Wedge

  "Terminal stomach cancer!"

  Looking at the results displayed on the diagnosis book, Xuan Qi only felt a dizziness, staggering backward several steps and almost fell to the ground.

  Xuan Qi trembled as he picked up the diagnosis result again, looked at it carefully, remained silent for a long time, and finally let out a sigh.

  His life experience can be described as "a tortuous fate with a lingering evil spirit".

  He lost his mother at birth and his father died in a car accident when he was six years old, leaving him to rely on his grandfather for survival.

  Since he was young, his family was very poor. All the expenses for his education were borne by his grandfather who earned money by writing and painting in the market.

  But when he went to college and could finally earn some money to support his family through part-time jobs, he heard the bad news that his grandfather had passed away.

  Xuan Qi had vowed since childhood that through his own efforts, he would change his fate and become a superior person, allowing his grandfather to live a good life.

  But Grandpa suddenly left, leaving so suddenly that he was momentarily lost and without the motivation to move forward.

  After his grandfather passed away, he dropped out of school. Continuing to attend university had lost all meaning for him. He had gone to school mainly for the sake of his grandfather, who had an almost obsessive persistence in his education.

  Now that Grandpa has passed away, he no longer has the heart to continue reading.

  After a period of depression, Xuan Qi picked himself up again. His life goals were still simple and pure: to live a good life through his own efforts, find a good wife in the future, get married, have children, and let them also live a good life.

  However, it seemed as if heaven was deliberately against him, and from childhood to adulthood, he had never had a smooth life.

  As soon as he was born, his own mother left him, and he had never experienced the taste of maternal love.

  He was weak and sickly since childhood, because of long-term taking Chinese medicine and soaking in medicinal baths, his body often had a strong smell of Chinese medicine, and he was nicknamed "medicine pot" by his classmates, at the same time, no one wanted to be friends with him.

  Although Xuanqi studied very hard and was intelligent, he often performed well in ordinary exams, but whenever there were important exams, he would inevitably fall ill. For example, during the middle school entrance exam and college entrance exam, he took the exams while being sick, and the results were as expected. In the end, he barely made it into a third-rate university, whereas his classmates, who had worse grades than him in ordinary times, all got into key universities.

  When Xuan Qi took the exam, he chose computer science as his major. However, because he checked the "obey arrangement" option when filling out his application, he was ultimately assigned to a very unpopular environmental engineering major, which completely went against his original intention.

  Xuan Qi never believed in fate and firmly believed that he could change his destiny through hard work.

  In college, he self-studied programming and grew from a computer novice to a programming expert. During his university days, out of interest, he formed a team and initiated a learning-oriented mobile operating system project, doing secondary development on an open-source Android mobile operating system.

  When the project progressed to a certain extent, it attracted the attention of investors. A well-known domestic software company sent someone to contact Xuanqi, saying that they intended to acquire the company at a high price. Originally, Xuanqi thought he was lucky, but unexpectedly, on the eve of the project's acquisition, a technical backbone in the team was bought off by someone, and the source code was completely leaked to competitors, resulting in the failure of this acquisition. Later, the project also came to nothing.

  After dropping out of college, Xuanqi started his own business in the IT field several times. Although each time he had a good vision and creativity, he was unable to turn these projects into actual things and they all ended in failure.

  Under the disappointment and laziness, Xuan Qi felt that he was not suitable for the IT industry. So he saved some money and started a business with someone else. As a result, his partner loved to gamble and lost all the funds, not to mention that they also owed a large amount of debt.

  One failure after another, he ended up failing in business several times. Xuán Qí thoroughly gave up on this idea and eventually stopped starting his own business to work for others instead.

  His first job was selling health products, he started as an ordinary employee and rose to regional manager, but the company went bankrupt due to problems such as counterfeit products and broken capital chains, and he didn't even receive his full salary for the last three months.

  His second job was as a supermarket security guard, which he held for slightly longer, eleven months later, the supermarket where he worked was destroyed by a fire and he became unemployed.

  ……

  Xuan Qi tragically discovered that wherever he worked or whichever company he was in, all sorts of unimaginable incidents and problems would inevitably occur.

  However, he still did not give up and eventually chose to go home and farm.

  He first raised special bullfrogs. After an unknown disease, eighty percent of the bullfrogs in the ponds he contracted died.

  He finally gave up completely and decided to farm honestly, but unexpectedly encountered a rare flood in a hundred years. The several acres of farmland he contracted were almost completely lost, and he owed a large debt that took many years to repay.

  ……

  After leaving university, in just over a decade, he changed jobs dozens of times, working in more than ten industries, but none lasted more than two years.

  Xuan Qi didn't know why he was like this, every job he held dear and worked hard with all his passion, but the outcome was always the same, it seemed as if heaven was against him, not allowing him to live a good life.

  Just a few days ago, he had just passed his thirty-seventh birthday, but he was still the poor loser he was back then, with less than four digits in his bank account and having talked to countless girlfriends, yet none of them were willing to follow him.

  Xuan Qi has never been one to give up easily, and if he hadn't just received the results of his physical examination, he would probably still be going to a job interview right now to work as a security guard in a residential area.

  But now he has completely lost this mood.

  The sudden bad news made him somewhat at a loss, his mind was all in a muddle.

  Past memories began to emerge in his mind, and some originally vague memories also became exceptionally clear at this time.

  What he thinks about most is still his grandfather.

  His grandfather was the person he admired most, not only could write and paint, but also knew kung fu, with a very high prestige in the village. Unfortunately, his grandfather's merits were not inherited by him.

  Xuan Qi remembered that when he was a child, the old villagers used to say that his grandfather could tell fortunes and understand feng shui. However, after his father passed away, he completely washed his hands of it and never touched those things again. The fellow villagers who came to ask for his help also never got a response from him again.

  Thinking of this, Xuan Qi couldn't help but touch the tortoise shell on his neck, which was left to him by his grandfather after he passed away. Besides this, there was also a tattered ancient book, but because it had been burned in a big fire, the text on it was completely illegible.

  This piece of tortoiseshell had also been burned by fire, and was pitch-black, only faintly visible with some texture. Xuan Qi found someone to make a border for it, turning it into a pendant hanging from his neck, always carrying it with him, also as a keepsake.

  Xuan Qi looked back on his life and felt that there was nothing worth mentioning, if he had to describe it in four words, it would only be "mediocre and unaccomplished", no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't escape this strange cycle.

  He had just walked out of the hospital when he received a call from his only good friend, Liang Zimo.

  "Xuanzi, how's the check-up result? Nothing wrong, right?"

  Xuan Qi took a deep breath and forced a smile: "It's nothing, just an old illness. The doctor told me to pay attention to it in my daily life, and prescribed some medicine."

  "Your stomach problem should be taken care of properly, if you drag it on any longer, it will definitely lead to big trouble."

  The concern of good brothers made Xuan Qi's heart slightly warm up.

  Liang Zimo has helped him a lot in this life. If he still has any attachment to this world, it is that he has not yet repaid the debt of gratitude he owes others.

  Xuan Qi's mind was in a mess at this moment, with late-stage cancer and no hope of rescue. The doctor had also kindly told him privately that continuing treatment would be a waste of money, and asked him to prepare for the aftermath.

  He had no idea what he was going to do next.

  There were already many people waiting for the bus at the station.

  Most of these people are from hospitals, either coming for a visit or having relatives living in the hospital.

  Among them, a mother held a boy in her right hand and a thermos bottle in her left hand. Next to her stood a little girl with braids.

  At this time, the little boy's small ball accidentally rolled down and directly rolled into the middle of the road.

  The little girl saw this and immediately followed the ball out of the platform, while at this time, a taxi on the road was speeding towards this side.

  This happened so suddenly that everyone was caught off guard for a moment, and by the time the little girl turned her head around, the taxi had already come to within less than one meter of her.

  Just as the rickshaw was about to hit the little girl, a figure suddenly rushed out from the side of the road and pushed the little girl aside at the last second.

  "Boom!"

  A dull thud was followed by a sharp screeching sound of brakes.

  Xuan Qi only felt as if he had been heavily pounded and struck violently, and his entire body flew up into the air.

  Time seems to have stopped at this moment.

  A flustered expression, a station sign, high-rise buildings, and a gloomy sky appeared one after another in his field of vision.

  "Am I going to die?" Xuan Qi thought.

  The last scene he saw was that the turtle shell on his neck also flew up, with bright red blood still stained on it. Then, this blood suddenly disappeared without a trace, all absorbed into the turtle shell.

  Xuan Qi's pupils suddenly dilated, and he saw that the charred surface of the turtle shell had become crystal clear in an instant.

  Right next to it, a small whirlpool suddenly appeared out of thin air with the turtle shell as its center. Xuan Qi felt that this small whirlpool produced an enormous pulling force, giving him a feeling as if his soul was about to be swallowed up.

  "Hmm."

  Xuan Qi's body fell to the ground, and he completely lost his vitality, dying on the spot.

  "The Demon of the Mystic Gate" latest chapter is released by Yunqi Book Academy, the fastest and most popular online release site! (This site provides: traditional pagination, waterfall two modes, can be selected in settings)