Chapter 52: Strictly Speaking, Guilt Is Not Entirely Certain

Two guards took the dead body away to dispose of it, while Yan Ning and Shuisheng returned to the Yan family estate with the withered, mutated pitcher plant to report back to the eldest young lady.

They did not get to see the eldest young lady, but instead met her personal guard, Wen Fengxian.

"The eldest young lady already knows about this matter over the phone," Wen Fengxian said. "The Zhang family is being utterly flagrant. Even after hearing that we are people from the Yan family, they still dared to attack. We must go to them and demand an explanation for this."

Yan Ning wanted to say something more, but Wen Fengxian waved her hand. "That's enough, you may go back. The eldest young lady is very busy and cannot constantly be distracted by such trivial matters."

With no other choice, Yan Ning took Shuisheng back to Courtyard No. 3. Just then, the delivery for the bookshelf arrived, so Shuisheng placed it in his bedroom and assembled it, arranging a few books he held particularly dear upon the shelves.

He checked his phone and saw the 50,000 yuan from the Ice Prison Eagle had just arrived. He promptly transferred 40,000 yuan of it to Zhou Yushu via his phone.

Shuisheng: "Averaging down."

Zhou Yushu: (Thumbs up) "As expected of my brother Shuisheng! Just a few days in, and you've already made so much money."

Shuisheng: "Making money... isn't that easy. It's all earned by risking one's life."

Indeed, this money was earned by risking his life. Recalling the guard's corpse corrupted and dissolved by the mutated pitcher plant's venom, a profound sense of fortune washed over him.

Zhou Yushu: "Brother Shuisheng, why don't you open an account of your own? I'm currently using my dad's account, which is inconvenient, and sometimes when there's a loss, it gets complicated to explain."

Shuisheng: "Nonsense, if I could open one, would I still be asking you? Isn't there a rule requiring you to be 18 or older? I'm not of age yet."

Zhou Yushu: "Alright then. I'll keep operating it for you for now... I still feel quite bad about losing so much money before."

Shuisheng: "It's fine. Just take the money. Market fluctuations are completely normal; there are bound to be both losses and gains."

Zhou Yushu clicked to accept the funds.

Zhou Yushu: "With this capital injection, our average cost is cut by more than half. I believe we'll be able to break even very soon."

Shuisheng: "We aren't just going to break even; we're going to make a profit."

Zhou Yushu: (Laughs) "Right, we're going to make a profit too!"

......

In the early evening, as Shuisheng was eating a boxed meal sent over by the guards in the living room, someone walked into the courtyard and knocked on the door.

He opened it to find Yan Ruoxun once again. The little beauty blinked her large eyes and looked at him with a smile.

"Why are you here?" he asked, still holding his meal.

"For you." Yan Ruoxun handed over a small box.

"What is this?" Shuisheng took it and opened it, revealing about a dozen rather old books inside. The uppermost book was thread-bound, titled *Basic Close-Quarters Attack and Defense Tactics for Awakened Ones*.

The books beneath it were precisely those basic texts on common combat techniques for Awakened cultivation that she had mentioned earlier.

"These were the textbooks my brother used when he was studying at the Yan Garden Academy. After he graduated, these books just sat on his bookshelf collecting dust," Yan Ruoxun said. "Seeing how interested you are and how much you like reading, I brought them to you as a gift."

"Thank you," Shuisheng said, deeply moved.

"Also, once I go to school tomorrow, I'll ask the dean to see if you can come study and cultivate with us," Yan Ruoxun said. "If it's possible, we'll be classmates after that!"

Shuisheng felt truly touched inside, a slight stinging sensation rising in the bridge of his nose. They had only known each other for a few days, yet the daughter of such a high-ranking Yan family figure was treating him with this level of care, genuinely regarding him as a friend.

How could he possibly deserve such kindness?

After accepting the books, he invited her to sit inside.

"Did something happen over at the guard unit today?" Her father was the deputy director of the Yan family's logistics and bereavement relief department, so any guard casualties would inevitably pass through his hands. She had caught wind of some fragmentary news from her father, though the details remained vague.

"Today... we ran into a bit of trouble..." Shuisheng thought for a moment, then briefly recounted the events that had transpired in the alley of the Spirit-Anomaly Street.

"After what happened today, the Zhang family might retaliate," he said.

"The Zhang family? Zhang Qidong's family?" Yan Ruoxun blurted out, a hint of worry crossing her expression.

Zhang Qidong was the head of the Zhang family and also Zhang Xuan's father.

"Are these people difficult to deal with?" Shuisheng asked.

"The Zhang family's own strength is just mediocre," Yan Ruoxun said. "It's just that people say they have the backing of the Crocodile God Society. Some even say that Zhang Qidong is secretly a member of the Crocodile God Society. The Zhang family isn't hard to handle, but that Crocodile God Society is extremely troublesome."

The Crocodile God Society. Them again?

Shuisheng recalled the conflicts he had with Liu Qing and his group by the shores of Ice Prison Island.

"It's fine, you don't need to worry," Yan Ruoxun said. "The Yan family is in the wrong on this one. They were greedy first, got beaten back second, and even killed one of our people. If they dare to come looking for trouble, our Yan family holds the moral high ground and won't be intimidated by them at all!"

Just as she finished speaking, she noticed Shuisheng wearing a wry smile.

"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?" Yan Ruoxun asked, surprised.

"If we're talking about who's in the wrong, not necessarily..." Shuisheng said softly. "I have a little trick, a minor stunt I pulled, and I might have gone a bit overboard..."

......

Zhang Xuan, having failed to steal the chicken only to lose the rice he used as bait, scurried in a panic into the old residential complex, dodging this way and that before finally managing to escape Spirit-Anomaly Street.

Spirit-Anomaly Street was a pedestrian walkway, and he found his car parked on another street outside. The moment he slumped down into the driver's seat, he suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain from his lower body.

He remembered the stabbing pain in his groin area when he was fleeing. Because the pain hadn't been severe and his mind was consumed with escaping, he hadn't paid it any mind. But now, sitting quietly and sensing carefully, the color drained entirely from his face in sheer horror.

For he clearly perceived that one of his internal tubes had snapped—his delicate vas deferens. If it was damaged and severed, it meant he would forever lose the ability to reproduce offspring through normal intimate acts!

This was a matter of utmost gravity!

Zhang Xuan's scalp went completely numb. He frantically checked and tested his condition several times like a madman, yet the result remained the same. Awakened ones possessed extremely fine perception of every blood vessel and conduit within their bodies; there was no way he could be wrong.

He hurriedly recalled the situation from earlier and finally confirmed that the young man must have pulled some kind of trick while he was escaping.

"Hospital! Go to the hospital immediately!" That was his only thought.

At the hospital for Awakened ones, through sophisticated testing, the doctors confirmed his fears: indeed, his vas deferens had been severed by a mysterious force, with virtually no possibility of repair. This strange force did not feel like it came from the outside; rather, it felt as though it had been generated entirely from within his own body.

"Impossible!" Zhang Xuan shook his head in disbelief. "I clearly seemed to see that brat extend his hand, making a grasping motion in the empty air toward me, as if he were trying to snap something!"

The doctors were utterly baffled.

Zhang Xuan returned home with a weeping expression. The matter was simply too enormous to conceal. He had no choice but to find his parents and recount everything that had happened.

His father, Zhang Qidong, the current head of the Zhang family, listened to the account with a face as dark as ink for a long time. Disregarding the rights and wrongs of the situation, he immediately decided to seek justice for his son.

"Was it truly people from the Yan family who injured you?"

"That's right," Zhang Xuan nodded vigorously. "They claimed to be from the Yan family, though I didn't catch their names. I only acted out of momentary greed, which was excusable, yet they resorted to such ruthless violence!"

"The Yan family." A savage sneer appeared across Zhang Qidong's gloomy face. "Very well, Yan family. Condoning your subordinates in severing my lineage—the Zhang family will not let this rest with you!"