My Ex-Boyfriend's Name Was in the Chairman's Will - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

My hand trembled. A corner of the work log had been torn away, but the handwriting was unmistakably my father’s.

*Abnormal batch of load-bearing steel for North River Phase 3. Re-inspection report suppressed.*

*November 17th. Backup submitted to the Secretariat of the Board of Directors.*

*If anything happens to me, please hand this over to the Discipline Inspection Commission.*

I stared at those lines, my fingertips growing cold. This wasn’t a suicide note; it was a cry for help.

Luo Yuncheng picked up the voice recorder and checked the battery. “It still turns on.”

He pressed the play button. After a few seconds of static, a man’s low, hushed voice came through.

“…The change in the steel batch was signed off by Pan Yuming. Director Fu said to suppress it for now and balance the books before the end of the year. Old Song is too stubborn; he’s still insisting on meeting with a reporter today…”

The recording cut off abruptly, followed only by the sound of frantic footsteps and a door slamming.

I looked at Luo Yuncheng almost reflexively. “Where did you get this?”

“Fu Mingzhang gave it to me,” he said. “To be precise, he instructed me before he fell into critical condition to give it to you after his death.”

“Why is he only handing it over now?”

“Because he was afraid that if he handed it over while he was still alive, Haisheng would destroy all the evidence first.”

I laughed, a bitter sound that made my throat ache. “So he waited until he was on his deathbed to think about atonement?”

“Probably.”

I flipped through the rest of the log and found that over a dozen pages had been torn out from the middle. Only the last page remained, with an old business card tucked inside.

*Jiang Youchuan, Investigative Reporter for the Beijiang Evening News.*

“I know this man,” I said. “He went independent a few years ago. He specializes in digging into cold cases.”

“That’s perfect then.” Luo Yuncheng put the voice recorder into an evidence bag. “We’ll go see him tomorrow.”

“Why ‘we’?”

Luo Yuncheng looked at me, his expression almost excessively calm. “Because out of all the materials Fu Mingzhang left behind, only this one is clear evidence. The rest is either inside Haisheng or in the hands of those who were involved back then. You know Haisheng; I know legal procedures.”

“You’re very calculating.”

“Adults have to be,” he replied.

I suddenly remembered many years ago, when we were squeezed into the kitchen of a rented apartment boiling frozen dumplings. He had said that one day, we would bring the truth to light. Later, he was the one who left first.

“That’s not what you used to say,” I blurted out.

Luo Yuncheng seemed caught off guard by my sudden pivot to the past and froze for a second.

“Back then, I thought that as long as our feelings were strong enough, we could get through anything,” he said softly. “Later, I realized it wasn’t enough.”

Those words hurt more than any explanation could.

I closed the log and looked at him coldly. “Then you’d better pray that what you’ve brought this time is worth that ‘not enough’ from back then.”

Luo Yuncheng didn’t say anything else.

We resealed the materials. Just as we were preparing to leave, hurried footsteps echoed from outside the vault.

Shen Kening ran over, her face pale. “Director Song, something’s happened. Someone anonymously leaked photos of you and Lawyer Luo living together to the media. It’s already trending.”

I took her phone and saw the top trending topic:

#Haisheng Will Executor Revealed as Former Lover#

Below it was a photo.

It was from eight years ago-a photo of me and Luo Yuncheng kissing downstairs at our old apartment.

The shot was taken from a distance, like a gun that had been buried for years, only for someone to finally pull the trigger.