Chapter 2

Chapter 2

With a sweep of his hand, Lin Qing pointed at me in a show of masculine authority.

“Xu Shuyin, apologize to Xia Lin, or I’ll—”

Smack!

“I’ll—”

Smack!

“I—”

Smack!

Three slaps in a row left my palm stinging.

Looking at Lin Qing’s swollen, reddened face, I smiled.

“Or what? Are you going to break off our engagement?”

Lin Qing fell silent.

He did not dare say those words lightly.

While he hesitated, Xia Lin made the decision for him.

“Then break it off! Isn’t his illegitimate birth the reason you look down on Mr. Lin?”

“Well, were kings and nobles born to their rank? Who says an illegitimate son can’t achieve great things?”

The private room went deathly still.

Although Lin Qing had not been brought into the Lin family until he was thirteen, the family had kept the matter quiet. To outsiders, they simply called him their youngest son.

Apart from the few of us who knew the truth, most people had no idea he was illegitimate.

And this banquet was not attended only by friends and trusted subordinates. Eager to flaunt his success, Lin Qing had invited plenty of business rivals as well.

Thanks to Xia Lin, his parentage was now public knowledge.

Under the scrutiny of every eye in the room, Lin Qing’s face darkened viciously.

I burst out laughing. Where had he found such a spectacularly useless teammate?

Xia Lin flushed. This time, she had learned her lesson. She hid behind Lin Qing before shouting at me.

“Don’t think I don’t know the truth. Your engagement to Mr. Lin is nothing but a business alliance. You don’t love each other at all.”

“Have you ever truly cared about him? Where were you when he was lonely? When he was heartbroken? Do you have any idea what he suffered? I was the one who stayed beside him through those hard days!”

Watching her flushed, impassioned face, I could not understand why enduring hardship with Lin Qing was something to brag about.

Still, if the two of them wanted hardship so badly, I would oblige. They would have more of it than they could ever finish.

I pushed past He Zheng and, under everyone’s eager gaze, pronounced Lin Qing’s sentence.

“The engagement is over, Lin Qing.”

“Your project will collapse. Your stock will plunge. Chairman Lin will be disappointed and cast you out, and you’ll go back to being a nobody. That is the suffering an ungrateful illegitimate son like you deserves.”

I left the hotel and drove straight to the office.

The top floor of Xu Group blazed with light. I took the head seat and listened to my secretary’s report.

“Ms. Xu, if we release the Lin Group scandals now, we have an eighty-percent chance of persuading the Hecheng client to choose a new partner.”

Preparations for the Hecheng project had begun three years ago. I had made the original introductions for Lin Group.

At the time, I had only recently taken control of Xu Group. I did not dare swallow a project that large. Lin Qing was better suited to it.

If he succeeded, everyone benefited. If he failed, he would be ruined, while my losses would remain manageable.

Things were different now.

I had secured my position at Xu Group. No project was too large for me to attempt.

There was no morality in business. Lin Qing was not the only person who knew how to burn a bridge after crossing it.

In half an hour, my investigator had uncovered everything about him and Xia Lin.

Xia Lin came from a poor family. She had left high school and worked as a hospital aide. A year ago, Lin Qing’s biological mother was transferred to her hospital for chemotherapy, and Lin Qing often visited in secret. That was how they became close.

His mother had late-stage stomach cancer. Her condition was grim. During that period, he was often despondent. I understood. I held off the pressure from the Lin family so he could spend his mother’s final days with her.

And in those same days, he and Xia Lin began their affair.

Lin Qing had hidden it well. Before the Hecheng project was nearly certain, he had not dared bring her into the open.

I did not know whether success had given him courage against me or whether he had started believing he was strong enough to control me.

I only knew he would regret that decision forever.

News of our broken engagement went public.

Half an hour later, so did the reports of Lin Qing’s affair with his assistant and his illegitimate birth.

Our public-relations team moved fast, taking over every major news feed. These days, no one bought the old excuse that true love absolved every sin. Abuse flooded Lin Group’s official account, and public opinion was overwhelmingly against them.

I sat in my office, watching Lin Group’s share price.

The night was still young. There was no hurry.

Plenty of people would be more anxious than I was.

My father was the first to come looking for me.

We had not seen each other for six months. Recently, he had taken a mistress younger than I was. His mind had never been particularly sharp, and the young woman had wrapped him around her finger until he could no longer distinguish right from wrong.

“Xu Shuyin, what nonsense are you up to now?”

He stormed into my office and began interrogating me without so much as a greeting.

I took a sip of coffee and waved my secretaries out before looking at him.

“Dad, this isn’t nonsense. I’m ending an engagement while securing the greatest possible benefit for Xu Group at the lowest possible cost.”

“Bullshit!”

He slammed a palm on the desk. The dull thud echoed through the office.

This was not the first time he had accused me of acting recklessly.

When I pushed through sweeping reforms, he called me reckless and slapped me. When I fired the parasites feeding on the company, he called me reckless and trashed my entire office.

And now he was here again.

“What do you know about maximizing benefit and minimizing loss? Xu Shuyin, don’t think running the company for a few days makes you an expert. Business doesn’t work the way you imagine. Neither do the rules people live by!”

“Retract every report immediately. You’re coming with me to apologize to the Lin family. Old Lin has already called me several times!”

“And your younger brother has graduated. I’m putting him in the company to keep an eye on you. I can’t let you keep running wild!”

I looked at him calmly.

“I’m an only child. What younger brother?”