It turns out I'm a second-generation demon.

"What do you mean? I'm not my father's son, I was brought out from the Pantheon?" Li Xianyu was shocked, instinctively feeling that his great-grandmother was about to reveal a shocking secret.

Great-grandmother didn't say anything.

"That's too fake," Li Xianyu was quite clever and immediately caught her flaw: "Didn't you say that only the bloodline of the Li family can awaken you?"

"Just kidding." Great-Grandma rolled her eyes. "Do you think you're at a level where you should know so much? So many people want to know what your dad brought out of the Pantheon. If you want to live a long life, don't go asking around."

"Oh." Li Xianyu sighed, scratching his head. "Compared to that, I'd rather think about how to deal with tomorrow's punishment. My parents are definitely going to beat me to death."

He will definitely be punished. He can run away but he can't escape his fate. He might even be punished more severely for his escape.

The thought of this made Li Xianyu extremely upset. In novels, the protagonists could enter and exit various forbidden areas, private residences, and girls' dormitories with ease, without any real danger. But here, he was surrounded by dozens of girls, who were taking pictures and videos of him.

Is this the difference between reality and fiction?

Or perhaps the main character is actually this busty great-grandmother next to me?

Li Xianyu dialed her adoptive father's number. After waiting for a long time, the call connected, and a middle-aged man's tired voice came through: "It's not even dawn yet, why are you calling me?"

"Dad, there's something I need to tell you. Tomorrow, I might need your help to go to the school," Li Xianyu said.

"I'm not going. Get out."

"Dad, something's really wrong."

"We'll talk about it when I get back to China. Your mother and I are on vacation in the Maldives."

"You...went abroad?"

"Well, I took all my annual leave a few days ago, and I also took advantage of the state-owned enterprise's physiotherapy benefits, so I had a total of more than half a month of vacation. I decided to take your mother to the Maldives."

"How come I didn't know?"

"You have the nerve to say that? How long has it been since you came home? You only call me when you need money or when something happens. You never even send me a text message to wish me a happy new year. I've wasted my time raising you as my son. Don't think you can act like this just because you weren't born to your mother. You still have to take care of us in our old age, you little brat."

My adoptive father was that kind of person—carefree, flamboyant, and irresponsible, yet he had a sweet tongue. In his youth, he was a petty hoodlum, working as a bouncer in the dance halls that were popular in the 80s and 90s. With a pager, he could summon dozens of his buddies.

Therefore, the adoptive father privately admired his adopted son's unrestrained lifestyle and said with satisfaction, "Although you are not my biological son, I raised you and you have the style of my youth."

Occasionally, when she had enough money in her own pocket, she would give Li Xianyu an extra 500 yuan so that he could take good care of himself.

He certainly didn't expect that his young son already possessed an understanding no less profound than his own: "Youth is like this, old age is like that."

"Oh, that's alright then. Have fun with Mom," Li Xianyu said. "By the way, where's my sister?"

"Who knows her? She didn't look for a job after graduation. She's always running around. Sometimes I don't see her for a whole month. If it weren't for the travel photos she posted on her WeChat Moments, I would have thought she had been kidnapped and sold to a brothel. Okay, okay, I'm not going to say anything more. I'm hanging up now."

End the call.

That's good. No one's home, and even if the school calls them, they won't be back anytime soon. He can use his connections at Baoze Group to mitigate any potential negative consequences.

My older sister is a travel fanatic. She graduated from the Department of Business Administration at Fudan University. After leaving school, she let herself go and traveled all over the world.

Today you see her posting on WeChat Moments, enjoying sashimi in a kimono in Japan, and strolling along streets lined with cherry blossoms afterward. Tomorrow she might be taking tourist photos under the Eiffel Tower.

Her adoptive parents' biggest concern was her safety. Their daughter was so outstanding that they were always afraid something might happen to her outside. As for the fact that their daughter was not doing anything productive, the elderly couple were not worried at all. The adoptive father often said: "My daughter is destined to be an empress. She will never have to worry about food or clothing in the future. She is destined to be rich and noble."

He has his reasons for saying that.

Li Xianyu suddenly remembered something, took out his phone again, and opened the photo album: "Great-grandmother, you said my mother wasn't dead, right? Look, isn't this woman my mother?"

During a casual chat with my great-grandmother, she mentioned that her biological father, knowing he was doomed, secretly hid him and his mother in a place no one knew. According to her, he should have been raised by his birth mother, but he clearly grew up with his adoptive parents.

Li Xianyu suddenly had a bad feeling: Brother, go in peace. Your son calls me father, and I will take care of your wife.

Grandma took the phone and looked at it. On the screen was a family photo. In the photo, the four of them were standing close together. Their two children were not standing on either side of them. Li Xianyu, who still looked like a little puppy, stood with his mother. To his right was a tall and aloof girl. The girl and her younger brother deliberately kept a distance from each other, making them seem out of place in the family.

She frowned slightly, as if she disliked her younger brother, but if that were the case, she should have stood by her father's side, not her brother's. Her frown seemed more like dissatisfaction with her brother's closeness with their mother, which was distancing him from her.

The photo was taken when Li Xianyu was in junior high school. Not long after, his adoptive father revealed the truth to him: after he went to university, he moved out of the house, and after his sister graduated, she was always busy working away from home. The family of four rarely got together and never had the chance to take a family photo again.

After looking at it, the great-grandmother shook her head and said, "This isn't your mother."

Li Xianyu: "Wouldn't they use disguises or something?"

Great-Grandma: "Even if you disguise yourself, your temperament won't change, and your height won't change either. Your mother must have remarried. After all, her husband is dead, and she's just foolish to live with you, this burden. I knew she wasn't a good person from the start. If she hadn't been trying to control your father's money, I wouldn't have had my allowance cut. That mean face of hers! If I weren't pregnant with my Li family's child, I would have beaten the shit out of her."

She started bringing up old grievances again.

Li Xianyu thought to himself, "With your wasteful ways, what wife in the world could tolerate you? If it weren't for my mother keeping an eye on things, that 200,000 yuan inheritance might not even exist."

He dared not say these words aloud, after all, he was now living with his great-grandmother, and he had to be pragmatic. Whether the Li family had any descendants or not depended on his great-grandmother.

Li Xianyu felt a little more at ease. Given her great-grandmother's shrewdness and her vengeful nature, if she said it wasn't true, then it definitely wasn't.

Where did my birth mother go? Did she really remarry?

Although I don't want to admit it, from the perspective of an ordinary person, it seems that the only way out for a young woman to lose her husband is to remarry.

"But I've never met your adoptive father," the great-grandmother said, frowning.

"He's my father's sworn brother. You haven't met him?" Li Xianyu said, startled.

Grandma tilted her head, thought carefully, and shook her head, saying, "I really haven't seen it before."

Li Xianyu's expression changed: "So, you mean there's something wrong with my adoptive father?"

Grandma pondered for a moment and said, "No, it's not that simple. Although I watched your father grow up, it's normal that I don't know his friends."

Speechless, Li Xianyu: "..."

He stood by the roadside, tapping his head lightly with his fingers, recalling the bits and pieces of his life with his adoptive father. Although most of his memories were hazy, if he thought about it carefully, Li Xianyu could quickly recall any unusual behavior his adoptive father might have exhibited.

He's quite intelligent; getting into the University of Finance and Economics was a piece of cake for him back then. He's much smarter than some of the worst students.

A flamboyant and unserious man, he was a petty hoodlum in his youth. After meeting the woman he liked, he turned over a new leaf and got a job in a state-owned enterprise through connections, where he worked for more than 20 years.

Such a life is remarkable, without any particularly bizarre experiences, and he is equally unconventional in his daily life, occasionally telling dirty jokes to his son.

His habit of shaving his son's scalp is probably a remnant from his time as a gang leader.

The trivialities of life flash through my mind.

Li Xianyu couldn't find anything in his memory that made him suspicious.

He then recalled his father's will, which indeed entrusted him to his sworn brother. His adoptive father could be faked, but the will could not be faked.

Where did the birth mother go?

It cannot be ruled out that his father had his birth mother give him, as an infant, to his adoptive father.

Knowing he was doomed, my biological father advised my biological mother to remarry before he left, not wanting me to be a burden to her, so he entrusted me to my adoptive father.

"I'll ask my dad when I have time who handed me over to him," Li Xianyu thought to himself.

"But your older sister has an extraordinary appearance, exuding an air of nobility," the great-grandmother clicked her tongue twice.