“Li Bo, I heard that you and that person Li Chen were very infatuated with… what was he called, have a very close relationship?”
8:30 AM.
The sky had already brightened.
However, when the Li family renovated their house, they still followed the oldest traditional style: high beams, deep eaves, and all the furniture made of ebony wood. Even at this time, the hall remained dim.
Perhaps because of Li Chen’s death, Li Bo’s position in the house had subtly changed.
In the past, even if he spent the night at the old house, he would leave early the next morning to handle business at the company, rarely being invited to stay for breakfast with the two elderly people—a “privilege” that was almost never granted.
But for Li Bo at this moment, he would rather not have breakfast at all.
“The child’s name is… let me think, it’s Yang Siguang, right?”
The sudden sound from the dining table made Li Bo’s fingertips tremble slightly. The spoon holding the bird’s nest soup gently tapped the edge of the bowl, making a soft sound.
After a second of pause, he finally raised his eyes and looked at Mr. Li, who was sitting at the main table.
Just like in his memory, the old man still had that long face with drooping eyelids.
His cheeks were flushed, giving the appearance of good health, but Mr. Li’s skin always had a soft glow, making it look more like wax than real skin compared to an actual elderly person.
Sitting beside him was Mrs. Li, who, as others said, looked like his wife in more ways than one. She also bore a certain indescribable resemblance to Mr. Li.
It was midsummer, yet she wore a thick cashmere coat, her shoulders slumped, and she looked so thin, as if her skin were stretched over a skeleton, her eyelids drooping, as usual, not saying a word.
Li Bo remembered that when he was young and first saw Mr. Li, the latter had this very appearance. After all these years, it seemed like the old man had not changed at all. Of course, Mrs. Li was the same.
Li Bo had heard that when he was a child, whenever he saw them, he would cry out of fear, which made the elderly couple never particularly fond of him.
Of course, by now, he would no longer cry out of fear, but… even today, when he saw this couple, he still felt a corner of his heart involuntarily shudder.
Especially when the name “Yang Siguang” came out of those deep red lips, full of fine lines, the chill immediately ran down his spine. Yet when Li Bo spoke, his voice remained calm, betraying no hint of panic.
“Yes, there are still some follow-up matters that need to be dealt with…”
Before he could finish, the old man interrupted him directly.
He sneered, his voice hoarse.
“Follow-up matters? The person is already dead. The things that need to be destroyed should be destroyed; the traces that need to be erased should be erased… the people who need to be dealt with should be dealt with. Such a simple matter, and you’ve been handling it for so long? Li Bo, I remember you weren’t this incompetent before.”
Li Bo’s fingertips, which were resting on the spoon, turned slightly pale, but his face remained expressionless.
“Yes, the progress has been a bit slow this time. I apologize for disappointing you.”
After he spoke, the old man stared at him for a few seconds. Suddenly, the person who had been scolding Li Bo just a moment ago unexpectedly flashed a nearly benevolent smile.
However, this smile only made Li Bo feel even more horrified.
Sure enough, the next moment, he heard the old man cheerfully speak.
“You have time to fool around with young boys, but you might as well go find someone and have children. I’ve already selected a list and sent it to your office. Just take a look.”
“…”
“These are all girls from the family. Each one is very obedient. If things go well, we’ll have many more children with stronger bloodlines.”
After a pause, the old man continued in a leisurely tone.
“I know, you young people don’t like having children now, but our family is different. Li Bo, you should know that the old Immortal Mirror’s sect cannot be left empty. Otherwise, if the Holy Immortal is angered, none of us will be able to bear the consequences.”
Li Bo fell into a longer silence. The old man’s eyes shifted under his thin, waxy eyelids, and his dead fish-like pupils locked onto Li Bo.
“What’s wrong? Are you unhappy?”
“Poof—”
Before Li Bo could answer, a sarcastic laugh came from the other end of the table.
It was Li Ailing.
The woman’s body hung limply on the hard ebony Ming-style chair, still reeking of alcohol. She had obviously just returned from a bar and was caught by the butler, and forcibly dragged to the dining room. Her makeup was still on, and her lipstick smeared and even rubbed onto her cheek, making it look as though her lips had cracked open and were oozing blood.
Under the gaze of everyone, Li Ailing laughed repeatedly.
“How could he be happy? He’s a dead gay; he can’t even get it up when he sees a woman. You want him to go find a woman and have kids like a breeding pig for your damn old Immortal Mirror to possess? If he could be happy about that, then hell—ah, wait, I think there actually are ghosts in my house!”
With Li Ailing’s mumbling, the air in the room suddenly became heavy.
Mr. Li’s face, however, didn’t show much change, though his gaze toward Li Ailing grew colder.
After a few seconds of dead silence, Mr. Li sighed, but it wasn’t because of Li Ailing’s deliberate outing of Li Bo.
“After all, this was the child that Old Immortal Mirror never approved of. Now there’s nothing we can do.”
The old man’s murky gaze swept over Li Bo, who remained expressionless.
“…Not as satisfactory as Li Chen,” Mr. Li concluded.
After saying this, he turned to look at Li Ailing, but this time, his voice was tinged with more disgust.
“Look at you, what kind of example are you setting? All you do is spout nonsense. Ailing, you should tone it down a bit. Li Chen just died, and you’re getting more out of hand. Just the other day, I had to cover up your little celebrity affair. And you? You act like it’s all perfectly fine. You’ve contributed nothing to the family, yet you behave so recklessly. If it weren’t for your mother stopping me back then, I would’ve beaten you to death over that incident alone—”
Bang!
Before Mr. Li could finish his sentence, the sound of bone china shattering interrupted him.
Li Ailing had stood up, grabbed her plate, and smashed it on the floor. She then placed her hands on the table and leaned forward toward Mr. Li.
“Contribute? What do you want me to contribute? If I had been smart enough to get rid of my uterus, I wouldn’t still be here, popping out kids like a damn sow for your filthy old Immortal Mirror to possess… What’s in it for me?”
“Li Ailing, what the hell are you doing?!”
Mr. Li clearly hadn’t expected his daughter to defy him so openly.
His face, which always looked like a wax statue, finally showed some change.
Mr. Li’s expression turned ashen, and his hand trembled as he pointed at Li Ailing, only to have her spit directly in his face.
“You old bastard, don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done. I gave birth to one child to be your tool. That’s already more than enough. Damn it, don’t come near me again. Everything I’m doing now, you and the Li family owe me, understand?!”
“You—what did you just say to me?!”
“You old bastard—what’s wrong?! I’ve wanted to say for a long time, why the hell aren’t you two dead yet?!”
…
…
…
The once solemn and silent dining room was instantly thrown into chaos by Li Ailing’s outburst.
The only fortunate thing was that the butler and other staff hurriedly rushed into the dining room and managed to calm Li Ailing down.
Li Bo had no choice but to sit through the scene, enduring the ridiculous drama.
As the de facto heir of the Li family, Li Bo eventually took on the task of escorting the old man back to his bedroom.
*
Unlike the always impassive, clay-like old woman, Mr. Li showed some emotional fluctuation.
Li Bo could clearly see that the old man was deeply angered by his biological daughter. On the way back, the hand resting on the armrest of the wheelchair kept trembling slightly. The skin, full of age spots, was wrinkled, like old parchment, loosely covering the old man’s frail skeleton and thin flesh.
“Don’t be too upset, Mr. Li. Aunt Ailing… she’s always had this temper. She doesn’t really mean to make you this angry.”
Li Bo said these insincere words, then, with the help of several caregivers, he assisted the old man into his bedroom.
Mr. Li started breathing through an oxygen mask, his hands clasped in front of him, gradually calming down.
The old man’s eyelids drooped, leaving only a thin slit, as if he were about to fall asleep.
Just as Li Bo was about to leave, the old man suddenly grabbed his hand without warning.
“Li Bo—”
The old man mumbled.
Li Bo shuddered involuntarily at the cold, smooth, eerie touch of the old man’s hand. When he looked down, he saw that the old man had somehow opened his eyes again. However, the old man’s murky pupils seemed unfocused, with a faint white mist clouding over them.
His voice became sharp and strange, sounding unfamiliar.
“You’d better not follow that child’s example… Ailing was spoiled by her mother, and I couldn’t control her, so I just let her be.”
The old man’s expression was strange.
“But things aren’t that simple. Li Bo, Old Immortal Mirror is the foundation of the Li family. All these years of wealth and prosperity have been thanks to Old Immortal Mirror’s protection. If we don’t make Him happy, and He starts causing trouble, we’ll all die. He really wants to kill us, but because we’ve always been diligent and kept the vow we made all those years ago, and our bloodline has never been broken… Otherwise… otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable! Including you, Li Bo. Don’t think that you can stay out of it. You also have Li family blood. You can’t escape.”
“Look at Li Chen; Old Immortal Mirror really liked him. And yet, what happened? He’s still dead. So don’t act recklessly, Li Bo. Acting recklessly won’t end well…”
Hearing this, Li Bo’s hand trembled.
He immediately realized that the old man must be starting to lose his mind, or else he would never have spoken such private things in front of him.
What did it mean to “make Old Immortal Mirror happy” … or else the whole family would die?
What did this statement really mean?
After Mr. Li finished his last sentence, he fell completely silent.
The caregivers, knowing his temper, had already exited the room, leaving only Li Bo and the old man in the room.
Li Bo stared at the old man’s neck, which was wrinkled and sagging, for a long time.
[“Just strangle him now.”]
Suddenly, a soft, smiling voice seemed to echo in his ears.
Li Bo froze.
[“He knows about you and Yang Siguang. If this continues, what happened to me will repeat itself with you. I’m not kidding, it’s really painful… very painful.”]
[“So just kill him, it’s fine, don’t be afraid, I’ll help you.”]
*
Li Bo’s fingertips touched the old man’s skin, which had lost all elasticity.
The next second, he shuddered and suddenly snapped back to reality. He realized that his hands were loosely around Mr. Li’s neck.
Li Bo was startled and quickly pulled back. From the corner of his eye, he seemed to see a faint shadow quickly dart into the bathroom of the suite.
Did someone see?
The thought flashed through his mind, and Li Bo’s expression immediately turned neutral.
He made no sound, simply pulling out a gold pen that he always carried with him.
For someone in his position, having such a pen was perfectly normal, so very few people knew that the tip of his gold pen was specially crafted. It wrote well and was extremely sharp—sharp enough to easily slit someone’s throat. However, when he followed into the bathroom, he found it empty.
Li Bo coldly surveyed the surroundings. The luxurious bathroom had plenty of space but no real hiding spots.
It must have been… an illusion.
However, just as he thought this, he suddenly felt a strong gaze on him. He quickly turned his head and saw his own reflection in the spotless mirror above the sink, staring back at him without blinking.
It was his own reflection.
Li Bo couldn’t help but stare at himself in the mirror for a long time.
He vaguely felt that he looked a little unfamiliar.
Had his brows always been so sharp?
Was his expression… so strange?
Li Bo even unconsciously reached up and pressed his mouth.
Just seconds ago, he had nearly strangled his adoptive father to death, yet now he was smiling with unusual pleasure.
…
On the other side of the suite, the old man lying on the bed seemed to sense something and emitted a few labored coughs.
Li Bo immediately calmed himself and put the pen away.
Before leaving the bathroom, he took one last glance at the mirror above the sink. His reflection had returned to its usual calm, indifferent expression.
Very good.
Li Bo thought.
Then he turned and left the mirror.
Because of this, he didn’t notice that the reflection in the mirror did not follow his movements.
That identical “shadow” turned its eyes to watch Li Bo’s retreating figure. The corner of its mouth, which had been forcibly suppressed, slowly, gradually, began to curve upward again.
*
Li Bo managed to slip past the caregivers surrounding Mr. Li’s bedroom.
When he closed the door, he leaned against the hallway and involuntarily let out a long breath, as though he could push the air filled with the old man’s decay and despair out of his lungs.
As he was about to find an excuse to leave the old house, he paused in the hallway.
Through the curtains, he looked down and saw the woman who had just caused chaos in the house. Now, she was sitting by the courtyard fountain, smoking a cigarette, looking completely calm and at ease, as though nothing had happened.
*
“What are you looking at?”
As Li Bo approached, the woman, who appeared to be completely drunk and unconscious, suddenly opened her eyes and fixed a sharp gaze on him.
Li Bo stepped out from behind the dense foliage of the porch and approached Li Ailing. He habitually bent slightly and greeted her.
“Aunt Ailing.”
He said softly.
As expected, Li Ailing wrinkled her nose.
“Ah, that’s not a good way to address me, calling me so old…” But soon, the woman seemed to calm down. “Well, from an age perspective, I guess you shouldn’t call me Aunt. You’re only a few years older than Li Chen… one or two years?”
“Four years.”
Li Bo gently reminded her.
Li Ailing casually waved her hand in the air.
“Oh, four years… but it doesn’t matter, it’s not that important.” She then slightly tilted her head and looked at Li Bo. “What’s up? Do you need something from me?”
The woman propped her chin with her hand, staring unblinking at her unfortunate younger brother.
Li Bo hesitated for a moment before speaking.
He really shouldn’t have too much contact with this woman.
Li Ailing’s brain had long been damaged by alcohol, and her mood swings were completely uncontrollable.
At least, that’s what the doctors had always told him after examining her… So, whatever she said was unreliable and likely just nonsense.
However, Li Bo still spoke.
“What’s going on with Old Immortal Mirror?”
He asked.
Li Ailing immediately covered her mouth and laughed.
“Old Immortal Mirror? What, you’re interested in that thing too? I thought you wouldn’t care about it… As expected, you’re still like a true Li family member, even the faintest of mixed-bloods still end up like this.”
For a while, the extreme disgust Li Ailing showed when mentioning Old Immortal Mirror made Li Bo almost believe that he would get nothing from her.
What Li Bo didn’t expect was that, on this morning, Li Ailing was more agreeable and patient than ever before.
“What Old Immortal Mirror… pfft, it’s not even an immortal, it’s a ghost, an evil ghost. You should know this, right?”
The woman took a sip of alcohol and spoke slowly.
“Our Li family has been raising ghosts since the Qing Dynasty. Isn’t it funny? It’s clearly a ghost, yet we still call it ‘immortal.’ That thing was originally an evil spirit trapped in a mirror. Who knows how our ancestors, those heartless people, found such a mirror. Anyway, in the end, the ancestors must have made a pact with the Mirror Immortal. Every generation, our family had to provide our bloodline descendants to be the vessel for that old ghost. Then they would open the hall, summon the Mirror Immortal, and pray every day for the old ghost to bless our family with prosperity and wealth…”
“But anyone with a brain knows that true immortals don’t open halls or summon shamans. You think our family isn’t smart? They are, but they still believed in this Mirror Immortal’s evil… generation after generation… they all went bad, a bunch of evil ghosts…”
The woman laughed loudly, her neck and forehead veins clearly visible.
After a while, she suddenly turned toward Li Bo with blurry, drunken eyes, and spoke again, jumping to another topic.
“I can’t tell you much more, but there’s one thing Aunt Ailing needs you to hear.”
The woman leaned close to Li Bo’s ear and spoke each word carefully.
“If you ever have a child, don’t get attached to it. Because it’s not your child, it’s just a vessel prepared for the evil ghost.”
Li Bo felt like he had been plunged into an ice pit.
He suddenly remembered what Li Chen had been repeatedly telling him.
Li Chen had said that there seemed to be another person squeezed inside his body.
Indeed, as the years passed, the child who had been timid and shy when he first arrived at the family gradually became more strange and unsettling under Li Bo’s observation…
It was as though Li Ailing had seen his thoughts. She nodded vigorously, her eyes wide open in a neurotic manner. Under the influence of alcohol, her pupils trembled unnaturally.
She seemed to be looking at Li Bo, but it was more like she was looking past him, into the endless darkness.
“…That child is finally free, no longer controlled by the evil ghost, doing those disgusting things… But of course, maybe he’s still locked in the mirror. We all will end up trapped in there. You must have seen it, Li Bo; you’ve seen those ghosts. They are the ancestors of the Li family, but all they can do in there is scream and wail… Those are evil ghosts. What evil ghost would want to do things for others? They only enjoy torturing souls, making them lose what they love, and never letting them be reborn.”
As Li Ailing’s mind began to scatter more and more, her speech becoming more disjointed, Li Bo suppressed the cold, unexplainable panic in his chest. He pretended not to care and asked one last question.
“But Mr. Li told me that if our family doesn’t continue providing bloodline descendants for the Mirror Immortal to open the hall, everyone in the family will die an unnatural death.”
Li Ailing covered her mouth, her eyes instantly becoming crescent-shaped with laughter.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if everyone in our family dies, none of them are innocent, are they? In this family, the ones who survive are just those who kill me, and I kill them… one after another, and all of us have blood on our hands.”
Her voice, at that moment, seemed to have been ground down by gravel, rough and hoarse.
The tannin taste of alcohol came from the woman’s mouth, turning into a nearly fresh, blood-like metallic smell.
“You’re the same, aren’t you?”
Li Ailing stared into Li Bo’s eyes, speaking each word deliberately.
Li Bo’s pupils instantly contracted.
He turned his head to avoid Li Ailing’s sharp, pitch-black gaze.
“Aunt Ailing, I’m just doing things for others. I had no choice.”
He couldn’t help but sigh. But Li Ailing could no longer respond. Her gaze had completely scattered under the influence of alcohol.
When the servants arrived and helped her back to her room, Li Ailing, still drunk, kept her head tilted back, shouting loudly.
“We will all have retribution, all of us, don’t worry, no one will escape, no one will escape—”
Her shrill voice echoed through the shadowed courtyard.
It was the height of summer, yet the surroundings had become eerily cold.
Li Bo pressed his hand to his forehead, his eyes stinging with pain.
The information he had received from Li Ailing was not much different from what he had previously suspected.
But the guesses were just guesses. When he actually heard someone openly admit the terrifying secret within the family, Li Bo still felt an indescribable sense of disgust and coldness.
…How many people in the Li family had become puppets of the so-called Mirror Immortal?
Li Bo didn’t even dare to think about it.
Especially when he realized that, when he was young, he had also been pushed into a pitch-black basement, left to be watched, probed, and chosen by the greedy, bloody eyes in the dark.
The bone-chilling coldness intensified.
Li Bo felt extremely uncomfortable.
At that moment, his phone rang.
Li Bo initially thought it was just a work-related matter, but when he picked up the phone and saw the message on the screen, his expression instantly became serious.
[Mr. Li, after a detailed examination, we did indeed find an unidentified round foreign object inside Ding Xiaolong’s body.]
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