Chapter 134

Meng Apo's fingers, like withered tree bark, twisted open the silk quilt embroidered with talismans. When she tucked in the corners, she brought up a few wisps of sandalwood ash, which floated into a tiny galaxy in the soft light.

Indeed, after the incident in the Yun Shen Secret Realm, Zhong Kui was clearly lacking energy. Purple-blue veins were faintly visible on her pale forehead. She lay down with sleepiness and actually fell asleep very quickly, her breathing as light as a hibernating snake.

Meng Apo settled Zhong Kui down, glanced at Qi Fei with annoyance, and waved her hand, which was like dry firewood. Her joints made a faint, crisp sound like bamboo stalks cracking, signaling him to leave.

Qi Fei was reluctant to leave. His toe ground a semi-circle on the threshold, but he couldn't resist Meng Apo's disgusted eviction, so he had to leave dejectedly. When the old-fashioned security door closed, it shook off the dust of years from the lintel, which fell on the back of his neck like snow particles.

The corridor of Guiyue Apartment was pitch black, and the smell of mold mixed with the smell of old oil fought in his nasal cavity. He walked downstairs slowly with his hands in his pockets, the sound of his heels hitting the concrete steps particularly clear in the middle of the night. Suddenly, the old woman's voice came from behind him unexpectedly: "Qi Fei~" It was like a rusty blade scraping across glass, scaring Qi Fei so much that he almost missed a step and fell down. The dull sound of his elbow hitting the iron railing lit up the voice-activated light.

When he turned his head, it was indeed Meng Apo. Her hunched figure was elongated by the dim yellow light, like a giant gecko crawling across the wall.

Qi Fei patted his chest: "Apo, you scared me to death. Is Zhong Kui looking for me?" His tail note carried a hope he himself loathed.

Meng Apo's shriveled lips remained tightly closed after listening to his question. A sound like an old bellows came from her throat, and she said bluntly: "That person looks a lot like you." The word "like" was ground into a bloody mess in Qi Fei's mind. His head "buzzed" and he was at a loss. He bit his back teeth so hard that his cheekbones twitched. Honestly, just now, Zhong Kui and Meng Apo had denied his sensory perception of the man in the surveillance in unison. Not only did he not feel offended, but he felt a sense of relief. For a long time, the way Qi Dongjun accused him of killing his own mother had always been like a magic cage, and the rusty iron bars had long since grown into his flesh.

"You didn't say that just now." Qi Fei denied it, unwilling to give up. His right hand unconsciously turned the red string on his wrist—that was his mother's relic.

"I don't want the Great Immortal to have problems because of this matter." Meng Apo's eyes flickered vaguely in the dim corridor with vertical pupils like a snake's, "You shouldn't have reminded her."

"Do you know that Zhong Xiaoyu identified me as the murderer?" Qi Fei asked vigilantly.

"I can hear their conversation." The copper coin earrings hanging from the old woman's earlobes suddenly shook.

"Them? You mean Zhong Kui and Zhong Xiaoyu?"

"Zhong Xiaoyu knows who you are." Meng Apo's aged voice echoed in the corridor. The spider in the corner stopped crawling, as if eavesdropping on their conversation.

Qi Fei heard a different meaning in Meng Apo's words. He knew that Zhong Xiaoyu didn't just know he was Qi Fei. The back of his neck suddenly stung, as if someone was pressing an ice pick against his spine.

But, who was he? Wasn't he just this person? Who else could he be?

Nothing was more confusing than the person involved himself.

Qi Fei tried to sort out the thoughts: "Apo, first of all, you, like me, think that the person in the surveillance looks very similar to me. Secondly, you, like me, suspect that this person is the real murderer who killed Zhong Xiaoyu's whole family?" Every word was like a nail pulled from his chest.

Meng Apo nodded: "The Great Immortal cannot be exposed to too many things related to Zhong Xiaoyu."

Qi Fei understood this sentence too: "You are afraid she will collapse."

"Or even die." Meng Apo said coldly, "If you love her, stay away from her."

Qi Fei didn't give more explanation for this. Matters of the heart are hard to explain clearly to outsiders. On the car ride back to Nancheng from Sanwu Town that day, a tacit understanding had already been reached between him and Zhong Kui. The image of Zhong Kui curled up in the passenger seat in his memory suddenly flashed. In just a blink of an eye, he seemed to see Zhong Kui covered in blood, and the blood beads on her hair tips rolling onto his gear shift... This illusory scene made Qi Fei feel a shock, and he almost stumbled.

Qi Fei would accompany Zhong Kui in her "death-defying" journey, but he would only keep these words in his heart. He swallowed all the warm and soft words, turning them into a hot piece of charcoal in his stomach.

After pondering for a moment, Qi Fei said: "Apo, I will definitely find out the truth about Zhong Xiaoyu. Only when the truth is revealed will Zhong Kui be safe."

He walked downstairs alone. The pale streetlights downstairs shone on swarms of midges, like dirty snow falling. The damp air stuck to the back of his neck like a dead man's palm. The restlessness of the spring chill mixed with the impending spring rain made his mood unable to calm down.

He asked himself countless times why someone as incredibly smart and beautiful as Zhong Kui would have a special fondness for him.

Now, that bond of blood and flesh that he could never get around seemed to make this term change to "poisonous fondness."

He—Qi Fei—had an inseparable relationship with the murderer who killed the Zhong family. The shadows of the plane trees in his memory twisted into claw marks on the wall.

The other him hiding behind the mask in the surveillance was using glass marbles to tell him clearly that the answer had to start from his childhood.

And his childhood now only had one witness left—Qi Dongjun. The night wind blew away the last two words, just like blowing away his mother's ashes from more than a decade ago.

The car sped toward the Luomeng River, and Qi Fei's foot could never lift from the accelerator.

That white little building seemed to emit a soft light in the pitch-black night. That was the gentle thought from the depths of Qi Fei's memory.

Everything came to an unsolvable, bloody end at the age of sixteen.

And he knew at this moment that his father, who had never been honest, was hiding even more things from him.

The cold rain of the spring chill fell in a drizzle.

The flower buds of the climbing roses outside the floor-to-ceiling window, just about to bloom, shivered in the wind and rain.

Inside the window, Lu Man looked through the glass at the lawn, which had some new green, and then her gaze fell on Qi Dongjun, who was sitting behind the desk.

"Old Qi, you turned down the meeting with the mayor specifically to wait for Qi Fei. Does he know?" Lu Man spoke up for Qi Dongjun.

Qi Dongjun looked through the materials in his hand without raising his head, as if he hadn't heard Lu Man's words.

Lu Man didn't say anything more. She knew that Qi Dongjun could let many things rot in his stomach, whether it was business or life.

The electric gate of the courtyard opened, and the car engine roared as it carried the rebellious son inside.

Qi Fei's sneakers splashed mud onto the lawn as he strode in, just like the days when he returned home from school without an umbrella in his youth.

The door was left ajar, waiting for him to open it himself.

Qi Dongjun, as usual, took off his reading glasses and looked at him: "You're back."