My Ex-Boyfriend's Name Was in the Chairman's Will - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The attachment Fu Mingzhang left behind was locked in the group’s vault, requiring both Luo Yuncheng and me to sign for it to be opened.

That afternoon, Pan Yuming called me into the CEO’s office.

Pan Yuming stood by the window smoking a cigar, his back to me. “I heard you were quite the star in the conference room today.”

“I didn’t write the will,” I said.

“But you could have refused.” He turned around. A man in his early forties, he was dressed in a sharp, tailored suit, yet his smile always reminded me of the glint on a blade. “Yucheng, you’re a smart man. Director Fu is gone, but Haisheng must keep running. The North River Phase 3 incident happened twenty years ago. Digging it up now won’t do anyone any good.”

“It will do the dead some good.”

Pan Yuming looked at me, his smile fading slightly. “I’ve always felt deep regret regarding what happened to your father.”

“You’d better actually feel it.”

He stubbed out his cigar, walked to the desk, and tapped his finger on a drafted statement.

“I’ve already had the media suppressed. All you need to do is issue a personal statement saying that due to a private relationship, you are voluntarily waiving your joint execution rights. Then this whole thing will be over.”

I glanced at the statement. They had even written the wording for me-dignified, safe, and showing a ‘sense of the big picture.’

“And if I don’t?” I asked.

Pan Yuming watched me for two seconds before suddenly laughing.

“Then you might lose a lot of things. Your position, your reputation, even the public relations system you’ve painstakingly built over the years.” He paused. “You should understand that the Board of Directors doesn’t like people who don’t listen.”

“I like murderers even less.”

The air suddenly stagnated.

Pan Yuming narrowed his eyes. “Do you have evidence?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But I will, sooner or later.”

He stared at me as if truly scrutinizing the man who had worked under his nose for seven years for the first time.

“Yucheng, don’t mistake a personal vendetta for justice,” he said.

I picked up the statement, slowly tore it in half, and tossed it into the trash can on his desk.

“Director Pan, you shouldn’t mistake a crime for history, either.”

Shen Kening was waiting for me at the door, her expression grim. “PR monitoring shows that some independent media outlets are already digging into your relationship with Lawyer Luo. The public sentiment is looking very bad.”

“Tell the team not to move yet.” I handed her my phone. “Schedule meetings for me tonight with every surviving family member of the North River Phase 3 casualties. Anyone we can contact-don’t miss a single one.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. The sooner the better.”

Shen Kening nodded and took a few steps before turning back, asking in a low voice, “Director Song, are you really going to investigate this to the end?”

I looked at my reflection in the elevator doors and suddenly realized with total clarity that I had waited for this day for far too long.

At nine o’clock that night, Luo Yuncheng and I met at the vault entrance.

He handed me an Americano with no sugar. I didn’t take it.

I leaned down to enter the code, and the metal door swung open with a click.

Inside the safe, besides the original will, there was only an old kraft paper box. A line of text was written on the lid:

*To be opened and read jointly by Song Yucheng and Luo Yuncheng.*

Luo Yuncheng stood by my side, his voice very low. “Open it.”

I lifted the lid. There were only three items inside.

A yellowed construction site blueprint, an old voice recorder, and half of a water-stained work log.

On the first page of that log, my father’s name was written.