Chapter 116: A Complete Rupture

When Lu Gucheng woke up alongside his wife and son, the first things they saw were a gaping hole in the wall and Lu Mingfei leaning against the masonry.

One night was nowhere near enough for a normal person to grow back their hair, but for Lu Mingfei, who had been constantly circulating the Asura Inverse Blood Art to transmute the dragon blood surging from his heart into human blood, it was sufficient.

He spun a bank card idly between his fingers. Beside him sat two large burlap sacks stuffed with clothes and personal effects. Lu Mingfei’s posture was slightly hunched, his pitch-black eyes fixed on the sky through the hole in the wall, lost in thought.

"Aaaaaah!" The middle-aged woman shrieked instinctively. Her piercing scream made her husband and son’s heads throb. She scrambled up from the corner, her memory trapped in the moment before she had lost consciousness. "What happened? What happened? My home, my house!"

"How did it end up like this?"

"Did you do this?" The aunt marched toward Lu Mingfei, who looked perfectly unscathed, her voice shrill. "Fine! I’ve worked so hard to raise you all these years, feeding you, clothing you! And you actually knock us out and take the opportunity to wreck the house? Good, very good! You’re trying to turn everything upside down, aren't you?"

"If you think we haven't treated you well, then just get out of this house..."

*Slap!*

A sharp, crisp sound cut the aunt’s incessant rambling short. Lu Mingfei lifted his head and stood up straight, coolly spitting out a number: "One hundred thousand a month. One point two million a year. Six million over five years. Yet this card contains less than one hundred thousand."

As he spoke, Lu Mingfei looked down at his aunt, who was now half a head shorter than him. "Tuition at Shilan High School is three hundred thousand a year. Where did the rest of the money go? Don't tell me it was all spent by me, someone whose other monthly expenses don't even add up to one thousand? Or did you save it for me, Aunt? Planning to return it after I graduate?"

"Let’s stop pretending. You aren't that kind of person."

Clutching her face, the aunt seemed unable to process that the timid, stuttering Lu Mingfei had actually dared to strike her. She instinctively backed away a few steps, but habit quickly took over. A surge of indignation rushed from her heart to her brain, her eyes seemingly spitting fire. "Fine! Lu Mingfei, you actually dare to hit me? Money, money, money! Aside from eating and school, don't you need money for anything else? Clothes! Transportation! Medical bills! And the settlement fees from when you beat up your classmate years ago! Where don't you need money? And after all these years of raising you, shouldn't there be some compensation for our hard work?"

"Now you're keeping tabs on me? Are your wings finally getting stiff?"

"I knew it—dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and a rat's son knows how to dig holes. You lot from Lu Lincheng’s family have always looked down on us, just like your mother, Qiaoweini!"

"Lu Gucheng, are you just going to stand there and watch?" The middle-aged woman, her face twisted in fury, whipped her head around like an enraged, cornered lioness. "Look at your nephew! Look at what he’s become! Completely lawless!"

"Ugh." Realizing he could no longer hide, Lu Gucheng, who had been trembling alongside his son Lu Mingze, looked at his boy. With a tragic expression, he stepped forward, opened his mouth, but found nothing to say.

Side with his nephew? His wife had just been hit, and honestly, Lu Gucheng was henpecked—his wife wore the pants.

Side with his wife? His conscience wouldn't allow it.

At the end of the day, he wasn't a man blinded by greed. In all honesty, they had failed Lu Mingfei, taking so much money and doing so little in return.

And so, though he stepped forward, Lu Gucheng could only stand in the middle, looking left and right. Seeing the clear handprint on his wife’s face, he felt a mixture of pity and a strange sense of vindication. Looking at his nephew, he felt a welling of guilt and fear. He remained silent.

"Transportation? Medical bills? Clothes? Ha!" Lu Mingfei tilted his head, suddenly laughing for no apparent reason. "Do I need to pay for transportation when I walk to and from school? Or should I pay a sponsorship fee to the hospital because I’ve never been sick? Or perhaps these clothes I buy from street stalls—a few pieces for a hundred yuan—are so valuable that they cost hundreds of thousands or millions?"

"As for the apology fees?" Suddenly, Lu Mingfei stopped laughing. "Aunt, are you talking about that fight four years ago? A classmate said my parents had divorced abroad, that neither wanted me, and that they’d just dumped me at your place."

"I couldn't take it, so I fought him. We both got hurt. The school told me to call my parents. Who else could I call?"

Lu Mingfei sighed, a long, weary sigh. "I could only call you, Aunt. Back then, I thought... I thought since it wasn't my fault, and with all that child support, you would at least stand up for me once. Instead, you berated me, dragged me to apologize to them, and made me do their chores just to reduce their medical bill..."

"When we got home, I heard you and Uncle whispering in the night, wondering if my parents had really divorced and hadn't told you, and whether anyone would pay for my living expenses anymore..."

The aunt and uncle froze. They hadn't realized that despite their late-night whispers, Lu Mingfei had known everything. Of course—with only a thin wall between them, they couldn't hide anything from him as long as he was awake.

"For the rest of the week, I did that guy’s chores. When I got home, I had to serve everyone dinner before I could eat, wash the dishes, and listen to you, Aunt, tell me a dozen times a month, 'Your living expenses are almost gone, I’ve kept them in a separate savings book, I haven't wasted them.' Lu Mingze kept telling me that if my money didn't come in next month, I’d have to move out so he could have the room to himself..."

As he spoke, Lu Mingfei laughed again, a desolate sound. "Have you forgotten all of that? Forgotten it all? What family takes that much money for so many years? Is that how you provide for someone with a hundred thousand a month?"

"BMWs, tuition, gambling, designer labels—Lu Mingze spends money like water at school, known as 'Prince Ze,' while I have to beg and run errands for Uncle just to scrape together enough to buy a bottle of juice."

"Is this your care? Your support?" Lu Mingfei sighed and picked up the two large burlap sacks. "Fine, I don't want to say anymore. Everything—everything ends here."

"For Uncle’s sake, and for the sake of these past years, I won't chase after the money. From now on, you take your sunny path, and I’ll walk my own bridge."

"Let us part ways here."

"Lu Mingfei, you wouldn't dare!" Having just told him to get out, the aunt reacted the moment he actually moved—that was one hundred thousand! One hundred thousand a month!

Without that money, how would she afford her beauty treatments? Her gambling? How would her son attend Shilan High School? How would the family survive? On the salary of a useless man like Lu Gucheng?

"You’re a minor, and you’re just going to walk out of this house? Flaunting that much money?" As she spoke, the aunt reached out to grab him, spouting lines that were likely devoid of any sincerity. "What if you get scammed? I was entrusted by your parents; I can't just let you go like this."

*Bang!*

Before her hand could touch him, Lu Mingfei spun around. A black combat seal emerged on his forehead. With a step and a kick, a new indentation appeared on the wall. Yet the boy held back; though the aunt looked disheveled, she remained physically unharmed, merely terrified.

"Don't you dare touch me." A terrifying aura erupted from him. In an instant, the three people in the room felt like kittens held by the scruff of their necks, unable to move a muscle. "You should be thankful. You should be deeply thankful that I am not that lunatic from the Darkness."

The terrifying aura vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving them wondering if it had been a hallucination.

"Mountains and rivers may meet again, but to you, I shall be a stranger—perhaps that is for the best..." Lu Mingfei turned away once more, and this time, no one dared to stop him.

"Hee-hee!"

"Hee-hee!"

"Hee-hee!"

"Ah-hahahahaha!"

A strange, echoing laughter filled the apartment. As he walked, Lu Mingfei took the bank card—the only thing theoretically left behind by his parents—and snapped it in two, shredded it, crushed it, and finally trampled it into the floor...