Chapter 37: 36 The Truth About Huang Qitao

36 The Truth About Huang Qitao

Li Jiahong suddenly rushed out of the house in a hurry, not caring that it was already past nine o'clock at night; the whole Li family found it strange.

"Perhaps there is an urgent matter," Jiang Gu comforted the worried Li father and mother, saying, then sent them back to their own rooms to rest, indicating she would wait in the living room for a while, and would go to sleep in the room if she got tired.

Li father and mother hoped that Jiang Gu, who had just recovered from a serious illness, could get a good rest; hearing their daughter-in-law say this, they felt at ease.

After seeing Li father and mother return to their rooms, Jiang Gu sat in the living room for a while, until she heard the thunderous snoring of the two elderly people coming from their room; only then did she suddenly stand up, walk back to her room, and carefully close the door.

She took a deep breath, opened her suitcase, and after digging out a towel brought back from the hospital, she unfolded the square-folded towel, revealing the densely packed feathers wrapped inside—one, two, three... countless.

"I was beyond saving long ago," Jiang Gu said to herself with a calm expression.

She then took one of the feathers from inside, the thickest Black-edged White Feather she had obtained at the very beginning, and gripped it tightly in her hand, her breathing gradually becoming heavy.

The desk lamp cast Jiang Gu's shadow; one could see Jiang Gu gripping the feather with both hands, suddenly stabbing the feather into her chest, and immediately her figure suddenly distorted, her head enlarged, her arms twisted like a fracture, and wing-like structures slowly enlarged and spread from under her armpits, until both hands disappeared, replaced by a pair of huge, full wings...

Thump, thump, thump!

After the knocking, the owner of the house opened the door. Looking at the three men in black appearing outside, Huang Qitao frowned and asked suspiciously: "Who are you, and what is the matter?"

He Jia'an smiled and explained their purpose. Under the influence of Li Yingqi's hypnotic ability, Huang Qitao perceived the notebook He Jia'an presented as Enforcer credentials, so he mistakenly took the three of them for Enforcers and immediately changed his attitude, looking somewhat sheepish.

"Are you Enforcer comrades here because of what happened at the restaurant yesterday? I'm very sorry, I was a bit emotional at the time, I definitely won't do it next time," Huang Qitao said with a dry laugh, rubbing the back of his head.

He Jia'an smiled: "Mr. Huang, please calm down. Rest assured, we are not here for that matter yesterday, we just have a few words we would like to ask you."

Hearing this, Huang Qitao immediately relaxed and asked suspiciously: "Not because of yesterday? Then may I ask what it is about?"

"We are investigating a cold case of disappearance, which involves your late wife and missing daughter..." He Jia'an said in a calm tone.

But upon hearing this, Huang Qitao's face changed drastically, flickering between pale and dark. He clenched his fists, the veins on his forearms bulging, and said in a deep voice: "You are not Enforcers."

He Jia'an raised his eyebrows in surprise and said calmly: "But didn't you just see the credentials I showed you?"

"Although I don't know how you managed that, I am certain you are not Enforcers," Huang Qitao said with a heavy expression. "If you were local Enforcers, you wouldn't be investigating this case at all, because that is an agreement I made with the local Enforcers."

"You really do know some truth, Mr. Huang." He Jia'an simply laid his cards on the table, his face returning to a lazy, roguish look, as he pulled an unlit cigarette he had already chewed into a distorted shape from his pocket and put it back into his mouth.

Huang Qitao stepped back, clearing the way into the house, and invited them in: "Even though you are not Enforcers, I think you must be a special organization from the Shenzhou Region that specializes in handling special affairs."

Following Huang Qitao into the living room of his home, He Jia'an and the others did not let Huang Qitao go through the formalities of being a host; after asking for a few glasses of plain water, they asked Huang Qitao to tell them about his experiences.

"If I'm not mistaken, you came to me because of Li Jiahong, right?" Huang Qitao asked. Seeing the expressions of He Jia'an and the others, he immediately understood and shook his head, saying, "I told them not to investigate, and sure enough, they still got into trouble they shouldn't have touched."

"You actually knew long before Li Jiahong that your daughter's disappearance and your wife's death were not man-made, didn't you?" Li Yingqi asked, using a slight hypnotic suggestion.

"Heh." Huang Qitao laughed coldly, a trace of terror in his eyes. "After seeing with my own eyes that those monsters from the abyss could easily kill a van full of Enforcers, how could I not know just how crazy and evil the murderers who took my daughter and killed my wife were, and how fragile we humans are."

"My leg was lost at that time," Huang Qitao said in a deep voice. "This whole thing has to start from when I was sorting through my wife's belongings after she died."

"While sorting through her things, I flipped through the laptop she had abandoned after her college years. Out of curiosity, I opened it to check, and inadvertently discovered a document in her uncleared recycle bin. I opened it to look, and inside were all sorts of strange and inexplicable evil cult knowledge."

"I couldn't believe my wife had actually participated in these deviant organizational activities. I became curious about this, so I continued to scroll through the computer data my wife left behind, and finally discovered an unknown secret of hers."

"She had once held a summoning ritual for a certain evil creature with members of a college club, somewhat similar to the devil's bargains in Western legends, exchanging something for the realization of one's wishes."

"My wife was not a beautiful person before; she had an ugly birthmark on her face that wouldn't go away. I originally thought it was as she said, that she benefited from the help of a highly skilled doctor and had a cosmetic surgery to fix the flaw. I didn't expect that it was actually the result of that ritual transaction."

"My wife gained beauty, which attracted my attention, and only then did we develop a romantic relationship, and logically went on to marry and have children."

"My wife must have thought life after the transaction was smooth sailing, to the point that she forgot this was an unequal trade. To the point that when my daughter was three years old, those soul-bewitching demons took her life and snatched away my daughter."

"In order to find my daughter, I was also brave once, and tried to find Enforcers to help, but our high spirits at the time were actually just the ignorant arrogance of a mantis trying to stop a chariot. We were never going to be a match for that group of monsters."

"When we gathered all the clues and finally found those monsters, we inadvertently stepped into the resting place of those monsters, angered them, and subsequently paid an incomparably heavy price."

"The Enforcers who went to handle the case together at that time all died. We were easily manipulated by them like bugs; human bodies could be easily torn apart, bones could be simply snapped. I only managed to escape with my life with the help of an Enforcer who still had his wits about him, jumping off a cliff by the side of the road."

"I paid with a leg in exchange for my life."

Huang Qitao fell into painful memories, held his head, and said: "That's why I didn't want them to investigate; that's just throwing their lives away for nothing."