Reborn to Redeem: Their Abusive Love
Chapter 26: Tao Te Ching

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Tao Te Ching

"Xu Si, come out!"

The shouting continued.

Pei Zhen increased his grip, restraining the woman’s arms with a bizarre twist that made it impossible for her to break free. After several twists, the hilt of the knife clattered to the ground, rolling a few times and scraping against the concrete.

Reflected in his eyes was the old iron door at the stairwell entrance. When he looked down at He Li again, it was as if he were gazing upon a sin intrinsic to human nature—greed.

"Don’t cry."

Like a whisper in the night rain, his words dissolved into the wind. He Li was stunned, her voice, moments before calling for him to let go, now weakened.

Pei Zhen added in a very low voice, "Don’t cause her any more trouble."

It was obvious who "her" was.

The bright moon sharpened the visibility in the surrounding darkness. Time seemed to slow as He Li found herself unexpectedly looking up into the young man’s exquisitely defined, cold eyes. The instant his gaze fell condescendingly upon her, his grey pupils radiated a stark chill, as if tearing through a facade of suppressed gentleness to reveal the pale, grim bones beneath the surface.

He Li registered the blatant threat, and it was so chilling that she forgot to scream. A cold dread spread through her body. Animals possess an innate sense of danger, and humans have an intuition for avoiding risk. She felt afraid, unable to articulate why, but she was truly terrified of the young man’s eyes, of that particular look.

It was as if... if she didn’t stop, if she continued to trouble Xu Si, this young man might reveal another, darker side of himself, pass judgment on her sins, and slaughter her.

Her mouth fell slightly open, her shrill voice dying away as she was subdued, no longer able to produce a single sound. She simply allowed Pei Zhen to hand her over to the still-dazed Anshi.

In the dense December fog, Pei Zhen heard familiar, brisk footsteps.

He turned.

A radiant woman, wrapped in a soft coat, met his gaze.

She ascended the dust-covered staircase, her captivating peach-blossom eyes sweeping over the scene. She glanced at He Li for a moment, then, upon seeing the sharp knife on the ground, confirmed Anshi was unharmed before looking back at Pei Zhen and reaching out to check his arm.

"Azhen, are you hurt?"

The young man instinctively flinched away, hiding his hand behind his back as if embarrassed. The movement was so quick it was almost imperceptible. His eyes shone brightly, his smile innocent, and his voice soft. "Auntie, I’m fine. Is the trouble resolved now?"

He seemed shy.

Xu Si raised an eyebrow, withdrew her hand, and smiled. "Of course, it’s resolved, Azhen. Don’t do such dangerous things next time."

"Yes, I’ll listen to Auntie."

The young man nodded. His gaze then fell to Xu Si’s gleaming shoes, now covered in a thick layer of dust. He frowned; it looked so dense he felt it could clog his lungs at any moment.

She shouldn’t have to come to a place like this, he thought instinctively. Deities belong on the moon.

He Li’s shoulders trembled slightly. She turned her head away, forcing herself not to look at him.

Xu Si asked what had happened. Upon learning that Pei Zhen had brought He Li down from the rooftop, her expression grew more solemn. However, viewing Pei Zhen through the lens of his future role as a leader in the Triad Society, nothing he did seemed too outlandish to Xu Si.

Considering Pei Zhen had school the next day, she called the driver and asked him to take Pei Zhen home. Then, she took He Li back to the hospital ward. Anshi took the initiative to deal with the dense crowd below and the police, who were setting up a cordon.

Pei Zhen obediently said goodbye to Xu Si once more.

Arriving at the black car waiting downstairs, he paused after opening the door, looking down at his palm. The moonlight was cold. A scratch, neither deep nor shallow, marred his skin. The blood from it had dried and coagulated. But the wound had gone numb from prolonged exposure to the biting wind.

The driver, noticing the blood, hurried out of the car. "Master Pei, how did you get hurt?" he asked, his tone concerned, handing Pei Zhen a handkerchief.

"It’s nothing." Pei Zhen shook his head. He took a bottle of alcohol from a passing medical staff member and poured the cold liquid over his hand, washing away the blood until it was clean. Then, using his thumb to hold one end of the slender handkerchief, he gripped the other end with his teeth. His fingers moved deftly, quickly tying a knot.

He gently shushed. "It’s just a small cut. Can you not tell Auntie?"

The boy’s gaze was pure, his words spoken in a way that made refusal nearly impossible.

The driver looked up at the only lit window on the top floor, nodded, and steeled himself to agree. "Alright, Young Master Pei."

Pei Zhen smiled; his clear and tranquil eyes seemed to reflect a pool mirroring white magnolias amidst the rampaging dense fog, like a warrior who had obtained a precious treasure.

He truly had lessened her troubles. He felt a surge of joy.

...

「That night.」

In the high-end VIP ward of the hospital, only three stalks of tulips remained, their blossoms swaying as if they’d overheard something.

Xu Si sat on the sofa, looked at her furious second aunt, and shook her head slightly. "You should know, I won’t give you another chance to go to the rooftop."

He Li took a deep breath, her lipstick smeared to the edge of her jaw. "Then I’ll just go to another building. There are so many on Hong Kong Island; surely they don’t all belong to you, Xu Si."

Xu Si paused for a long moment before speaking. "Do you think I would care if you jumped from another building? Second Aunt, don’t do anything you’ll regret. This won’t threaten me. If it weren’t for needing someone to sign the papers, you too would be kneeling at the harbor, freezing in the cold wind."

She wasn’t lying. Xu Si never uttered such sanctimonious falsehoods.

He Li slumped into a chair, sinking back into her internal struggle.

「Not long after.」

He Li walked out of the building clutching a thin sheet of paper. Xu Si hadn’t given her a single cent. Yet, she soon received a call from the kidnappers informing her of the hostages’ release.

The rolling waves crashed against the rocks at the coastline, the white surf swallowing the sand of the ferry landing. Xu Zhiqiang and Xu Zhi’an were bound hand and foot, kneeling in the seawater, surprisingly murmuring verses from the Tao Te Ching.

One of the kidnappers picked at his ear and spoke with a rough accent, impatiently urging them on. "Are you that dumb? ’The sage does not contend, and so no one contends against him.’ It just means if you don’t fight over everything, you won’t attract resentment. Even a gangster like me gets it. Such a simple principle, and at your age, you still can’t recite it?"

"Hurry up and recite! I’m freezing. Finish this section, and I’ll arrange a small boat to send you back comfortably! Your wife is threatening to jump off a building. Can you bear to spend the night here with me? Even if you can, I can’t. I still want to go on vacation abroad."

They smacked their lips. Forcing someone to recite the Tao Te Ching while soaking in the sea—Miss Xu of the Xu Family was indeed an interesting character to come up with such a mentally and physically torturous method.

「An hour passed.」

Only then did Xu Zhiqiang and Xu Zhi’an, legs trembling, take a speedboat back to Hong Kong Island.

He Li cried and threw herself into Xu Zhiqiang’s arms. She wanted to tell the reporters about Xu Si’s vicious actions, but then she remembered what the lawyer had told her before she left.

"I advise against making any further statements about this matter. The lawyers of the Xu Group are renowned in the industry. If you say anything detrimental to the heir without any evidence, you could very likely be sued for defamation. While it might not be a serious charge, it would be very troublesome."

She bit her lip. Facing a defamation lawsuit would mean hiring a lawyer. Apart from some meager private savings, they truly had nothing left.

What could they do?