Chapter 167: Not going to let them off…
No one could fathom just how Xia Fei had acquired such deep knowledge of a.s.sa.s.sinations at his age. He managed to claim that he had once met a retired a.s.sa.s.sin when he was in the Wild Star Region, who had talked to him about the things he had gotten into when he was younger.
Though the three brothers from the Ling family were still skeptical over the veracity of his claim, they had no way of disproving it. After all, none of them knew anything about the Wild Star Region.
Xia Fei thought about this for a while and ultimately decided to inform Thuram about how Ling Feng had gotten injured. The sibling trio was still his men at the end of the day, and he ought to show due respect by keeping Thuram in the loop of what had just happened.
Thuram did not say a word. Aside from giving Ling Feng a few days off, he got another speed ability user by the name of Philip to take over his work. Additionally, he told Xia Fei to contact him whenever he needed more people. It was apparent that Thuram was paying greater attention to the situation with the reappearance of a.s.sa.s.sins.
It was already late into the night after sending off the Ling brothers. Xia Fei returned to the hospital owned by the Jian family and immediately spotted an old man standing straight-backed next to an Acacia tree by the roadside.
Xia Fei flashed a slight smile as he walked over. “Were you waiting for me?”
Pang Hai nodded and gestured the way forward. Xia Fei knowingly walked along with Pang Hai. The road was devoid of any pedestrians this early in the morning. The lighting was dim and a stirring, slight breeze sent the yellow leaves flying.
Neither man said a word as they continued to walk onward. Turning a corner into a stall that was selling supper, the business of this food kiosk looked bleak, with not even a single patron in sight. Pang Hai ordered a few sticks of barbecued fish and two bowls of porridge to go along with it.
Xia Fei was already famished after everything that had happened this past night, eating five bowls of porridge and seven sticks of barbecued fish at one sitting before stopping. Xia Fei then lit a cigarette and took a few puffs with satisfaction, awaiting Pang Hai to get to the topic. Indubitably, the butler of the Jian family would not simply be looking to treat him to a meal this late at night.
Pang Hai ate very slowly, a stark contrast from Xia Fei, who was gorging himself. He used a metal spoon and took small mouthfuls of the food, chewing each bite carefully. He did not look like he was eating a bowl of porridge but more like he was tasting some delicacy.
“Barty had quite the appet.i.te when he was younger as well, though he would always add citrus sugar and meat floss to his porridge. The two of you are different in this aspect; you’re not picky with your food.” Pang Hai used a napkin and dabbed his mouth clean as he spoke.
Xia Fei pursed his lips. “I was born poor, so I don’t have any right to be picky with my food. Just being able to eat my fill is already good enough for me. Besides, there’s nothing else we have in common.”
Xia Fei was quite surprised to hear Pang Hai mention Barty from the get-go, but he did not show it outwardly. There was no way Xia Fei would agree with being compared to the twisted Barty, which was why he had calmly refuted it.
Pang Hai stood up and left with Xia Fei, continuing down the road, not returning to the hospital yet.
“Barty was actually a very decent person in his youth. I watched him grow up, so I am very certain of this fact,” Pang Hai said.
“Perhaps, but I’m not interested in the past. To me, it is the present and the future that matter the most. ” Xia Fei managed to figure out what Pang Hai was driving at from his words so far, so he chose to express his stance carefully. “Avril’s a good girl, and there’s no reason for her to be harmed. No matter what I end up uncovering, the result will just be the same.”
Pang Hai sighed. “Do you know about Zhou Yuqing?”
Xia Fei nodded. “Yes, I did learn about her. No wonder you were nowhere to be found these last few days. Seems like you didn’t waste any time.”
“What do you plan to do?”
Xia Fei chuckledm “Some things can’t be decided by me. You should ask Barty what he plans to do.”
Pang Hai’s turbid two eyes s.h.i.+fted onto Xia Fei. “Barty’s not the one doing it.”
Xia Fei came to an abrupt halt, gravely saying, “Since our conversation has gotten to this point, why don’t you come clean about what you know? There’s no need to beat around the bush anymore.
“Were those men who appeared at Blackwater Lake yours?”
“Some were. Some weren’t. How did you know?”
“Protecting every member of the family is my responsibility. You have your men, and I have mine, too. It’s only a pity that this butler here didn’t manage to do a good job about it.”
Hearing Pang Hai’s self-depreciating words, it was evident that he felt guilty about Avril nearly getting abducted.
Xia Fei lit a cigarette as he continued to listen silently.
“Twenty-seven years ago, Barty followed some of his friends to wh.o.r.e around, and he got to know Zhou Yuqing, who was two years younger than him, from a brothel. Barty felt it was quite pitiful for someone of her young age to be in that line of work, so he bought Zhou Yuqing and brought her to his newly acquired property outside.
Every day, Barty would head over to find her; the two spent over a year living the life of a married couple without any incident. However, one day, Zhou Yuqing suddenly disappeared, and Barty could not find her no matter how hard he searched.
“Barty was depressed for a long time as a result. He began clubbing, partying, all night. It was during one night of such drunken revelry when he found himself getting into a hovercar to take part in a midnight racing, which caused him to forever lose his lower limbs.”
When Pang Hai got to the part about Barty losing both his legs as a result of the racing, Xia Fei could see his eyes redden ever so slightly, and his tone became filled with self-blame.
Xia Fei had not imagined that the relations.h.i.+p between Zhou Yuqing and Barty could be so complicated. A rich young master pitying a young lady trapped in a brothel, taking her in to be his companion, but as feelings gradually blossomed between the two, Zhou Yuqing disappeared suddenly. Such an old-fas.h.i.+oned story was usually reserved for a romance novel rather than real life.
“Since Zhou Yuqing chose to leave, why did she end up coming back?” Xia Fei wondered out loud.
Pang Hai furrowed his brows. “I don’t get it, either. There hadn’t been a word or message from Zhou Yuqing for over two decades before she suddenly resurfaced seven months ago, and she even brought a mentally disabled child in tow. She claimed that the boy is Barty’s flesh and blood, but unfortunately, the boy isn’t just mentally disabled but also has dwarfism. Despite this, Barty still cares a great deal about his son. After all, having a child of his own used to be only an elusive dream to his.
“I got someone to investigate where Zhou Yuqing had been all those years, but there hasn’t yet been any update. Even the customs records showed nothing.”
Xia Fei shook his head. “Customs records aren’t the end all be all. Not having a record only proves that she hasn’t gone to any of the civilized planets over the past twenty years. From what I gathered, there are plenty of extremely backward planets in the Alliance. As such, the lack of records can also mean that she ended up on some primitive planets, instead.
Thinking about this for some time, Xia Fei then asked, “Have you done a paternity test on Pan yet?”
“We did, and the results we got showed a 99.9999% match that Pan is Barty’s child,” Pang Hai replied.
“You’ve always known about Barty and Zhou Yuqing, so why didn’t you try and stop them?”
Pang Hai sighed. “The young master of a major family is different from that of a normal household. Having one or two ladies squirreled away for such clandestine affairs isn’t out of the ordinary. As long as he didn’t engage in anything too outrageous, I’d normally not intervene.”
What Pang Hai said was not without reason. Though young masters of major families received great education and upbringing, looking like they were well-read and reasonable, possessing greater insights greater than the average person, they would actually often find themselves picking up fairly repulsive habits, so what would having dalliances with women be in a household like the Jian family?
It was just that Barty’s habits presently were no longer limited to playing around with women; at this point, his mental state had become completely warped that even savage beasts would be daunted by the cruelty and darkness in him; how could he still be considered human? To say that he was a beast would instead be an insult to beasts.
Xia Fei suddenly chuckled. “Something I couldn’t make sense of is why you’re defending Barty, even though Barty is without a doubt the most suspicious of orchestrating the attempted kidnapping on Avri. Don’t tell me that your concern for Barty exceeds your care for Avril?”
The moment Avril was mentioned, Xia Fei’s tone very obviously lost all politeness, sounding somewhat cold. Furthermore, a shade of killing intent could be detected in his words; not only did he plan to slay the person who had ill-intentions toward Avril, he also wanted his accomplices to share the same fate. This was the fundamental concept that Xia Fei’s belief stemmed from.
Though Pang Hai had indeed toiled hard and given his all in taking care of Avril for sixteen years, Xia Fei would still not hesitate to kill the old man where he stood if proven to be an enemy. There was no room for negotiation in this matter. Xia Fei firmly believed that the friend of an enemy was an enemy of his as well.
Pang Hai dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “I’m not trying to exonerate anyone here. I’ve been taking care of Avril since the day she was born, and I consider her as my granddaughter. I won’t hesitate to deal with anyone mercilessly if they try to do harm on Avril. I came here looking for you today solely to speak about a simple truth: Barty wasn’t the one behind that incident.”
“Give me proof.” Xia Fei extended one hand out. He had always been a skeptic, and he would not believe a word of Pang Hai without any tangible evidence.
Unexpectedly, Pang Hai brushed a finger on his spatial ring and retrieved a microcomputer, handing it over to Xia Fei.
“Listed inside are all of Barton’s activities for this whole year. The time he woke up every day, the time he had his breakfast, what he ate, where he went, who he met—everything was recorded inside without leaving out even the tiniest detail. Take your time to read through it, and when you’re done, you’ll know that Barty truly took no part in the attempted kidnapping of Avril.”
Xia Fei knitted his eyebrows into a frown. “You had someone follow Barty?”
Pang Hai looked slightly guilty as he spoke frankly. “It’s fine if you think I had someone follow him. If you must know, the Jian family is one of the wealthiest families in the entire Alliance. The things such a household gets into aren’t something commoners can easily understand. They live in a completely different world from you and your kind.”
Xia Fei’s hand trembled slightly as he took that microcomputer. This was what it meant to be the wealthiest. Now, he truly understood what the saying, ‘The rich and powerful families are as deep as the sea,’ meant.
Even eating and sleeping were under heavy supervision. Just where would the freedom in that?
Without a doubt, Pang Hai was actually able to pull out a whole year’s worth of Barty’s activity log, which meant that Newman and Avril’s every move and word would also be under Pang Hai’s watchful eyes. For someone’s life to be in the palm of another’s hands, it was a very frightening thought.
Xia Fei kept that microcomputer into his spatial ring as he began to make his way back.
“I’ll of course personally verify the truth of this information you’ve just given me. What you said just now rings true; I do indeed live in a completely different world compared to Avril. There are plenty of things I don’t understand, but none of that will hinder my decision to befriend her.”
Pang Hai’s face revealed a look of approval. “You’re very clever to have caught on to what I was trying to convey by reading between the lines.”
Xia Fei lit a cigarette and said in a grave tone, “In fact, I’ve even managed to pick up something else from your words; in the world of the wealthy and powerful, toying with human lives isn’t a big deal, and you’re hoping that I will let Barty pff regarding this.”
Pang Hai’s eyes shone. “Correct.”
Xia Fei suddenly laughed uproariously. “You don’t have to worry. Even if it has nothing to do with Avril and Barty, I will most definitely not let him off. It’s just as you said: I come from a different world to you people, so I don’t care about your rules and mentality even the slightest.”