After My Death, I Became a Heartless Madman - Chapter 22.2

Miss Bai had always been a person of great refinement. Although Li Ningzhi wasn’t even her assistant, she had never mistreated any of them or spoken harshly to her.

Mia sighed.

Just what kind of background did this Song Shizhou have to make Miss Bai act so recklessly?

Before she could think further, Miss Bai walked alone into the depths of the darkness.

The sky had completely darkened, and it was unclear when dawn would arrive. Mia looked up, gray clouds obscured the sky entirely, giving her an inexplicable sense of unease.

How much longer would this rain last?

Traveling from the Thirteenth District back to the Fourteenth District would take a full day and night even with the fastest transportation.

Li Ningzhi was already struggling to stay awake, so Mia sent her back to rest and called in a few others who had remained in the Fourteenth District.

The climate in the Fourteenth District was consistently mild and humid, making it a year-round paradise of indulgence. But the same damp warmth also nurtured crime. This was the Lower City District, where both public safety and the economy lagged far behind the Upper City District.

Debauchery and vice played out as usual in every corner of the Fourteenth District, but tonight, a rare evening rain had begun to fall.

The car pulled into an old residential complex, drawing curious glances from residents along the way.

A grand procession of several dozen people charging up the stairs would have been quite a spectacle, but Bai Ruowei didn’t want to alert their target. She only brought Mia and three or four others.

The stairwell reeked of rotting garbage. Perhaps because of the rain, water dripped from the pipes, plinking steadily.

Bai Ruowei wiped the droplets from the corner of her eye and, relying on memory, knocked on the door she remembered.

“Who is it?” came a gruff male voice.

Mia glanced at Bai Ruowei’s expression.

“Your downstairs neighbor. Your pipes are leaking and flooding my place. Open up!”

This was one of Mia’s go-to excuses. Unlike Li Ningzhi, who preferred official-sounding pretexts like hotel inspections or neighborhood committee mediation, Mia favored more mundane, everyday excuses, ones Bai Ruowei had heard so often her ears were practically calloused.

The person behind the door grumbled,

“Didn’t we fix this last time? I’m not paying for it again. For all I know, you broke it yourselves and are trying to pin it on me.”

Despite his reluctance, the door opened.

A meek-looking middle-aged man stood there, his right leg slightly lame.

Yet this same meek man was an expert at abusing his own daughter.

Two figures hidden in the stairwell swiftly stepped forward as Mia braced the door to keep it from closing.

“You… you’re not my downstairs neighbors, are you? I don’t know you…”

Mia wanted to say they weren’t, but before she could speak, Bai Ruowei seized the man by the throat. Her speed was too fast to react to, her grip so tight he couldn’t even breathe.

Pain excruciating pain. Like an animal about to be slaughtered, the man thrashed violently, letting out agonized moans. Bai Ruowei’s expression remained indifferent, but the veins on the back of her hand bulged, as if she could snap his neck barehanded.

The sudden turn of events left everyone present stunned. In the next second, Bai Ruowei threw him to the ground.

“You are Song Shizhou’s adoptive father.”

Miss Bai crouched down slowly, scrutinizing him.

His face bore the look of a simple, honest man someone who had never once in his life picked a fight with anyone. The audacity required for the “kitten-swapping” scheme had drained every ounce of courage he possessed. Anyone who saw him would praise him as a decent man.

Bai Ruowei knew him.

In truth, Madam Song Lanyi had long harbored the intention of bringing the Lu family into the Inner City for Song Fengyu, to care for her biological daughter’s delicate sensibilities. No one gave a thought to Song Shizhou’s fate.

Song Shizhou had never revealed these sordid matters to her, yet Miss Bai had, as if foreseeing everything, thwarted their plans. Thus, the scheme never came to fruition. Thus, Song Lanyi remained unrepentant. Thus, before Song Shizhou’s accident, she revived that damned idea once more.

Thus, Song Shizhou was pushed to the brink.

Bai Ruowei bit her lip hard.

If she had just dealt with these people from the start, none of this would have happened. Why had she even considered leaving them a way out? That wasn’t like her. Or perhaps she hadn’t intended to spare them at all, had she been waiting for Song Shizhou to beg her, to bask in the feeling of being admired by her?

But wasn’t Miss Bai already the type to be universally admired? Why did she need to seek such pitiful validation from Song Shizhou alone?

Now that she had identified the root of the problem, it meant there was still room for negotiation, for resolution. After all, in her twenty-plus years of life, Miss Bai had yet to encounter anything she couldn’t resolve.

A trickle of blood trailed from the corner of her mouth, the metallic tang spreading unpleasantly across her tongue. Yet Miss Bai seemed oblivious, wiping it away with her hand.

“Hello, Uncle.”

The familiar greeting made Mia close her eyes helplessly.

“There’s a question I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.”

“All of you, since you’ve already shamelessly stolen her identity, left her destitute and alone, why did you still have to beat her? Why abuse her?”

Father Lu was terrified.

Father Lu’s tiny brain was in chaos. He didn’t know Bai Ruowei, but judging by her attire, she must be someone of considerable status. And from the way she spoke, every word was tied to Song Shizhou.

Could it be… was this a friend Song Shizhou had made in the Inner City?

But back then, of course it was because Song Shizhou deserved it!

It was her own bad luck, her misfortune. Who asked Song Lanyi to insist on giving birth in District 14 back then? Their family had kindly taken Song Lanyi in, even helped her find a midwife. Was it so wrong to take a little compensation in return?

Besides, they had swapped the babies through their own cunning, didn’t that prove their brilliance, their total victory? Whether it was Feng Yu’s privileged life or Song Shizhou’s suffering, wasn’t it all just what they deserved?

Wait, that couldn’t be right. Song Shizhou had always been as docile as a lamb around them, never fighting back or talking back. How could she possibly have such a formidable friend? If it were Feng Yu who had such a powerful friend, they would have believed it after all, she was their biological daughter.

But even if this person really was Song Shizhou’s friend, how dare Song Shizhou incite her to come seeking revenge?

Had she grown a death wish?!

Lu’s father was stunned. The mere mention of Song Shizhou instinctively made him furious like a Super Saiyan needing Dragon Balls to transform or Popeye requiring spinach to gain strength, abusing Song Shizhou was etched into his very bones. Yet now, he dared not speak. Moreover, an overpowering scent of high-level pheromones emanated from Bai Ruowei. Though he couldn’t smell it, his skin prickled with awareness.

This was someone he could never hope to reach in his lifetime.

The commotion at the door grew too loud. A chubby boy scrambled out from inside, followed by a woman. The boy spewed vulgar curses before letting out a loud, shocked exclamation.

“Holy shit!”

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing? How dare you hurt my dad!”

“Do you even know who my sister is? She’s the only daughter of the Song family from the Inner City! You think the Inner City won’t come after you?”

Mia shrugged. The boy was immediately pinned to the ground, howling like a slaughtered pig, still cursing wildly.

“I’ll have my sister arrest all of you! Just wait, you’ll rot in the Surveillance Institute’s prison!”

Mia, thoroughly annoyed, silenced him with a kick.

She turned back and casually kicked the door shut behind her.

Lu’s mother, a woman who had seen her share of the world, was also frozen in terror. Staring at the wreckage and her husband and son pinned to the ground, she trembled as she asked,

“Who… who are you? I don’t know you. Who are you looking for?”

Bai Ruowei’s throat tightened, but Mia spoke first.

“We’re here for Song Shizhou.”

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