In the president’s office on the top floor of the Ri’an Group building.
At this moment, the entire office was lit with bright, almost blinding lights. It was unclear whether the lights were meant to dispel the darkness or to illuminate the dark side of the heart.
Most people would be somewhat uncomfortable under such lighting, but the person sitting under the light at the moment seemed to be used to it, without the slightest discomfort. This person looked to be only in their early twenties, but they were already the president of Ri’an Group.
Young and promising, it seemed like these words were tailor-made for this person.
And handsome. On his chiseled face, his features were sharp and distinct, and every part of it exuded an extraordinary aura. However, such a person, his eyes always carried a lingering haze, his gaze was gloomy and distorted, making people shudder at a glance.
This person was Su Han.carpreads.pages.dev
A year ago, through hard work and perseverance, he revived a shell company that laundered money for others, and then the Ri’an Group was born today.
Su Han was a madman, a complete mad dog, the kind that would bite anyone he came across. This was almost the only evaluation of this young man who had emerged in the business world.
But what did it matter, Su Han didn’t care.
At this moment, several company backbones standing next to Su Han were carefully reporting their work, seeming not to even dare to take a deep breath.
“Mr. President, Mintai Group’s stock index has already fallen below the issue price. It is estimated that if we continue to suppress it with the current force, Mintai Group should be forced to delist in about four weeks.”
“Four weeks?”
“Y-yes, four weeks.”
“It’s too long, two weeks, two weeks’ time, I want to see the Mintai Group picking up scraps like a dog on the side of the road.”
“But…”
“How to create public opinion and cause trouble, I don’t need to teach you again, right?”
Upon hearing this, everyone’s faces turned white.
“Yes, we understand.”
“Anything else to report?”
“Also, according to the latest first-hand information we received, the Zhou Group should be on the verge of collapse.”
“Just…”
“Just what? Tell me.”
“The chairman of Zhou Corporation is currently on the rooftop of the Zhou Corporation building.” At this point, the person’s expression became somewhat unsightly, as if they could not continue speaking.
What else could you do standing on the roof?
They wouldn’t think that the chairman of Zhou Corporation was just putting on a show. After all, President Su’s attack on Zhou Corporation wasn’t just business competition; it was simply forcing someone to a dead end.
Zhou Group was not the first company that Su Han had forced into a corner, and it was obvious that it would not be the last. Although, the previous few times, Ri’an Group had won thoroughly, but, that’s not how you do business.
Although everyone didn’t dare to say it, they all had a common thought in their hearts: if this continued, the ones who would suffer the consequences sooner or later would be their Ri’an Group.
“President, I think it’s just a matter of time before Zhou Group goes bankrupt. Why don’t we just call it a day and let them off the hook?” One of them finally couldn’t hold back and said in a low voice.
Upon hearing this, Su Han’s gaze turned cold, and he stood up.
“Let them go?” Su Han coldly bit out the words, his voice icy and full of sarcasm.
“Humph…” Suddenly, Su Han chuckled softly. His laughter didn’t stop, but instead grew increasingly crazier.
“Ha, let them go, I let them go, who let me go?”
“And who has let her go? Ah!”
Su Han stared at the people in front of him with bloodshot eyes and roared, the expression on his face was crazy and distorted.
Here it comes…
The outside world’s evaluation of Su Han as a madman was not nonsense. At times, Su Han really did seem like a madman. Just like this moment.
The few people present had been following Su Han for some time. Occasionally, the CEO would be like this.
No one knew what had triggered Su Han, making him so furious, and they were even more clueless about who the “she” was that Su Han had mentioned.
However, it was obvious that this wasn’t the first time Su Han had gotten this angry. Although it wasn’t the first time, the few people in the office couldn’t help but take a step back in fear when faced with Su Han’s terrifying anger.
“R-Rest assured, President, we know what to do.” One of them said nervously, lowering their head and swallowing, not until they felt Su Han’s anger subside slightly.
Upon hearing this, Su Han did not respond.
“Zhou Group, Zhou Renye, right? Wanting to jump off a building?” Su Han asked coldly.
“Y-yes.”
“Oh, really?” Su Han sneered, pointing at one of them and saying, “That’s perfect. You can send him a wreath later.”
“Oh no, send a flower basket.”
“Y-yes…”
Waving his hand to let the others leave, Su Han collapsed into the chair, exhausted.
“Wang Weidong, Chen Ying, Wu Zhuo… ahem, and Zhou Renye.”
“Almost there…” Su Han rubbed his temples wearily, but his eyes flickered with an excited and morbid madness.
“President.”
After those people left, the assistant knocked on the door and carefully walked into the president’s office.
“What’s the matter?” Su Han’s voice sounded low.
“That, that, President, the 99 lilies you ordered earlier have been delivered.” The assistant said, gesturing to the large bouquet of flowers in his hand.
“Delivered?”
“Where is she?” Su Han asked in a deep voice.
“Ahem, Miss Song is currently in the B-3 piano room of the A University Music Academy.” The assistant replied.
As per the CEO’s request, they had specifically assigned two people to keep an eye on Miss Song’s whereabouts at all times.
Upon hearing his assistant’s words, Su Han curled his lips and quickly got up from his seat, taking the bouquet and leaving.
……
When Su Han arrived at the piano classroom of University A, Song Zhining was still there.
Standing at the entrance of the piano room, listening to the gorgeous piano music, Su Han’s eyes were almost greedy as he looked at the back of the young girl in front of the piano, but it was as if he was looking at someone else through her.
Su Han saw Song Zhining two weeks ago. That day, as one of the investors, he was invited to watch a variety show, and that was when he saw Song Zhining playing the piano on stage.
At that moment, the girl playing the piano had become the salvation and sustenance of all his nightmares and obsessions.
The exact same melody, as the one he heard ten years ago.
However, Song Zhining played much better than that person. In fact, the backs of these two people were not that similar, but Su Han stubbornly felt that they were the same.
It was different, but he hoped that the woman could also play the piano like this, beautifully and wonderfully. Instead of what it was ten years ago.
Even after ten years, Su Han still remembered that day when he was called to a rich man’s banquet with a few elementary school classmates.
The liveliness and splendor of the banquet were things he had never seen before. In that luxurious villa, there were well-dressed men and many scantily clad women.
There, he saw the woman.
Just like in the past, before he left that home, every day he saw that woman wearing heavy makeup and revealing clothes. It seemed that it wasn’t just him, the host of the banquet seemed to have seen that woman as well.
He saw the man walk up to the woman, and then, many people surrounded the woman.
Amidst the teasing and mockery of the surrounding wolves in sheep’s clothing, the woman looked as if she had been frightened, her face pale and helpless.
He couldn’t hear what the people on the other side were saying because he was too far away. All he could hear was a cacophony of insults and laughter.
That woman wasn’t a good woman to begin with, so what did her business have to do with him?
Thinking about it, Su Han wanted to leave. However, her legs felt as if they were tied up, unable to move.
And then.
He saw those people forcing the woman to take off her clothes. Watching them push her to the gorgeous piano in the center of the hall. He watched as they forced her to take off all her clothes and play the piano for them while everyone watched and made fun of her naked body.
At that moment, he seemed to see the woman with her back to him. It was as if he couldn’t see anything at all.
His vision blurred, and all he could hear was the intermittent, out-of-tune sound of the piano.
Then, he heard a scream.
It wasn’t just the woman’s voice, it seemed like everyone in the villa was screaming, panicked and chaotic.
When he came to his senses, he saw that the woman had picked up a dinner knife from the table next to her at some point.
The woman screamed, crouched on the luxurious carpet, and curled up into a ball, her hands clenched around the dinner knife as she frantically waved it around.
The woman was eventually pinned to the ground by several security guards who rushed forward.
At that moment, seeing the woman being pinned to the ground and hearing her desperate screams, Su Han rushed forward. At that moment, their eyes met, and seeing the surprise in the woman’s eyes, he knew that she had also seen him.
The screams seemed to have stopped. He watched as the woman opened her mouth silently towards him.
“Don’t come any closer.” That was what the woman said to him.
Then, Su Han watched as the woman seemed to have gone mad and broke free from the security guards. The dinner knife that was about to be taken away was ultimately stabbed into the woman’s own heart…
The woman collapsed in a pool of blood amidst the chaos, her eyes still open at the last second.
He seemed to hear the woman open her mouth one last time, telling him to leave.
……
In the end, Su Han couldn’t remember how he left that place in the chaos. After that, the woman’s death didn’t seem to cause any ripples and it passed quietly.
If it weren’t for the countless times he returned to that rental house and didn’t see that woman’s figure, he wouldn’t even believe that she was gone, completely vanished from this world.
Only the scarlet of that final scene remained frozen in Su Han’s final memory. It was a pity that Gu family eventually brought about their own demise with the woman, before he could even lay a hand on him.
But it doesn’t matter, none of the people at that banquet that day will be able to escape.
Soon. After Zhou Renye today, there weren’t many people left…
Su Han’s lips curled up, the smile on his face was crazy and cruel.
“Bang——”
Suddenly, there was a sharp pain on the side of his face, and his vision shifted. The bouquet of flowers in his hand fell from Su Han’s hand and scattered on the ground.
After being punched hard, Su Han came to his senses, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and looked up at the person in front of him.
“Song Yian? Ahem.” Su Han narrowed his eyes.
He would never not recognize the current young master of the Song family in City B, who was also the half-owner of the Song Group. At the same time, this person was Song Zhining’s older brother.
Hearing the commotion outside, the piano music in the piano room came to an abrupt end.
“Brother!” Song Zhining ran out, quickly hid behind Song Yian, and looked at Su Han with disgust.
“You pervert! What do you want?”
“Nothing, flowers, for you.” Su Han bent down, picked up the bouquet of lilies that had become somewhat disheveled on the ground, as if to hand them to Song Zhining.
With a “slap”, the next second, Song Yian knocked the bouquet away with a wave of his hand.
“Su Han, you can’t mess with Zhining. You can’t offend our Song family. I’ve taken care of the two of you. If you dare to bother Zhining again, don’t blame me for being rude.” Song Yian glared at Su Han with a warning.
Upon hearing this, Su Han laughed, a somewhat crazy laugh.
“Don’t act like you’ll let me go if I don’t come to bother your sister.” Su Han raised an eyebrow and said, putting away his smile.
Scoffing, Su Han asked, “How is it? Is the cooperation between President Song and the Su family going well?”
Upon hearing Su Han’s words, Song Yian narrowed his eyes, a cold glint flashing in them.
“Ha, I originally wanted to let you, the CEO, be in charge for a few more days.” Song Yian sneered.
Since Su Han had exposed him, he didn’t need to cover up anything anymore. Previously, the Su family had found him, hoping that he could help pull the Su family’s company up, and as a condition, the Su family could cooperate with him to resolve Su Han’s Ri’an Group.
Song Yian was moved. He wanted to get rid of Su Han, not only for Song Zhining, but also for a more important reason. The several plots of land currently occupied by Ri’an Group should have been acquired by him.
Moreover, several companies that the Ri’an Group had been attacking fiercely for the past six months had cooperative relationships with the Song Group. The other party’s problems had already begun to affect the operation of some of the Song Group’s projects.
“Then, I can only apologize to President Su first.”
“A-hem, I’ll keep you company to the end.”
In fact, even if the Song family didn’t make a move against him, he wouldn’t have let the Song family off the hook.
Because, at the banquet ten years ago, although he did not see anyone from the Song family, he did hear the word “Song”.
……
In the following two months, a public business competition began between a group of companies led by the newly established Ri’an Group and the Song Group, which had only been formally established for more than half a year.
The Ri’an Group was defeated. This seemed to be within everyone’s expectations.
Moreover, the establishment of Ri’an Group back then wasn’t so clean. Therefore, not only did the Ri’an Group fail, but it was also implicated in many illegal cases.
Standing in front of the window on the second floor of the villa in Dongshan Garden, which used to belong to the Gu family but had now been transferred to Su Han, Su Han watched the police cars gradually approaching downstairs and smiled.
Over the past six months, he had forced many people to their deaths using various means and methods. Now, the cycle of cause and effect had come around to him.
Whatever. Anyway, it was almost done.
Over the past two months, although Ri’an was ultimately defeated, the Song family also suffered significant losses.
He pulled out the dinner knife from his pocket. It was probably not as sharp as an ordinary knife, so it was not easy to insert the dinner knife into the body, and it was very painful.
I wonder if that woman was in pain at that time…
A second before completely losing consciousness, Su Han seemed to have heard the sound of a door being smashed open, as well as some hurried footsteps.
The police are still downstairs, so who is this?
Su Han struggled to lift his head to see who had come.
Then, he saw it. A man.
He didn’t know if people would become very smart at the moment before they die, but it seemed that without even needing to know him, Su Han had already guessed this person’s identity.
Previously, Su Han seemed to have heard a chairman of a partner company say that he looked very much like the mysterious head of the Lu family.
Su Han didn’t think so. But now it seems that the person didn’t lie to him, it really looks like…
He wanted to confirm it again, but unfortunately his world had already gone black.
……
“Su Han, Su Han, wake up now.”
Who was it? Who was calling him?
The voice was somewhat familiar, yet it also felt somewhat strange. It was a very gentle voice.
Su Han felt someone approaching. The breath he smelled was fragrant, and it seemed that someone had gently stroked his head.
Then, he heard the other person say, “There’s no fever either. Why is he sleeping so soundly today?”
Su Han wanted to open his eyes, but his body felt like it was fixed in place. It felt like his body, but also not like his body. He could feel it, but he couldn’t control it.
There was another series of short, rapid footsteps. A boy’s voice rang out beside his ear.
“Mom, why can’t you let my brother sleep in since he’s not going to class today?”
“No, your brother will be taking an exam in a few days. According to what their class teacher said, your brother needs to get up and go to bed on time these few days to fully adapt to the time and rhythm of the college entrance exam, understand?”
“And you, Lu Boxuan! Why are you still here? Hurry up and get your own backpack, and go to kindergarten with your dad!”
“No, if my brother doesn’t have to go to class, I want a break too.”
“Lu Boxuan!”
“Xiaonuan, stay here and wake your brother up, okay? Mom is going to take your second brother downstairs.”
The next moment, Su Han seemed to feel something being placed by his side, and then the woman seemed to take the boy away. For some reason, Su Han really wanted to call out to the woman who was leaving. He didn’t want her to go.
Finally, after a struggle, Su Han opened his eyes. What came into view was a chubby, pink dumpling, very cute, like a little angel.
This little dumpling didn’t seem to be able to talk yet. When she saw that he had woken up, she seemed very happy. Her soft little hands reached out and touched his face.
The next moment, it seemed like the hostility in Su Han’s eyes that she had never seen before had frightened her. The little dumpling, oh no, it was Lu Xiaonuan the little baby, her face twitched and she burst into tears with a “wah.”
“Don’t cry.” Su Han sat up in a panic, looking at Lu Xiaonuan, who was crying sadly in front of him, feeling a little helpless for a moment.
If it had been before, if someone had been noisy in front of him, he would have thrown them out, but when faced with this little pink dumpling in front of him, Su Han actually had an instinctive reluctance.
As if the one before him was his treasure.
“Su Han, what happened to Nuannuan?”
Su Han heard the woman’s voice again and turned his head.
“You——！”
……
Su Han felt like he had a very long dream. This dream had been going on for several days.
In that dream, his wish came true, and he saw that woman again. In her dream, the woman lived a happy life. In the dream, the man he saw before he died was actually his father. In his dream, he also had a mischievous younger brother, Lu Boxuan, and a soft and fluffy younger sister, Lu Xiaonuan.
He also had a few buddies who he supposedly had been playing with since middle school. In that dream, Su Han felt warmth for the first time. If this was a dream, Su Han hoped that this dream would never end.
Unfortunately, dreams will eventually end.
A tearing pain in his left chest forced Su Han to open his eyes. When Su Han’s vision cleared, he saw a man in a black coat standing next to him with cold eyes.
In his dream, he learned that this man was called Lu Shao.
However, the Lu Shao in front of her seemed much more weathered than the one in his dream, and this person was truly cold, the kind of cold that was devoid of any warmth, completely unlike the gentleness and tolerance of the man in his dream.
“If you had inserted it half a millimeter deeper, it would have saved us some trouble.” Su Han heard the man in front of him say coldly.
The tone was a bit like the tone of the man in his dream who despised him, but it was really devoid of any warmth.
That man would come back to see him every day. When Su Han had almost recovered in the hospital, he was picked up by that man and taken to Country E.
On the plane, Su Han sneered as he watched the man open his mouth, seemingly wanting to ask something.
“In return for saving me, I can give you a proper burial in the future out of obligation.”
“As for other matters, I have nothing to say.”
He had already avenged what needed to be avenged. He had heard that the Song family was gone too. He would not tell this person about that woman, nor would he tell him about the other world.
That would be a secret, a secret that would forever remain in his heart.
As for taking care of you in your old age, I can consider it.
It wasn’t because of some bullshit bloodline, and he was talking nonsense about saving his life. However, Lu Shao in that world changed his perception.
Perhaps, the man before her wasn’t really that cold and heartless. It was just that, in this world, he hadn’t met that woman…
Author’s Note: The first half of the story was so heartbreaking to write~
This is my selfish wish for Han’er, so in the end, I still gave the novel world a relatively warm ending~~
Also, the Lu family’s little nine is really a little princess~~