Chapter 30

The cellar was very dark, and there was a strange smell. Pei Jie couldn’t describe it; it was like a mix of seawater and fermented grass.

Outside the cellar, faint voices from the phone could be heard: “You say you want to return to the family? Don’t be ridiculous, 63. Do you think we don’t know your true nature?”

“You don’t really enjoy or care about having a family. You’re just greedy, unwilling to give up. You know that many people see the perfect family as an achievement, using it as the basis for building their social reputation. You need a family just as you would need to be a mercenary grabbing gold and treasures. You just want what others want. In times of war, you want wealth; in times of peace, you build a family. You want so badly to be human… Oh, not just to be human, but to be someone above others… You think you can make yourself someone in their eyes. You don’t just want to be human, but to be revered, to be above others. That’s the only way to fill the greed you have…”

—-

In the suffocating smell, Pei Jie saw four things in the cellar. They were hanging from hooks nailed to the ceiling, each with long arms and legs dangling down.

Finally, after seeing what they were, Pei Jie clutched his heart.

Ahhh!

“But all of this is useless. Pretending to be human won’t fill your greed! You have no tribe, you don’t belong to humans, and there’s no one like you in the sea! No one will truly accept you! When war comes, you’ll still be the one left behind!” The voice on the phone raised its tone, “The only place for you is as a mercenary!”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Lu Sen said.

Pei Jie took two steps back, and in the midst of shock and fear, he almost laughed—people really do laugh when they are terrified.

So this is the secret of this family! The wife wants to kill the husband, and the husband is a serial killer! He was feeling smug, thinking he had leverage to negotiate with Lu Sen.

Just then, a beam of light shone down from the top of the cellar. At that moment, Pei Jie saw the faces of the bodies hanging from the ceiling.

“Are you still angry? Angry that the old man signed a deal with the warlord behind your back? They promised you would be a war hero after the war. You sacrificed everything for that goal, becoming a pawn. After wandering for many years, you finally felt like you were part of them, like you had a place in history. After the war, they ascended to the presidency but erased your battle and your history because they knew they had deceived you. It was an unjust war. You feel tricked. They pretended you were one of their own, but in the end, you’re nothing.” The voice on the phone said, “My old bro, doesn’t that prove how much you’ve been deceived? You failed in the world of war and went to civilized society, trying to prove to the old man that you could be a better civilized person? So now you’re playing house with a perfect family?”

The tone on the other end changed, now sweet and coaxing: “I actually know why you’re doing this. They told me. Before you killed the old man, you kidnapped his family—the ones he had always bragged about controlling. You used your life to make them betray him, and they did. In front of the old man, you killed them all. So now, you want a perfect family to prove you’re better than the old man, better than the one you once saw as a master and friend…”

“You can’t use something that doesn’t exist in human society to prove you’re right. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that short-term plunder is better than long-term possession. Ten years from now, you’ll realize your wife is empty, shallow, and full of flaws, but as long as you keep stealing, every treasure you grab will be new, shiny and bright… What’s going on over there?”

Ahhh!

Pei Jie cried and sniveled as he crawled up the cellar stairs. He was wrong! He was really wrong!

He should never have gotten in that car. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been brought to Snow Mountain Town… This family is full of monsters!

The wife kills the husband, and the husband hides his own body in the basement.

And there were four bodies hidden!!

I was wrong! I was wrong! I shouldn’t have come! I shouldn’t have disturbed your peaceful life…

A beam of light illuminated Pei Jie’s tear-streaked face. He looked up, dazed, and saw Lu Sen backlit.

Lu Sen placed his phone on his lap, squatted down to look at him, his entire face covered in shadow: “How did you end up in my house?”

“Ha… ha…”

The ice pick he had picked up from the garden—just missed piercing Lu Sen’s heart. But before Pei Jie even realized, it had already been snatched out of his hands. Lu Sen effortlessly held the sharp ice pick, which Pei Jie had put all his strength into stabbing. His precise and swift movements were far more impressive than his clumsy housework skills.

If Lu Sen became a killer, he would definitely be at the top of his game… Lu Sen said, “Looks like I need to change your mind and throw you in the police station. Mouse.”

“Ah… ah…” Pei Jie suddenly screamed, the extreme fear breaking through his comprehension, “Don’t, don’t kill me! I have many secrets to tell you! I can help you! Important secrets for you!”

“What?”

“Your wife, your wife… she’s not a good person! She wants to kill…!” Pei Jie said.

Pei Jie tried to use this secret to bargain for Lu Sen’s cooperation in killing Bai Wei. But Lu Sen remained crouched, his hands on the ground, looking at him.

At that moment, Pei Jie saw Lu Sen’s expressionless face.

His expressionless demeanor was even more terrifying than usual.

“Bang!”

A dull sound of a pocket falling to the floor came from the phone. On the other end, Lu Sen’s former mercenary comrade furrowed his brows: “What are you doing over there? Or forget about that for now, I have a good business deal to introduce to you…”

“Stop saying that, give me the phone, I’m good friends with him!” Another mercenary grabbed the phone.

Dragging, bagging, and then dragging… After these noises, Lu Sen’s voice came through the receiver.

“You’re wrong. I did indeed kidnap the old man’s family to make them betray him. And they really did so. But when I took out my gun to kill them one by one, something unexpected happened.”

“I used a □□ handgun, a Model 17. I actually hadn’t used this gun in a long time. Those who know me well know that I’m better with a shotgun. I used it because I remembered the first time I met the old man. He saw me ambushing a soldier by the wall trying to steal food. He gave me this gun and said guns are more useful than hand-to-hand combat. Also, his son had the same gun.”

“The old man was cold and brutal. I admired him. He built himself from scratch, relying on robbery and schemes to overturn a regime in the middle of chaos, working with other warlords to become the second in command. The old man had taste, too. When I was picking up cigarettes from a soldier’s pocket, he took my cigarette and told me that real men should smoke cigars. I always thought he was a very formidable person. His parents abandoned him, his old team didn’t want him, he was an orphan, and yet he survived after being pushed to the brink of death, making a comeback in his later years. There’s something you got wrong, I didn’t take him as my master. I knew he only used people.”

“Back then, I wanted to become someone like him. When I told him his family betrayed him, he didn’t even cry. He stared at them, and if I hadn’t fired, he would have killed them.”

“The handgun had ten rounds. I gave the others nine, and the last one was supposed to go into his son’s forehead. Then I would change the magazine and give him the final shot. But when I aimed at his son, he stepped in front of him, the son who betrayed him.”

“The tenth bullet went straight into his heart.”

“I looked at him, thinking he would beg for mercy. He didn’t. I thought he would talk to his son, but he didn’t. He looked at me, blood between his teeth, but he smiled. A smug, arrogant smile. He said, ’63, I told you money is the most important, I told you family is for showing off. But I tell you, you will never be happy. You live in a place full of war, you always steal things and throw them away. I see jealousy in your eyes, and that’s enough for me. I can already tell that you will never be a person, and you will never be happy.'”

“He once told me that money is everything, but now he tells me I’ll never be happy. Before I fled into the sea, I burned his mansion, a mansion worth hundreds of millions, the burning money accompanied him in the grave. While I was in the sea, I thought maybe he knew that this country is full of war, so burning the mansion didn’t matter to him. After all, it might soon be destroyed by missiles, but a civilized society is different…”

“My God, you’re like a poet.” The mercenary on the other end couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed his head, unable to imagine that he invited a former expert to join him, only to end up with such a bitter outcome. “Did you take up literature and arts at Harvard in these years? Your biggest problem is that you think too much. Hurry up and come back. Your wounds should be healed by now. Let’s get our adrenaline going again, the dopamine from robbing things will soon overshadow all your philosophical thoughts…”

Lu Sen stood by a small stream. He threw the sack into the river. The sack floated away with the current. Holding the phone, the evening sunlight cast a blood-like glow on his body.

“I know my wife is not perfect,” he said. “The things just stolen are the latest and best. For example, items that even if you don’t use them, after being stored in a safe for a long time, will rust. I’m careful, using the best temperature-controlled and sealed systems, but I can only watch as layers of rust form on the metal, the canvas becoming more and more mottled. Even if I scrub away the surface rust, the things I own are fewer and less valuable…”

“That’s why we have to keep stealing, right? Boss! Is this enough for you to want to retire?”

“I initially thought people weren’t like that. I’ve done my best to pick the one with no rust on the surface. But people are different. People look shiny and bright, but once you scrape the surface, even just a little, you find rust all over beneath the flawless exterior. Some of this rust has been there from the start, while some you make by scraping. It’s as if people are like things, the more you scrape, the worse the quality becomes, and the more you interact, the more you lose…”

“Boss, I don’t understand your analogy, and I don’t know what happened in your life. But your words sound like you’re having issues with your wife. I knew it would be like this!” The mercenary slapped his thigh. “There’s a saying, out with the old, in with the new. If what’s in front of you isn’t good, just throw it away. The next phase of romance will be better! Besides, you’re not like us, you can switch wives 200 times in your lifetime!”

“No.”

“Ah?”

“But I don’t think those rust spots are bad. They’re different from jewelry. When jewelry loses its shine, it’s just scrap, and I would polish it to remove the rust. But when he gets a little rust, I feel heartbroken. I want to polish it off to make him shiny and more beautiful than before, but I worry that doing so will hurt him.” Lu Sen shook his head. “He’s definitely not perfect, but don’t come to me again. I believe that if I’m with him, we’ll have a bright future together.”

“Bro, aren’t you upset with being with someone imperfect? And besides, you could just break up and try again. In a few years, he’ll come back with a new look, and you can start fresh, with even more passion than before. Even if you’re being a bit of a villain, there’s fun in that!”

“Then who’s going to give him back the time he’s lost over these years?” Lu Sen retorted.

The mercenary was taken aback. After a long pause, he said, “Buddy, have you lost your mind…” and then his phone was snatched away.

The cold voice returned: “What’s the difference between you and gambling on stones?”

Lu Sen answered, “Every piece of him is not scrap, but you are.”

The voice on the other end was choked for a moment, then it said angrily, “You’ll regret this sooner or later. You’re a monster yourself. Why do you think you and another imperfect person can have a future? Even with a competitive spirit, you should have more sense.”

“Moreover, he’s covered in rust.”

Lu Sen: “Get lost.”

Incoming call: “And are you really in love with him, or is it just because of your competitive spirit?”

Lu Sen only left him with a blacklisted number.

Lu Sen stood by the river, watching the human-shaped package drifting in the turbulent water. Suddenly, he was filled with rage and wanted to pull out his gun and shoot him several times.

In the end, he held back.

“What I like is perfect.” After a shift in his facial expression, he suddenly said, “Stop spreading rumors here.”

“Besides, it’s normal for a wife to argue over daily matters and say she wants to kill her husband. That person must be spreading rumors.”

“As long as I can tolerate this little bit of rust and slowly melt it away, I will uncover more beautiful gold, and everyone will think we’re a perfect match.”

He suddenly felt happy and ran home by the creek. On the way, he passed by the white mansion again. That was the dentist’s house in town. For a moment, all his memories became clear. Everyone in town said they were the perfect family. The husband was successful, a doctor, the wife was gentle and beautiful, a nurse, and they had a boy and a girl who inherited the family property. Lu Sen had originally considered it unrelated news, but at this moment, he felt a sense of competition.

He wanted to prove that his family would live better than any other family!

As long as he could remove Bai Wei’s rust and make them appear harmonious and perfect, who could say they weren’t the most perfect family?

On the other side, Bai Wei had already been waiting in the hospital room for three hours.

Bai Wei: …

A 20-minute trip, where did Lu Sen go?!

Though he knew Lu Sen was a monster and he shouldn’t be angry with him but rather feel fear, Bai Wei still had the urge to call and scold him. In the end, he coldly put his phone away and thought: I’ll just wait and see when you come back.

I’ll see when you decide to come back. If you have the guts, never come back!

…Could it be that Lu Sen fell into one of the deadly traps in the garden?

As Bai Wei’s thoughts shifted to this third possibility, ready to call and ask, noisy voices suddenly came from the door of the hospital room.

“Dr. Ren!”

“It’s Dr. Ren, the young one!”

Compliments filled the air, revealing that this person was quite popular. The newcomer wore a white coat, gold-rimmed glasses, and a warm smile. He stepped into the room.

When he saw Bai Wei, he raised an eyebrow in slight confusion but then smiled.

“Bai Wei, when I saw your name on the patient list, I thought I was seeing things.” He looked at Bai Wei with an enthusiastic expression, as if Bai Wei were an old friend he hadn’t seen for a long time. “Long time no see, junior.”