I never expected that after all this, this person would still have the nerve to put on that expression and chat with me about this topic. I couldn’t help but snort coldly: “Haven’t had enough fun deceiving me, have you?”

Han Sha smiled: “Actually, when I was younger, I was just like you – easily trusting both people and ghosts. That you’d be deceived really can’t be blamed on you, Boss. If we must blame something, it’s that you haven’t suffered enough losses yet.”

How could there be such a shameless person in this world!

I wanted to stick a whisk in his brain and turn it to the highest setting: “So I should pay you tuition fees too?”

“Boss, I’ve taken enough red envelopes from you. How about I tell you one last story… about a cultivator’s story.”

As Han Sha spoke, he lit another cigarette. When he began speaking, Bai Liu didn’t stop him, and I immediately knew she also hoped I could listen to Han Sha’s “reasons.”

Since we were all family now, Han Sha didn’t even fabricate any friends out of thin air – he started right off with twelve years ago.

That year, Han Sha’s wife passed away from stomach cancer, leaving behind only their three-year-old daughter, Han Wan.

Like all caring mothers, before dying, his wife instructed Han Sha to take good care of their daughter and not let her get sick like she had. However, this ordinary precautionary advice would unexpectedly become a prophecy in the near future.

As if it were some predetermined fate, in the second year after his wife’s departure, after a fall at an amusement park, Han Wan’s walking posture had been somewhat strange. Han Sha’s mother took the child to the hospital for examination, and a few days later one morning, Han Sha received a phone call.

After changing to four different hospitals, they finally got results for his daughter’s condition. Han Wan had contracted a rare disease whose name he’d never even heard of. Though there were no symptoms yet, it might soon affect her walking, and she might even need a tracheotomy and live with a ventilator 24 hours a day.

Obviously, for Han Sha, whose career was going smoothly at the time, this phone call was like a bolt from the blue.

He rushed to the hospital. His mother, who had been calm on the phone, couldn’t help but break down in tears the moment she saw him. Han Sha, afraid their daughter in the ward might hear, pulled his mother to a corner and finally heard from her, intermittently, news that was both joyful and heartbreaking.

As a rare disease, his daughter’s condition had had a specific medicine available since 2007. However, not only did the specific medicine require lifelong treatment, but its price was so expensive as to be prohibitive.

Two million yuan, per year.

Injections twice a week – if she could keep taking the medicine, aside from not being able to exercise, his daughter could live completely like a normal person and even spend her entire life this way.

However…

Through the small window of the hospital room, Han Sha saw his daughter, completely unaware of her condition, swinging her legs as she sat on a high chair. In that instant, he just wanted to curse loudly, curse that “heaven rewards the diligent” was just a lie. He had lived conscientiously for thirty years, but heaven first took away his wife, and now wanted to use this method to make his daughter wither away bit by bit before his eyes. Where was the fairness in this!

That day, Han Sha allowed himself to break down in the hospital stairwell for five minutes – but only five minutes.

As a businessman, Han Sha would consider deals worth millions for at least an hour or two. However, facing his daughter’s illness like a bottomless pit, he actually only took half a minute to decide.

Treat her, definitely treat her.

The doctor said only 5% of rare diseases in the world were treatable. Han Wan was at least among that 5% – no matter what, she had to be treated.

After breaking down, Han Sha calmly returned to the ward to comfort his daughter, then went straight to his company and began raising the first sum of money without another word.

Han Sha had to sell his houses.

In the early 2000s, Han Sha had accumulated several commercial properties due to his market sensitivity. When his wife was ill, he sold one. Now, for his daughter’s illness, the remaining few were clearly not going to be kept.

The specific medicine was abroad, and even with immediate application, it would still take time. Han Sha didn’t have time to consider – he immediately contacted a real estate agent he’d worked with before, informed them of the situation, and hoped to dispose of the two properties he had on hand.

At that time, his daughter needed to be hospitalized, and with no wife to handle things at home, Han Sha’s time immediately became extremely tight. After entrusting the houses to the agent, he worked around the clock mobilizing company funds. For three or four days straight, Han Sha slept only a few hours total. Just as he was overwhelmed, the real estate agent called.

The manager said that the national real estate market had been unstable recently. Wencheng real estate, which had been hyped up before, was now declining due to bubble bursting, setting a very bad precedent. He advised Han Sha to lower his asking price further to avoid the house getting stuck on his hands if the market situation changed drastically.

When he took the call, Han Sha was discussing the specific medicine application with experts from Hong Kong, already relying entirely on cigarettes to maintain his spirits. Hearing this, he said without thinking: I need money urgently now, the important thing is to sell the houses.

Alright.

The real estate agent changed to a cautious tone and quickly quoted a price much lower than what Han Sha had originally asked for.

As a businessman, Han Sha instinctively wanted to refuse, but the agent interrupted him.

The agent said: Mr. Han, I know your daughter is sick and you’re anxious, but at this price I’ve asked several parties and they don’t dare make a move now… If you urgently need money, I suggest lowering the price a bit more, otherwise I’m afraid the market won’t respond, and that would delay the young lady’s health too.

Hearing his daughter’s name, Han Sha suddenly found himself speechless.

Under normal circumstances, he would never accept this price, but now, every day his daughter’s illness was delayed without medication meant irreversible damage to her body. His daughter’s life was waiting to be bought with money.

So Han Sha could only wearily agree.

He said: You know my daughter’s situation… there will be many places that need money afterward, so sell at the best price you can manage.

Just like that, in less than a week, Han Sha’s two life-saving houses both had buyers. On the day of signing contracts, Han Sha met the person buying the houses. The business card they handed over had a name written on it:

Bai Yiming.

The buyer said he was also starting a business and urgently needed premises to open shops. Having heard about Han Wan’s illness, he also wanted to give the little girl some breathing room, so he had “offered” several tens of thousands above the agent’s price as much as he could… This was the greatest help he could give Han Sha.

Ten years ago, Bai Yiming had a very gentle face and was older, so Han Sha didn’t think much of it and just thanked him.

He took the life-saving money and sent his daughter to the hospital. After settling her in, as Han Wan’s condition stabilized, Han Sha finally had the energy to pay attention to other matters while feeling relieved.

By some twist of fate, Han Sha asked someone to inquire about the whereabouts of his two properties, only to be shocked to discover that Bai Yiming, who had claimed urgency to open shops, hadn’t used those two premises at all. Now, bright rental advertisements were posted right at their entrances.

Bai Yiming had resold them.

With Han Sha’s experience, he immediately guessed the cause and effect of the matter.

The agent and Bai Yiming were in collusion – they had pressured down the price to take his houses, then resold them at high prices for profit.

Thinking that they had specifically targeted his urgency to sell the houses to treat his daughter’s illness made their malicious intent even more infuriating. Han Sha checked the transfer prices of nearby commercial properties, and the huge price discrepancy almost left him unable to breathe.

In his anger, Han Sha tried contacting the agent and Bai Yiming to demand an explanation. However, their response was ice-cold.

The transfer was complete – there was no room for Han Sha to regret now.

With one sentence, Han Sha was dismissed. Meanwhile, replies from pharmaceutical companies and hospital payment notices were all laid out before Han Sha.

Money, it was all about money.

Every step of his daughter’s future required money, but Han Sha had just realized he’d been cheated out of nearly a year’s worth of rare disease medication fees.

He lay awake beside his daughter’s bed all night. At dawn, Han Sha ultimately couldn’t let it go. He contacted a lawyer, preparing to sue. However, at that time Han Sha didn’t yet know that this very decision would push both his and his daughter’s futures into an abyss.

Han Sha’s story came to an abrupt halt here.

The smile on his face turned cold as he stared straight at me: “Do you want to know why I went to cultivate Taoism, Boss?”

By this point I had actually already vaguely guessed. In the first few years when my dad started the chili sauce business, he could betray even my mom, let alone others.

Han Sha said coldly: “Your father cheated my daughter out of her second year’s medication fees when she needed money most. Not only that, after I decided to sue him, the first thing he did wasn’t apologize, but hire a bunch of reporters to block the ICU entrance and report on my daughter’s rare disease. This not only nearly forced my daughter to transfer hospitals and gave my mother severe psychological illness, but also made my investors lose confidence. Within less than a year, my company collapsed. And after that, I still had two million yuan in annual medication fees to pay.”

Instantly, Han Sha left me speechless.

I had previously imagined many ways the Bai family could have made enemies with him, but my insufficient understanding of my father had indeed limited my imagination.

I never thought he could be shameless to this extent.

Han Sha looked directly at me and said flatly: “The day I decided to practice Taoism, I stood downstairs from your house. I knew you were about to get out of school. That day I held a knife in my hand. I thought since the medicine wouldn’t be needed for much longer, my daughter would die anyway, so I couldn’t possibly spare his family.”

Asking me to recall now, I definitely couldn’t remember having seen Han Sha before. I opened my mouth and struggled to make a sound from my throat: “Then you…”

“I ultimately didn’t act, because I saw that day you were holding a cake in your hands, crooked and lopsided, probably made by yourself.”

Han Sha said calmly: “I thought of how my daughter had begged me from her hospital bed, wanting to eat birthday cake. If I killed Bai Yiming’s son, I’d have to go to prison, and then perhaps my daughter wouldn’t be able to eat that year’s birthday cake… It was from that moment I felt I had to cultivate something. I wanted to know: are there really ghosts in this world? If there are ghosts, then retribution is certain – so why are people like your father still alive? I was afraid that at this rate, before my daughter could persist until this disease had a cure, I would go insane first.”

What happened afterward, even without Han Sha saying it, I could guess.

He must have thoroughly investigated our family, to the extent that he could even uncover bits and pieces of secrets like my dad taking mom’s chili sauce.

In the end, Han Sha’s decision to come find me was probably the same as back then – because my dad had harmed his daughter, so for the sake of an eye for an eye, I became my dad’s scapegoat.

“So Yang Zi, I said I’d give you a chance to beat him up. You can do it now.”

Bai Liu patted my back, her tone indiscernible between comforting and instigating.

She said flatly: “Though I don’t want to admit it, everything Daoist Han said is true. That person in our family really did do such things. Ten years ago was the peak of real estate. He used the money from high-price property transfers to open our family’s old factory… Without that factory, neither of us could be standing here talking.”

In other words… the Bai family’s success today indeed relied on life-saving money swindled from Han Sha.

For a moment, my mind went completely blank. But before I could say anything, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the half-pulled security shutter, followed immediately by noisy questioning.

“Is the Boss Bai from Huangliang Yimeng here? We’re from Gua Video. Is it true that supernatural phenomena have been occurring here?”

The voice sounded very excited, like someone who had finally gotten hold of big news and was about to make a fortune.

My heart instantly turned half cold. I instinctively looked toward Bai Liu, but she was looking at Han Sha.

Bai Liu smiled bitterly: “After all these years, the old man’s methods haven’t changed. How he dealt with you before is how he’s dealing with my brother now… Daoist Han, are you really going to watch history repeat itself this time?”