Chapter 3
1075 Words
My fingers brushed against something hard at the bottom of the file folder. The icy touch of metal made my fingertips tremble—it was a car key.
Lin Jiayi grinned like a cat that had just stolen a fish: "Mr. Lu said that driving your ex-husband's car to crash his party would be a real thrill."
A notification from my "Special Follows" list on Weibo suddenly popped up. Cheng Wei had posted a photo of a prenatal ultrasound report, captioned "A Family of Three," with the location tagged as the Zhou Group headquarters. In the corner of the photo, half of a man's hand was visible—his ring finger still bearing the faint imprint of a wedding band.
"Is this b***h too lazy to even bother Photoshopping this?" Lin Jiayi zoomed in on the image. "The report says she's eight weeks pregnant, but you two only got divorced five days ago."
I dug out my anonymous email account. The financial records I had spent three years compiling for Zhou Muchen lay neatly organized in my cloud drive; tucked away inside a folder labeled "For Fundraising" were three separate sets of books. Just as my cursor hovered over the "Send" button, the roar of a sports car drifted in from outside the window.
On the massive electronic screen in the Zhou Group lobby, a video interview with Cheng Wei was playing on a loop. She was stroking her still-flat stomach as she cooed, "Director Zhou is such a gentle man," yet in the background audio, Zhou Muchen’s furious roar could be heard: "Cut the livestream! That child isn't even—"
Suddenly, the screen went black.
As the elevator doors slid open, I heard the sound of things being smashed inside the conference room. Peering through the slats of the blinds, I saw Zhou Muchen grabbing Cheng Wei by the wrist and slamming her against the wall: "You f*****g dare to use a fake pregnancy to deceive me?"
"So what if I did?" Cheng Wei suddenly thrust her phone into the air. "Look closely, all you investors—*this* is the 'elite' man you’ve been propping up!"
On the livestream feed, Zhou Muchen’s fist froze mid-swing. Behind him, the projector was still lit, displaying the final slide of his presentation—which read: "Current Round Valuation: 360 Million."
As I pushed the door open and stepped inside, every man in the room—all clad in suits and ties—turned to stare at me in unison. Zhou Muchen’s tie was askew, twisted over his shoulder, while Cheng Wei was hurriedly stuffing something down the front of her b*a.
"Su Yan?" Zhou Muchen’s pupils constricted sharply. "What the hell are you doing here?"
From the back row, Lu Yuan slowly rose to his feet. He wasn't wearing his usual gold-rimmed glasses today; his gray suit made him look like a blade just drawn from its sheath.
"I’m the one who invited him," he said, flicking his cufflink. "After all, the new shareholder ought to meet his predecessor."
The conference room erupted in an uproar. Zhou Muchen snatched up his coffee cup and hurled it at the projector screen; the financial statements displayed there warped and distorted amidst the splashing liquid. Cheng Wei seized the opportunity to slip toward the door, but I stuck out my foot and tripped her, sending her stumbling.
A voice recorder tumbled from her blouse, its red indicator light still blinking.
"Give it back!" Cheng Wei lunged at me, clawing for my hair. "This is the recording where Zhou Muchen begged me not to expose his impotence—"
Lu Yuan suddenly cleared his throat. The large screen switched to display a Share Transfer Agreement; listed prominently as the Transferee was the name "Su Yan." Amidst the room’s hushed whispers, he walked over to my side and pressed a fountain pen into my palm.
"Sign it," he murmured, his voice so soft that only I could hear it. "Your ex-husband currently owes the bank twenty-seven million."
Zhou Muchen kicked over a chair and charged toward us. He still reeked of stale champagne from the hotel, and his cuffs were smudged with Cheng Wei’s foundation.
"You think getting your hands on 5% of the shares is enough to get back at me?" He thrust his face so close that the tip of his nose nearly touched mine. "I still hold 51%!"
Lu Yuan suddenly smiled. He pressed a button on his remote, and a new document flashed onto the screen—the Share Pledge Agreement Zhou Muchen had signed the previous year. The Pledgee listed on the document was, unmistakably, a shell corporation controlled by Lu Yuan.
"Allow me to make a correction," Lu Yuan said, flipping the contract open to the default clause page. "You now owe *Su Yan* twenty-seven million."
Suddenly, Cheng Wei’s live stream began broadcasting simultaneously across every major platform. On the screen, Zhou Muchen was down on his knees, wailing, "So what if it only lasts three minutes?" In the background audio, Zhao Meiling could be heard screaming, "You pathetic waste of space! I should have just had the surrogate carry the second child, too!"
I snatched up the contract and slapped it against Zhou Muchen’s chest. As he lowered his head to look at the document, I caught a glimpse of a fresh scratch on the back of his neck—the exact same color as the flecks of skin tissue lodged beneath Cheng Wei’s fingernails. Just then, a text message from Lin Jiayi popped up: "I’ve got the hospital report. Cheng Wei’s uterine wall is as thin as paper; that last miscarriage was the result of a back-alley clinic Zhao Meiling found for her."
The tip of my pen gouged a deep furrow into the paper. Suddenly, Lu Yuan clamped his hand over my wrist; I could feel the calluses from handling firearms against my skin.
"Don't sign here," he said, tapping his fingertip against a blank space on the page. "Trash belongs in the trash can."
On the final page of the contract, an addendum seemed to glow with an eerie light: *Should Zhou Muchen become embroiled in a major scandal, his remaining shares shall automatically revert to Su Yan.*
Suddenly, Cheng Wei’s livestream feed went dark—abruptly cut off. The final frozen image showed her holding up a pregnancy test stick, screaming: "Zhou Muchen, did you f*****g trick me with vitamins?"
- Writer
