Chapter 173
Chapter 173: Terrifying Parents and the Childhood Shadows That Erased Their Sense of Self
“Dad, please believe us. We are all your children. We will all listen to you. Everything we do is for our White Wolf Tribe to become a great clan of the Zhenlin Empire, standing above the Black Wolf Tribe.”
“We… we want Jiang Tea Tea to return to the family and become your support, even more than you do. We want her to be the family’s support too, to help us smooth our supernatural abilities and comb through our spiritual power, so we can become your strongest helpers.”
Looking down from above, Wolf Yin Feng stared at his four children with satisfaction. They knew what he was doing. They knew the importance of the family. They knew that everything he, the father, did was for their sake and for the sake of the tribe.
His tone softened a little as he held on to a father’s dignity: “As long as you understand my hard work. I had more than ten of you so you could stand together as one and become the pillars of my White Wolf Tribe.”
“Jiang Tea Tea will be the key for our White Wolf Tribe to become a great clan of the Zhenlin Empire. She still has not called me Dad once. She has not acknowledged me, because she does not feel a sense of belonging to me or to this family.”
“In the days to come, if you can work from home, then work from home. If you can study from home, then study from home. Other than that, you must spend all your time trying to please Jiang Tea Tea.”
“She has two months of summer vacation. In these two months, you must make her choose to return to the family on her own, change her surname to Lang, and announce on StarNet that she is a child of the Lang Family Estate.”
The only 3S-level variant plant-type healer in all of Interstellar Space was their child. Once that news was announced on StarNet, the Lang Family Estate would become the target that everyone tried to curry favor with.
By then, never mind swallowing just one Xiong family. Even if it were ten or a hundred Xiong families, they would all line up, eager to become attached to the Lang Family Estate and let it swallow them up.
The fourteen children of the Lang Family Estate quickly answered: “Yes, Dad. We will definitely do our best to please Jiang Tea Tea. Tomorrow morning, we will go and give her gifts…”
“No, no, not tomorrow morning. After we go back up in a bit, we should bring her gifts right away, so she can feel our goodwill.”
“Dad, don’t worry. We will make sure Jiang Tea Tea can feel the love of family here, feel the unshakable bond of blood.”
Jiang Tea Tea watched the fourteen children. Even though the oldest of them was in his thirties or fifties, she could still see their bent backs, their shaking legs, and the deep humility and fear of Wolf Yin Feng coming from their very souls.
Wolf Yin Feng swept his gaze over them once, then turned and left the basement.
The four children of the Lang Family Estate had not even caught their breath when their mother, Wolf Luo Feng, came in.
She was carrying a medicine box. Her eyes were full of worry and anxiety, and she started nagging like a mother who truly cared about her children: “You kids got hit again?”
“Look at your faces, all red and swollen. Maybe your healing spray isn’t working that well. Come on, use mine.”
“And Ten, Four, Eleven, Twelve, why are you still kneeling on the ground? The floor is so cold. Get up, let Mom take a look at your knees. Mom will spray healing spray on you.”
With Wolf Luo Feng’s help, Ten, Four, Eleven, and Twelve stood up.
Each of them wanted to avoid Wolf Luo Feng’s touch, but they did not dare. They had to endure their fear, terror, and disgust, and pretend to smile as they laid their hands in hers and used her strength to stand.
Wolf Luo Feng wiped their faces one by one, sprayed on healing spray, then touched and kissed them, nagging the whole time.
“Eldest, Eighteenth, Ten, Eleven, don’t blame your dad. Your dad is the clan leader of the White Wolf Tribe. Our White Wolf Tribe is not only weaker than the Black Wolf Tribe, we are also weaker than the Yellow Canine Clan.”
“Your dad is anxious. He wants us to become a great clan of the Empire. He wants our business to cover the whole Empire. He wants to give you the best life, so he is in a hurry.”
“Tea Tea, your younger sister, your older sister, was taken away by someone. Her gene profile was changed, so she was separated from us for eighteen years. Now we have found her and brought her back. No matter what, you must get along well with her. Give way to her, spoil her, love her.”
Starting from the eldest, all fourteen children of the Lang Family Estate obediently answered in order: “Okay, Mom. We understand. We will love her and spoil her.”
“Yes, Mom. We will listen to you and listen to Dad.”
“We will let her know Dad and Mom love her. We will tell her about Dad and Mom’s helplessness, and how much they missed her.”
“She is our older sister, our younger sister, our family. We will get along well with her, let her feel like she belongs, and make her stay home.”
Standing invisibly to the side, Jiang Tea Tea straightened up. Her gaze was cold as she watched Wolf Luo Feng treat her sons and daughters with such fake concern.
Not a single one of those sons and daughters dared to resist. From their eyes and body movements, it was clear that they were all afraid of them and terrified of them.
Wolf Yin Feng and Wolf Luo Feng stood one after the other, one scolding and one coaxing, one playing the strict one and one playing the kind one, like a classic act. One used the stick, the other tucked them in with a wet blanket.
[Well, well, this Lang Family Estate is even more interesting than I thought. Even the leftover consciousness of the fake young miss is starting to feel sorry for these brothers and sisters of mine.]
After listening to the fourteen children’s words and seeing each of them make their promises, Wolf Luo Feng smiled with satisfaction: “As long as you understand, as long as you understand. Stay here and rest. Don’t go out until the swelling in your faces and the redness in your eyes goes down.”
“Remember, when you go out, bring gifts and go visit Tea Tea. It does not matter if the gifts are expensive or not. What matters is the thought, that she can feel how warm and happy our family is.”
Wolf Xin Yi stepped forward: “Okay, Mom. In a bit I will take my younger brothers and sisters over there with me.”
Wolf Luo Feng nodded: “Good. You rest first. I’ll go check on your dad. Your performance at dinner today when welcoming Tea Tea was not very good. Your dad must be furious.”
Wolf Xin Yi bowed his head, admitting his fault: “This is my fault.”
The satisfaction in Wolf Luo Feng’s eyes almost overflowed. She patted his arm to comfort him, then picked up the medicine box and turned to leave.
The fourteen children of the Lang Family Estate had not even taken a full breath when she walked a few steps, stopped, and turned back: “Xin Yi, Xin Wei, I saw Xin Rui and Xin Ping came back this afternoon, didn’t they? Where did they go?”
Wolf Xin Yi still hung his head as he replied: “They came back this afternoon. They said the academy gave them a major demerit that has not been canceled yet. They need to draw better mecha armor designs, build better mecha armor, and learn mecha armor repairs so they can make up for their mistake and get the major demerit removed.”
“They came home for a bit in the afternoon and said hello to us. After staying for a little more than an hour, they left.”
“They said they had found some very good mecha armor designers and mechanics, and they wanted to grab hold of these two months of vacation and study hard.”
Wolf Luo Feng’s eyes shifted as she said: “You should learn from their attitude toward studying, but do not learn from them when it comes to making big mistakes and getting a major demerit. Understand?”
The fourteen children of the Lang Family Estate answered: “We understand, Mom.”
Only then did Wolf Luo Feng truly leave.
She did not know that as soon as the basement door closed, the eleven- and twelve-year-olds and the fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds who had not yet reached adulthood all bit their lips, then turned and hugged each other, crying silently.
Wolf Xin Chong, who had not spoken, looked at his eldest brother, Wolf Xin Yi, and regretted in his heart that he had not left with Wolf Xin Rui and Wolf Xin Ping.
He really had not expected his eldest brother would cover for them. They had emptied out all the valuables in their own rooms and even stole some hidden treasures from the house. Their eldest brother seemed to have seen everything but pretended he did not.
Invisible, Jiang Tea Tea watched them. The fourteen people here had an age gap of more than twenty years. Wolf Yin Feng and Wolf Luo Feng were really good at having children.
Including the fake young miss, they had given birth to seventeen in total. From what she saw today, the fake young miss had only suffered through three years of a bad life.
Her blood-related brothers and sisters had never lacked food or clothing, but mentally and emotionally, they had been crushed. Their lives were worse than hers.
After about ten minutes, the fourteen people in the basement finally stopped crying. They used medicine to get rid of the redness in their eyes.
Those who had not cried already had no more swelling on their faces. They had taken off their fancy formal coats and changed into everyday clothes before leaving the basement.
Jiang Tea Tea scattered audio-visual bugs and monitoring devices like grains of sand into every crack in the basement. Then she used the Shrinking Ground to Inches Technique to return to her room.
She wet her hair, changed into pajamas, and sat down on the sofa in her room. Through the team channel with Sui Xuan Chu and the other seven, she said: “Zhang Ting Zhou, I have filled this whole building and a five-kilometer radius with listening devices and monitoring devices. Take a look and see if there are still any gaps. After my dear older brothers and sisters and younger brothers and younger sisters come to visit me, I’ll go down again.”
Zhang Ting Zhou replied: “Copy that, Sister Tea. I’m working on full coverage for the monitoring system. I’ll send you a report in about half an hour.”
Jiang Tea Tea said: “Copy. Yan Yu, the intel you had on this family was not very accurate, especially the details about Wolf Yin Feng and Wolf Luo Feng as a married couple.”
Jiang Tea Tea had been invisible in the basement. Only she had been physically present, but the other seven were watching everything in real time through the feed and had gotten first-hand information.
Yan Yu answered: “You’re right. The details in my intel were not accurate enough. The twisted controlling behavior of Wolf Yin Feng and his wife goes beyond what I knew. Who would have thought they would hit their children without lifting a hand themselves and instead make the children hit each other?”
Cheng Lin Yue added: “Yes. Their children were not trained with simple verbal pua-type obedience. They were trained with deep, terror-based obedience.”
“The oldest son and daughter of the Lang Family Estate are already married, with partners and their own younglings, but they are still this afraid of their parents. That means they started training them when they were very young, from the time they were ignorant children all the way until they understood things.”
“Childhood shadows are the most damaging. They create reflex reactions of fear, shaking, and admitting fault. They make people afraid to resist.”
“Sister Tea, I think there must be one or more very secret rooms in this house that our surveillance has not covered yet.”
Jiang Tea Tea asked: “Lin Yue, you mean the Lang Family Estate has special hidden rooms for training the children?”
Cheng Lin Yue said: “Yes. A room that all their kids are terrified of. It has to be even darker than the basement they were in today.”
Sui Xuan Chu spoke up: “Cheng Xiao Ting, Yan Yu, Zhang Ting Zhou, expand the underground search area to cover the entire White Wolf Tribe settlement.”
“Don’t just search the back mountain forest. The key is underground. I suspect there is a huge project under this settlement, and it might be the criminal evidence we are looking for.”