Chapter 402: A Man Without Weakness

2022-05-20

What kind of person has no weakness? I honestly have no idea.

Wu Zui went through countless hardships, pouring all his effort into getting Shi Huacheng out. But even after Wu Zui pulled him out and they’d safely escaped, why did it end with the two of them drawing their knives on each other?

Compared to these two, no matter how cautious I tried to be, it just wasn’t enough. Up against them, I was left behind every time.

Suddenly, the two of them burst out laughing—like fated friends meeting for the first time, as if high mountains and flowing rivers had brought together Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi.

Shi Huacheng spoke first. Sitting atop the raft, he said, “Remember what I told you back then? If you want to have no weaknesses, then you can’t have feelings. The moment you care for someone, your hands are tied. I’ve only ever said this to two people—your sister Zhao Mingkun, and you.”

He shook his head. “But you were the only one who really understood. Your sister never got it, so she has weaknesses. One day, they’ll be her undoing. But you’re different. You have no weakness—and in my eyes, that’s your greatest strength.”

“Being emotionless.” Shi Huacheng seemed genuinely pleased. “Even in elementary school, you’d push your playmates for your own sake. And to avoid suspicion, you’d jump in right after. That’s the hardest kind of death to prove. You were brave, too—you killed someone you hated using a broken leg as the cost.”

Wu Zui smiled, replying in a strangely polite tone, “So, I should thank you, Father. You pushed me into an abyss, and down there I found out how much fun this world could really be. Without evil in the world, there’d be no such thing as good. If there’s no Satan, there’s no point to God, either.”

He pointed at himself. “I exist to highlight the world’s complexity. Otherwise, if everyone’s the same, humanity would never move forward. Survival of the fittest—that’s nature’s law, but people have just grown soft.”

“I’m going to guide humanity toward becoming the first without weakness,” Wu Zui continued. “If nearsightedness gets bad enough, the genes pass on, even if it wasn’t inherited. The same is true for people like me—if you’re coldhearted enough, that goes into your bloodline too. I’ll keep passing that gene down, generation after generation, until it changes all of humanity.”

The moment Shi Huacheng took Wu Zui in, his fate was sealed. He clung to this grim, twisted view of the world—and the world answered by giving him nothing but darkness in return.

For Wu Zui, darkness is his normal. If my own life straddles the line between black and white, he walks a night so deep there’s no light left. At the end of that road, he became something even darker.

Shi Huacheng couldn’t help but clap. “Marvelous, son. I’m honestly proud of you! Life works like this—it always takes away what means most to you. The moment you think you’re happy, life will smack you in the face.”

With those words, Shi Huacheng slapped Wu Zui hard across the face. The slap was loud enough to startle the hidden insects in the dark. Silence fell—all the chirping stopped. Only the echo of that slap lingered, hanging in the air like it refused to fade.

Even after being hit so brutally, Wu Zui didn’t so much as flinch. He just waited, watching Shi Huacheng, as if expecting more.

Shi Huacheng went on. “Remember that stinging slap—it’s life’s way. But even you still have weaknesses. From here on, you walk your path alone. Anyone can betray or abandon you, whenever, without warning or reason.”

He continued, “In this life, I loved two people most—my wife and my daughter. Really, I should’ve told both of you these things. You grew up side by side with my daughter, Little Stone, yet you never met him.”

As Shi Huacheng spoke, I realized he was finally about to reveal the truth behind events from seven years ago and even earlier—twenty years back.

Shi Huacheng spoke slowly, like sharing a story from long ago. “It all started decades ago, when I had a daughter. She was adorable. The three of us were happy back then, and I was still a genuinely good man. But soon after, the doctor diagnosed my daughter with an extremely rare form of leukemia. The cancer would spread as she grew. At best, she’d see ten. Nowhere in the world had a cure.”

“I felt like the sky was crashing down on me, but I still hoped that in those ten years, some place would find a way to save her. Unfortunately, the doctors said the odds were grim. Medical breakthroughs take ages to reach real people, and at that point, nothing worked for her illness.”

“Every day that passed brought her closer to death, and ten years just isn’t long. So I started working—partly to make sure we’d have money if a cure ever appeared, partly to get in touch with anyone studying cases like hers.”

“Ten years ago, I staged my own death. But Shao Shilin, that stubborn fool, refused to let go of the case. He wouldn’t rest till he found out everything. I nearly slipped up so many times, until finally someone lured him straight to me.”

Zhao Mingkun’s name flashed through my mind.

“To keep Shao Shilin from ruining my plans, I ordered Zhao Mingkun to bring in my best disciple. But she disagreed with me from the start. She knew the target had a tracker but brought Shao Shilin along anyway. That’s when I realized she’d betrayed me.”

Shi Huacheng let out a cold laugh. “Only then did I truly understand what weakness means. I actually realized it even earlier—when my daughter was three, while I was solving cases and establishing Tianyu. One winter, on my way home, something happened.”

Shi Huacheng looked at both of us. “That winter, I was heading home when two people—a man and a woman—suddenly blocked my way. Each of them held a baby in their arms.”

“Those two babies…was that me and Wu Zui?” I asked.

Shi Huacheng nodded. “Exactly. They were your parents. When there was nowhere left to run, your parents gave me your numbers—their cover was blown. They had no escape.”

“They hid me in the sewer and faced death with dignity. You two didn’t actually inherit any mental illness. But to keep you from crying out and exposing me, I covered both your mouths. That lack of oxygen is what changed your brains a little.”

“Looking back, I should have known Zhao Mingkun would betray me someday. But I kept her for a decade because I couldn’t let go. Once she joined me, she understood what she’d become. Maybe death was better than living like that. She took a baby outside and came back saying she’d abandoned it for fun. Maybe she thought you’d live an ordinary life.”

Hearing this, I finally understood why Zhao Mingkun’s feelings for me were always so complicated. She was the one who abandoned me. No wonder she kept things from me—but she never said a word.

She recognized me back in the Linfen underground labyrinth and begged me to stay out of these affairs, all so I could live like a normal person. But fate keeps rolling forward—here we are anyway. Maybe we were always destined to be different.

“She didn’t betray you—you betrayed her. When you took her in, she wanted to be good like you once were. Who knew you’d become such a monster? But she knew you spared her life. At twenty, she killed and did terrible things for you to repay her debt. That decade, until the day you were caught, her debt was settled. She deserved her own new life.”

I shouted in anger.

Shi Huacheng laughed. “That’s why you’re no match for us.”

He turned to Wu Zui. “Wu Zui, you’re my favorite child—and my greatest enemy. Killing you with my own hands means I will finally have no weaknesses left.”