Love letters are not allowed in the exorcism notebook!-Chapter 571 - 148 Who is whispering outside the door?

Since ancient times, all the bustling of the world has been for the sake of profit, and all the commotion has been in the pursuit of gain.

No matter the group, it must have common interests to unite.

Even beggars on the streets know to band together for warmth, forming the Beggars Sect and dividing their territories to drive away newcomers, ensuring everyone gets to eat.

The newfound elite that rose with the President were the same.

It didn’t matter if your last name was Zhang or Li, whether you started as a facade or in the background, whether you built bridges and paved roads, or committed murder and arson...

In the eyes of outsiders, there was no difference.

Therefore, some core interests must be upheld through collective effort.

Opium Bandits... no, rather, Demons and Evil Spirits were causing too much trouble. It was bad for everyone, so the Demons and Evil Spirits had to be eradicated; there was no other choice! Whatever filthy dealings you had with them in private, others might turn a blind eye, but they wouldn’t help you, because only you profited, while others did not.

One must invest resources to nurture their own successors. With life lasting only a few decades of winters and summers, even with daily luxuries how much wealth could one squander? Aside from achieving one’s own life goals, isn’t the struggle also to advance the family and continue the legacy of Incense Offerings?

Therefore, no one could have imagined that the Shen Family would commit such a crazed act—throwing the life of their most talented third-generation heir as a bargaining chip, just for a moment of safety.

Shen Jianzhen hadn’t slept all night, he was waiting for a phone call.

He was supposed to receive three calls tonight, but as the sky in The East began to lighten, the phone on his desk had remained silent.

As he watched the clock on the wall point towards six, his last bit of patience finally ran out.

No one had called back, which meant that all his plans had gone awry, maybe even turned into a situation he could not accept.

Shen Jianzhen took a deep breath and slowly dialed a number.

"Hello, this is the Emergency Department of the Customs Administration..."

"This is Shen Jianzhen."

The voice on the other end hesitated, then asked in a lowered tone, "Old Shen, why are you calling me here?"

"I want to inquire about the situation at the warehouse..."

"You don’t know?"

"What am I supposed to know?"

The voice on the other end spoke with confusion, "I’m not clear about the specifics, because not even a whole corpse could be pieced together at the scene. Didn’t anyone from your family escape?"

With a clatter, the receiver fell from Shen Jianzhen’s hand and onto the floor below the desk.

No survivors, no one escaped...

Qingxi...

After hanging up, Shen Jianzhen stood up, took a bottle of whiskey from the bookshelf, poured himself half a glass, and drank it in one gulp, forcing himself to calm down.

He picked up the phone again and dialed a second number.

This time, he waited a long time.

After what seemed like almost a minute, someone on the other end finally picked up, and a young woman’s voice came through.

"Hello, this is the private residence of Duke Tartalos, but the Duke is currently unavailable to take calls. If you have an urgent matter, I can relay the message."

"I..."

Shen Jianzhen subconsciously began with ’I’ but suddenly realized his mistake and clamped his mouth shut.

However, the person on the other end had already recognized his voice: "Professor Shen, isn’t it? Calling so early, did you not have a good rest last night?"

"Let me introduce myself, I am Liu Zhihan, the new head of the Intelligence Division of the Special Service Bureau in Tianmen City."

Impossible...

Shen Jianzhen could not accept this fact.

How could the Special Service Bureau possibly find Duke Tartalos’s true location in just one night?

That old guy is like a thousand-year-old turtle in a mud pond, hiding deeper than anyone else.

Even Shen Jianzhen himself had never seen Tartalos’s true form, and the number he was dialing now wasn’t for some private residence.

A strong sense of powerlessness surged in his heart.

"I happen to have both good news and bad news to tell you."

The woman’s voice on the phone was calm and unrippled, but to Shen Jianzhen, it was full of sarcasm.

"The good news is, considering that Tartalos has been apprehended, the Special Service Bureau will cease its investigation into the Shen family; you no longer have to live in fear."

What do you mean I don’t have to live in fear!

You cast your net and pulled up a thousand-year-old turtle from the bottom of the pond, then you tell the crabs on the shore, "Don’t be afraid. I won’t eat you today"... and I’m supposed to stop worrying?

Indeed, there’s no need to worry anymore, as the dead have no fears to harbor.

If this is considered good news, then...

"What’s the bad news?"

Shen Jianzhen asked listlessly.

"You’re a highly learned professor; have you ever heard of the concept of ’fate inertia’?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means if we quantify all the factors affecting a person’s destiny and insert these constants into calculations, we’ll end up with nearly identical outcomes at certain pivotal junctures of their fate."

"For example, if someone isn’t well-cared for at birth, in old terms, their foundation is damaged, then sooner or later they will suffer a serious illness. It might be in three years, or it might be five years later, but the illness is bound to come."

"If Miss Shen Qingxi of the Shen family is destined to face a mortal peril, then according to the principle of ’fate inertia,’ even in a parallel universe, Shen Qingxi would encounter a similar event."

"This event is bound to happen; you might try to avoid it, to resist it, to solve it, but you cannot ignore its objective presence."

"So, sacrificing one granddaughter does not ensure the safety of the other. If Shen Qingxi is to die, then Shen Qingxi will inevitably also die."

"Of course, this is just an academic discussion and not the bad news I’m about to tell you."

"The real bad news is that you made the wrong choice. Just like Jesus Christ back in his day, he wanted to be the Messiah, but the Joshua People didn’t acknowledge him as the Messiah. They not only betrayed him, they even sent him to the cross."

"You think you chose your true granddaughter, but have you ever considered what you’ve given up?"

What have I given up?

Shen Jianzhen was blank.

He wanted to ask more questions, but at that moment, the person on the other end had already hung up.

At the same time, a soft knock on the door was heard.

"Grandfather..."

Shen Jianzhen was startled; he recognized the voice outside the door.

But it was precisely because it was familiar that he shuddered.

Shen Qingxi was already dead, whether the real Shen Qingxi or that replicant who’d suddenly appeared in his home.

So who was the person standing outside the door now?