Chapter 298: An Atrocity Beyond Imagination! The Chen Clan Prodigy Sets Out!
A woman walked out from the end of the alley. She was not young, looking about forty or fifty years old, dressed in plain daoist robes, but all her hair was white.
Huang Xin had not expected that the dreamer would actually be such a woman.
Moreover, dressed like this, she was not someone from a daoist sect, but should also be a lay buddhist cultivating the dao.
“Greetings, Chen Family Head.” This lay buddhist woman ignored Huang Xin and went straight to give Chen Han a standard daoist salute; it was clear she had been cultivating the dao for a long time.
Chen Han recognized her. She was his wife from the dream of that rural courtyard he had first seen, only now she was very old.
So he asked her, “Is this your husband and daughter?”
“Chen Family Head, your eyes are like torches.” The lay buddhist woman sighed softly as she spoke.
Huang Xin was dumbfounded.
He understood: in this situation, the husband killed the daughter, and she was standing outside the alley keeping watch while the husband dealt with their daughter’s body?
The tourists who had followed were also stunned, never expecting that, after simply having a dream, they would encounter something so hard to comprehend.
“From the situation, you should be haunted by this nightmare?” Chen Han did not rush to ask the reason, because he knew that in such circumstances one must not be hasty.
The lay buddhist woman nodded, and instead took the initiative to speak. “Chen Family Head, would you mind listening to a story?”
“Please go ahead,” Chen Han said, making a gesture of invitation.
The lay buddhist woman seemed to sink into memory. She sighed and said, “Life back then was truly good. In the countryside, a small courtyard. Although we were not rich, husband and wife were steady and hardworking, and our daughter was well-behaved and sensible.”
“She loved most to sit on my lap and look at the stars with me, and every day she most loved waiting for her father to come home and bring her fruit.”
“But people have desires. Seeing others in the village go to the city to earn money, we wanted to go to the city to work hard and make money too, starting with working for others, then saving money to run our own small business.”
“We did earn money, but we seemed to neglect our daughter’s education. We forgot that she liked to sit on her mother’s lap to watch the stars and liked to wait for her father to come home. Our time accompanying her became less and less.”
“Until one day, we found that our sixteen-year-old daughter had completely changed, to the point we no longer recognized her. She was hanging out with delinquents with garish dyed hair, and even got a boyfriend.”
“When we caught her and that boy opening a room at a hotel, her father was furious, broke down and scolded her harshly, but did not expect to be beaten up by that so-called boyfriend.”
“The daughter did not even stop him. Her father was beaten into the hospital, with broken ribs, lying there for a month, and the daughter never came to see him once.”
“From then on, the father severed relations with the daughter. Even when she secretly took the household registration book and married that boy behind our backs, he did not care, and even went to have her name removed from the household registration.”
“The father had actually seen through it all. He realized that this way of life was quite good, not having to worry about his daughter anymore, being able to travel around the country with his wife and buy the cars he liked.”
“But sometimes parents and children are a fated entanglement. The daughter and the man she married were both poorly educated, could not find jobs, his family was dirt poor, and life soon became unsustainable.”
“Egged on by her husband, she set her sights on her own parents, acting remorseful and wanting to reconcile, asking relatives and villagers to speak well for her. But the father saw through it all. They were only after his house, his car, and his more than two million deposit.”
“So, the father sold the house and sold the car, and donated the more than two million. He directly laid things out with the daughter and son-in-law that he no longer wanted this daughter, and would rather donate the money than give it to them.”
“But no one expected that after scheming so hard, the things they wanted flew away, and the son-in-law, in a fit of shame and rage, attacked again. This time the father was also driven to desperation. With a fruit knife, he killed the son-in-law and also killed the daughter.”
At this point, the lay buddhist woman was silently sobbing, with an indescribable emotion on her face, making people feel her helplessness, confusion, and despair.
By now, Huang Xin had roughly sorted things out.
Roughly, it was parents neglecting their daughter in order to make money; a well-behaved daughter being lured by a yellow-haired delinquent and becoming rebellious, leading in the end to a family tragedy.
In fact, this is also a very profound and common situation in society today.
“Yellow hair” has even become a deeply ingrained meme.
When many people post photos of their cute, pretty daughters online, there will always be comments like “I wonder which yellow hair will get lucky” or “the next target of some yellow hair.”
So-called yellow hair refers to those boys with very low education who seem very savvy and streetwise.
Girls at a naive age cannot distinguish certain things at all. They do not know these people are actually nothing, yet are easily fascinated by that air of the streets around them, even willing to roam the world with them.
This is a very ignorant and laughable worldview, yet it is the real state of many girls.
Commonly called: stupid.
Girls who have been “filtered” by such yellow-haired types either are played for free and then taken up by an honest man, or are tricked into marriage by the yellow hair, not only giving themselves away but also falling out with their parents and, in the end, suffering all the bitterness of life.
And the situation of this lay buddhist woman’s family was truly an extreme case.
Because of his duty, Huang Xin asked another question. “Ms., what happened to your husband in the end?”
In such a case, he sympathized with them, but it involved two lives. Regardless of right or wrong, in the country, anything involving human lives is a big matter.
The lay buddhist woman spoke quite calmly. “He stayed inside for more than ten years, and some time ago, he passed away in there.”
“No wonder…” When Huang Xin heard this, he finally understood why this alley and buildings did not match the modern situation. It turned out to be something from more than ten years ago.
Then there was no problem.
Tonight could simply be counted as coming in to experience this miraculous thing of the Chen clan’s shared dream, and by the way hearing a heart-wrenching story.
This was purely a family broken apart by a yellow hair.
“Lay buddhist, go to the Heavenly Lord of Demon Subjugation Hall tomorrow and find the hall master to receive a Calming Talisman. It will help you,” Chen Han said to the woman after understanding the situation, then chose to exit the Dream Entering Realm.
She had likely received news of her husband’s death in prison, which stirred up this inhumanly tragic memory and left her haunted by nightmares.
Perhaps she had come to the Chen clan because she had heard of the Chen clan’s miracles and wanted to seek a way to be freed.
But such a situation could not be resolved by simply offering incense, or by asking people of daoist sects to explain things. That would not work at all. Instead, a Calming Talisman could let her sleep peacefully and no longer be disturbed by nightmares.
Human memory has a time limit. With a year of the Calming Talisman, her nerves would relax. As long as nothing stirred up this matter, with it having been more than ten years, she would eventually let it go.
Chen Han’s sudden disappearance drew the attention of Huang Xin and the surrounding tourists.
They had no idea how he had done it.
At least, they had tried and did not have this ability. They would probably have to wait until they woke up from their sleep. As for how to wake up, they could study that later.
Just then, a beautiful figure hurried over. It was Chu Ruxue.
She had kept thinking about it, and as the saying goes, hard work pays off; she had finally come in.
Her best friend was nowhere to be seen.
But as she came closer and saw the familiar alley and the sobbing woman, she knew she seemed to have missed something.
Fortunately, she had met that Officer Huang before, so she quickly stepped forward and asked, “Officer Huang, what happened here? Can you tell me?”
…
Chen Han returned to the attic, took out his mobile phone, and sent a message to his aunt-grandmother, telling her that when that lay buddhist woman came tomorrow, to give her a Calming Talisman.
After that, he also took out a Primary Spirit Stone and operated the 《Nine Heavens Profound Scripture basic qi cultivation method》 to begin cultivation.
The next day, the Chen Clan Family Group became lively again. The specialty product department was recruiting staff once more, to stir-fry a new batch of refined spirit tea.
The specialty product department had the highest family position salaries, so naturally many clan members competed, hoping to transfer from their current positions.
The recruiting and interviews over these two days kept the family very busy.
At the same time, on the second day, sales links related to the refined spirit tea were posted on the Chen clan tourism promotion Douyin account.
This included Thunder Bamboo Spirit Tea, for which only this account would post online purchase links, and it was declared that all other related links on the internet were fake goods.
Naturally, this refined spirit tea was marked as medicinal tea in the game notes, but here it could not be linked to the word “medicine” and could only be promoted as a local specialty health tea.
In the country, the word “medicine” is a taboo term that has long been cordoned off for special handling.
Isn’t there a saying online that the only shops that will never go out of business now are pharmacies?
In a recent movie, a line from a drug trafficker went, “Do you know what the cost of medicine is? Eight cents for one pill, thirty pills in a bottle, at least fifty per bottle, profit over one hundred percent, and most importantly, it’s legal.”
So, no matter how good the effects of the Chen clan’s spirit tea were, they would never touch the word “medicine,” to avoid attracting a foul stench.
Chen Han continued cultivating.
But at night, when he planned to take out his mobile phone to check the data of his Douyin videos, he found that in the Douyin backend many people had @-mentioned him.
“Chen Family Head, is this true?”
“Chen Family Head, as long as you say it’s true, I will believe it.”
“……”
Puzzled, Chen Han clicked in and saw that a blogger called “As Snow As Illusion” had posted a video.
It seemed to be that girl who had called the police yesterday.
She was an employee of a design company who, apart from displaying her design videos, also liked to add an interesting story to her videos.
People were @-mentioning him because she had posted a story about the Chen clan that day.
“Hello everyone, I am As Snow. This is my second time coming to the Chen clan. I had already felt the Chen clan’s miracles before, and this time I personally experienced them even more.”
“This is a story with a mysterious flavor. As soon as I arrived at the Chen clan, I saw videos about the Chen clan being able to dream together.”
“Many people online should have seen this, but no one believed it. Here, I can really tell everyone that it is true, and I can even tell you that the feeling is like entering a virtual game.”
“On my first night at the Chen clan, I had a shared dream with my best friend. We beat up a scumbag man together, and then accidentally ran into a murder-and-dismemberment crime scene. Of course, that was also in the dream.”
“The next day, I felt something was wrong. I confirmed with other tourists I had seen in the dream that we had all had the same dream. To be safe, we went to call the police together.”
“After that, the Chen Family Head came. At the time, I guessed he was there to deal with this matter, and that was indeed the case. That night, the Chen Family Head came to dream together with us.”
“He was investigating what had really happened in that murder-and-dismemberment case. It turned out to be a case from more than ten years ago, all starting from a rebellious girl and a yellow hair…”
After that, the video recounted in detail the story told by the lay buddhist woman, including the father killing his daughter and son-in-law, and dying in prison.
Many people watched this video; its numbers were already very high.
Mainly because the content of the story was eye-catching, and the yellow hair problem is something many parents are concerned about now.
Especially parents with daughters.
Chen Han frowned slightly. In fact, the more popular this video became, the more it would cause discomfort to that lay buddhist woman.
But in the internet era, under the tide of self-media, there was no helping it.
However, that lay buddhist woman probably did not use Douyin, and even if she did, the chance of her seeing this video should be small.
The story in the video was told very well and even resonated with many people.
But as for the shared dream, no one believed it.
Because of the video’s popularity, it even drew a denunciatory video against this “As Snow As Illusion.”
That video was actually posted by another tourist who had visited the Chen clan, a video blogger called “Hugging A Lot,” who usually filmed cosplay videos.
Now seeing that “As Snow As Illusion’s” video had heat, she evidently no longer cared about cosplay.
“About the Chen clan’s shared dreams, everyone has seen it. It happens that I am also staying at the Chen clan. I have had quite a few dreams these two days due to my mental state. I can tell everyone here that the shared dream rumor is nonsense. There is no such thing.”
“So I hope some bloggers will stop hyping this, especially a certain blogger who even took a real Case and used it for hype. This is very immoral, with very distorted values.”
“Has she not thought that the Case is so old that the family members had already let it fade, and now dragging it out for hype is like sprinkling salt on their wounds? Even for traffic, there should be limits. I have already reported her.”
Chen Han had to admit this “Not Slim To Hug” was fierce.
She directly stood on the moral high ground and launched a values-based attack.
In the video, many people supported her, and many were tourists who had been staying at the Chen clan these two days, stating that shared dreams were impossible because they had also dreamed, and posting photos of themselves at the Chen clan.
It was completely one-sided.
This is the internet.
Sometimes, whether things online are true or false is not important. What matters is what the majority choose to believe.
Compared with the mysterious story of “As Snow As Illusion,” no one believed it.
“Not Slim To Hug’s” video had plausible reasons, stood on high moral ground, and had many tourists backing her, so everyone naturally chose to believe her.
As for the fact that only a few believers, who could provide wish power, could enter the dream realm was not important.
This kind of thing had repeatedly happened regarding the Chen clan.
In fact, most tourists, even if they came to visit the Chen clan, might not witness its miracles. For them, it was just a trip to a place with nice ancient buildings, good air, and pleasant climate.
After returning, most tourists might even tell others, “The Chen clan’s environment is nice. As for those mysterious things, they are fake. I went there; would I lie to you?”
Chu Ruxue naturally saw this video. Many people had @-mentioned her, and many were scolding her as immoral with distorted values.
It made her so angry that even the nose she had paid for was about to tilt.
She had told the truth. How had she been branded as having distorted values and morally hijacked?
The key was that from the trend of popularity, her chances of winning were very small. Worse, the Douyin backend suddenly gave her a notice to regulate her video, and then her video disappeared.
This left her completely powerless.
The internet is truly a place where falsehood prevails and no one believes the truth.
…
After that, the Chen clan’s rapeseed flower sea came to a complete end.
All the rapeseed flowers had turned into rapeseed.
Apart from a small portion of rapeseed being harvested, most would be kept as seeds.
The Chen clan and Liu Ye’s rapeseed flower merit industry had already signed a cooperation agreement with Linhe County. Next season, Linhe County would plant rapeseed flowers across the board.
Now in Linhe County, all towns and villages with allocated land were working hard to plow and make early preparations.
If it were some other agricultural project, no matter how much the county promoted it, the people of Linhe County would not be so enthusiastic. But Chen clan rapeseed flowers were different.
Everyone had already seen how attractive the Chen clan rapeseed flower sea was. With so many people in the village planting them, next year they could also do some promotion. Maybe tourists would come to their villages to see the sea of flowers.
Furthermore, the whole internet knew that this rapeseed flower sea of the Chen clan was created by Great Tycoon Liu. Was there no money to be made following such a man?
Especially given the domestic situation of rapeseed: there was no need to worry about sales. Rapeseed grows quickly, yields are high, and oil content is high. You would be a fool not to plant it.
Everyone knew what the economy was like now. As the saying goes: yoga pants used to mainly go to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai; now they mostly go abroad.
Such guaranteed-profit planting is hard to find even with a lantern.
However, the people of the Chen clan were all attracted by another matter: Chen Dao and Chen Linlin were about to participate in the National Games.
This was a big festive event for the Chen clan.
They even prepared an open-air screen to broadcast footage of Chen Dao and Chen Linlin’s competitions, clearly wanting tourists to see how impressive their own heavenly prodigies were.
Chen Han was also going to watch the competition.
Going along were the families of Chen Dao and Chen Linlin, and Director Zheng from the sports bureau had provided plenty of tickets.
Originally, Xiao Yu and Chen Xiaoyan were both suitable to be team leaders and representatives, but with the large-scale rapeseed planting, Xiao Yu was busy and Chen Xiaoyan was also busy.
So in the end Xiao Yu decided to have Xiao Mi Jie, who also wanted to watch the National Games, act on her behalf as the Chen clan’s team leader.
Before the group set off, Xiao Yu did not forget to instruct, “Sister Xiao Mi, help me keep an eye on senior brother. You know he looks pretty good, and he’s about to hit ten million fans, and he also has true kung fu. When he goes far away, many girls will definitely be eyeing him.”
“I know there are many female internet celebrities showing off their tickets to watch the National Games. If they run into him, don’t let them add his contact information, so they don’t leech off his popularity.”
“And if they want to add it?” Xiao Mi could only ask like this. Honestly, if it really happened, she would just see whether Chen Han added them or not.
Facing this question, Xiao Yu directly said, “Then you be his shield. Hold his arm so they’ll back off.”
“Got it,” Xiao Mi nodded seriously, feeling this idea was really good.
The group quickly got in the car and headed to Qingmin City.
This National Games was being held over in Hong Kong, so the Chen clan’s group arrived in Qingmin City and was then arranged uniformly by Director Zheng.
Those selected in the city would also go there together and meet up with the provincial gymnasium delegation.
Zheng Fei（Chapter 285） naturally made every effort in arranging things for the Chen clan’s group, even to the point of trying to ingratiate himself.
After all, not only had his father instructed him, but his grandfather and uncle were also stationed long-term at the Chen clan. Chen Dalong, Chen Dao, and Chen Linlin were three treasures.
If the Chen clan produced more talents like this in the future, that would all be his future political achievements. As long as Chen Dao and Chen Linlin got results, he could go to the province next year.
It was just a pity that this time Dalong could not participate.
After all, with the bus crash and replacement of athletes, you could play tricks in the hundred meters once with everyone turning a blind eye, but you could not do this in every event.
But two Chen clan prodigies were enough to shock the hundred-meter race track this time.
Chen Dao and Chen Linlin had already gone to the provincial team. During this period they had been in special training and were being treated as provincial hundred-meter trump cards, or two big “Ivan” figures in sprinting.
When the Chen clan’s group arrived in Hong Kong, the two of them joined the provincial sports delegation to welcome them.
They were very polite, first going to respectfully greet their family head Chen Han, and only then going to reunite with their parents.
The schedule for this National Games was arranged quite well.
For the hundred meters, the men’s event had heats, semifinals, and finals, while the women’s event had heats and finals.
Generally, the competitions took two days: men’s heats and semifinals on day one, finals on day two; women’s heats on day one, finals on day two.
After one night, the next morning was the men’s hundred-meter heats and the women’s hundred-meter heats.
As the Chen clan team leader, Xiao Mi naturally contacted the sports bureau early, and they went to the venue together.
Their seats were within the sports bureau’s internal allocation.
The provincial athletics team attached great importance to Chen Dao and Chen Linlin. When they set out, there was not only a dedicated team to relax their muscles, but also professional coaches giving them guidance.
Two leaders were beside them offering encouragement; even Zheng Fei, wanting to cheer them on, could only stand aside.
Because this was the hundred-meter track, unlike all other sports.
When Chen Dao and Chen Linlin saw their family head coming down, they hurriedly stood and respectfully greeted Chen Han. “Family Head.”
“Do your best today. Don’t weaken the Chen clan’s momentum,” Chen Han instructed, and the two nodded sharply.
At this moment, Zheng Fei brought two provincial sports leaders over to greet Chen Han. Both were extremely polite.
They had done their research and knew the Chen clan was impressive. If they could produce three heavenly prodigies all at once, could they produce three more?
Chen Han exchanged courteous words with the two leaders, then followed the provincial sports delegation to the competition venue.
Once there, Chen Dao and Chen Linlin each followed their own team to their respective tracks.
Chen Dao naturally went to the men’s hundred-meter track check-in.
In the National Games hundred meters, each province had three participants. The two with him were originally substitutes.
After the bus crash, the original entrants were injured and replaced by substitutes. Then, to put Chen Dao in, another substitute “got injured” as well.
In the end, it was Chen Dao plus two weak substitutes competing.
Chen Dao was quickly brought to the check-in area. After his blood was drawn, he saw many participants from other provinces gathered together.
They were all within the same system and clearly knew each other.
Chen Dao and the two substitutes, as first-timers, naturally drew attention and discussion.
“Did you hear? Over in Min Province, their bus crashed and their athletes were all injured.”
“That’s old news. So they could only use two substitutes and one filler.”
“Didn’t expect the filler to be so young. A high school student?”
“……”
Chen Dao’s age obviously drew everyone’s attention, and he was taken for the filler, as a matter of course.
Just then, a handsome man walked out, and everyone looked toward him with eyes full of respect.
Chen Dao could see that the respect the other participants had for this man was very genuine. He was Su Shen, the one who had set the domestic 83-second record.
This was also his last official competition; after this, he would completely retire.
The ironic thing was that although the god was in his twilight, there was no one on his throne to take over.
But at this moment, Chen Dao understood that on this track, strength was everything. As long as he could break that man’s record, everyone would respect him the same way.
Su Shen also noticed Chen Dao. He could hardly not; a high schooler this young stood out.
He had heard about the provincial team bus crash and how they casually found a stand-in. He had not expected the stand-in to be such a young man.
Su Shen looked at Chen Dao and comforted him. “Being able to stand on this track is enough to prove your excellence. Don’t mind what others say. Whether you’re a filler or not will be clear once you run. Youth is your greatest asset.”
Speaking of youth, he was a little desolate. His era was ending, and after struggling on this track his whole life, he had yet to see anyone surpass him. That was his greatest regret.
He truly wanted to see domestic athletes take a place on the world stage in the hundred meters.
Chen Dao was stunned by Su Shen’s comforting words. He could clearly feel the man’s sincerity and even his faint sadness.
Clever as he was, he seemed to guess his thoughts, and directly shouted at him, “Su Shen, since this is your last race, I will defeat you and let you retire without regret.”
“Huh?” Su Shen was obviously stunned, staring in surprise at the young figure before him.
All around, there was a burst of laughter. The competitors all looked at Chen Dao with mockery.
That was Su Shen. Even if he was about to retire, he was not someone just anyone could surpass. This time he would definitely take a medal.
A young stand-in, and so arrogant.
But Su Shen glanced at those people. When they tactfully shut up, he smiled at Chen Dao and said, “Good luck!”
