Chapter 495: The Xiao Family's Curse
「Three days later.」
Xiao Ye left the hospital.
Before leaving, he seemed to sense something and turned back.
He saw the little girl standing at an upstairs window, waving at him nonstop.
Xiao Ye waved back before getting into the car. "Let's go. Take me to the airport."
Just as the car started moving, the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes.
"Mr. Xiao, my apologies! Someone just darted out in front of us!"
Xiao Ye looked over, his eyes narrowing.
'Wait, this man... why does he look a bit like me?'
'Could he be from the Xiao Family?'
'But the Xiao Family shouldn't have any companies or business in Country N.'
Xiao Ye opened the car door to get a better look.
The man who had stopped the car was in his thirties or forties.
Although his clothes were tattered and he wasn't even wearing shoes, he carried himself with a fine air.
He was also handsome, and upon closer inspection, Xiao Ye noticed a striking resemblance to himself.
This was especially true of his eyes, brows, and the high bridge of his nose.
"Who are you?"
"I am Xiao Ling, and I know you are Xiao Ye." The man stepped forward. "I am your father."
'Father?'
Xiao Ye laughed out loud. 'What kind of joke is this guy playing?'
It was true that the man looked quite a bit like him, but Xiao Ling had died over twenty years ago!
His very bones were resting in the Xiao Family's ancestral tomb!
The smile vanished from Xiao Ye's face, his gaze turning icy. "If you don't want to die, get out of the way right now!"
"I really am Xiao Ling, your father. If you don't believe me, we can do a DNA test. Or is there something you want to ask me? I can answer anything!"
Xiao Ye sized up Xiao Ling, then motioned for the driver to toss him a wet wipe.
After the man wiped his face clean, Xiao Ye's gaze hardened.
'This man really is related to me by blood.'
'But a clone could achieve the same thing.'
With the precedent of Lin Chuxing the clone, Xiao Ye didn't believe him at all.
'But... for them to dare clone his father... Interesting!'
'He was actually curious to see what they were planning.'
"Get in the car," Xiao Ye said.
"Okay." Without another word, Xiao Ling immediately got in.
Xiao Ye asked casually, as if making small talk, "How did you end up like this? And how did you find me?"
He was in Country N, a place so far away. The very fact that this man had managed to find him so precisely was suspicious enough.
Xiao Ling frowned, a hint of hatred showing in his eyes. "I know you don't believe me yet, and there are many things I can't explain."
"But there is one thing I must make clear to you, because it is the very foundation of our Xiao Family."
Xiao Ling glanced at the driver. "I'll tell you when it's just the two of us."
Xiao Ye had planned to go directly to the airport and fly back on his private jet. Since things had changed, he would just take off a little later.
The car soon arrived at the airport, and the two boarded the private jet.
Xiao Ye glanced at Xiao Ling's clothes and instructed a flight attendant, "Get him a change of clothes. Let him take a shower and clean himself up."
"Yes, sir."
There were spare clothes on the plane. Xiao Ling had a similar build to Xiao Ye, so they would fit him perfectly.
Half an hour later, Xiao Ling emerged.
Xiao Ye's eyes lit up. He had to admit, the man's bearing was genuinely impressive—far better than Lin Chuxing's, at least.
'It seems the Angel Association really spared no expense this time.'
'This man might have been trained for several years before being deployed.'
Xiao Ling sat down across from Xiao Ye and, with perfect composure, picked up the glass of water in front of him and drained it in one gulp.
"You can start talking now." Xiao Ye leaned back in his chair. "Don't you want me to believe you?"
"I know it's hard for you to believe me, but I have to say this."
"Even if you don't believe me, even if you want to kill me, you must believe my words, because I don't know how much longer I have to live."
Xiao Ling's eyes were calm, but a trace of hatred would surface whenever he recalled the past twenty-odd years.
"The truth is, our Xiao Family has an ancestral precept: every recorded year marks a time of life or death for the Xiao Family."
"The last time was just over twenty years ago. According to the precept, the Xiao Family had reached its final hour."
"So, in order to understand the contents of this precept and to protect the Xiao Family from annihilation, I had to go out and investigate."
Xiao Ling took a deep breath and continued, "I thought I was the only one who knew, because only the successive Patriarchs can read the ancestral precept. But I never expected..."
"Something happened. I was visiting the ancestral tomb when I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, I was locked in a place devoid of light."
"Someone would deliver food to me through a small window every day. For more than twenty years, I was trapped inside. I never once got out!"
Xiao Ye looked at Xiao Ling's body. His skin was indeed very pale, so much so that the veins beneath were faintly visible.
'But a newly created clone would look the same. This might just be an excuse cooked up by the Angel Association.'
Xiao Ye didn't expose him right away. Instead, he just nodded. "Keep talking."
"For these twenty years, I lived in darkness. I didn't know who my captors were or where I was. So the only thing I could do each day was think."
"I spent all my time in deep contemplation, and I discovered that our Xiao Family's ancestral precept is most likely related to the Xiao Family's founder, who was once cursed."
'A curse?'
Xiao Ye raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. "Alright, tell me. What curse? What's the story with the Xiao Family's founder?"
"Just start from the beginning. It'll save me the trouble of asking more questions."
"Okay." Xiao Ling nodded. "The Xiao Family was once illustrious, and our ancestors included high-ranking officials."
"Our Xiao Family once sought out many masters. One of them was narrow-minded and jealous."
"So when the Xiao Family decided to retain only one master, this master became resentful and laid a curse upon us—a curse for our family to be ruined and its line to be ended."
"This is all recorded in the texts left behind by our family. The curse cannot be broken, only stopped time and time again."
"It happens almost every twenty years or so, but generations of our Xiao Family ancestors successfully thwarted it, which is why the family has survived."
"When it came to my generation, a major event that threatened to annihilate the family did indeed occur."
After becoming Patriarch, Xiao Ye had also gone to the ancestral hall to read the documents and books that only the Patriarch could see, but he had never found any mention of these things.
But he didn't say this out loud, merely nodding for Xiao Ling to continue.
"Since you've become the Patriarch, you must know that I married a woman named Liu Loulan. She was the root cause of our family's near-annihilation that year."
"At the time, I discovered her intentions were impure and that she had been sent by others to secretly take control of the Xiao Family. I even considered killing her!"