Chapter 53: The Terrible Means
Chapter 53
"There\'s a strange man outside the school."
"He looks like a monster from a painting!"
"That must be someone\'s father."
As the dismissal bell rang, amidst the frightened whispers of her classmates, Li Xiaoya walked to the school gate with her little backpack.
Both students and parents coming to pick up their children instinctively gave the man in black a wide berth. In an instant, a clear divide formed.
So Li Xiaoya spotted him immediately!
Today, Li Xiaoya didn\'t have Sheng Yuxiao and others by her side. She had never had many friends at school, so she appeared quite alone.
The man in black also spotted her right away!
Their gazes met for a moment, one large and one small.
Then Li Xiaoya walked straight up to him.
"It seems you know who I am," said the man in black.
Li Xiaoya looked up at him. "I don\'t. What\'s your name?"
The man in black moved his lips slightly. "Wei Zhen."
Just as he finished speaking, he suddenly noticed camera flashes. Several crew members carrying cameras were approaching.
His expression changed slightly, and he took half a step back, but then forcibly stopped himself, probably realizing it was too late to hide now.
He asked coldly, "That Sheng Yuxiao isn\'t by your side, so why are these program crew members still following you? Shouldn\'t the main characters of this show be Sheng Yuxiao and that Li Qingqing?"
"Because I also signed a contract," Li Xiaoya replied calmly.
The man called "Wei Zhen" lowered his gaze, his tone even colder: "You should tell them that our upcoming conversation can\'t be recorded."
Li Xiaoya countered, "Why? Because it can\'t be said in broad daylight?"
Wei Zhen: "..."
By now, viewers were already asking questions.
[Who is this guy?]
[Wow, he looks fierce!]
[He doesn\'t look like a good person, and his conversation with Li Xiaoya is weird]
The students who had just left the school were also secretly looking back, and even their parents couldn\'t help but mutter quietly: "That couldn\'t be Li Xiaoya\'s runaway father, could it?"
"What are you talking about? I\'ve seen her father before. He\'s thin. How could he be as robust as this man? This one looks like a butcher."
"He even looks a bit foreign."
"Where would a foreigner come from in this poor place? Probably from an ethnic minority."
The parents\' discussions were still somewhat reasonable.
But the children\'s speculations had already become exaggerated: "Li Xiaoya not only got many brothers, a sister, and now she even has another dad! How come she has everything?"
"But my dad said that\'s not her father."
"Then it must be her second dad!"
"Now no one will dare to bully her... Her second dad looks like he could kill me with one punch!"
"Wang Xiaozhi, he could punch you into the wall and you wouldn\'t be able to peel yourself off! Wang Xiaozhi, are you scared?"
Hearing this, Wang Xiaozhi covered his ears in shame and ran away, thinking bitterly that he would never study at Shitou School again!
All he did was insult Li Xiaoya a few times, right?
Wei Zhen heard these discussions and felt a wave of exasperation and impatience.
He looked down at Li Xiaoya again: "Do you know why I\'ve come to find you?"
"Mm, they say you\'re Mom\'s relative."
"Not exactly. I just work for your grandfather. I\'m not your relative, nor your mother\'s relative." Wei Zhen paused, deciding to get straight to the point.
"Your mother is Mr. Wei\'s youngest daughter, who went missing 10 years ago. Mr. Wei has been searching for her whereabouts ever since, until recently, when we found this place and discovered your existence."
"Allow me to introduce myself. Mr. Wei is the largest shareholder of the Rockefeller Financial Group. I\'m here to take you back to meet Mr. Wei."
The barrage of comments immediately erupted:
[Huh?]
[What???]
[What is he saying? I recognize every word, but put together, I don\'t understand.]
[So Li Xiaoya\'s mother isn\'t from Li Village?]
[I looked out the window, there\'s still only one sun in the sky! How can this be so dramatic?]
[Is this really not part of the show\'s script?]
In fact, even the chief director was stunned.
When he heard Sheng Yuxiao talk about "reuniting with family," he thought, what could be so special about that?
Now he sees... it really is special!
They wouldn\'t dare write a script like this!
"Uncle, why should I believe you?" Li Xiaoya asked.
"Don\'t call me uncle." Wei Zhen\'s voice sounded cold and hard. "I\'ve brought photos of your mother."
Wei Zhen took out a photo album and opened it: "These are photos of your mother from childhood to adulthood."
Wei Zhen flipped through the pages quickly.
Li Xiaoya stared intently, watching as a newborn baby left her swaddling clothes, stood up, ran, grew taller, tied up her hair to become a young woman, and finally held onto a graduation cap...
Her eyes widened, not making a sound, just desperately trying to stuff those images into her vision, to preserve them in her mind.
Yes.
It was Mom.
It was the first half of Mom\'s life, flashing by quickly before her eyes.
Li Xiaoya\'s tears fell silently, like a broken string.
"Do you believe now?" Wei Zhen asked.
The comments instantly became angry:
[What kind of tone is that?]
[This person speaks so coldly, without any excitement or joy at finding the lost child of his employer\'s family.]
Li Xiaoya sniffled and nodded slightly.
"Then let\'s go," Wei Zhen said, reaching out to grab her.
Li Xiaoya took half a step back and asked, "Why didn\'t Grandfather come here himself?"
"Mr. Wei is ill."
"Then what about the others? Doesn\'t Mom have any siblings?"
"...She does. They\'re all sick."
Xu Ruoying, hiding nearby, couldn\'t help but quietly ask Sheng Yuxiao, "Hasn\'t Li Xiaoya already heard all these answers from your uncle? Why is she asking again?"
Sheng Yuxiao impatiently said, "Because this is for the audience to hear, understand?"
Xu Ruoying: "Oh!"
Li Xiaoya asked again, "You\'re too fierce. If someone is coming to pick me up, can it be a gentler uncle?"
Wei Zhen: "..."
Wei Zhen said, "I was assigned to you. Apart from me, there won\'t be anyone else. Don\'t cry, don\'t show weakness, don\'t hope that everyone will comply with your wishes... This isn\'t a place where things go smoothly just because of family ties. When you demonstrate your value and ability, of course, you can make any conditions."
"Just like me, when I learned that I was to be a bodyguard for a child only a few years old, I couldn\'t refuse either. Because I wasn\'t qualified enough to refuse," Wei Zhen said coldly.
Li Xiaoya didn\'t show any sadness at his words.
Although Li Xiaoya was young, she already understood that only when the other person\'s emotions fluctuate, whether positively or negatively, can they speak their true thoughts well, allowing her to obtain the information she wants to know.
It was Sheng Yuxiao who couldn\'t stand it anymore. He took off his monitoring earphones and rushed over directly.
At the same time, elsewhere.
Li Qingqing had "temporarily" recovered from her illness, and Sheng Jun had the "leisure" to take her to Disneyland.
Li Qingqing wore a beautiful limited-edition princess dress, smiling.
Sheng Jun pointed at a roller coaster and asked, "Want to ride?"
Li Qingqing blinked and said softly, "I\'m scared. Can you accompany me, Uncle?"
Sheng Jun smiled and asked her, "Then can you predict now whether this roller coaster will fall from mid-air?"
Li Qingqing recalled news about amusement park accidents and said firmly, "It won\'t."
Sheng Jun nodded slightly and said to his assistant nearby, "Take her on the ride to try it out."
Li Qingqing stared at him in shock, her expression almost cracking.
Looking at Sheng Jun\'s gentle and cultured expression again, she felt a chill down her spine.
He was testing her ability to predict.
But not in the way she had imagined.
He was using a more terrifying method to test her!
It could cost her her life!