"Old Madam Dongfang." Duan Muxing turned around, and upon seeing these people, he smiled slightly and offered his greetings.
As for Lin Xingwan, she was at a loss for words for a moment, her mind entirely consumed by Zhou Jinbai's safety. She felt dazed, as if her head were filled with mush.
"Grandmother, those people are too arrogant! They dared to lay hands on Eldest Brother in broad daylight. This is unbearable," Jia Yanzhen exclaimed, unable to contain his anger. His expression immediately soured.
"These beasts! They think Jinbai is locked up and will never get out, don't they? My old bones can still move, and I won't stand by and watch my grandson suffer injustice for no reason."
The old woman's eyes were firm. However, mindful of Duan Muxing and his fiancée, outsiders, she transformed her anger into sternness and asked, "Speak, what were you discussing just now!"
Duan Muxing remained silent this time, as if waiting for something.
Lin Xingwan, however, had gathered her courage and directly took out the notebook she had with her.
On her way here, she had already decided that regardless of its effectiveness, she would expose Zhou Bingwen's treacherous intentions to others.
"Old Madam, I found this in Zhou Bingwen's room. I know it's hard for you to believe the diary entries in this book, and I know you'll suspect I'm framing Zhou Bingwen. But some things are better for you to know."
With that, Lin Xingwan handed the diary to the old woman.
The old woman looked at the diary, and her expression instantly became grave.
"You... how did you get this? This was a birthday gift I gave to Nianqing and Bingwen when they were young."
Without giving Lin Xingwan a chance to explain, the old woman eagerly opened the diary.
Initially, her expression was not so heavy, but as she read further, she found it increasingly outrageous, her whole body growing cold and trembling.
Upon reaching the last page, the old woman was so enraged that she threw the book violently to the ground.
"You... how could you have something like this? What are your intentions?"
The book contained accounts of many past events, some dating back thirty to forty years, when it was just the four of them in the family.
Therefore, the old woman did not suspect that the contents of the book were fabricated by the two people in front of her. She knew her son Zhou Bingwen had a habit of keeping a diary and that for years, Zhou Bingwen had felt they were biased towards Zhou Nianqing, leading to a strained relationship.
However, the old woman had never imagined that Zhou Bingwen's dissatisfaction was not mere discontent, but deep-seated hatred!
And the outlet for Zhou Bingwen's resentment was his own brother, and out of jealousy, he had even colluded with others to harm his brother.
Throughout the diary, the old woman found no trace of Zhou Bingwen's sorrow over his brother's death. Instead, he seemed to believe he had finally killed Zhou Nianqing.
"As I said, I found this in Zhou Bingwen's room. As for our intentions, there is only one: Zhou Jinbai's father's death is related to Zhou Bingwen; and the chaos Zhou Bingwen deliberately caused at the banquet, leading to the deaths of so many young members of the Dongfang family, was actually an attempt to eliminate anyone who threatened him. Zhou Bingwen is a devil in human skin. He died long ago; what remains is a devil blinded by rage and resentment, harboring a twisted soul within him."
Lin Xingwan spoke in one breath. After she finished, Duan Muxing added, "This is your Dongfang family's affair. We are returning the diary to you out of past goodwill. Please do not suspect us of any dirty dealings, as Zhou Jinbai and I are, after all, friends."
After speaking, Duan Muxing turned to Lin Xingwan and said, "Let's go."
Lin Xingwan knew she absolutely could not see Zhou Jinbai. Given her current dangerous situation, Duan Muxing bringing her here was already a significant risk.
So, Lin Xingwan could only follow Duan Muxing away.
Jia Yanzhen watched Lin Xingwan push Duan Muxing's wheelchair from behind and a familiar figure suddenly appeared in his mind.
"Grandmother, doesn't Duan Muxing's fiancée's back look like Eldest Sister-in-law's!"
After Jia Yanzhen asked, no one answered him. Their attention was entirely focused on the diary the old woman had thrown on the ground.
Meng Chuzheng knelt down and picked up the diary. Flipping it open casually, she happened to read the truth about Zhou Nianqing's death.
Meng Chuzheng's expression was filled with sadness, as she had long suspected that her husband's death was linked to Zhou Bingwen.
Therefore, after her husband died, Meng Chuzheng married Jia Huaixu precisely to investigate the true cause of her husband's death in a safe environment.
After all, if Zhou Bingwen dared to kill her husband back then, Jinbai was still young, and many people within the Dongfang family were secretly Zhou Bingwen's informants. If she had remained in the Dongfang family, she and her son would have perished.
"Let's return to the Dongfang family. I must get an explanation from that beast Zhou Bingwen!"
The old woman was furious, but Meng Chuzheng interrupted her, "Zhou Bingwen has no conscience left. If we return to the Dongfang family now, it will be walking into a trap. If Zhou Bingwen doesn't let us leave, we'll become his hostages. Then, with Jinbai's affairs still unresolved, we'll be busy with our own problems and worried about our safety. We'll only be adding trouble for Jinbai!"
Meng Chuzheng's words were sharp. The reason they were able to visit Zhou Jinbai now was purely because Jia Huaixu's bodyguards had protected them with their lives that night, allowing them to escape.
Now, they were accompanied by many bodyguards.
"Then what should we do? Are we just going to watch this unfilial son run rampant in the family?"
At this moment, the old woman, as a mother, was utterly disappointed in her son.
For years, she had believed that although Zhou Bingwen had issues in his thinking, he hadn't done anything too outrageous, so she had tolerated him to a certain extent.
After all, he was her own flesh and blood.
But now, Zhou Bingwen's cruelty had reached a point that angered both gods and men. If this matter was not resolved, she didn't know how she would face the ancestors of the Dongfang family after her death.
"I believe Eldest Brother will find a way to handle this. Let's go see Eldest Brother and see what he says."
Jia Yanzhen felt like cannon fodder. These matters had nothing to do with him, but due to his lack of love in childhood, he now felt a sense of belonging to the family and couldn't just walk away.
Meng Chuzheng and the old woman both agreed that Jia Yanzhen's suggestion was good, so they followed him towards the prison.
When they arrived at the prison where Zhou Jinbai was being held, Cen Zhiyuan had just finished giving him his medicine.
Zhou Jinbai lay on the bed with his eyes closed, resting, but his face looked extremely pale.
"Jinbai, my good grandson, you've suffered. My good grandson." Seeing how weak Zhou Jinbai was, looking as if he could leave at any moment, the old woman's heart ached immensely.
Zhou Jinbai did not open his eyes, but weakly replied, "I'm fine. Don't come to see me these days. It's not safe outside. You should all try to stay out less."
"How can we be at ease when you're like this? In my entire life, this is the first time I've seen you suffer such great injustice. It's my fault, Grandmother, for raising such a scourge."
The old woman was filled with regret at this moment.
If she had known that her son and grandson would die because of Zhou Bingwen, she would not have spared Zhou Bingwen.
Oh heavens, look at how she had raised a devil.
"This has nothing to do with you. It's my fault." Zhou Jinbai's current state of despair was partly because the questions he had avoided for years had finally yielded an answer. More importantly, because of his own reluctance to face it, so many people in the Dongfang family had died that night.
The oldest among them were around twenty, and the youngest were only four or five. But because he had not pursued Zhou Bingwen all these years, they had all paid the price for his mistakes.
At that moment, Zhou Jinbai wished it was he who had died.
"Jinbai, what should we do now? Are we just going to watch him control the entire Dongfang family? He killed your mother, and even witnessed people dismembering your father. I cannot accept this. Our Dongfang family rules explicitly forbid killing relatives, yet he... he committed such a heinous act..."
The old woman began to beat her chest and stamp her feet. She was filled with regret, but there was no medicine for regret in this world.
"Grandmother, what is going on? How do you know Jinbai's father was killed by Zhou Bingwen?"
Cen Zhiyuan, standing nearby, quickly caught the key point in the old woman's words. At the same time, Zhou Jinbai opened his eyes.
He struggled to sit up from the bed, his gaze fixed on the old woman. Although he remained silent, his eyes clearly conveyed a command: they must tell him everything they knew, without omission.
"Look for yourself." The old woman spoke, and Meng Chuzheng quickly handed the diary to Zhou Jinbai. Zhou Jinbai read a few lines, and his expression grew even more somber.
"Where did you find this book?" Zhou Jinbai couldn't believe that everything written in the diary was true.
From childhood, Zhou Bingwen had been a perfect man in his heart.
Zhou Jinbai had even always looked up to Zhou Bingwen as an idol and strived to emulate him.
But in the diary, Zhou Bingwen's twisted thoughts were unlike anything a normal person could write. He seemed like a madman.
His sadism had begun at a very young age, such as killing his own pets, or killing other people's pets, and tormenting them, a gradual descent into perversion, to the point where he could watch others kill Zhou Nianqing and then have him dismembered.
But Zhou Nianqing was Zhou Bingwen's own brother!
Zhou Jinbai couldn't fathom how someone who could harm his own brother had watched him grow up day by day over the years.
Behind his kindness, how many times had he harbored murderous intent towards him?
Zhou Jinbai couldn't stop himself from thinking about these things, and a chill ran through his entire body, a feeling more painful than being beaten.
"When we came just now, we met Duan Muxing and his fiancée. This diary was given to us by Duan Muxing's fiancée. She told us that whether we believed it or not, she obtained this diary from Zhou Bingwen's room."
Meng Chuzheng explained. Zhou Jinbai suddenly looked up, his eyes filled with disbelief, "It was that woman who gave it to you? Where is she? I'm going to see her now!"
After speaking, Zhou Jinbai, ignoring his injuries, threw off the covers and tried to get out of bed. However, his wounds were too severe. Before he could even get out of bed, he fell back onto it.
"Jinbai, don't move around. You're still injured! They've already left. If you want to see them, you need to recover from your injuries first." Seeing her grandson's agitated state, the old woman quickly pushed Meng Chuzheng and Jia Yanzhen aside and rushed to Zhou Jinbai's side, pressing down on his chest.
"No, I have to find her. She's in danger now!"
Zhou Jinbai knew that since he had exposed Helian Diejin's affairs that night, Helian Diejin must have realized by now that it was all her doing.
Whether it was Xu Qingdai's identity or Lin Xingwan's identity, neither would have a good outcome if they fell into Helian Diejin's hands!
In fact, their final fate might be even more tragic than his father's.
"Brother Zhou... something's wrong... Brother Zhou..." Suddenly, Lu Shiyan's voice came from the long, damp corridor outside. Even before seeing Lu Shiyan's appearance, his anxious and uneasy tone was evident.
Everyone's gaze fell on the doorway. A few seconds later, they saw Lu Shiyan, his face in a state of panic.
"What is it? Don't act so flustered. What happened?" Jia Yanzhen asked, seeing Lu Shiyan looking distraught.