Chapter 21: Drawing Blood

"Could it really be Li Sheng?"

"It certainly seems like him."

"Is it actually Li Sheng?"

Filled with overwhelming confusion, the Xue family followed the Bentley in their BMW 7 Series. As they passed intersection after intersection, the matter was finally settled when both cars pulled into the residential complex.

Wei Caiyan parked the car downstairs. Li Sheng stepped out, retrieved his folding bicycle from the trunk, parked it under the shelter, and waved goodbye as the vehicle pulled away.

The moment the Bentley left, the BMW rolled slowly forward. His uncle, wearing a bewildered expression, lowered the window. "Xiao Sheng, that car that brought you back was..."

"Oh, just a classmate. She saw I didn't have an umbrella, so she had her driver give me a lift."

Was she really just an ordinary classmate?

Xue Lingyu and Xue Luomeng exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with disbelief. They had noticed the way Shao Wangshu looked at Li Sheng; it was far too enthusiastic for a normal classmate relationship.

The problem was, Li Sheng wasn't exactly earth-shatteringly handsome.

As for other factors—talent, appearance, poise, temperament, attentiveness, or the silver-tongued ability to charm girls—there were plenty of people in school far superior to him.

Take classes 15 and 16, for instance. The students there were either wealthy or prestigious, already preparing to study abroad in the UK or the US to gild their resumes. Many families even hired etiquette tutors to teach them ballroom dancing, foreign languages, and art appreciation from a young age.

Looking at Li Sheng again, it all felt so strange.

This sense of confusion followed the Xue family home. Even after Li Sheng had showered and gone to his bedroom to sleep, Xue Luomeng, still busy with homework in the study, couldn't shake her doubts and picked up her phone to chat with friends.

As a quintessential, pampered teenage beauty, Xue Luomeng had far more friends than Li Sheng, ranging from seventh graders to seniors.

After a few lines of gossip, she learned of Shao Wangshu's status as a transfer student and the rumors that she had personally requested to sit next to Li Sheng.

"...So, he's been targeted by a sweet, beautiful, and filthy rich little heiress?"

Xue Luomeng squinted, wearing an expression of pure, meme-worthy bewilderment.

"Jealous?"

Xue Lingyu, who was idly spinning a pen, looked up at his twin sister. He knew that when they were younger, Xue Luomeng had been particularly attached to Li Sheng, constantly declaring that she would be his bride when she grew up. As they got older, shyness set in, and due to other reasons, their relationship had gradually cooled until they were now like strangers.

"Jealous, my foot."

Xue Luomeng tapped Xue Lingyu on the head with an exam paper and pouted. "I'm just curious if this Shao Wangshu has taken the wrong medicine."

"Shao Wangshu?"

Xue Jingming, holding a cup of goji berry tea, happened to pass by the study door. He paused, frowning slightly, and asked toward the room, "Mengmeng, are you sure that young lady's surname is Shao?"

"Yeah, that's what my friend found out. Why, Dad?"

"Nothing, just that the name sounds familiar. Like I've heard it somewhere before."

Xue Jingming looked puzzled. He set his teacup on the coffee table, reclined on the sofa, and picked up his Huawei flagship phone, encased in a leather cover, to search through the chat history of the family group.

After a long while, he lowered the phone with an expression of disbelief and muttered, "It actually is the Shao family."

"What Shao family?" asked Li Zhao, who was busy taking the family's laundry out of the Siemens dryer.

"Remember when Luomeng and Lingyu were little, and we had to go back to the Xue ancestral home in Hangzhou every year for the clan gathering?"

Li Zhao stopped folding clothes. "I remember. What about it?"

As a large family with a history of over two hundred years, the Xue clan held a gathering every New Year, summoning direct and collateral family members back to their hometown. If they lived too far away, they would return every five or ten years.

Of course, in modern society, the clan no longer played the role of a grassroots government as it had in feudal times. The gatherings were mostly for socializing, updating the genealogy, maintaining the ancestral hall, and distributing a small portion of the family business profits to each household. Aside from that, it was no different from any other family visiting relatives during the holidays, just a bit more lively.

Xue Jingming said, "For a few years, besides the Xue clan, there were many from the Shao clan attending the gatherings."

Like the Xue family, the Shao family was also a major clan. Their ancestral home was in Shanxi province, two thousand miles away from Hangzhou; logically, they should have had nothing to do with each other. Yet, for some reason, the two families were exceptionally close, and their direct descendants met often.

Xue Jingming had left his hometown early and never entered the family's inner circle, so he didn't know the specifics of their relationship, but one thing was certain: the Shao family was far wealthier than the Xue family.

With that thought, he picked up his phone again and searched for relevant information.

He found it: Shaoyuan Energy Group Co., Ltd., based in Jincheng. They started in the coal industry and expanded into power, coke, chemicals, steel, and mining. They held mining rights in Canada, Australia, Indonesia, and South Africa through cooperative development or direct purchase. They literally had mines at home. With annual revenues nearing one hundred billion, they were among the top 500 companies in the country.

The group's leader, Shao Yingwu, was a low-key person who rarely appeared in the spotlight. He was also extremely protective of his family, and there were almost no photos of them available.

After searching for a long time, he finally found an old family photo from a banquet. Shao Yingwu was sitting with three children. A boy and a girl, about thirteen years old, looked cold and indifferent. The youngest child, about six, was all smiles, with facial features that seemed vaguely familiar.

"No way..."

"No way..."

The same exclamation echoed in a bedroom in a villa in the eastern part of the city.

Shao Wangshu, now in her pajamas, was petting a blue-tongued skink that looked like a toy, her face filled with astonishment.

"It is 'that way'."

Wei Caiyan looked helpless and began offering dating advice. "You were so enthusiastic today—driving him home, suddenly giving him a birthday present—any boy would be scared off. You two have only known each other for a few days!"

Shao Wangshu corrected her, "It's not a few days. It's been ten years."

"He doesn't remember you, so it's just a few days." Wei Caiyan pouted. "These things require a gradual approach. You have to play the long game to catch the big fish, understand?"

*Ring, ring, ring—*

The alarm clock on the table suddenly went off. The expressions of the mistress and her servant stiffened. By silent agreement, they stopped talking and turned to look at the calendar hanging on the wall.

Every seven days, a large 'X' was marked in red ink on the calendar.

It was time for the blood draw.

Shao Wangshu silently placed her pet back into the incubator, wiped her palms and the backs of her hands with a wet wipe, sat back down, and rolled up the sleeve of her pajamas.

Her arms were as fair as jade, save for the area around her upper deltoid, which was covered in scars.

Wei Caiyan pressed her lips together, took a metal medical kit from the refrigerator, and pulled out a set of blood-drawing equipment. "200cc?"

"Let's take 400cc this time; take next week's share as well. I promised my classmates I'd go to karaoke next weekend, and I don't want them to see the marks."

Iodine was applied to her upper arm, and the needle pierced her skin. Shao Wangshu's crimson plasma flowed slowly along the soft tube into the blood bag, carrying streaks of golden threads that radiated a burning, intense heat.

Her face quickly turned pale.

"All done. Get some sleep."

Once the blood draw was complete, Wei Caiyan gently carried Shao Wangshu back to bed. She then placed the two blood bags into a metal ice box, carried it downstairs, and walked out.

Staff from the Shaoyuan Energy Group were already waiting downstairs. They took the metal box, turned, and walked out of the villa, got into an SUV, and sped away. There was no verbal exchange between the two parties.

This routine had been going on for seventeen years.