116: Chapter 116 A guilty conscience fears even the dark in his dreams.

The following afternoon, "A Cup of Spring" Teahouse.

Today, it was as if the heavens had sprung a leak; a drizzling rain fell outside, and the air was humid and sultry.

The light in the dilapidated teahouse was already dim, and now, set against the overcast and rainy weather, it exuded an even stronger sense of gloom.

The proprietress was snoring on the counter, the melon seeds in her hand having long since scattered across the floor.

Jiang Feng sat on his small folding stool, dozing with his hands tucked into his sleeves.

He was currently fuming with rage.

Because in the northwest corner of this rundown teahouse, that Lu Cheng was actually sitting at a battered wooden table, right on time.

Jiang Feng narrowed his eyes, cursing the woman ten thousand times in his head.

"She's a damn persistent nuisance," Jiang Feng grumbled inwardly. "Is this woman planning to monitor me twenty-four hours a day? Is she going to build a fluid dynamics model for me every time I go to the bathroom?"

He shifted his position, leaning the stool closer to the base of the wall.

Old Chen stood behind and to the side of Jiang Feng, hands in his pockets.

He looked relaxed, but his gaze never left Lu Cheng's direction.

"Boss, should I go over and ask her to leave?" Old Chen asked in a low voice.

"Don't," Jiang Feng yawned. "It's easier to invite a god than to see one off."

"That woman's head is full of algorithms. If you try to kick her out now, she'll list a hundred regulations stating that citizens have the right to stay in business establishments. Let her be."

"It's fine that Lu Cheng is here. In a bit, I'll let her open those eyes of hers that only believe in science and see exactly how her airtight materialism gets ground into the dirt by metaphysics."

The rain outside the teahouse continued to fall.

Just then, the roar of an engine shattered the tranquility of the rundown street.

A luxury car turned the corner, its tires rolling over the potholed concrete road and splashing a large amount of muddy water.

The car was driven very erratically, finally coming to a crooked halt in front of the teahouse.

In this dump, even a Santana was a rare sight; the sudden appearance of a Maybach was like a golden phoenix landing in a chicken coop.

The car door opened, and a man stumbled out.

He didn't even use an umbrella, exposing himself to the drizzle.

He was a man in his fifties, his suit covered in dust and water stains.

Even more terrifying was his face.

His expression was haggard, his eyes deeply sunken, and his dark circles were so heavy he looked like a dead man with one foot in the grave.

The proprietress was startled awake by the sound of the door.

She rubbed her eyes, and upon seeing the Maybach parked at the door, her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

She was about to put on a smile and greet him, but was frightened back by the man's neurotic aura.

The man ignored the proprietress completely.

Like a drowning man clutching at a straw, he stumbled toward the square table in front of Jiang Feng.

"Are you that immortal who can calculate anything?"

With trembling hands, he fished a business card out of his inner suit pocket and slapped it haphazardly onto the table.

Jiang Feng glanced down.

Printed on the card were several large characters: Chairman of Wang Group, Wang Bin.

"So this is the rich merchant Old Zhou mentioned," Jiang Feng thought to himself.

He didn't touch the card, merely lifting his eyelids lazily to look at the wealthy man on the verge of collapse.

"I'm a fortune-teller," Jiang Feng said flatly. "Tell me what you want to know."

Rich Merchant Wang leaned his hands on the table, gasping for breath.

His hands were shaking so violently that the entire table vibrated with them.

"I only ask that she stops coming for me!" Rich Merchant Wang cried out almost imploringly. "Old Zhou said you can see through everything. Help me! I'll give you however much money you want! Ten million? Twenty million? Just as long as you can make her stop torturing me in my dreams!"

Sitting in the corner, Lu Cheng tilted her head slightly.

Her eyes, which were like cameras, began to record everything happening before her.

Just now, when she heard the name "Old Zhou," the fingers she was tapping on the table paused for a very brief moment.

"Seeking a divination has its rules." Jiang Feng unhurriedly pointed to the teacup on the table. "Write a character."

Rich Merchant Wang didn't hesitate for a second.

He was like a drowning man now; even if Jiang Feng told him to eat dirt, he would do it without hesitation.

He extended a trembling index finger and dipped it into the tea in the cup.

His hand shook so much that the tea marks on the table were crooked and distorted.

It took him a full minute to write one simple character.

The character for "Kindness", its strokes nearly falling apart.

After finishing the character, Rich Merchant Wang collapsed into the opposite chair as if he were completely exhausted.

"Master," Rich Merchant Wang clutched his head with both hands, tears mixing with rainwater as they flowed through his fingers. "For over a decade, I've been doing charity every single day. I've donated to Hope Primary Schools, I've sent money to disaster areas. Why... why does she still come to take my life in my dreams every day?"

"She?" Jiang Feng asked as a matter of course, though he already had a guess.

"Fiend, Devil."

As soon as those three words were spoken, the air pressure in the teahouse instantly dropped to freezing point.

Sitting in the distance, Lu Cheng's gaze froze completely the moment that name appeared.

Jiang Feng looked at the distorted character for "Kindness" on the table.

In his mind, the system's electronic voice sounded at the right time, directly dismantling the causal logic of this character layer by layer.

The system's analysis results merged perfectly with all the information fragments Jiang Feng already knew.

A puzzle full of sin and absurdity unfolded completely before Jiang Feng's eyes.

Jiang Feng gave a cold laugh.

Facing this rich merchant, he didn't show the slightest bit of flattery.

At this table, no amount of chairmanship or social status could withstand the weight of karmic retribution.

He looked up, his gaze scraping across Rich Merchant Wang's face like a blade.

"Boss Wang, the way you wrote this character is truly interesting." Jiang Feng's voice wasn't loud, but every word carried an intense sense of pressure.

Rich Merchant Wang looked up, staring at Jiang Feng with a face full of daze.

"Look at this 'Kindness' character you wrote." Jiang Feng extended a finger and traced the air above the water stain. "The 'Sheep' radical on top, the 'Mouth' radical at the bottom. Sheep on top, mouth below. What is that? That's a sheep entering the tiger's mouth."

Rich Merchant Wang's face instantly turned deathly pale, and even his lips were trembling.

Jiang Feng pressed on: "You think that by donating some money and building a few buildings, you can buy peace of mind? That's called hypocrisy! You're using this layer of hypocritical skin to cover your rotten, stinking heart!"

"I didn't... I didn't!" Rich Merchant Wang shook his head frantically, his speech incoherent.

"You didn?" Jiang Feng snorted. "You have nightmares every day, dreaming of Fiend, Devil coming for your life. You think it's ghosts you're afraid of?"

Jiang Feng leaned forward, hands braced on the table, looking down at the broken merchant from a height.

"What you fear isn't ghosts at all! You fear your own conscience! What you're afraid of are the truths you buried with your own hands!"

The teahouse became so quiet that only the sound of the rain outside remained.

Jiang Feng didn't intend to leave him any way out.

He wanted to use the merchant's mouth to completely expose Lu Cheng's trump card.

He stared intently into Rich Merchant Wang's fear-filled eyes.

"What kind of shameful things are hidden in the basement of Xiangyanghua Orphanage?"

Jiang Feng's voice echoed in the teahouse.

"That you would rather be an accomplice, rather watch the living become the dead, just to keep those files hidden?"