Chapter 24

【Oh my, what did I just see? Where did the ingot go? Where did the talisman go? It disappeared in an instant? And not only did it disappear, but why is there not even any ash left… Oh mom, I’m a little scared!】

【College student: The paper burned up in an instant, so magical! High school student: It’s flash paper coated with white phosphorus.】

【Stop using our college student jokes! Spontaneous combustion is possible, but I just recorded the screen! A hand appeared in the flames, and the ingot and talisman were grabbed by that hand! This can’t be explained by mere magic!】

...

The comments were buzzing, and the staff in the livestream room were also in a state of shock.

The people watching on screen had limited angles due to the fixed camera, so they couldn’t see much. But the staff had been there in person, and they could see it clearly—

Aside from the purple light, there was a faint golden glow in Ke Xingzhou’s eyes.

In that moment, they almost felt like they had traveled into some fantasy film, because how could a human eye possibly emit golden light!

The most critical thing was, just as the paper ingot disappeared, they clearly felt the room’s heating stop for a moment. A strange chill swept over them from somewhere, instantly making their entire bodies feel cold to the bone.

It was a kind of eerie coldness unlike any chill they had ever felt, as though it could seep through their skin and into their bones, almost freezing their souls.

That strange sensation was so vivid in their memory that, even now, they couldn’t help but shiver.

The hand mentioned in the comments, the staff had seen it too—the black hand that reached out from the flames and grabbed the paper ingot.

Could this really be explained by science?!

While the staff was still in shock, Ke Xingzhou had already raised his head.

They weren’t sure if it was just their illusion, but when Ke Xingzhou lifted his head, the environment around him seemed to brighten for a moment as if the fog had been lifted. But as they blinked, they felt like the lighting in the room had always been that bright.

After all, they had just renovated the place!

However, despite their words, the way they looked at Ke Xingzhou still held confusion and awe.

Even if it was magic, if it could be that convincing, it was far beyond the “useless” category.

Some even thought secretly to themselves: What exactly is going on with the Ke family? Even if they want to acknowledge the real young master, there’s no need to completely ruin such an outstanding person!

Those who knew the inside story exchanged glances, shaking their heads in confusion.

On the screen, Xie Baiqiu was also stunned by the scene.

She had seen a similar situation before when her family hired a fortune teller to burn ingots to improve her fortune.Ke Xingzhou’s actions just now were not exactly the same as when she had seen it before, but they were over ninety percent similar. The only difference was that the soothsayer had chanted a long series of incantations back then, whereas Ke Xingzhou silently completed the ritual.

This young man really does have some skills!

Xie Baiqiu was stunned and looked up to meet Ke Xingzhou's gaze, feeling a sudden chill in her heart.

She instantly regretted her hasty decision to refuse him earlier. How could someone like him, so capable, possibly charge only 1,000 yuan? Maybe he was testing her, seeing if she was sincere...

Xie Baiqiu's mind became a mess.

However, she quickly had no time to dwell on it, as Ke Xingzhou's next words instantly pulled her back to reality and shattered all her hopes.

“The paper ingot has been delivered.” Ke Xingzhou simply said.

Xie Baiqiu’s face turned pale instantly.

Earlier, Ke Xingzhou had said that if nothing had been received, it would at least mean that the underworld hadn't received her friend's soul. But now, since something had been received, didn’t that mean...

Her friend was already dead?

After the overwhelming sorrow, Xie Baiqiu forced herself to remain calm. With red eyes, she cautiously asked, “Can you find out who did it? Or where she... last stayed?”

By the end, Xie Baiqiu's voice had started to choke with emotion.

Although she and her best friend both had independent personalities, and they were often too busy to meet, their bond was very deep. They regarded each other as their most important friend. Otherwise, when her best friend went missing, Xie Baiqiu would never have put down her work at the company, handed everything over to her retired parents, and gone to look for her friend.

This had even caused her parents to almost be involved in a multi-car accident at the airport...

Coming back to her senses, she saw Ke Xingzhou frowning but not speaking. Xie Baiqiu decisively made another quick order, purchasing the last 10 boxes of pomelos, and looked at him with pleading eyes.

Ke Xingzhou: "…"

These two siblings really look too much alike.

In principle, Ke Xingzhou shouldn’t have gotten involved in matters of life and death concerning strangers. After all, a person’s life can’t easily be summed up with just good and evil, and getting involved in bad causes could diminish his own merits.

His merits had always been hard to accumulate, so such matters could turn into a fatal blow for him.

But when he looked into her eyes, which were so similar to Xie Anru’s, he thought for a moment and then said, “From where she got off the plane, go 100 kilometers south, where the ground contains both soil and gold, counting 31 houses from the east. She should still be there.”

Xie Baiqiu was overjoyed and immediately connected again, repeatedly expressing her gratitude, and promised that once everything was over, she would prepare a generous gift to thank him in person.

Ke Xingzhou didn’t care.

At his current rate, the 1.88 million yuan that the Xie family had prepared for him was enough for him to read fortunes for their family for a lifetime. Even if Xie Baiqiu prepared a thicker gift, he wouldn't dare to accept it.

Speaking of which, Ke Xingzhou remembered Lu Li, who hadn’t returned since he took the female ghost away yesterday, and the two uncompleted fortune fees from Ke Yuanbai and An He Guang. He couldn’t help but feel regretful.

The speed of price increases was already a bit too fast for him to keep up with his earnings!

The urgent matter now was to contact Lu Li to see if his merit value had reached the upgrade line and how much more fortune fees he could accept.

Glancing at the now sold-out stock, Ke Xingzhou felt complicated.

If only he was sure his merit value was enough to level up and collect more fortune fees, he wouldn’t be stuck selling pomelos in batches, one batch at a time. If Xie Baiqiu had cleared the stock so quickly just now, he could have ended the livestream and rested.Making money is really hard.

Ke Xingzhou sighed deeply, feeling the difficulty.

--

On Xie Baiqiu’s side.

After the livestream ended, she immediately mobilized everyone around her to start investigating all the locations related to the direction Ke Xingzhou had mentioned, from where her best friend’s plane had landed.

In order to identify the names with both soil and gold, she contacted the young Taoist boy from Qingyun Temple again.

Previously, she had also reached out to this Taoist boy to ask about her master’s whereabouts while searching for her best friend. So when the boy answered the phone, he sounded a bit helpless: “Lady, my master is traveling with a friend and won’t be back in the short term. You should try someone else.”

After saying that, the boy was about to hang up, but Xie Baiqiu quickly stopped him: “Wait! I’m not here to find your master. Someone has already found my best friend’s whereabouts, but the location is vague. I’d like to ask you to help me find out where this place is.”

The young Taoist boy was surprised.

With the New Year approaching, all the temples were busy. The Taoist priests were either out traveling or had already been invited to people’s homes to perform rituals.

When Xie Baiqiu came to him, he thought it was a slim chance of finding a Taoist priest who was available. But to his surprise, only a short while had passed and she had already found someone to help.

However, if it was just about using the location to deduce the place, this was something he could actually do.

He was curious which temple’s Taoist priest could still be contacted at this time, so he asked for the details. When he found out that Xie Baiqiu had contacted an internet livestreamer, who wasn’t even specialized in metaphysics, but instead part of a small segment on a talent show, he fell silent.

He had initially thought it was some sort of money-making trick, but then Xie Baiqiu mentioned how Ke Xingzhou had burned a paper ingot for her best friend, and the purple light that had sparked a heated discussion among the viewers.

The young Taoist boy immediately stopped doubting.

Folding paper ingots was a basic skill for every Taoist priest. He didn’t know how many he had folded, and even the fastest would only fold one in half a minute. But when it came to burning them, there was never such an obvious purple light!

If Xie Baiqiu wasn’t exaggerating the situation, this person must have folded paper ingots for at least ten years. With that level of skill, he was probably not a scammer.

The Taoist boy grew serious and then, following the “soil and gold” description from Ke Xingzhou, he started calculating based on the names Xie Baiqiu provided.

It should have been a simple task to find the answer with a clear method, but after calculating, the Taoist boy didn’t find any place with both gold and soil properties. He did, however, find a place with just one of those properties. There was a village called Qi Jia Village to the south of the airport.

“Qi does belong to gold… but both ‘Jia’ and ‘Village’ belong to wood. There’s no soil in this name?” The Taoist boy scratched his head. “Does this place have another name?”

Xie Baiqiu asked her secretary to quickly check, and sure enough, they found that Qi Jia Village had previously been called Qi Jia Duo, a name changed later for standardization.

She relayed this information to the Taoist boy, and he slapped his head: “That’s it! ‘Duo’ belongs to soil. That must have been the place’s original name.”

The Taoist boy clicked his tongue in admiration.

A place name is more than just a name; it contains the trends and feng shui of the location.

The relationship between the name and the geography is closely linked, so experienced feng shui masters usually base their divination on the original name of the place to achieve more accurate results.

But not everyone knows the former names of certain places. For someone like him, who was still learning, it was already impressive to know the records of nearby counties. Qi Jia Duo, being so far away, would require his master to carefully consult the county records.

The young man Xie Baiqiu mentioned could deduce the place’s name without leaving his house. It seemed he really was quite skilled!The young Taoist boy kept this matter in mind, planning to tell his master about it once he returned.

--

Meanwhile, Xie Baiqiu had no extra thoughts. After repeatedly thanking the young Taoist boy for his help, she quickly set off for Qi Jia Village.

Xie Baiqiu and her team traveled for hours, switching between planes, high-speed trains, and buses, before finally renting a car to reach their destination.

Looking at the dilapidated and backward village ahead, and feeling the villagers' hostile gazes as they gathered around and whispered, Xie Baiqiu’s heart sank to the bottom.

Her best friend, that strong, perfect woman, had actually stayed in a place like this?

Luckily, before coming, she had already known that any place capable of making her best friend go missing for so long, with no news even of her death, was most likely not a good place. She had hired a security company to ensure her personal safety.

Now, surrounded by eight strong men over 1.85 meters tall, all in black suits and sunglasses, with muscles that were no joke, Xie Baiqiu felt secure. The villagers dared not approach due to the intimidating presence of her guards.

But despite the protection, the looks from the villagers, whether male or female, still made Xie Baiqiu feel disgusted.

Their gazes were greedy and lecherous, as if they were not looking at someone of equal status, but more like a packaged commodity.

Her best friend’s boyfriend had once given her the same feeling, which was why she loathed him. But her best friend, as if under some spell, who used to dislike such stares more than anyone, had now turned into a delicate woman in the arms of that man, telling Xie Baiqiu they were going to get married.

No one knew the shock Xie Baiqiu felt at that moment.

Her parents weren’t perfect either. When she was younger, they had used phrases like “You’re the older sister, you have to take care of your brother” to demand that she unconditionally yield to her brother.

Growing up in such an environment, Xie Baiqiu was not a "big woman" in the worldly sense. But after meeting her best friend, she was inspired by her independent thinking and changed. She eventually became the "CEO Xie" everyone praised, not just "the eldest daughter of the Xie family."

Such a person would one day make a decision completely opposite to the principles she had always upheld, choosing to marry and have children with someone who was not at all her type.

They had argued then, and Xie Baiqiu was so disappointed in her best friend that she didn’t know about her disappearance until her family came to tell her.

Looking back now, Xie Baiqiu only regretted not being alert enough to stop her best friend from getting involved with that man, letting him take her away with ulterior motives.

Now, the separation between them was forever.

It seemed to be raining in the sky. The cold air enveloped the entire village, like a cage with no way out.

The smell in the air was unbearable, a mix of animal dung and something else. Xie Baiqiu slowly exhaled, blinked, and fought back the tears threatening to fall, before decisively stepping into the mud.

She was going to bring her best friend home!

--

Half an hour later.

After walking from the village entrance to the village end for the third time, Xie Baiqiu stood before an empty plot of land, her brows furrowing deeply.

The bodyguards behind her had run back and forth so many times. Of the eight bodyguards, only two stayed with her, holding umbrellas, while the others walked back from the village entrance. When they reached her, they all counted the same number—

The family in front of her land was the 30th household, and this abandoned plot was the 31st.

The coordinates Ke Xingzhou had given her were indeed right, but why was there no house?

The sky was getting darker, and Xie Baiqiu felt anxious. She looked around again. Beyond this point were the farmlands cleared by the villagers of Qi Jia Village.Could it be in the mountains further to the west?

Xie Baiqiu hesitated for a moment, about to step forward, when she suddenly heard a burst of cursing.

The voice was rough and hoarse, as if it had something stuck in the throat, clearly a man's voice, speaking with a heavy local dialect.

The dialect here was very different from Mandarin, and Xie Baiqiu couldn't understand it at all. She glanced at the bodyguards beside her.

The bodyguards were hired locally in the city where the plane landed. A few of them exchanged looks and realized one of them could understand the local dialect. He walked over, furrowing his brows to listen for a while. The more he listened, the more his expression darkened.

A few minutes later, the bodyguard returned, hesitating for a moment before speaking. "Boss, it seems like he’s cursing that the pigs ate his wife, wasting the two thousand yuan he spent to buy her..."

Upon hearing this, Xie Baiqiu's face immediately changed.

"Kick the door open."

"Boss, isn't this against the rules?" The bodyguard was a temporary hire and didn't know what had happened before, so he hesitated. "We're doing legitimate business. If we barge in like this, someone could sue us."

Surprisingly, the normally calm and composed female boss's eyes were now red. She shot a cold glare at him and, without hesitation, walked straight up, wearing her high heels.

The rural door wasn’t very sturdy, and it wasn’t locked. It was quickly kicked open. Immediately, the sound of an angry man cursing came from inside, and it was vaguely clear what he was saying:

"Who’s this woman? Which family is she from? Doesn’t she have any manners, kicking in my door like this? What’s she doing by the pigsty? Come back here! Someone! The pigs are being stolen!!"

The bodyguards looked at each other, but as soon as they heard the commotion inside, it seemed like a fight might break out, so they didn’t hesitate. They immediately rushed in and subdued the threatening rural woman who posed a danger to their employer.

The man was still shouting, "What are you doing? Do you believe I'll call the police and have you all arrested?"

The bodyguards looked at Xie Baiqiu with some hesitation.

If he really called the police, they’d be in trouble. Although bodyguard companies weren’t afraid of this kind of thing, these little people were the hardest to deal with, and they were also a hassle.

To their surprise, Xie Baiqiu ignored them and instead looked toward the direction the man had mentioned—the pigsty.

This pigsty was clearly something the family had built later, occupying part of the abandoned land next door. However, since the outer wall had been rebuilt, it wasn’t obvious from the outside that it wasn’t part of the original house.

The 31st house that Ke Xingzhou had told her about was here.

Xie Baiqiu didn’t know what she saw, but she stared blankly at the pigsty for a long time, her eyes fixed and vacant. The tears that had been held back finally flowed down uncontrollably.

After a long while, she squeezed two words between her teeth: "Call the police."

With that, she walked straight into the pigsty, wearing her expensive clothes without hesitation.

The smell inside the pigsty was even worse than outside, almost overwhelming. When the bodyguards rushed in, they didn’t even dare to pass by it, but Xie Baiqiu, the impeccably dressed female boss, didn’t seem to notice at all. She bent down and crawled straight into the feeding trough.

Then, almost effortlessly, she picked up a bloodied, mutilated female corpse.

The bodyguards were shocked. The man’s cursing stopped abruptly, and his eyes darted around. Taking advantage of the bodyguards’ distraction, he suddenly broke free from their grip and sprinted toward the door.

This time, there was no need for Xie Baiqiu to remind them. As soon as the bodyguards saw the corpse, they realized the severity of the situation. The leader of the team shouted sharply, "Catch him!"

The other bodyguards immediately rushed out like cannonballs.Within three minutes, the man was pinned firmly in the mud at the village entrance, with dirt in his mouth and nose, nearly suffocating.

When he was dragged to Xie Baiqiu's car, the area under him was already soaked with urine.

Perhaps realizing that the woman he had bought earlier was related to the female boss in front of him, his face turned pale. He began crying, snot and tears flowing as he begged, "I just bought a wife with money. I saw someone selling her, and since she was pretty, I bought her. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have locked her in the pigsty just because she didn’t listen to me. I didn’t mean to not feed the pigs..."

Halfway through his speech, Xie Baiqiu frowned. "Make him shut up."

The bodyguard immediately took off the man's smelly socks and stuffed them into his mouth. The man’s sobs turned into dry heaves.

The bodyguard captain looked at him with fury but still reported to Xie Baiqiu, "Boss, the police have been notified. What should we do with this old man? Should we leave him for the police to handle, or should we take him with us?"

Xie Baiqiu, covered in dirt as she emerged from the man's house, had a pale face but no trace of sadness on it.

She used her coat to wrap her best friend's body tightly, holding her and walking step by step from the village's edge to the village entrance, carefully placing her in the back seat of the car.

She gently fixed her best friend's hair, then turned around, not looking at the man but instead focusing on the narrow, winding path ahead.

From the moment the bodyguards captured the man, the scrutinizing gazes from the surrounding villagers disappeared. Now, the main muddy road was deserted, with every household’s doors and windows tightly shut, though the sobbing and wailing sounds still leaked through the cracks in the doors and windows.

"Tell the others to get in and guard the entire village," she coldly ordered. "Not one of them is to escape!"

--

That night, the news of the human trafficker’s capture and the human trafficker village began to spread, and by the next day, it became a hot topic online.

The seemingly ordinary "Qi Family Village" had actually rescued nearly 50 trafficked women, with the oldest trafficking cases dating back several decades.

The police discovered several human traffickers who had been evading capture for years in the village, and in the mountains behind the village, they unearthed countless victims who had died for not obeying orders, their bones piled high—gruesome and terrifying.

Qi Family Village became notorious as the human trafficker village, nailed to the pillar of shame, despised and hated by countless people.

Meanwhile, the entire process of Xie Baiqiu rescuing the victims was dug up by the media. The perilous rescue and the mysterious twists and turns became the talk of the town.

The most controversial part was naturally why her rational and intelligent best friend suddenly became so obsessed with love, and why Xie Baiqiu sought help from an online mysticism livestream.

The police didn’t release any investigative results about the "love brain" part, so netizens didn’t know the details, but the segment about the mysticism livestream sparked widespread debate.

Many people found it absurd. In the hot comments, some skeptics mocked: [The earlier part seemed so real, I almost believed it, but it’s too ridiculous!]

[The media today is shameless for views. A beautiful businesswoman rescuing trafficked women is a good enough story, but they have to add some mystical elements. Is that necessary?]

But some viewers who had seen the livestream quietly refuted: [No, this time it’s not made up by the media. I was there during that livestream. I saw with my own eyes that Xie Zong did ten deep breaths, then went live, and asked where her best friend was...]

However, most people still thought the news was fake, dismissing these refutations as typical celebrity gossip tactics, ignoring them entirely.

Still, some netizens, curious to see what would happen, clicked into the "All-Purpose Idol" livestream. Some streamers even tried to provoke Ke Xingzhou, attempting to expose his mystical persona.

However, because Ke Xingzhou didn’t show up on camera, they were met with failure. Not only did they fail to ride the wave of his popularity, but they inadvertently generated more buzz for him.

Of course, all of this was for later.

Back to the day of the livestream shopping, after Xie Baiqiu finished the connection.

This livestream PK was said to be a competition to secure an endorsement deal, but in reality, it was a charity livestream for farmers. All of the participants’ earnings would eventually go into the fruit farmers' pockets, and they wouldn’t receive a single penny.But Ke Xingzhou still kept his promise and calculated a fortune for each of the viewers who had purchased 10 boxes of "Pa Pa Gan."

The following viewers weren’t as exciting as the first two. Most of them were just people who happened to need fruits at home and joined in for fun. The readings were mostly about family matters or small things like finding lost cats or dogs.

Even so, by the time Ke Xingzhou was finally able to end the livestream, more than an hour had passed.

After guiding the last viewer to find the headphones lost half a month ago, Ke Xingzhou let out a long breath and was about to end the livestream. Just as his finger was about to press the end stream button, the number of live viewers suddenly skyrocketed again, reaching over 100,000.

Unlike the previous surge of viewers, these new viewers rushed straight to Ke Xingzhou’s product list. After realizing that all the links were sold out, they began flooding the chat with comments.

[Sorry!! Wuwuwu, I apologize for my reckless behavior earlier. I shouldn’t have blindly believed the rumors online. I’m truly sorry for attacking you with false information!]

[I also joined in on criticizing Ke Xingzhou, saying that Xie An was manipulated by him. Only after seeing the trending topics did I realize I was wrong about you…]

[The harm caused can’t be undone, but we can only express our sincerity in this way. I hope you don’t hate us for being ‘well-behaved.’ Xie An really likes you!]

The screen was immediately filled with tips and donation effects. Ke Xingzhou didn’t have time to read all the comments as the livestream had already ended.

The livestream screen closed promptly, reflecting his confused face.

It was the staff who glanced at their phone and exclaimed, “Ke Xingzhou, you’ve made it to the trending topics again!”

Ke Xingzhou patted his pocket, realizing he didn’t know where his phone was. He could only walk over to the staff member with his cat and peek at their phone.

On the trending topics, the entries about the production crew’s scandals and him being a "bad luck star" had all dropped in rank, with some even disappearing completely. Instead, a new entry took their place:

#Ke Xingzhou Xie An’s Lifesaving Grace#

He clicked on it and saw that the top post was a link to Xie An’s livestream. Xie An had finished earlier than they did. The staff quickly scrolled to the comments section, and sure enough, a complete recording of the livestream was already there.

Fast-forwarding through the entire process, Ke Xingzhou finally learned that after he had sent Xie An back, she didn’t obediently continue her own livestream. Instead, she gave up her personal livestream screen and used her phone to broadcast Ke Xingzhou’s livestream live.

At first, the fans in the livestream were furious and started commenting to try and wake Xie An up:

[Xie Xiaoan! Are you trying to kill us? The rumors online were right. Ke Xingzhou must be using some kind of spell to control people! Do you remember the first time you went to talk to him and got driven away? Wake up!]

[I’ve always known Ke Xingzhou wasn’t a good person. He really has no bottom line! He even fooled my precious by making them give up their livestream!]

[Someone who knows they’re a fake young master and still refuses to leave, even using other people’s lives to build their own persona, can’t be a good person! Xie Xiaoan, don’t let him deceive you!]

The camera was blocked by the phone screen, so Xie An’s expression couldn’t be seen, but it was clear that she could see the comments.

Her voice, full of grievance and anger, came through clearly from the side: “It’s not like that! My brother is not the person you all think he is!”

“The livestream was my own idea. My brother never told me anything or hinted at anything. I voluntarily switched the livestream screen to his. You can check the previous livestream replay—I’ve always had a cameraman with me!”

It was clear that Xie An wasn’t good at arguing. Her voice was trembling the whole time, but she was insisting on explaining for Ke Xingzhou.

“As for you all calling him a ‘bad luck star’ and a ‘fraud,’ I can tell you with certainty that my brother is not!” She paused for a moment. “I don’t know how much you saw in the livestream, but during the rehearsal, I actually got a reminder from my brother, which is why I kept looking at the lights above us. In fact, if it weren’t for me, the murderer would never have had the chance to adjust the lights and make them fall right during our rehearsal.”

At this point, Xie An moved the phone screen away and raised her head, her gaze fixed and intense as she looked into the camera. “If anyone here is the real bad luck star, it’s me! If you’re still upset, then just curse me!”

The comments flooded in with a series of “……” as it was clear that they didn’t believe Xie An’s explanation.At this point, most people still thought that Ke Xingzhou was just a fraud, creating a fake mysticism persona, and didn’t believe he had any prophetic abilities.

Fans were both angry and sad, trying to advise:

[My silly An Bao! How could you think he didn’t intentionally set this up? Even if not, he must have used some method to subtly hint to you!]

[And the family members of the contestants said that if it weren’t for your timely warning, those two contestants would have been dead. How could it be your fault!]

“It’s impossible.” Xie An was like a deceived person who refused to wake up, firmly denying the fans’ claims. “Even if my situation was a lucky guess, what about my parents? To be honest, I was angry at first because my brother warned me that my parents might be in danger. Back then, I thought he was lying to me, so I didn’t believe him. But what happened in the end?”

He hesitated for a moment.

His family didn’t like being too flashy, and they had prevented him from entering the entertainment industry for this reason.

Xie An didn’t want to bring his family into this, but after thinking about the insults Ke Xingzhou was receiving on the trending topics, he finally gritted his teeth and decided to come clean: “The stage accident just ended, and at the same time, my parents were involved in a serial car crash at the airport. If my sister and I hadn’t kept calling them and managed to get through at the last minute, they might… might already…”

Xie An couldn’t continue.

Even though the incident was over and his parents were perfectly fine now, every time he thought about how close they were to disaster that day, his teeth would still shake in fear, and his heart would be filled with terror.

They had come so close to being separated forever.

No matter how many times he had argued with his family about pursuing art and entering the entertainment industry, it was just a matter of differing opinions. It didn’t change the fact that both sides were absolutely certain that the other was the person who loved them the most in the world.

Xie An couldn’t even imagine what his family’s situation would be like now if he hadn’t met Ke Xingzhou and, by chance, listened to his advice to contact his parents.

If both he and his parents had been in trouble that night, his sister would have gone crazy, right?

At this point, Xie An’s expression became even more determined: “So, my change of attitude really doesn’t explain anything. In the end, I’m just an ordinary person who only realized how amazing Ke Xingzhou is after being slapped in the face. This is not a reason for you to attack him. What you should criticize is me—my shallowness nearly made me lose my family and friends.”

The fans in the livestream paused after hearing his words.

Some fans checked the airport serial car crash incident Xie An mentioned, and found that it was trending with a high number of views.

The images were extremely tragic, with many parts being heavily censored, but it was still clear what had happened—many small family cars had become piles of scrap metal, and it was obvious that the people inside had no chance of survival.

The local news also reported that a well-known couple of entrepreneurs from the city was at the scene. It was said that they received a call from home just before crossing an intersection, and turned around to stop their car, narrowly escaping the accident.

On its own, this news might not have seemed special, but it conveniently included a photo of the lucky couple, whose facial features and contours bore a striking resemblance to Xie An.

Putting this together with what Xie An had just said, the fans immediately connected all the dots.

The comments in the livestream suddenly quieted.

Xie An adjusted his mood, looked up to meet his own gaze in the camera, and said each word clearly: “If it weren’t for my brother, I should also be lying in the hospital right now like my two teammates, severely injured and forced to withdraw from the competition, or maybe… maybe already dead.”

“So you can say anything about me, but you cannot say anything about my brother. He is the savior of our entire family. If he is forced to quit because of this, I will quit too.”

Xie An’s gaze was unwavering.

“Standing on this stage is my dream, but if to fulfill this dream, I have to become a traitor, watching my savior being misunderstood and slandered while I stand by and do nothing, then I would rather have died in the accident!”

His conscience and upbringing would never allow him to live like that!