Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Fourteen minutes remained until the end of the review.
Qiao Yu scrolled through the WeChat chat history between Hou Yong and Doctor Zhuang.
[Hou Yong: Doctor Zhuang, Xiaoqin is making a fuss about going to a major hospital for an examination. What should I do? Maybe I should just tell her the truth. I believe she can understand me.]
[Doctor Zhuang: I advise you not to do that. You know how much Li Xiaoqin wants a child. If she finds out that the one who is actually infertile is you, she will definitely divorce you. Do you want to lose her?]
[Hou Yong: But seeing her look so guilty makes me feel terrible. I’m afraid she might do something drastic.]
[Doctor Zhuang: If you’re really worried, I can try to give her some psychological counseling. I’ve studied psychology extensively.]
[Hou Yong: Really? Thank you, Doctor Zhuang. Thank you so much!]
With thirteen minutes left, Li Xiaoqin tilted her head. Man-Eating Crocodile let out a miserable shriek and scrambled over to Qiao Yu’s side, quickly grabbing the hem of his shirt.
Qiao Yu didn’t have time to deal with him. He scrolled to the bottom of the chat list and found the records between the Landlord Ghost and Doctor Zhuang.
[Doctor Zhuang: Dad, is there an underground casino nearby?]
[Zhuang Daqiang: There is. Why?]
[Doctor Zhuang: Find some time to take Hou Yong there for a few rounds.]
[Zhuang Daqiang: Huh? Why?]
[Doctor Zhuang: Just take him. I’ll explain it to you later.]
Next, he closed WeChat and opened the browser.
From the history, he pulled up a website with an eerie aesthetic-the Forbidden Arts Exchange Association.
Furthermore, Doctor Zhuang had placed an order through this website: [Eternal Life Curse.]
The date was fourteen years ago.
Twelve minutes remained. Qiao Yu closed the phone and gave Brother Crocodile a kick. “You’re going to tear my clothes.”
Man-Eating Crocodile was panting heavily, unable to even utter a full sentence, let alone let go.
Qiao Yu kicked him again, this time with a bit more force, and commanded with a serious expression, “Stand up! Now, repeat every word I say.”
Man-Eating Crocodile looked up at him and blinked, then stood up and nodded while hiding behind Qiao Yu.
Qiao Yu: “Are you ready?”
Brother Crocodile: “Are you ready?”
Qiao Yu’s face darkened. “You don’t need to repeat that part.”
Brother Crocodile sniffled. “You don’t need to repeat that part.”
Dammit!
Qiao Yu pressed his hand to his forehead in frustration. He decided not to waste any more time on such trifles and got straight to the point of the narrative. “Ping’an Apartment was built in 1998. The building has four floors and is constructed entirely of brick and wood. The owner’s name is Zhuang Daqiang.”
Man-Eating Crocodile kept his eyes fixed on his feet, not daring to look at Li Xiaoqin for even a second, fearing he would start stuttering out of terror during the review.
Fortunately, he didn’t drop the ball this time; otherwise, it was uncertain if they would have enough time.
Seeing this, Qiao Yu felt much more relieved and began to recount the storyline of the entire Instance with a focused mind. “Zhuang Daqiang’s son lived in Room 4001-the man everyone knows as Doctor Zhuang.”
“Doctor Zhuang’s medical skills were mediocre; the only thing he was actually good at was likely psychology. Furthermore, he was obsessed with the occult and had conducted extensive research into forbidden arts. He even purchased a forbidden technique called the Eternal Life Curse from a website. Unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to implement it. A Yin-Time Woman, the most vital medium for the Eternal Life Curse, is a rare find, so he temporarily set aside his research on the curse.”
“It wasn’t until three years later, on May 1, 2012, when you and Hou Yong moved in as a newlywed couple, that Doctor Zhuang saw a copy of your ID card at his father’s place. He discovered that you were the Yin-Time Woman he had been searching for all this time. He was ecstatic and began to set his plan in motion.”
“Doctor Zhuang quietly screened the tenants moving into the apartment complex. After four years of effort, he finally replaced the surrounding tenants with qualified Sacrifices required for the Eternal Life Curse. The requirements for a Sacrifice: longevity and Type O blood. This is because the purpose of the Eternal Life Curse is to borrow life-and that life is never returned!”
Qiao Yu’s voice was very calm. Man-Eating Crocodile repeated after him sentence by sentence, his emotions gradually stabilizing and his speech becoming more fluent as he went.
“During this time, the fact that you and Hou Yong had no children after four years of marriage caught Doctor Zhuang’s attention. First, he had Zhuang Daqiang plant a seed of doubt in your mind. Then, while Hou Yong was at the hospital for a check-up, he deliberately placed a massive order with the flower shop where you worked. You were too busy to get away, creating a clever time gap that allowed Hou Yong to learn he had varicocele-commonly known as infertility-before you could.”
“Upon learning of his condition, Hou Yong’s emotions collapsed. Doctor Zhuang deliberately befriended him and offered comfort. During this period, he also gave Hou Yong a psychological suggestion: that if you ever found out about his infertility, you would definitely divorce him.”
“You desperately wanted a child. As you repeatedly pressured Hou Yong to go to the hospital for tests, Doctor Zhuang gave Hou Yong a terrible idea: have him perform the examination on you and forge a fake medical report. As long as the fault lay with you, you wouldn’t blame Hou Yong; in fact, you would treat him even better and love him more.”
“Hou Yong believed him and put the plan into action.”
As Qiao Yu reached this point, Li Xiaoqin’s expression grew more distorted. However, restricted by the rules, she couldn’t attack the streamer during the review phase. She could only crawl restlessly across the walls, her fingers poking small, round, pitch-black holes into the surface.
Qiao Yu glanced at Li Xiaoqin. Seeing that there were only eight minutes left in the review, he picked up his pace. “Because of that medical report, you became distracted and mentally exhausted. Hou Yong was worried and asked Doctor Zhuang to help regulate your health. It was then that he gave you Chinese herbal medicine using his own flesh and blood as a medicinal primer. Because of these drugs, your emotions gradually began to grow unstable.”
“Later, after you took over the flower shop from the previous owner, you learned that she had been in almost the same situation as you, yet she had successfully conceived a child. This reignited your hope.”
“At the dinner table, you once again expressed your desire to go to the hospital for treatment. Fearing you would discover the truth, Hou Yong lost his temper. The long-term guilt of his deception was the final straw. Hou Yong considered confessing everything to you. Naturally, Doctor Zhuang wasn’t going to stand by and watch his schemes go down the drain. He stopped Hou Yong and proposed the idea of helping him maintain the lie while providing you with psychological counseling.”
“Guilt, anxiety, and fear created a rift between Hou Yong and you. The magnifying guilt even made him feel unable to return home, as he didn’t dare face you. While he was wandering outside the apartment, he ran into Zhuang Daqiang. Zhuang Daqiang took him to an underground casino. It was there that Hou Yong discovered he could temporarily cast aside his guilt and lift the heavy stone weighing on his heart. He could finally breathe.”
“Of course, this was also part of Doctor Zhuang’s plan. Only by deepening the misunderstanding between you could he push your mental state to the breaking point. This allowed him to perform the final and most critical step… hypnosis!”