Who is my biological father?

A young fellow was mouthing off at someone without rhyme or reason, and after a few hostile words, a fight broke out. A crowd of onlookers eagerly stepped in to help, and amid the chaos, someone threw the first punch, leading a swarm of people to surround the young man and knock him to the ground. They trampled him wildly for a moment before scurrying away. The young man curled his body up, clutching his painful spots, and rolled around on the ground. Someone had hopped on his newly bought electric scooter and ridden it away!

I didn't throw a single punch, but I spat right in his face. Mini Ni and Meilin Lin glared and cursed, "You deserved a beating! Go die already!"

Mai Huatang shrank back, trembling all over, too terrified to utter a single word...

I carried Jiang Meili on my back for a stretch, and in the distance, I spotted a high-rise residential compound consisting entirely of thirty-one-story buildings...

Jiang Meili could no longer bear the pain and couldn't hold on to my back any longer, so I had to let her down to sit by the roadside curb.

While Jiang Meili was distracted looking at the residential complex, I delivered a heavy blow to her sprained ankle, and then twisted and turned it back and forth with my hands...

The pain made her yelp and jump up from the curb. She limped a few steps, but the more she walked, the easier it felt. After walking a mere half-mile, she was miraculously healed.

Just a moment ago, she had been cursing up a storm, shouting things like, "You have no empathy! She's in so much pain, and you're just adding insult to injury!" But now she couldn't even scold me; instead, she put on a spoiled, sweet voice and said, "Zhengtai, how can this be so bizarre?"

I couldn't really explain it either. Back in the day, my master had put it in the simplest terms: "This is fighting poison with poison!"

Mini Ni actually knew a thing or two: "Fighting poison with poison refers to medicine; it has nothing to do with this whatsoever."

Anyway, everyone had their own theory. As far as I was concerned, as long as it cured the ailment, that was all that mattered!

Jiang Meili insisted on walking home. I was worried about her, so I had no choice but to tag along. The journey went smoothly enough; we entered the security gate, squeezed into the elevator, and pressed the button for the eighteenth floor.

People got on and off along the way. When we finally stepped out of the elevator, Jiang Meili pressed a remote control, the small round signal light on the door turned green, and with a click, the door unlocked!

Jiang Meili took off her shoes and went inside. The four of us did the same. A couple emerged from the living room along with a little boy. The woman pulled a long face and muttered, "I told you not to bring your classmates over, but you just wouldn't listen! We don't have time; we're about to eat!"

My heart went completely cold! I never expected that the woman who often rode the electric scooter to pick up Jiang Meili would have such an attitude. We had just taken off our shoes and stepped inside, but now we had no choice but to back out and put them back on...

A person needs face just as a tree needs bark, and students have their pride too. Mini Ni couldn't stomach this humiliation, so she angrily dragged me, Meilin Lin, and Mai Huatang back into the elevator.

Jiang Meili wanted to come out and see us off, but a voice from inside called her back.

Once we stepped out of the elevator, everyone was feeling down and gloomy. With no other choice, each of us headed toward our respective homes and made our way to the bus stop...

My cell phone rang out with a pretty tune. I casually picked it up from my chest, glanced at the screen, brought it to my ear, and waited for the person on the other end to speak.

"Hello, is this Zhengtai?"

"Why would Madam ask such a thing? Since you're calling my cell phone, who else could it be?" I asked strangely, "Mom, is something the matter?"

A booming voice suddenly blasted through the receiver: "I told you to stay home and focus on your homework! Where on earth did you go?"

"Jiang Meili called me just now, so I wanted to come over and check on her!"

Madam paused for a moment, still visibly displeased, her voice growing louder and louder: "Don't hang out with Jiang Meili anymore! I don't think she's a good kid; she's going to lead you astray! You should spend more time with Mo Liping. Whatever she casually hands out is more than you could earn in a few years!"

I knew very well that Madam had her eyes on the woman's money. Back then, she had even looked down upon her with utter contempt, calling her a mistress. Now she realized that marrying Niu Zhenqing was even worse than being a mistress!

"Hello? Hello! Are you listening to me?" Madam's voice rose by a dozen decibels, loud enough perhaps for pedestrians around her to hear, terrified that I would let her words go in one ear and out the other.

Still, Mo Liping had to be given credit—she was truly wealthy. I wondered why she had suddenly had a change of heart this time; what had caused her attitude to shift? Actually, I knew the reason better than anyone else...

Madam couldn't wait any longer, and her voice boomed even louder: "Zhengtai, are you listening? Why aren't you saying anything?"

It was so annoying! Madam wished she could find a rope to tie me to her, holding the other end herself so she could give it a yank whenever she lost sight of me, just to feel at ease. But I didn't accept that; I always wanted to break free from her control, so I said, "I'm listening. The bus is here! I'm hanging up!"

Madam was so furious she practically jumped in the air, hurling a parting shot: "Why is it always so difficult to talk to you? Whatever, we'll talk when you get back!"

I hung up the call and shoved my way onto the crowded bus. It was the peak of the dinner hour—most people had just gotten off work—and bodies were crammed tightly together against one another, regardless of whether there were any gropers about.

When my stop arrived, I got off, still needing to take a wide detour, climb over the pedestrian overpass, and walk another kilometer or two before reaching the residential compound and climbing up to the fourth floor... Madam had already opened the door to welcome me: "Zhengtai, Mom bought you two sets of clothes today! Hurry up and put them on for Mom to see!" Madam's attitude certainly changed fast!

This was exactly what I wanted; not a single one of my clothes fit anymore, and the school uniform was way too short! Upon entering the large room, everything was meticulously cleaned and tidied up. Two plastic-wrapped sets of clothes lay on top of the bedsheets.

Madam hurriedly unsealed them and held them against my body, measuring me up and down. Once I put them on, they were even shorter than my school uniform! Madam looked bewildered: "This is the largest size available. How can this be?"

I had checked the webpage earlier and read the product description: "Mom, my clothes need to be custom-made!"

After all her busywork yielding no results, Madam was utterly exasperated! She grumbled and mumbled under her breath, "I wonder if I can return these? I certainly can't wear your clothes!"

At that moment, my stomach let out a loud rumble. Without me even shouting, Madam heard it and told me to go study in the small room while she headed to the kitchen to cook.

My mind had been lingering on the broken washing machine and the huge basin of laundry in the bathroom, so I followed her inside. To my surprise, a brand-new washing machine stood before me, the large basin in the bathroom was gone, and the kitchen was spotless. I couldn't help shouting out in joy, "Mom, did you just buy this?"

Madam smiled without any concealment and said, "If we didn't have the money, none of this would be possible. But now we're fine! We have one hundred and fifty thousand! And I'm going to buy you a big bed, too!"

It seemed Madam was truly good to me. Only someone acting like a real mother would be this anxious, so I said, "I'm going to go do my homework!"

Madam loved to sigh at the drop of a hat: "She's so wealthy! If Zhengtai could marry her, how wonderful would that be?"

I grew sick of hearing it and couldn't help shouting from the small room, "Mom, don't forget, she's a woman..."

Madam, however, took exception to that and nagged, "Don't you think I know that? In the future, you should be like her—find a wealthy person and hook a sugar daddy! Wouldn't life be much easier then? I couldn't care less whether she's a mistress or not! Look at your mom, how miserably I've lived! I almost ended up begging for alms! Marrying a loser like your dad simply wasted my youth away for nothing."

These words prompted me, and I couldn't help asking, "Mom, who is my real father?"

Madam hesitated for a long, long time. Besides, Niu Zhenqing was out of the picture anyway, so she casually told me a story: "That was the very second day after I married your dad. He raised his hand and hit me. Our happy life had barely begun before it was already coming to an end. I felt terribly upset, and the gloom in my heart took forever to clear. I left the house in a rush without even eating. When night fell, I ran into a strange foreigner—his skin was very pale, he had stubble on his face, his looks were utterly average, yet he was extremely tall; I didn't even reach his shoulders. He came over and struck up a conversation with me, speaking broken Chinese. Out of curiosity, I exchanged a few words with him, but to my surprise, the more we talked, the more congenial we became. He insisted on treating me, so we went to a Western restaurant. We ordered two Western meals, one for each of us, along with two bottles of red wine. Because I had quarreled with your dad, I was deeply depressed and ended up drinking a whole bottle of red wine myself, and he poured some into my glass as well. Having never drunk that much in my life, I got completely plastered. How I entered the hotel and what happened in that bed—I have no recollection of any of it at all. When I woke up the next day, he was nowhere to be seen..."

That cleared things up for me. My father was a complete stranger, a foreigner! Up until now, even Madam had no idea who he was. Yet, since it happened just a second day after her wedding, he ought to have looked like Niu Zhenqing; instead, I ended up looking just like that foreigner. Hearing this left me completely dumbfounded. No wonder my hair was red and yellow—perhaps not a second person in the entire world had hair like mine...

As for the matter concerning Zhengtai; even though Mo Liping had taken advantage of the situation, the childhood photos were something she simply couldn't explain away.

Madam and I chatted on and on about a great many things. She carried the freshly cooked dishes out and placed them on the wooden coffee table in the living room. Madam fetched the bowls and chopsticks, and we had barely started eating when my cell phone chimed with a melodious tune.

Madam answered the call right in front of me. Immediately, Scarface's familiar voice came through: "Darling, has the ritual been performed? How did it go?"

I ate while keeping my ears perked to listen. Madam didn't seem entirely satisfied: "It was performed, but I haven't asked Zhengtai yet. I don't know how she's feeling; the dark circles around her eyes are still there."

Scarface hesitated for a moment before his voice came through again: "Hand the phone to Zhengtai."

Madam shifted her gaze to my face and handed the phone over...

I hadn't wanted to pay him any mind, but under Madam's watchful eye, I had no choice. I took the phone, pressed it to my ear, and asked, "What is it?"

The person on the other end paused for a moment, his tone shifting as he said, "No, no, Zhengtai; this is all out of concern for you! Tell me how things went."

If Madam hadn't been right beside me, I would have given him a vicious scolding for coming up with such a brainless idea that had sent me running around blindly in circles! My reply wasn't polite either: "I don't feel anything, and I have no idea what happened, but the ritual is over. The old abbot has also ascended to heaven!"

"What do you mean by that?"

I didn't want to tell him about the jade halo, yet I wanted to give him some idea of what had transpired, so I said, "Suddenly, a very bright beam of light shot straight into the old abbot's forehead right in front of everyone's eyes! He turned mute, closed his eyes tightly, sat cross-legged, and started floating upward. The higher he flew, the further away he got, until he completely disappeared from sight."

"Good heavens! The old abbot has become an immortal! I've only ever heard of monks passing away in meditation before, but never of someone sitting cross-legged and ascending to immortality! It won't be many days before the evil energy on your body vanishes entirely!" He spoke with extreme excitement, though I didn't feel nearly as deeply about it as he did.

Madam couldn't stand listening any longer. She snatched the phone right out of my hand and said, "That's not how it happened at all! That halo came straight out of Zhengtai's hands! It was immensely powerful and unstoppable; it flew right into the old abbot's forehead and vanished, and that's what led to everything that followed."

After another long pause, his voice finally came through: "Alright, I get it! Never mind where that ray of light came from; the important thing is that it worked. That means our wish has been fulfilled."