Genius Little Genius: CEO Daddy, Bring It On

Chapter 7: A Three-Way Struggle

The tremors at Moonlight Tea Plantation showed no sign of abating. The cracked ground resembled a greedy maw, devouring the blood dripping from Elena, while the withered tea trees emitted a bone-chilling groan amid the silent tremors. Leo’s question hung in the putrid air like a poisoned dagger, piercing through the last shred of Elena’s feigned composure. She looked at her son’s pale little face; those deep eyes, inherited from Julian, were now filled with a near-cruel clarity unbecoming of a five-year-old child.

“Leo…” Elena’s voice was as dry as sandpaper. She tried to crouch down, but her knees buckled from the violent shaking of the ground. The wound on her palm continued to bleed, and with every pulse, it seemed to pull at the deeper fissures within the tea plantation. She had to stabilize this place—and she had to stabilize Leo. “Listen, sweetheart, some things are complicated. Mommy needs time…”

“Time?” Leo’s voice was soft, yet piercing. He pointed at the widening c***k beneath his feet. “The tea garden can’t wait, Mommy. It’s crying.” His tiny finger pointed at a tea tree that had withered completely and turned to dust. “It told me you’re afraid.”

Elena’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an icy hand. She couldn’t deny it. She was afraid of Julian’s ruthless exploitation once he discovered the truth, afraid that Leo would be treated as a freak for scientific study, and even more afraid that this sanctuary—which she had painstakingly built and depended on for survival—would vanish completely. She reached out tremblingly, wanting to pull Leo into her arms, but the boy took a step back to avoid her. His small body was stiff as a board, his eyes a mixture of hurt and defiance.

“You yelled at me,” Leo said softly, his eyelashes drooping to hide the emotions churning beneath his gaze. “Because I told the truth.”

The tremors in the air reached their peak at that moment. In the distance, the ancient tea tree—the very heart of the tea garden—emitted a dull, cracking sound. Its massive branches crashed to the ground, sending a cloud of dust, heavy with the scent of decay, billowing into the air. Elena’s heart sank along with it. Fighting off dizziness and panic, she summoned her remaining spiritual energy, attempting to soothe this dying space. A faint, faint glimmer of life-giving green struggled to spill from her fingertips, barely slowing the spread of the cracks—yet it was like a drop in the bucket.

“Leo,” Elena’s voice carried an unprecedented weariness and pleading, “Mommy didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m scared—so very scared. But please believe me, everything I’ve done has been to protect you.” She looked at her son’s tense little face and added with difficulty, “About Julian Vanderbilt… I need to think it over before I tell you. Right now, we have to keep the tea plantation alive, okay? This is our last home.”

Leo watched in silence as cold sweat trickled down his mother’s pale face and as the gruesome wound on her palm gaped open, then glanced at the surroundings that were constantly crumbling. He pressed his lips tightly together, but eventually, he slowly stepped forward, stretched out his small hand, and gently placed it over the back of Elena’s bleeding hand. A faint yet unusually cool energy, carrying the distinctive bitter-sweet fragrance of tea sap, slowly seeped into Elena’s wound. It wasn’t Leo’s own power; it was more like the lingering remnants of a “firewall” he had previously created using tea tree sap. Now, guided by him, it clumsily attempted to staunch the bleeding and offer comfort.

Elena felt that coolness and felt a lump in her throat, nearly bringing her to tears. She turned her hand to clasp her son’s small one tightly. For the first time, their spiritual energies attempted a clumsy fusion amidst the despair; a faint glow flickered between their joined palms, temporarily stabilizing the small patch of crumbling ground beneath their feet.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Julian Vanderbilt found himself at the center of a silent storm.

In the top-floor office of the Vanderbilt Group headquarters, the air was as thick as lead. Beyond the massive floor-to-ceiling windows lay the dazzling city lights, yet they failed to illuminate the oppressive atmosphere within. Julian’s father, Old Vanderbilt, sat upright on an expensive leather sofa, leaning on a cane inlaid with obsidian. Behind him stood two impeccably dressed, expressionless middle-aged men—the family lawyer and the special counsel in charge of internal investigations.

“Explain yourself, Julian.” Old Vanderbilt’s voice was not loud, yet it carried an unquestionable authority as his hawk-like gaze swept sharply over his son. “ “Over the past week, you’ve turned down three meetings with the Andersons, missed two regular board meetings, deployed private security to track the daily movements of a kindergarten child, and even—” he paused, tapping his cane lightly on the floor, “instructed the IT department to recover fragments of surveillance footage from a hotel corridor that should have been completely destroyed five years ago. What are you looking for? Or rather, who are you looking for?”

Julian stood with his back to his father, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the stream of cars below, which looked like ants. His tense jawline was faintly reflected in the glass. Leo’s face—almost identical to his own as a child—and those eyes that had once shone with astonishing intelligence before the financial sandtable, kept flashing through his mind. And then there was Elena Ren, the woman who had fled the elevator in panic, her eyes a mix of fear and hatred. That chaotic night five years ago, the fragmented memories, and that spiked drink… The clues were converging, pointing toward a truth he both craved and feared.

“Father,” Julian turned around, his voice devoid of emotion, “I’m handling some personal matters. It won’t affect the Group’s operations.”

“Personal matters?” Old Vanderbilt sneered. “Using family resources to investigate a single mother with a child? Julian, you know full well what the family expects of you. If your ‘personal matters’ affect the family’s reputation or the line of succession, they cease to be private.” The lawyer behind him promptly handed him a thin report. “Elena Ren, of Chinese descent. She abruptly resigned from the European branch five years ago and vanished without a trace. She recently returned to headquarters with a five-year-old son, Leo Ren. Her background appears clean, but it won’t hold up to scrutiny. Her son—is he supposedly a ‘child prodigy’?”

Julian’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly. He took the report; his fingertips were ice-cold. The report even included a candid photo of Leo at a kindergarten event; those familiar features struck him like a sledgehammer to the heart.

“I suggest you stop while you’re ahead.” Old Vanderbilt stood up, his cane tapping the marble floor with a crisp echo. “Don’t forget your engagement to Isabella Rochester. The Rochester family is crucial to our next strategic move in South America. I do not wish to see any complications.”

After his father and the investigator left, the office fell into a deathly silence. Julian clutched the report, his knuckles turning white. He walked to the liquor cabinet, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and watched the amber liquid swirl in the glass—yet it could not calm the storm raging within him. Leo was his son. This realization was growing clearer—and more excruciating. He had to find Elena. He had to get to the bottom of this!

Just then, the office intercom rang abruptly. His secretary’s voice came through: “Mr. Vanderbilt, a Mr. Sebastian Black is here without an appointment but insists on seeing you immediately. He says… it’s an emergency regarding Ms. Elena Ren.”

Julian’s eyes hardened. “Send him in.”

Sebastian practically stormed in, still carrying the chill from outside; his usually refined face was now frozen with cold. He walked straight up to Julian and slammed a specially encrypted tablet down on the expensive mahogany desk.

“Stay away from her, Vanderbilt.” Sebastian’s voice was icy, laced with an unprecedented warning. “Stay away from Elena and Leo.”

Julian raised an eyebrow, a hint of his usual arrogance in his expression. “Black? I remember you—Elena’s ‘good friend.’ “What gives you the right to order me around?”

“The right?” Sebastian sneered, swiping his finger across the tablet. An intricate network topology diagram instantly popped up on the screen, with the Vanderbilt Group’s core database at its center. A firewall, emitting a faint green glow and strange energy fluctuations, stood firmly guarding a specific encrypted area. “Take a look at this. The people you sent to the kindergarten to collect biological samples, and those idiots in your tech department trying to track Leo’s digital footprint—all their attempts were blocked by this. Guess who did it?”

Julian stared at the peculiar firewall. The code and energy patterns flowing across it were unlike anything he’d ever seen, carrying a sense of… plant-like vitality? A jolt of shock ran through him.

“It’s Leo,” Sebastian said with absolute certainty. “A five-year-old child has erected a wall in ways you cannot comprehend, all to protect himself and his mother. Any approach from you or your family would be a catastrophe for them!” He took a step closer, his gaze sharp as a blade. “I don’t know what happened five years ago, but Elena has paid a price you cannot imagine raising Leo alone all these years. She has finally managed to build a life of peace. Julian Vanderbilt, if you have even a shred of humanity left, stop your investigation and stay away from them. Otherwise,” Sebastian’s voice dropped even lower, laced with a resolve to destroy everything along with himself, “I wouldn’t hesitate to let the entire Vanderbilt family see exactly what ‘good deeds’ their future heir committed five years ago.”

The air in the office seemed to freeze. Two men—one representing the pinnacle of wealth and power, the other guarding hidden secrets and familial bonds—locked eyes in a fierce standoff, sparks flying. Julian looked into Sebastian’s eyes, which held undisguised protectiveness and hostility, and recalled his father’s icy warning and Leo’s little face, so much like his own. An unprecedented surge of irritation and rage welled up within him.

“Are you threatening me?” Julian’s voice was terrifyingly low.

“I am stating a fact,” Sebastian replied without flinching. “The choice is yours. Continue as the aloof heir to a financial empire, or… become an executioner who might destroy the two people you should never harm.”

Just as tensions reached a boiling point in Julian’s office, in some obscure, shadowy corner of the city, another pair of eyes was watching it all unfold through layers of encrypted screens.

A massive surveillance wall was divided into countless small screens. One of them was zoomed in, showing real-time footage of Sebastian bursting into Julian’s office. Though no sound could be heard, the standoff between the two men was clearly visible. Another screen was frozen on a shot of Leo’s focused profile as he operated a tablet at the kindergarten’s financial camp.

A hand clad in a black leather glove tapped lightly on the control console. Its owner remained hidden in the shadows, revealing only a cold, amused curve at the corner of their mouth.

“Interesting.” A voice—voiced through a synthesizer, its gender indistinguishable—echoed through the empty control room. “The heir to the Vanderbilt family, a single mother with a mysterious child, a guardian… and the ‘gift’ that child has displayed.” The screen shifted to a complex data stream analysis chart, which clearly captured the extremely faint yet uniquely distinct energy fluctuations that had escaped when Leo had erected his firewall earlier.

“This energy pattern… is unprecedented.” The electronic voice carried a hint of greed. “It’s purer and more powerful than any ‘anomalous individual’ we’ve tracked before. It seems the Vanderbilt family has finally produced a ‘fruit’ worth harvesting.”

The figure in the shadows entered a string of commands into the console. On the screen, the files for Elena Ren and Leo Ren were pulled up, and a complex network of connections rapidly generated alongside them. Finally, a bright red marker landed on the property rights for “Moonlight Tea Garden”—a small, long-abandoned tea plantation in the distant suburbs registered under Elena’s name.

“Initiate Operation ‘Gardener,’” a synthetic voice ordered. “Targets: Elena Ren and her son, Leo Ren. Priority: Investigate all anomalous connections, especially… that tea plantation. I want to know the root of all their secrets.”