"Mom, Dad, has something happened at home?"
Qin Yanyan saw the rat poison on the dining table. His expression changed drastically, and he immediately stepped forward to grab the bottle, casting a suspicious gaze at his father. If he wasn't mistaken, his family must have been planning to commit suicide by taking poison; otherwise, why would the rat poison be sitting on the dining table for no reason?
"Son, you shouldn't have come back at this time. You'd have been better off staying away—our family is ruined."
Liu Lan wiped away her tears with her sleeve and told Qin Yanyan everything, from beginning to end.
Originally, Qin Yanyan's parents, Qin Fang and Liu Lan, were ordinary working-class people in Chuzhou. Five years ago, however, unsatisfied with his job, Qin Fang quit directly. Using their house as collateral for a bank loan and borrowing money from acquaintances, he started an import-export trading factory. At first, the factory business was good, bringing in a million yuan in profit every year. Unfortunately, this year they were hit by the financial crisis, and the factory's inventory could not be sold at all.
As a result, Qin Fang's factory went straight into bankruptcy. Left with no choice, Qin Fang had to sell the factory machinery and his own car to pay off debts. But even after selling everything, they still owed the bank and various creditors ten million yuan. This sum of ten million yuan was enough to drive them out of their minds, which was why, driven to a dead end, they had resorted to wanting to commit suicide by poison.
"Is that all you're worried about? What's ten million? I'll just pay it back for you!"
Upon learning the situation, Qin Yanyan seemed rather nonchalant.
"Son, have you lost your mind? That's ten million yuan, not ten thousand! How on earth are you going to pay that back?"
Hearing this, all three members of the Qin family were dumbfounded. Liu Lan suspected that her son's brain had malfunctioned to make such a boastful claim.
One had to know that in Chuzhou in 2008, one hundred thousand yuan could buy a decent 100-square-meter commercial apartment, and ten million yuan was enough to buy one hundred such properties. At that time, an ordinary factory worker's annual salary was only twenty to thirty thousand yuan, making ten million an absolute astronomical figure.
"Heh, earning ten million might be difficult for an ordinary person, but for me, Qin Yanyan, it's not worth mentioning. Let alone a mere ten million, even a hundred million or ten billion—why would that be difficult for me?"
Faced with his family's skepticism, Qin Yanyan stood with his hands behind his back, looking at his parents and family as he spoke indifferently.
In fact, Qin Yanyan was not wrong. After all, Qin Yanyan was now a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage. He could refine miraculous elixirs to prolong people's lives, or he could go gambling on jadeite stones, especially since he had mastered an ability called the Heavenly Eye technique, which granted him X-ray vision. In short, with his skills, making tens of billions truly was child's play.
"This... this... you..."
Unfortunately, Qin Yanyan's parents did not know all of that. Hearing their son speak this way, they were instantly left speechless, suspecting that he must have suffered some kind of trauma over the years and lost his mind.
"Heh, Big Brother, you love bragging, don't you? But I like it!"
Qin Fei on the side burst out laughing. After all, she was only an eighteen-year-old girl with a simple mind who didn't think too much, and she was three-parts inclined to believe her brother's words.
"Alright, Mom, Dad, Little Sis, don't worry. Within three days at most, I'll scrape together ten million and pay off the debts for you! Don't touch this kind of poison!"
Qin Yanyan directly tossed the bottle of rat poison from the dining table outside, then turned his gaze to his parents. "By the way, do you guys still have any money on you? A few hundred yuan will do!"
"Yes, we still have that much!"
Qin Fang hurriedly fished eight hundred yuan out of his pocket and handed it to his son. He imagined that his son was probably taking the money to get something to eat or buy clothes, which was normal.
"Alright, remember what I said—don't do anything foolish. Within three days, I will definitely sort out your debts! I'm going out to buy something now and will be right back."
After getting the money, Qin Yanyan left those words behind, turned around, and walked out of the house.
"Maybe we should wait a few more days and see! After all, aren't they coming to repossess the house next week? We still have seven days left! Besides, Xiao Yan just got back!"
After Qin Yanyan left, Liu Lan looked at her husband and spoke. Qin Fang also sighed; he held no hope for his son earning ten million yuan in three days, and for now, they could only take things one step at a time, surviving day by day.
Qin Yanyan went out to the street and used his fastest speed to buy a second-hand cell phone for five hundred yuan, along with a newly registered SIM card. Then he went to an internet café. After turning on a computer, he posted an advertisement on the Chuzhou forum. The content was as follows:
"Curing illnesses and saving lives, subduing demons and eliminating monsters, prolonging life—capable of everything and skilled in all! Payment can be made after the service is rendered. Contact: XXXXX"
Below the post, Qin Yanyan left his phone number.
***
Not long after Qin Yanyan published the post, numerous comments began to appear beneath it.
"My god, OP, why don't you fly up to the heavens? Subduing demons and eliminating monsters—are you an immortal?"
one netizen questioned.
"Yeah, there are really too few limits for scammers these days, though rarely as exaggerated as you. Extending life? With that kind of ability, you'd already be the richest person in the world instead of showing off on a forum!"
Another netizen questioned.
...
Comments of this nature were as numerous as grains of sand. Qin Yanyan merely glanced at them and couldn't be bothered to reply; he simply logged off and left the internet café.
He believed that someone who knew value when they saw it would call his phone—they certainly would.
Sure enough, two hours later, Qin Yanyan's phone rang. Seeing it was a local unfamiliar number, he answered immediately.
"Is this Mr. Qin?"
The voice on the other end asked, sounding like a young woman.
"Yes."
"Is the post you published true? Can you really cure anything?"
"Get straight to the point. What needs treatment?"
"Let's meet and talk. I'm at the tea restaurant on XX Road. My surname is Chen."
...
Half an hour later, at the tea restaurant, Qin Yanyan met this Miss Chen as promised.
Miss Chen looked very young, probably in her early twenties. She wore a well-fitted knitted woolen sweater, and perched on the bridge of her nose was a pair of expensive glasses with the English letters "Lotos" visible on the frames. Qin Yanyan recognized these as the most expensive glasses in the world, worth millions of Huaxia yuan. Furthermore, standing behind Miss Chen was a young man dressed entirely in black and wearing sunglasses, looking like a bodyguard. From this, it was evident that Miss Chen's family background was extraordinary, likely hailing from an aristocratic and wealthy family.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Chen Jiaxin. And you must be Mr. Qin?"
Perhaps not expecting Qin Yanyan to be so young, Chen Jiaxin looked somewhat surprised, a hint of disappointment flashing in her bright eyes.
Qin Yanyan could understand this. After all, in the eyes of normal people, the older a person was, the richer their experience and the greater their ability—just as someone undergoing surgery in a hospital would naturally hope to be operated on by an old doctor rather than a greenhorn.
"Yes! Tell me the whole story."
Qin Yanyan sat down directly across from Chen Jiaxin, then poured himself a cup of tea and began to drink. In the process, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the black-clad bodyguard behind Jiaxin was watching him with a vigilant gaze.
As for this bodyguard, Qin Yanyan could also discern a few clues: the man's right hand was covered in calluses formed from gripping a weapon, and he stood as straight as a pole—a habit cultivated from years of military posture. Qin Yanyan guessed that the fellow was most likely a soldier discharged from the army.
"The situation is like this: my older brother, Chen Yunfei..."
Although she still had her doubts about Qin Yanyan, Chen Jiaxin recounted the whole story.
It turned out that Chen Jiaxin's older brother, Chen Yunfei, was thirty-one years old this year. Half a month ago, Chen Yunfei contracted a strange illness, suffering from inexplicable and agonizing body pains. The Chen family had invited many doctors to examine him, but all of them were completely helpless because the doctors couldn't figure out the cause of the illness at all, only succeeding in wasting a considerable amount of money.
"I need to examine him in person to know for sure. I must see the patient myself to prescribe the right remedy! Take me there."
Qin Yanyan said calmly, sipping his tea at a leisurely pace.
Chen Jiaxin did not speak. She stared at Qin Yanyan for a good while before suddenly opening her mouth. "Mr. Qin, let me tell you the truth—our Chen family is not to be trifled with. If you don't know how to treat him, you'd better admit it early. If you're a charlatan wasting our time, you won't be able to bear the consequences!"
At this point, Chen Jiaxin's voice grew stern, and a trace of coldness appeared in her autumn-water-like eyes. After all, she had encountered several medical fraudsters not long ago who not only failed to cure her brother's illness but also caused her to receive a severe scolding from her grandfather.
"Oh, are you threatening me?"
Hearing this, Qin Yanyan also put down his teacup, a hint of chilliness entering the gaze he directed at Miss Chen.
After all, who was Qin Yanyan? He was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, nicknamed the Northern Mysterious Heavenly Venerate. How could such a powerful existence be questioned by an ordinary woman? If she pissed him off, he would simply slap the woman before him to death.