We’ve been poisoned!” At that moment, I saw a cruel gleam flash in his eyes, fixed on my aunt. When I heard him say he and my father had been poisoned, I trembled. My grandfather and father hadn’t noticed me—but then my aunt suddenly shrieked: “I know who poisoned you two!”

I nearly died of fear! I didn’t understand why this aunt, who’d just been so kind to me, had turned on me—I saw her finger point straight at me.

Do you know how I felt in that moment?

I felt like I was already dead! My father knew I’d tried to poison him and his father—do you think I could survive?

My mind went blank. My limbs shook uncontrollably. My whole body went limp, powerless! I thought: It’s over—I’m dead! I didn’t even wonder why my aunt had done this.

As I stood frozen, I saw my grandfather suddenly convulse—within moments, he collapsed to the floor. My father rushed over to help him up, but as soon as he bent down, he thudded to the ground too.

Later, I learned the powder wasn’t the poison that killed my grandmother—it was rat poison. Drinking it would cause symptoms, but back then, especially in our remote area, no one had any awareness of poisoning. By the time symptoms became obvious, it was already too late to save them.

“Clang!” Liu Baoshan raised his hand, drained his cup, and slammed it onto the table.

“So… did they both die?” Ren Jiahe felt Liu Baoshan’s grandfather and father must have been poisoned, but he couldn’t help asking.

“Heh. What do you think? Do you think I’d be alive telling you this if they hadn’t?”

Ren Jiahe gripped his chopsticks tightly. Unbelievable! There were families like this? Events like this? All monsters!

He forced a nervous laugh: “Brother Shan, I never imagined you had it so hard growing up…”

“Hah! Hahahaha! I’m 35 now, and 17 of those years were spent behind bars! That year, I poisoned my grandfather and father—then my aunt turned me in! Hah! So ridiculous! I ended up in juvenile reform school—just like that! I stayed there for ten years! Ten years! My youth was wasted inside those high walls.

But those ten years taught me one thing: My mother, that pitiful woman who lived her whole life in silence, fell seriously ill after I was arrested. No one cared for her. Somehow, she survived—but from then on, she was permanently broken. She didn’t die until I got out. Before she passed, she told me: I really wasn’t my father’s son. I was conceived before she married him. I asked who my real father was—but she refused to say. She just left. Hah! Isn’t that funny? Isn’t it tragic? I’m a bastard! Even now, I don’t know who my real father is! Hahahahaha!”

“Brother Shan… maybe your mother said that on purpose?” Ren Jiahe whispered.

“What do you mean?” Liu Baoshan’s eyes rolled, a dark, vicious aura surging toward him: “What are you trying to imply?! Listen to me—don’t pretend to be clever!”

Ren Jiahe suddenly understood the meaning behind Liu Baoshan’s words—cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He looked up at Liu Baoshan, whose cold, sinister eyes glowed like a demon’s.

He grinned: “Yes! You figured it out! I poisoned my own father and my own grandfather! And the one who manipulated me? My own aunt! What a fucking insane family!”

After my mother passed, my aunt one winter morning accidentally fell into an ice hole in the Songhua River—and never came back up. From that day on, I had no ties left. And from that day on, I began preparing—to make a fortune. My life was already ruined. Living for the moment was all that mattered.

I considered many ways: robbing banks, stealing from jewelry stores. Then, by chance, I saw a movie about Zhang Qiang. His actions suited me perfectly. So after I got out of prison again, I headed south—I’d heard there were more big bosses down there, and people were more afraid of dying. I started in Yunnan Province, but the bosses there were too small—I only got a little money. I figured that wasn’t really the south, so I kept going south, to Nanjiang Province. I saw it was much richer than Yunnan, so I planned to hit big here.