Chapter 79
Mrs. Qiao lunged at Feng Shan and Song Changrong, and the two of them fled in panic.
“Song Changrong! Block in front of me!” Feng Shan, without the slightest politeness, used Song Changrong as his shield, desperately pointing toward Lu Li as he shouted at Mrs. Qiao, “Go after him! The red coral in his hand is the biggest!”
Mrs. Qiao considered for two seconds.
She turned and charged at Lu Li.
“Give it to me!” Mrs. Qiao said. “What do you want? Tell me! Gold Brick, gemstones, a house… or women. Look at my Maid, isn’t she pretty? I’ll give her to you!”
Lu Li refused directly, “Thank you, but I don’t like women.”
Luo Jia Bai saw his expression-caught between inner conflict and sudden understanding-and asked, “So you like men?”
“I don’t like anyone,” Lu Li blinked. “I don’t have feelings.”
“Oh, emotional deficiency, right? Makes sense… A child raised in a rich family without parental love or friends can develop that kind of problem,” Luo Jia Bai mumbled quietly.
“Next time, don’t break your sentences with such dramatic breaths. Only people with strong hearts can talk to you.”
Lu Li smiled. “Alright.”
Luo Jia Bai said anxiously, “A Player who gave red coral to Feng Shan just died… and red coral is the only thing that can get us into the Noble District.”
To give, or not to give?
If they gave it, what could they get from Mrs. Qiao in exchange for their lives?
Lu Li said, “Let Mrs. Qiao choose for herself.”
He looked at Mrs. Qiao’s outstretched hand, took a mirror from his pocket, turned it, and held it up to the child in Mrs. Qiao’s arms.
“It’s not that the red coral isn’t big enough, it’s that the dead can’t come back to life.”
Lu Li calmly raised the mirror. “You don’t seem able to see things clearly. So look in this mirror-what exactly are you holding?”
“What is this?” Mrs. Qiao leaned closer.
She saw she was holding a skeleton.
“Ah-!” She was so terrified she threw the child to the ground, shrieking, “What is this! Where did you get that mirror!”
Lu Li moved forward with the mirror, Mrs. Qiao retreated step by step, sweat streaming from her face.
“Take it away! Don’t come any closer!”
The mirror turned toward Mr. Qiao not far away. Lu Li revealed Mrs. Qiao’s deepest wound. “You’ve discovered one truth. Why not have the patience to hear a few more?”
“Mr. Qiao, who is now calmly leaving with the Gold Brick, plans to divorce you in three days, kick you out, take the money transferred from your name, and live with the young and beautiful Maid. And when you have squandered the family fortune, you will become the most destitute person in the Rich District.”
Mrs. Qiao’s lips turned pale. “No, that’s impossible!”
“Every Maid has been your husband’s lover, and your child was killed by one of them. Mr. Qiao counts down the days, just waiting to divorce you.”
“The dead child is not your only regret in love-it’s a worm-eaten blemish on a shiny fruit. By the time you see the wormhole, the fruit is already completely rotten.”
Lu Li asked her, “Do you still think the key issue is whether the red coral is big enough?”
“No… Let me see, let me look again…”
Mrs. Qiao’s eyeball fell out, trailing bloody, blurry flesh, as she tried to get closer to the mirror.
In the mirror, she saw her beloved husband truly crawling with women.
One of the women was draped over Mr. Qiao’s shoulder.
She raised a provocative middle finger at Mrs. Qiao in the mirror.
Mrs. Qiao lost her mind. She stomped on the dead infant’s skeleton, shrieked, grabbed a kitchen knife from the table, and rushed at Mr. Qiao. “Get out! All of you, get out! You’re not allowed to live in my house!”
The whole house began to shake with Mrs. Qiao’s fury.
The tightly shut doors and windows all flung open as the house trembled.
Mrs. Qiao raged at the players, “You get out too! What are you all looking at? Are you here to laugh at me?”
Luo Jia Bai, clutching the red coral, said in shock, “Holy crap, c-can we leave now?”
Lu Li jumped down from the tall stool.
“Let’s go.”
When he reached the doorway, he looked back.
He saw Mrs. Qiao push Mr. Qiao to the ground and stab his lower body over and over with the kitchen knife.
“You want me to live without dignity? Then I won’t let you have it easy either, Qiao!”
Mr. Qiao fought back fiercely, grabbing Mrs. Qiao’s head and smashing it against the dining table. “Crazy woman! Ugly and fat-I could never love you! Every time we took a photo together, I wanted to puke!”
Mrs. Qiao sobbed, “It’s fake! Everything at home is fake! Even your love for me is fake!”
Lu Li held the mirror up to the two ludicrous figures, as if, through the mirror, he was speaking to the Hunter child who had drawn the cards: “Love cannot be measured. You see, even if you get the highest score, in the end you still stab each other with knives.”
–
After the players left.
The Sea Demon dragged a hunting rifle and walked into the house.
Waterproof rubber boots left trails of clean seawater on the floor.
The hunting rifle carved a long streak of water across the ground.
The moment he stepped inside, he saw chaos everywhere.
Two blood-soaked humans tangled together-you stab me with a knife, I punch you with my fist.
The victorious woman crawled on her knees to a child’s skeleton, pried open its jaws, and dug out a red coral from inside.
Bathed in the light, the woman raised the red coral high, gazing obsessively at its beautiful glow, laughing maniacally, “I won! If there’s no love, then so be it. With this red coral, I can become one of the Nobles!”
A Maid still cowered, trembling by the dining table.
There was a sound at the door. The woman looked over, annoyed. “Who are you? This is my house! Maid! Hurry and throw him out!”
The Sea Demon did not stop.
He saw the house’s roof begin to collapse, several shafts of Moonlight shining precisely through the cracks, illuminating the dying man on the floor, the crazed woman, and the Maid who was nearly fainting from fear.
The Sea Demon said, “The Moon guides my path, leading me to the guilty. That’s why I have come here.”
The cold muzzle of the hunting rifle pointed at the woman’s head. He asked:
“Are you the one who stole my Heart?”