There is no Redemption for A Scum Villain

Chapter 24

It was in the middle if the the night when Shang Qinghua heard a quiet knock on the front door of his house. Shang Qinghua hadn't been sleeping yet. He had still been taking care of some paperwork and had been calculating some finances when he had heard the knock.

Although he had been working, it had still confused him that someone would visit him so late at night. Shang Qinghua first thought that it might be a desciple, but when he opened the door and discovered who it truly was, he was so confused that he stood in place for a few moments to process the information.

The late-night visitor was in fact none other than Shen Qingqiu. The man was only wearing his inner robes and his shoes. He looked as if he had just come straight out of his bed. Without a word he pushed past Shang Qinghua and casually walked into one of the inner rooms to take a seat at the table.

Shang Qinghua stood in place at the front door for a few seconds. Had he imagined that just now? It happened so fast that it might as well have been a hallucination. He decided to close the door and go to the inner room and sure enough, right in the middle of the room, sitting on a cushion was one Shen Qingqiu. Shang Qinghua carefully took a seat on the opposite side of the table.

"Shen-shixiong? What are you here for at this hour?" he asked.

"I need information," Shen Qingqiu bluntly replied.

"Information?" Shang Qinghua repeated in confusion, "It's the middle of the night. Is it urgent? And...why are you only wearing your inner robes?"

"If I had dressed I would have woken him up," Shen Qingqiu explained, "And it's technically not urgent. But..."

Shen Qingqiu paused. He had wanted to get this done quickly. He had planned on waiting until the next day, but he had been unable to find any rest. Even though Yue Qingyuan's presence calmed him, after he had had this certain idea it just wouldn't leave him alone. He had thought he was going crazy, so he had decided to go to Shang Qinghua right away.

It had taken him about half an hour to get out of bed as he had tried to move as slowly as possible, slipping out from under Yue Qingyuan's arm like how someone would slowly pull a worm from hard soil while trying not to have it rip in two. He had even stuffed a pillow under his arm after he managed getting out.

Shang Qinghua knew that the 'him', Shen Qingqiu had been referring to, could only be Yue Qingyuan. That was also the only thing that he was certain of. Everything else about this situation seemed ominous. He wasn't even all too sure whether Shen Qingqiu had tried not to wake Yue Qingyuan because he wanted to be considerate or because he was hiding something and didn't want the other to know. Maybe it was both.

"How have you obtained it?" Shen Qingqiu asked out of the blue. Only after Shang Qinghua had looked at him in confusion did he explain what he meant.

"But didn't you have one?" Shang Qinghua asked after listening to the explanation.

"Yes. I destroyed it, so I need a new one," Shen Qingqiu replied.

"Why would you destroy something this valuable?!" Shang Qinghua asked in disbelief. Back when he had provided Shen Qingqiu with that item he had pretended that he didn't know what it could be used for. He treated it as if it was any other object that he had to obtain for his fellow peaklords. He had pretended so well that even Shen Qingqiu had believed him for a while.

When he realized that he might have let something slip, Shang Qinghua quickly changed the meaning of his sentence by adding, "I don't know what that thing is, but it cost me nearly a fortune and you just destroy it?"

"I didn't need it anymore," Shen Qingqiu countered, without saying the truth, which was that he had acted on impulse after thinking that what he had asked for was useless.