There’re Always Paranoid Thoughts to Monopolize Me - Chapter 65.2

After all, someone accustomed to walking in hell would only see magma and charcoal in a gray world for the rest of his life. If that beautiful, transparent sunshine or rain or air… or anything resembling hope appeared before him again, he wasn’t sure if he could control his desire to plunder, to possess.

So it was better not to know anything at all.

Huo Zhonglou would only ask Huo Jingyan, the Huo family butler by his side, one question at the beginning of each month:

“Is she still doing well?”

“She’s fine.”

Just these two words were enough.

There was no need for boundless concern, eliminating any dangerous possibilities even from himself – this was the best he could do for her.

However, things in this world often go against one’s wishes.

At the end of the second year after returning to Sijiu City, in December, Huo Zhonglou no longer received those two words.

Instead, there was silence.

This made Huo Zhonglou freeze for a long time in the dim study before slowly coming back to his senses. He turned on the floor lamp and looked at Huo Jingyan with a grim gaze.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I’m weighing my words carefully, Young Master Zhonglou,” Huo Jingyan said.

“… What do you mean?”

“I mean, Miss Qin Ke – might not be doing so well recently.”

“…”

In the next few dozen minutes, Huo Zhonglou received from Huo Jingyan the full information he had just thoroughly investigated about the process of Qin Ke and her parents’ inheritance being usurped.

As Huo Jingyan narrated, Huo Zhonglou’s figure hidden in the shadows of the lamplight became increasingly rigid and tense. The hand resting on the wide armrest of the sofa chair also clenched tighter and tighter, veins bulging.

When Huo Jingyan finished speaking and Huo Zhonglou spoke again, his voice was even more hoarse and terrifying.

“So you’re saying she has nothing now, and the Qin family wants to drive her out?”

“…” Huo Jingyan was silent for two seconds. “You could say that.”

“!”

After a muffled sound, there was endless silence in the dim study.

After who knows how long, Huo Jingyan finally spoke up: “Young Master Zhonglou, what do you plan to do for Miss Qin Ke?”

“… Is it still possible to get that inheritance back?”

“Legally speaking, through regular channels, it would be very difficult.”

“……”

Huo Zhonglou remained silent for an even longer time this time.

After a while, a low, hoarse laugh came from the darkness, but the tone was ice-cold and terrifying.

“Then you tell Huo Shengfeng, I want to marry a woman.”

“Is it Miss Qin Ke?”

“No.”

“?”

“Tell the Qin family to marry their biological daughter into our family.”

“…”

The status and power of the Huo family were something Qin Hanyi and Yin Chuanfang couldn’t imagine.

So when Huo Jingyan lifted just a small corner of that boundless canvas for them, revealing only the tip of the iceberg beneath, it was already enough to drive them crazy.

Faced with such a huge temptation, they didn’t even bother to ponder over Huo Jingyan’s words, naturally failing to see the complex and cold pity in his eyes.

Thus, when Huo Jingyan proposed that their whole family should set off for Sijiu City to prepare for the wedding and related matters, Qin Hanyi and Yin Chuanfang didn’t hesitate to temporarily put aside the matter of driving Qin Ke out of the family, and wholeheartedly cooperated to “fulfill” the plan.

The four members of the Qin family were brought to Sijiu City by Huo Jingyan and settled on the third floor of the Huo family’s old mansion’s side building.

Enjoying the most carefree and reckless spending in the most prosperous city, the three members of the Qin family tasted the sweetness of it all. Even Qin Yan, who initially had some objections, eagerly expressed her agreement to this marriage in the evening.

As the final bait to ensure the fish would take the hook, the three members of the Qin family were led by people arranged by Huo Jingyan to spend and enjoy even more unscrupulously in Sijiu City for the next few days, so much so that they forgot about returning home.

The only exception was Qin Ke, who was unwilling to go out again from the second day onwards.

This matter came too strangely and suddenly, and it was odd.

This made Qin Ke feel uneasy from the bottom of her heart.

So that day, outside Huo Zhonglou’s study, which was considered a forbidden area by the Huo family’s servants, Qin Ke carefully knocked on his door.

In the darkness, Huo Zhonglou’s expression was gloomy.

He picked up the phone to question the head servant of the house – which ignorant new person had come to knock on his door.

The head servant, frightened, hurriedly investigated and then quickly reported back to Huo Zhonglou:

“Young Master, it’s Miss Qin Ke, the younger sister of your fiancée from the Qin family. She heard you were at home today, asked the servants for your whereabouts, and seems to want to visit you – I’ll go up now and ask her to come down.”

“…!”

Huo Zhonglou’s hand holding the receiver trembled slightly when he first heard that name.

He raised his head with a deep gaze, his line of sight piercing through the dim room, falling on the tightly closed study door.

The gentle knocking continued.

Huo Zhonglou closed his eyes forcefully.

“…Never mind.”

His voice was deep and hoarse, his tone slightly trembling. He hung up the phone, remained silent for a few seconds, listening as the knocking at his door gradually became hesitant. As the person outside seemed about to withdraw and give up, Huo Zhonglou’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

“Come in.”

He heard himself finally unable to resist the longing that had been buried and suppressed in his heart for who knows how long.

Towards the front, towards the sunlight, rain, or air, or perhaps everything that resembled hope and light, he finally couldn’t help but reach out his hand.

The heavy wooden door of the study was pushed open by the petite figure of a girl.

Long-absent light fell from the corridor behind the girl.

He was momentarily dazed.

“Hello?”

Standing at the boundary between light and darkness.

That was the first thing the girl said to him.

From that moment on, “Huo Zhonglou” came alive.