The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 137 The Perfect Patient

Qi Fei's Adam's apple rolled as he swallowed the blood, then he said hoarsely, "I know why he killed Mom. When he killed the neighbor's cat, he was warning you that you couldn't allow Mom to share her love for him with others. He thought you didn't take it seriously... He felt that Mom didn't love him anymore..."

Qi Dongjun's tone was as cold as the wind and rain outside. "Over the years, I have asked myself countless times, if I knew he would eventually kill Ziyun, would I have killed him the day he was diagnosed? I still don't know the answer to this question.

"Over the years, no matter how you treated me, I've always been grateful to have you around, Xiaofei..." Qi Dongjun called Qi Fei by his nickname, "I'm so grateful that everything is normal with you. You're even more compassionate and have a stronger sense of justice than most children. You and Xihe seem like a giant joke played by heaven on us, a devil and an angel born at the same time in my family. I've advised your mother countless times, but I also know deep down that as a mother, Xihe is also her child. The sweaters she knitted always had a secret pocket on the cuff, just the right size to fit seven marbles—the maximum number Xihe could hold in his palm at age three."

Qi Fei's auditory hallucinations continued intermittently, as if they were Zhong Kui's hypnosis, and were constantly evoked in Qi Dongjun's narration.

"Xiao He and Xiao Fei meet Zhu Zhu..." the two people repeated in their childish voices, their chubby little hands raised the marbles in the sunset, and gradually transformed into the appearance in the surveillance of Universal International.

Qi Dongjun gripped the back of the armchair tightly: "I don't want you to have any intersection with each other. I hope you are a normal, complete child.

So when you were three, I had a deep conversation with your mother, and she eventually agreed to make sure you were separated before you could remember.

I knew Ziyun was soft-hearted and reluctant to leave Xi He, and couldn't fulfill the doctor's request, so I offered to take care of Xi He while your mother lived with you in this small white building. But I never imagined that she would secretly take you to Nanling to find Xi He.

Alas, what a irony! Even though my family is shattered, my business is booming. Xihe, like a chip on the scales of fate, has made me rich, yet also afflicted me with the curse of my father and son.

As I am busy with my business, I can only spend money to hire the best nurse and psychologist to take care of Xihe on my behalf.

At that time, I naively thought that his problem could be cured through treatment.

Xihe behaved more and more normally, yes, normal.

He thoughtfully wrote thank-you cards to each caregiver, offered to donate his toys to the orphanage, and built rain shelters for stray cats.

I had no idea that this wasn't him getting better, but rather that he was learning more advanced disguises as he grew older.

He knows exactly what each person needs and can be that perfect son if he chooses to.

He used those disguised details to gradually break down my psychological defenses. Invisibly, I was actually being manipulated by him. I left him to the people I paid for and put my focus on business.

However, these people are just strangers who I spend money with. How could they possibly discover the problems that even I couldn't?

What's even more terrifying is that he even deceived the psychiatrist I hired.

Only Lu Man once reminded me that she found that Xihe seemed to have hidden the medicine given to him.

However, I didn't pay attention, and my neglect eventually backfired on me.

Xi He ran away. Later I learned that he had been preparing for this day of escape since he was isolated for treatment.

The sound of marbles playing in his bedroom every night suddenly stopped on the day he escaped. This worried the caretaker on duty downstairs, who rushed upstairs to check, only to be attacked by Xihe, who was hiding in the doorway. Outside the house, the infrared alarm I installed had become insensitive because the stray cat he kept in kept accidentally setting it off, and it had already paralyzed the security guard.

I thought the alarm that night was caused by a wild cat.

He left with such ease.

Now that I think about it, the psychiatrist I hired didn't make him better. Instead, it gave him the opportunity to learn psychological manipulation techniques from the doctor without my knowledge.

I didn't even know that he ran out to find Ziyun, and found your mother, who is also his mother.

We searched for Xihe for days. I saw the records from his treatment and realized he'd never forgotten the time he spent with Ziyun and you in Nanling. I was standing in his bedroom when the marbles on the table rolled under the bed. When I tried to pick them up, I saw a densely drawn map of the marbles' paths under the bed where he slept.

On those lonely nights, he must have hidden under the bed, drawing these circuit diagrams while thinking about the days when he played marbles with you.

All this was not discovered due to my negligence.

I still remember that whenever I thought of him going to look for you, I would have an ominous premonition that went dark.

When I arrived, the gate to the yard was open.

At that time, the trees in the yard were only half as tall as they are now, and the white-painted wooden door swayed slightly in the wind. That scene has often appeared in my dreams over the years.

In the dream, your mother's blood kept oozing out from the cracks in the door, and the door handle was covered with solidified blood beads.

No one could understand this scene, the darkest terror of my life. "Once this door was pushed open, everything changed." Qi Dongjun looked at the door in reality, as if he could still hear the sound of the hinges turning and the baby's cry from deep in his memory. "I remember every trace of blood in this room, splattered on the kitchen blinds, the arc-shaped bloodstains fragmented into fragments, like sharp blades, tearing at my nerves. The longest bloodstain was exactly Xihe's height at that time.

Ziyun was lying on the ground with her back to me. There were some scattered biscuits next to her hands. I didn't know if she was going to give them to Xihe.

I never dared to imagine how your mother faced Xi He at that time.

Blood flowed down the steps like the water of the Luomeng River. Nothing could be undone...

I don't remember why I walked up to her and picked up the knife that was thrown next to her, so the handle of the knife was stained with the fingerprints of both my father and me.

Just when I was clutching the knife, at a loss as to what to do, you appeared. On the verge of collapse, I mistook you for Xi He, and that’s why I said those words to you…”

"You knew from the beginning that Xi He killed Mom?!" Qi Fei looked at Qi Dongjun, whose temples were graying, and asked in disbelief, "Didn't you tell the police?!"

(End of this chapter)