Chapter 111
Li Chu awoke to the sound of pattering rain. Outside the window, rain beat against the leaves of the trees behind the villa, bringing a hint of coolness to the sultry summer.
Ning Manqing was already gone; Li Chu didn't know when she had left.
After washing up, Li Chu went downstairs in her pajamas. Yuanzi brought out lunch from a thermal box and poured her a glass of milk.
“Teacher Ning went out this morning and told us to pour you a glass of milk.”
Li Chu nodded and glanced at the guest room. “Where’s Zhong Yue?” she asked.
“A Xiang already took her away. The plan has already begun. Duoduo asked me yesterday if something had happened. You suddenly gave her time off, and she thought she was going to be fired.”
“Remember to tell her I’m not planning on firing her yet.”
Li Chu replied with a smile. She didn’t plan to involve Qian Duoduo or Tang Congnan in this matter concerning Ning Manqing. She considered it a vacation for herself, a few months of rest at home.
The sudden break felt strangely unsettling, so Li Chu found herself new hobbies.
The person behind the scenes wasn’t as difficult to find as Li Chu had imagined. They found the person who had contacted Zhong Yue, traced his information, and followed the trail to his superiors. Within three days, Ning Manqing knew who it was.
Ning Manqing’s eyes were icy as she uttered her eldest brother’s name, her lips curving downwards.
“It seems they couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve pulled out Ning Haoyuan’s people from the branch company and replaced them with my own. He embezzled company funds and was severely scolded by my father. One of his projects was also handed over to me. It seems he knew this would happen, so he targeted you.”
Ning Manqing thought her relationship with Li Chu was kept secret, but unexpectedly, someone still noticed.
“He wanted to use me against you…”
Li Chu couldn’t help but curse. This kind of scheme was simply vicious.
They wanted her to be infected and then unknowingly infect Ning Manqing. If Ning Manqing contracted HDM, she would inevitably be unable to compete for the position of head of the Ning family. What a good plan.
Li Chu could say that everyone in the Ning family, except for Ning Manqing, was rotten to the core. They would even use such disgusting tactics on their own sister.
However, it wasn’t surprising for a family like the Ning’s, where profit came above all else. Mr. and Mrs. Ning were inherently selfish and unscrupulous businesspeople. In order to cultivate a good heir, they constantly promoted competition among their children, and due to differing individual talents, they allocated resources accordingly. It would be strange if the children raised in such an environment didn’t fight to the death.
Ning Manqing’s phone kept buzzing with notifications, her expression becoming stern.
“Tao Tao, I might be busy for a long time. You need to be careful and stay safe. It’s best not to go out. I’m afraid they’ll resort to desperate measures if they’re cornered.”
Cornered animals could do anything. Ning Manqing even found out that after the man-made accident during the filming of Behold Me, Ling Shan , there were other people involved besides Yu Feiming. It was either her eldest brother or her second sister. Ning Manqing didn’t dare to take it lightly.
If Li Chu were to attend public events, there would inevitably be many people, and if someone had ill intentions, Ning Manqing feared she wouldn’t be able to reach her in time.
“I understand. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll wait until things calm down before going out. Anyway, I just finished filming, so I might as well take a break.”
Li Chu understood that Ning Manqing was about to make her move.
It wasn’t like the previous small-scale skirmishes or secret maneuvers, nor was it a declaration of war. It was the beginning of closing the net and strangling.
Ning Manqing gazed deeply at Li Chu and embraced her.
Li Chu leaned against her chest, feeling the beat of her heart.
Ning Manqing sighed. “I’m sorry.”
All of this was because of her. If it weren’t for her, Li Chu wouldn’t be in danger and wouldn’t be unable to go out for fear of being harmed.
Li Chu looked up, cupped Ning Manqing’s face, and shook her head.
“Don’t apologize. It’s the fault of those with bad intentions, not yours. On the contrary, I feel sorry for you that those people are your blood relatives. They don’t deserve to be called family.”
“But I’ll always be on your side. No matter what decision you make, I’ll support you. Go do what you need to do. I’ll stay home and won’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll wait for you to come back.”
The word “home” only had meaning because of the presence of certain people.
Ning Manqing was slightly startled, a warm feeling spreading through her heart. She kissed Li Chu’s lips and replied in a slightly hoarse voice, “Okay.”
From this moment on, the Ning family began to change.
Mr. and Mrs. Ning were already biased towards Ning Manqing. After she took over the project and secured exclusive cooperation with Tiange, her control over the Ning Group increased dramatically.
Ning Manqing controlled the pace well. Although she wanted her parents to step down directly, she didn’t rush it. She gradually purged the people Ning Haoyuan and Ning Yunzhi had left in the group, squeezing their living space and seizing their power.
Li Chu stayed in the mountainside villa, unaffected by the outside turmoil.
She regularly watched news and financial reports, paying attention to the movements of the companies under Ning Manqing’s name, and shared some small daily happenings with her every day.
Li Chu didn’t think that sharing trivial matters was a disturbance to Ning Manqing’s busy life. Instead, it allowed Ning Manqing to touch and participate in her life when she didn’t have time to be with her. She knew it wouldn’t bother Ning Manqing but would instead give her a moment of relaxation amidst her busy schedule.
This confidence came from her love for Ning Manqing and the certainty that Ning Manqing loved her too.
The seeds Ning Manqing sowed in July formed buds in September.
These two months were uneventful for ordinary people, but for Ning Haoyuan and Ning Yunzhi, it was nothing short of torment.
They were like ants on a hot pan, trying to get on the same boat to deal with Ning Manqing, but they found themselves falling into the traps she had set.
The base prices and bidding information for the projects they received were all shrouded in fog. Their misjudgments led them further and further away from the center of power.
The Ning family was in turmoil, and the entertainment industry was also turbulent.
Ning Manqing fulfilled her promise to Zhong Yue, using various methods to bring down those companies. Reporting tax evasion and bribery, those with dirty hands were taken away, and Zhong Yue felt relieved. However, her backers had fallen, and coupled with her poor health, her situation in the entertainment industry became increasingly difficult.
Her personality was bad, and the things she had done were also bad. She had no resources and no one to support her. Those she had stepped on naturally came to step on her. For a time, all kinds of scandals were flying around: clinging to sponsors, contracting STDs, poor acting skills, being a diva, being neurotic. Her HDM diagnosis report was also leaked. This kind of information could be investigated by Ning Manqing, so naturally, others could too. As a result, Zhong Yue’s sweet and fairy-like persona completely collapsed, and she became a pariah in the entertainment industry.
The day she came to find Li Chu, she arrived without makeup, her face haggard and cheekbones prominent, looking even more withered than two months ago when Li Chu had last seen her, as if she had become a different person.
She knelt down in front of Li Chu as soon as she arrived, startling Li Chu, who quickly asked Yuanzi to help her up.
Two months ago, when Zhong Yue learned about her serious illness, she wasn’t so panicked and still carried a stubborn pride. But now, she seemed to have had her bones removed, her eyes filled with fear.
“Li Chu, please help me, I beg you. Only you can help me now. Please help me!”
Zhong Yue’s lips were dry and bloodless. She wanted to grab Li Chu’s pants leg, but her thin, twig-like fingers only curled up, clutching the carpet.
“What do you want me to help you with?”
Li Chu wasn’t some bottomlessly kind person. Zhong Yue’s current consequences were her own doing, and Li Chu wouldn’t help.
“The hospital! Can you help me find a hospital to issue a false certificate, saying that I have stomach cancer, not an STD?” Zhong Yue said with pleading eyes, muttering repeatedly, “Stomach cancer, not an STD. They’re all scolding me, fans are questioning me. I’m not like that!”
Tears rolled down from her eyes, her voice trembling. “I’m not like that.”
“He forced me. He even wanted to send me to someone else’s bed. I refused. I wanted to run, but I didn’t have the money to pay the penalty. They realized I was no longer valuable, they didn’t want to care about me anymore. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Li Chu, please help me, I beg you!”
Zhong Yue was at her wit’s end. She even wanted to end it all, but she didn’t dare to die. She didn’t want to die.
Li Chu’s eyes held a complex expression, but in a flash, she made her own considerations. Seeing Zhong Yue’s pleading look, she couldn’t bear it and decided to help her preserve a last shred of dignity, at least outwardly.
“Just a certificate. If you do anything extra, I can expose you at any time.”
Zhong Yue was overjoyed, an unhealthy flush appearing on her face as she nodded repeatedly.
That day, Zhong Yue posted her diagnosis certificate on Weibo and announced her retirement from the entertainment industry.
Public opinion was in an uproar, after all, Zhong Yue’s previous HDM confirmation had been leaked. However, she released a new one herself, and netizens below speculated about everything.
Zhong Yue’s A Xiang came back and told Li Chu that Zhong Yue had also donated half of her fortune to remote areas, anonymously, without making it public.
Upon hearing this, Li Chu was silent for a moment and then nodded.
If Zhong Yue had made it public in her own name, it would undoubtedly be whitewashing her retirement. Li Chu was willing to give her some dignity but wouldn’t allow her to whitewash herself. Many things, once done wrong, were done wrong.
As for her final act, Li Chu didn’t know if she was accumulating good karma or if her conscience had finally surfaced, but it didn’t matter. She still didn’t think Zhong Yue was a good person, or rather, defining someone as good or bad was inherently one-sided.
There was utter evil in this world, but rarely consistent good. Thus, people’s moral standards had a worldly bias in defining good and bad people.
A good person doing one bad thing seemed unforgivable; it was people’s intolerance of the shattering of a perfect image and the stain on it. A bad person doing one good thing seemed to be forgiven, but it wasn’t entirely true. It was just a rebound of goodwill caused by extremely low baseline perception.
It was truly difficult to simply define people as good or bad because the subject and judgment were different. For those who had been bullied and hurt by Zhong Yue, she was undoubtedly bad. But for the children in remote areas who received Zhong Yue’s gifts, she was a good person. For passersby, it depended on their own worldview to judge.
Li Chu touched the white buds of the flowers she had planted and recalled a sentence she had once read.
In this world, everyone experiences their own snowfall, each with their own hidden and bright moments.
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