The broadcast played on every screen in the Fu Group headquarters. In the silent, panicked boardroom, Su Luo’s face was magnified twenty feet high. The hollow, vacant eyes he had despised for three years were gone. In their place was a glacial fire, a sharpness that cut through the camera and seared Fu Jinyan where he stood. Her voice, once a timid whisper, was now crisp and commanding, each word a hammer blow against the foundations of his empire.
“...and therefore, the Su Global Consortium has initiated a hostile takeover of the Fu Group. We anticipate the acquisition to be complete within forty-eight hours.”
The room erupted into chaos. Phones rang, executives shouted, and the stock ticker visible on a side screen bled a violent, catastrophic red.
Fu Jinyan didn't hear any of it. He was deafened by the roar of his own blood in his ears. The restored footage, the witness testimony, the image of that jagged scar on Su Luo’s hand—it all swirled in his mind, colliding with the image of the queen on the screen before him.
Miss Su. The mysterious force crushing his company was his wife. The woman he had mocked, belittled, and abandoned.
The woman who had dragged him from a burning fire.
Just then, the boardroom doors burst open. Lin Yao rushed in, her face a perfect mask of distress and tearful concern. She ran to his side, her hands fluttering towards his arm.
“Jinyan! I came as soon as I heard! It’s horrible! How could she do this? After everything you did for that ungrateful, blind…”
Her words caught in her throat. Fu Jinyan hadn't moved. He hadn't even looked at her. His eyes were still locked on Su Luo’s image on the screen, an expression of such complex agony on his face that it silenced her.
“Jinyan?” she whispered, her voice trembling with manufactured sympathy. “Don’t worry, we’ll fight her. I’ll be right here with you. We’ll get through this.”
Slowly, as if moving underwater, he turned his head. The look in his eyes was not one of a man seeking comfort. It was the gaze of a predator that had just spotted its prey. It was utterly devoid of warmth.
“Lin Yao,” he said, his voice unnervingly calm. The chaos in the room began to die down as the executives sensed the shift in atmosphere. “You said you were with me.”
“Of course!” she breathed, relieved. “Always!”
“Then do something for me,” he continued, his tone dangerously soft. “Show me your right hand.”
Lin Yao froze. A flicker of confusion, then panic, crossed her features. “My… my hand? Jinyan, what are you talking about? Su Luo is destroying our company! This is not the time for games!” She tried to laugh it off, but the sound was brittle.
Fu Jinyan’s expression didn’t change. “It’s not a game.” He took a step closer, his towering presence suffocating her. The entire boardroom was now dead silent, watching.
“Show. Me. Your. Hand.”
Her face was paling rapidly. “I… I don’t understand…”
He didn’t wait for her to comply. His hand shot out and grabbed her right wrist, his grip like iron. He lifted her hand into the air for everyone to see. It was delicate, manicured, the skin flawless.
“Perfectly smooth,” Fu Jinyan’s voice echoed in the tomb-like silence. “Not a single mark. Not a single scar.”
Lin Yao began to tremble violently. “Jinyan, please, you’re scaring me! What does a scar have to do with anything?”
“Everything,” he bit out. His assistant, on a silent cue, tapped a key on a nearby laptop. Su Luo’s regal face vanished from the main screen, replaced by grainy, corrupted security footage from three years ago. The warehouse fire.
The footage showed a figure, small and determined, dragging Fu Jinyan’s unconscious body through smoke and collapsing debris. The video paused and zoomed in on the rescuer’s right hand as it gripped a shard of twisted, red-hot metal to heave a beam out of the way. A deep, horrific gash tore through the flesh.
Lin Yao let out a small gasp.
The image changed again. A high-resolution photo, clinical and clear. It was a picture of a woman's hand, resting on a divorce agreement. On the back of the hand was a pale, silvery scar, identical in shape and location to the wound from the fire. It was the scar he’d seen a thousand times on Su Luo, the one she always tried to hide.
“My savior’s hand was shredded that day,” Fu Jinyan narrated, his voice like chips of ice. He finally let go of Lin Yao’s wrist as if it were contaminated. “She carried that scar for three years as a reminder. A scar you claimed was yours. A story you told me. A lie you built your entire life on.”
Lin Yao’s mask shattered. The elegant, gentle socialite was gone, replaced by a cornered animal. “No! It’s not true! She faked it! She’s trying to frame me!” she shrieked, her voice high and piercing. “That footage is fake! Jinyan, you have to believe me! I’m the one who loves you! She’s a monster!”
Fu Jinyan watched her meltdown with cold, dead eyes. The woman he had cherished, defended, and placed on a pedestal was nothing but a fraud. And for this fraud, he had tortured the woman who had actually saved his life.
“Security,” he commanded, his voice ringing with absolute authority.
Two burly guards entered the room immediately, their faces impassive.
Lin Yao’s eyes widened in terror. “Jinyan, no! What are you doing?”
He ignored her, addressing his assistant, his words sharp and final. “Issue a press release. All contracts between Fu Group and the Lin family are terminated, effective immediately. Freeze all their assets pending an investigation into corporate espionage and fraud. Inform the banks that all their credit lines are revoked.”
Each sentence was a death blow. Lin Yao’s father, her family, their entire fortune—it all rested on their connection to the Fu Group. He was not just exposing her; he was eradicating her entire world.
“And as for you,” he said, finally turning his glacial gaze back to her. Her face was a mess of tears and smeared makeup. “You will be escorted from this building. If I ever see your face in this city again, I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your life in a place where your perfect hands will be put to hard labor.”
The guards seized her arms. The fight went out of her, replaced by a horrifying understanding of her fate.
“No… NO!” she screamed, struggling wildly. “Fu Jinyan, you can’t do this to me! I did it for you! I love you! JINYAN!”
He had already turned his back. He stared at the blank screen where Su Luo’s face had been, listening to the fading sounds of Lin Yao’s hysterical screams as she was dragged away. From the height of society to the depths of ruin in less than five minutes.
The boardroom remained silent, the executives too terrified to even breathe. Fu Jinyan stood alone amidst the wreckage of his company and his life, the truth a poison in his veins.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, his hands unsteady. It was a text from an unknown number.
He opened it. A single line of text glowed on the screen, a promise and a threat.
“Fu Jinyan, this is only the beginning.”