Chapter 21: Blood Draw

It can’t be Li Cheng, right?

It seems like him.

Is it really Li Cheng?

Carrying heavy doubts, the Xue Jingming family followed the Bentley in their BMW 7 Series, passing through intersection after intersection, until both vehicles entered the gated community and the matter was settled.

Wei Caiyan parked the car downstairs; Li Cheng got out, took a folding bicycle from the trunk, parked it under the awning, and waved goodbye as the car drove off.

As soon as the Bentley left, the BMW slowly pulled up. The puzzled uncle rolled down his window, “Xiao Cheng, the car that dropped you off—”

“Oh, a classmate. She noticed I didn’t have an umbrella and let me ride home in her family’s car.”

Really just an ordinary classmate?

Xue Lingyu and Xue Luomeng exchanged a glance, both eyes filled with disbelief—they had noticed how Shao Wangshu looked at Li Cheng, far too warm for ordinary classmates.

The problem is, Li Cheng isn’t handsome enough to be breathtaking.

As for other factors—talent, appearance, physique, demeanor, thoughtfulness, or even the ability to charm girls with smooth talk—there are plenty at school who surpass him.

Like students in classes fifteen and sixteen, most of whom come from wealthy or powerful families and have long prepared to study abroad in Britain or America for prestige.

Many even hire etiquette tutors from childhood to teach social dancing, foreign languages, and art appreciation.

Look at Li Cheng—no matter how you think about it, it’s strange.

This confusion followed the Xue Jingming family home; even after Li Cheng finished bathing and went to sleep in his bedroom, Xue Luomeng, still working on homework in the study, couldn’t shake his doubts and picked up his phone to chat with a friend.

As a standard, idolized teenage beauty, Xue Luomeng had far more friends than Li Cheng, spanning from seventh to twelfth grade.

After a few gossip-filled exchanges, they learned Shao Wangshu was a transfer student—and that she had personally requested to sit next to Li Cheng.

“So… he’s been noticed by a gentle, beautiful, incredibly wealthy little tycoon?”

Xue Luomeng squinted, wearing the classic “subway, elderly person, phone” look of bewilderment.

“Jealous?”

Xue Lingyu, idly spinning a pen, looked up at his twin sister—he knew that when they were young, Xue Luomeng had been especially clingy to Li Cheng, constantly declaring she’d marry him when she grew up.

But as they grew older, she became shy, and for other reasons, their bond gradually cooled, until now they were practically strangers.

“Jealous? Pfft.”

Xue Luomeng lightly tapped Xue Lingyu’s head with a test paper, sneering, “I’m just curious—has this Shao Wangshu lost her mind?”

“Shao Wangshu?”

Xue Jingming, holding a goji berry tea cup and just passing by the study door, stopped, frowned, and asked the study, “Mengmeng, are you sure that girl’s surname is Shao?”

“Yeah, my friend found out. What’s wrong, Dad?”

“Nothing. It just sounds familiar—I think I’ve heard it before.”

Xue Jingming looked puzzled. He set the tea cup on the coffee table, sank into the sofa, and pulled out his Huawei flagship phone wrapped in a leather case to search the family group chat logs.

After a long while, he put down the Huawei, stunned, muttering, “It really is the Shao family.”

“What Shao family?”

Li Zhao, pulling clothes out of the Siemens dryer, asked casually.

“Remember when we used to return every Lunar New Year to the Xue ancestral home in Hangzhou for the clan meeting when Mengmeng and Lingyu were little?”

Li Zhao paused folding clothes. “I remember. What about it?”

As a family with over two centuries of lineage, the Xues held a clan meeting every New Year, gathering direct and collateral members to return home. If someone lived too far away, they came back only every five or ten years.

Of course, in modern society, the clan no longer serves the role once held by feudal-era local governance.

The meetings now mainly strengthen bonds, update the family genealogy, build ancestral halls, and allocate a small portion of the family business’s profits to each household.

Beyond that, it’s not much different from ordinary families visiting relatives during the holidays—just a bit more lively.

Xue Jingming said, “For several years, besides the Xues, many Shao family members also attended.”

Like the Xues, the Shaos were a major clan, with their ancestral home in Shanxi Province, two thousand li from Hangzhou—logically, they should have had nothing to do with each other. But for some reason, their relationship was unusually close, with direct members frequently meeting.

Xue Jingming had left his hometown early and never entered the family’s core circle, so he didn’t know the exact nature of their relationship. But one thing was certain—the Shao family was far richer than the Xue family.

Thinking of this, he picked up his phone again and searched for relevant information.

Found it: Jincheng Shaoyuan Energy Group Co., Ltd., founded in coal, now involved in power, coke, chemicals, steel, and mining.

Through acquisitions or joint ventures, they hold mining rights in Canada, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, and more—literally, they have mines at home. Annual revenue nearly ten billion, ranked among China’s top 500 enterprises.

The group’s patriarch, Shao Yingwu, is low-key, rarely appearing in the spotlight, and fiercely protective of his family—almost no photographic records exist.

After searching for a long time, he finally found an old family photo from a banquet long ago.

Beside Shao Yingwu sat three children: a boy and girl around thirteen, their expressions cold.

The youngest, about six years old, beamed with a smile, facial features faintly familiar.

“No way.”

————

“No way.”

The same exclamation echoed in the bedroom of the villa in Chengdong.

Shao Wangshu, already in her pajama dress, squeezed a blue-tongued skink like a stuffed toy, her face filled with shock.

“It is.”

Wei Caiyan sighed helplessly, imparting dating advice: “You were so enthusiastic today—giving him a ride home, suddenly presenting a birthday gift. Any guy would be startled, maybe even run away—how long have you two even known each other?”

Shao Wangshu corrected her: “Not days. Ten years.”

“He doesn’t remember you—that’s the same as days.”

Wei Caiyan sneered: “This kind of thing needs patience. Cast a long line to catch a big fish, understand?”

Ding-ding-ding—

The alarm on the desk suddenly rang. The mistress and maid froze, silently stopping their conversation, turning to look at the calendar on the wall.

Every seven days, a large red X was marked on the date.

Blood-drawing day had arrived.

Shao Wangshu silently returned her pet to the incubator, wiped her palms and backs of hands with a wet wipe, sat back down, and rolled up her pajama sleeves.

Her arms were as pale as jade, but the deltoid area of her upper arms was covered in scars.

Wei Caiyan tightly pressed her lips, took a metal medical box from the refrigerator, and pulled out a blood-drawing kit: “Two hundred cc?”

“Draw four hundred this time—take next week’s quota too. I’ve made plans with classmates to go to KTV next weekend. I don’t want them to see.”

Iodine was applied to her upper arm; the needle pierced her skin. Shao Wangshu’s crimson plasma flowed slowly through the tube into the blood bag, threaded with golden filaments radiating a burning warmth.

Her complexion rapidly turned pale.

“There. Get some rest.”

After the blood draw, Wei Caiyan gently carried Shao Wangshu back to bed, then placed the two blood bags into a metal ice box and carried the iron container downstairs.

Staff from Shaoyuan Energy Group had already been waiting downstairs. They took the box, turned, walked out of the villa, and drove off in an SUV without a single word exchanged.

This routine had continued for seventeen years.

(End of Chapter)