26. Unfilial

April 2, 2025, Budapest.

In the center of the Danube River, a luxurious cruise ship worth 7.6 billion RMB, belonging to the Royal Caribbean Company, hosted a charity auction late at night. When the auctioneer sealed the deal with a final hammer strike, gunshots pierced the eardrums of the crowd.

“Bang!”

As the auctioneer collapsed, shot, no one knew how these international criminals had broken in, nor who fired the first shot.

A bullet pierced the man’s forehead; his eyes widened without a sound as he rigidly fell from the platform.

Deer decorations hanging on the wall had their heads chopped off, and the hall splattered with blood.

“Help!”

“Run!”

The cruise ship instantly turned into a hell on earth. People screamed and scrambled to escape, and the ship, engulfed in rolling flames, burst into blinding flashes of fire!

The second gunshot followed the intimidation and laughter of the international criminal organization. Bullets pierced through explosive materials, breaking the hull. Swift water rushed into the hall, the cruise ship violently shook, and the collapse began!

“No! I have to wait for Cizhu!” A girl, led by a bodyguard through a hidden passage, jumped into a lifeboat. She cried, looking at the violently burning cruise ship.

She shouted, “Cizhu hasn’t come yet! Where did he go?! I have to wait for him!”

She couldn’t understand why this auction had attracted the attention of a criminal organization!

During the auction in the hall, the thugs aimed the second gun at Shen Cizhu, threatening to kill him.

At that moment, Shen Cizhu’s bodyguard took the shot for him.

Afterward, she couldn’t find Shen Cizhu.

She anxiously called out Shen Cizhu’s name, extremely distressed.

At this moment, Shen Cizhu was hidden by Xie Yan in a cabinet backstage at the casino. Xie Yan had been shot, and blood was still flowing.

Before boarding the ship, Shen Cizhu had not planned to bring any female companions because he knew any woman associated with him would be targeted by Xiao Fuchuan. But Xiao Fuchuan had stated that it was a rule.

Sheng Xiaoning had volunteered, and he had not agreed.

On the day before boarding, Xie Yan returned.

Xie Yan’s face was pale, as if he had just undergone surgery. Having lung cancer, he wasn’t expected to live long. After the surgery, he became even more gaunt, but his eyes remained gentle. It seemed he didn’t want Shen Cizhu to face Xiao Fuchuan alone, so he came along.

Xiao Fuchuan wanted to kill Shen Cizhu. Everything was aimed at Shen Cizhu, and Xie Yan’s protection couldn’t keep Shen Cizhu alive.

“Where’s the medicine?” Shen Cizhu’s green pupils were dull and lifeless, his long hair scattered on the ground. The transparent wrist bones were dripping blood.

He was surrounded by fire at the moment, and all he could see was the glaring and scorching flames.

His mother had died in a fire, and the trauma from his teenage years had left him in a state of shock. He needed medication.

“Give me the medicine.” He gripped Xie Yan’s forearm, trembling. “Xie Yan, I feel terrible.”

“It’ll get better soon, Zhuzhu. Don’t be afraid, I’m here with you.” Xie Yan fed the medication for treating mental illness to Shen Cizhu.

Shen Cizhu was still trembling, lacking the strength even to swallow the pills.

“Take it slowly, don’t rush. The Shen family has sent someone over. Can I carry you over there later?” He held Shen Cizhu in his arms, gently patting his back, his eyes reflecting blood and fire.

“I’ll take you home.” It was not suitable to stay here for long; they needed to leave as soon as possible.

Shen Cizhu looked at the blood on Xie Yan’s body. Xie Yan had been shot in the abdomen, the wound still bleeding. His tall and robust figure, veins bulging on his neck, endured intense pain. His face was filled with concern and comfort for Shen Cizhu.

“You shouldn’t have come…” Shen Cizhu’s lips twitched slightly, bitter. “This is my own business.”

Shen Cizhu knew he was undoubtedly doomed, but he still wanted to uncover the truth for his mother. Why did Xiao Fuchuan want to kill his mother?

Xiao Fuchuan…

Shen Cizhu silently repeated that name with hatred.

“I told you, I will protect you,” Xie Yan slowly reassured him. “No matter what, I will protect you, whether you still need me or not.”

Shen Cizhu averted his gaze.

He still remembered the scene when Xie Yan saw him and Xie Hou together that night.

In the year that followed, he never saw Xie Hou again.

Footsteps were heard outside the casino, faintly accompanied by the sound of bullets being loaded. The gangsters had found this place.

Shen Cizhu was about to get up, saying, “I’ll go with you.”

“Stay here.” Xie Yan suddenly covered Shen Cizhu’s lips, disregarding his struggles, and locked him in a safe. “I’ll be back soon.”

After saying something to the Shen family’s bodyguards through the communicator, Xie Yan crushed the communicator and stood up to leave the backstage and enter the casino lobby.

Click.

A revolver was pressed against Xie Yan’s forehead, emitting smoke.

“This is a really good place, motherf*cker!” the gangster said with a grin.
*words in italics are written in English in the raws

The high-level security door of the casino was silently breached by one of the gangsters, who greedily entered, looting everything and following the scent of blood to the backstage.

This group of international criminals had come to kill Shen Cizhu.

The escape attempt in the auction hall, where Xie Yan intercepted them, did not mean failure this time.

“Where did you hide him?” The gangster’s gaze stopped behind Xie Yan, at the safe.

“I’ll take you to find him.” Xie Yan raised his finger to the gun, smiling gently. His handsome face looked dangerous, like a wolf.

The gangster squinted warily.

Click.

A gun was loaded, and a bullet, accompanied by the rapid gunshot, burst out of the scorching muzzle, piercing through one person’s chest with great force as if it had penetrated the heart and penetrated the wall!

Shen Cizhu, inside the safe, heard the muffled sound of the body falling to the ground, followed by the gun hitting the ground, and then silence.

Who was it? Who died!

Shen Cizhu’s face turned pale. He covered his head, his pupils trembling violently, shrinking!

Xie Yan… No, it can’t be him! It can’t be him!

Inside the safe, it was already dark and lacking oxygen. When Shen Cizhu came out of the safe, he couldn’t see anything.

But on the ground, besides blood, there was nothing.

Everything in front of him was turning upside down, like a giant deep blue fish tank. In the fish tank, countless goldfish were swaying their huge tails towards him, with terrifying lips and tongues wide open, ready to devour him.

Boom! The surrounding area was ablaze, erupting into a thick blue starfire that consumed everything flammable, and explosive materials shattered with piercing screeches.

Unable to find Xie Yan’s body, not even that of the bandit.

It couldn’t be like this; even high temperatures couldn’t instantly incinerate the bodies without a trace.

Shen Cizhu felt as if he were suffocating. When he staggered, he vaguely heard someone calling his name:

“Shen Cizhu!” The man’s cold and rational voice remained extremely calm, as if he were never anxious or out of control.

Shen Cizhu thought it was Xie Yan coming back to find him, but this voice was unmistakably—

Xie Hou.

—Bang!

The helicopter engine roared outside the cruise ship, urgently hovering in the middle of the Danube River.

A young man in a suit and leather shoes descended onto the cruise ship’s observation deck.

On the banks of the Danube River, there were criminals surrounded by the police, and a crowd of people protected by the police.

“The cruise ship is sinking! Xie Hou! Don’t go in!” The dissuasive voices and alarm sounds intertwined, penetrating Xie Hou’s ears across the Danube River.

The heir of the influential Xiao family, who rose to fame at the age of nineteen, couldn’t afford the slightest mistake. But he personally entered the sea of flames!

The cruise ship teetered on the brink of collapse.

Xie Hou’s subordinates hurriedly landed on the cruise ship’s observation deck.

“Mr. Shen, and your brother, may be in great danger! Mr. Xie! Please don’t go in anymore!”

“No one expected a criminal organization to break into the cruise ship! It’s not your fault; you don’t have to risk your life!”

They desperately held onto his waist and arms, kneeling and begging him not to enter the casino, the area inside the cruise ship that suffered the most damage.

“The Shen family will handle everything! You don’t need to take risks!”

“The cruise ship is about to collapse, Mr. Xie!” The subordinate roared.

The scene before him was ablaze with towering flames. Xie Hou’s eyes were filled with the precarious state of the collapsing casino, the tragic sight of even the entrance collapsing. No one dared to guarantee if the people inside could still survive.

But Shen Cizhu was still in there!

“Mr. Xie—”

“Get out of the way.” Xie Hou coldly glanced at his subordinates. At this moment, his once handsome and aristocratic face was now burned into a demon’s crimson by the fire.

The casino was surrounded by fire, and the flames greedily engulfed everything.

Bodyguards and subordinates were unable to stop Xie Hou from barging in.

As Xie Hou entered the casino, each step he took was scorched by the burning flames.

Xiao Fuchuan, his father, intended to kill Shen Cizhu.

Xie Hou disobeyed Xiao Fuchuan’s command.

Through the circular communicator hanging on his ear, Xie Hou heard Xiao Fuchuan. His father spoke coldly to him, “Xie Hou, you are defying me. Without me, you will be nothing more than a rat in the gutter for the rest of your life, forever a lower-class person.”

“Even if I have nothing, I can still enter your circle. I don’t think I’m inferior to you, Father,” Xie Hou replied calmly. His gaze swept over the ruins of the casino; he was looking for someone.

“Do you think everything you have now is yours? Enjoying the taste of replacing the Shen family as the country’s top financial conglomerate? Without me, you can’t surpass him at all. You shouldn’t defy my orders.”

“I am not defying you. Perhaps, I am defying myself.” Xie Hou said to Xiao Fuchuan before closing the communicator.

“Your genes cannot nurture a loyal child. He will only become mad and cold, a demon, and also garbage. Father, we share the same blood, I am your son. This is something Mom didn’t have time to tell you.” Xie Hou spoke a rare truth.

He was not Shen Heng’s son.

He was Xiao Fuchuan’s son.

On the other side, Xiao Fuchuan’s fingers trembled slightly. This was an extremely rare loss of control for him, except when facing aside from Huang Chuan Die.

I am your son.

He was the son left behind by Huang Chuan Die.

“My dear… our son is betraying me. I should kill him, but I feel a bit reluctant.” Xiao Fuchuan caressed an old photo of Huang Chuan Die, lowered his eyes, “He is the child you gave birth to for me, right?”

He is not the one you left for Shen Heng but the one you left for me.

TN:
What a deranged creep, Xiao Fuchuan is.