Chapter 12

“Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing? I told you to pour soy milk, not pour it all over my hand! What kind of work is that?!”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
She stared up at the old TV on the wall, almost forgetting to close her mouth.
The eldest young master of the Ling Group, was that the same one she knew?
Kidnapping, car accidents.
As expected, the higher the family, the more drama.
The traffic accident kept snowballing. Even before the evening follow-up reports, every major newspaper in City C was already scrambling to cover it.
C City Finance: Heir of the Ling Group Perishes in Jieling River, Ling Family Inheritance May Be Reshuffled.
Today’s People Daily: Multi-Car Collision on Dongping Islet Overpass, Man with Surname Ling Suspected Dead.
Legal Global News: Chain Collision, Everyone Claims Innocence, Who Bears Responsibility?
Jiang Wei frowned as she read. Those papers were stacked right at the front. Behind them were the more colorful tabloids.
Entertainment World: Shocking! Mysterious Girlfriend Tries to Climb the Social Ladder via Pregnant-Belly Marriage! Ling Heir Races in Anguish, Crashes into River, Life or Death Unknown.
Photo: (A candid shot of Ling Ze holding Jiang Wei’s hand, because of the angle, it looks like she’s clinging to him.)
Jiang Wei: Huh?!! Ah??
She kept reading.
Rivers & Lakes Commentary, Hot Take: This Woman Has a Deep, Calculating Mind.
Jiang Wei: …Fuck. Why are these gossip rags here stirring the pot?
She pulled out a few more.
“People of the Storm,”, Ling Ze Special:
Exclusive! Ling Heir Rejects Arranged Marriage, Dies for Love, Uses Death to Prove Devotion to His Lover.
Photo: (A shot of Ling Ze smiling and waving goodbye, with Jiang Wei’s back turned in the foreground, blurry and grainy.)
Jiang Wei: …
At least they hadn’t caught her face.
And besides, Ling Ze’s car had clearly been rammed off the bridge by the truck behind. There was nothing “voluntary” about it.
Down below were even more outrageous headlines.
Little Fish Gossip Corner: Stunning! Ling Heir Refuses 60-Million Breakup Fee, Mistress Suspected of Hiring Hitmen.
Jiang Wei nearly choked.
Little Fish Gossip could go straight to hell.
She could live with being called a mistress, but what the hell was a sixty-million breakup fee?
Were they planning to wire her sixty million in hell banknotes?
Where would sixty million even come from?
And “hiring hitmen”, why stick a side-shot of her next to that?!
Before long, she realized everyone around her was talking about the tabloid versions, not the serious news.
At the shop where she worked part-time, the staff were all chattering away.
“I think the mistress looks pretty good, actually. Just… her boobs are a bit small. Turns out rich men like them small.”
“The picture’s so blurry it looks like a smudge. How can you tell she’s pretty?”
Someone couldn’t help questioning.
“Come on, you think he’d pick an ugly mistress?”
“Weiwei, I think the girl in the picture looks a lot like you,” her coworker said casually that afternoon, holding a paper up next to her face. “Same build, same side profile.”
It was that crappy tabloid claiming she’d hired killers to murder Ling Ze.
Jiang Wei’s voice almost shook.
“Ah, no, no, I have one of those really common faces. Super generic. Totally generic.”
She turned her head away, hand half-covering her face.
Her coworker didn’t overthink it.
After all, if you were being kept by some rich man, you wouldn’t be working this kind of tiring, dirty job.
That night, after a long shift, she lay on the wooden bed, tossing and turning.
The old frame was worn-out and loose, creaking with every move.
“Weiwei? Weiwei? You’re not asleep yet?” Grandma Jiang’s voice drifted in the dark.
Her grandmother slept lightly. The sound of the bed made her get up and grope her way over.
“No, no, I’m fine, it’s just mosquitoes. I’m going to sleep now,” Jiang Wei replied quickly.
That stopped her overthinking for the moment.
A few days later, the news reported that the car had finally been pulled from the river, but there was no one inside.
Just as the public started to buzz with speculation, word came that the Ling heir had been found, pulled from the water by the daughter of Wang Pharmaceuticals.
The two families had already been considering a marriage alliance.
He’d been taken straight to the hospital.
When Jiang Wei read the big headline, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Senior Ling really wasn’t a bad person. For him to die young like that would’ve been a shame.
After hesitating a while, she took a fruit basket and went to visit him.
She didn’t get far. The two bodyguards standing at the door blocked her path with an almost tangible wall of presence.
She explained why she was there, but their expressions didn’t so much as twitch.
“Then… could you at least help me bring this in?” she tried. “I made some soup. It’s still hot.”
“Who is this?”
A calm, steady male voice sounded behind her.
Jiang Wei turned and saw a face she’d seen countless times on the finance channel and on front-page spreads, a cultured, refined middle-aged man.
He resembled Ling Ze by at least eighty percent.
Just remembering his reputation made her nervous.
“You must be Weiwei,” he said gently. “If it weren’t for you that day, when Ling Ze was kidnapped… I’m afraid he might not be standing here now.”
He sighed softly, then went on, “I heard the entrance exam results are out. Seven hundred-plus points, almost top of the city. Not bad. Keep working hard. If you run into any trouble in life, you can tell Uncle.”
Ling Ze’s father was unexpectedly kind. His voice was warm, his bearing gentle; you couldn’t help but relax around him.
Jiang Wei did exactly that, shoulders loosening unconsciously.
Beside him stood a stunning woman in a qipao, her figure curving in all the right places. It was hard to tell her age, but she didn’t look much older than Ling Ze.
When she saw Jiang Wei, a flicker of something dark crossed her gaze.
“Weiwei is Ling Ze’s lifesaver,” the beautiful woman said with a faint smile. “He is awake now, would you like to go in and see him? Lately he’s just been running into one thing after another…”
Her brows drew together delicately, concern softening her features.
But as soon as she finished, father Ling’s smile dimmed a fraction. The warmth in his eyes cooled.
“That’s enough, Qianqian,” he said, voice deeper. “You should worry less about Ling Ze. Yao’er’s at home with only the maids. I’m not entirely comfortable.”
“Sir, I just think that Ling Ze, ”
“Enough. Be good.”
“…Yes. I understand.”
She clearly wanted to say more, but backed down under his tone, leading the entourage away.
Jiang Wei had never seen her own parents interact, but watching Ling Ze’s biological father and stepmother, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
They didn’t feel like a married couple at all. More like… a boss and subordinate.
“Mr. Ling, I… I won’t go in to see Senior,” she stammered. “This is just a little something from me.”
“Good child. Uncle understands your kindness,” he replied. “He’s still not in great condition. It’s not convenient for him to receive visitors right now.”
It was rare for a man like him, who’d built an empire from nothing, to be this courteous to anyone.
But right now, the most important thing was making sure this girl didn’t see Ling Ze again.
After they pulled him from the water, Ze had gone straight into the ICU. For several days he’d rambled in his sleep, calling for his mother, and calling this girl’s name.
After looking into her, it was clear this wasn’t some casual fling he’d drop on a whim. That was… not a good sign.
His intent to send her away was obvious.
Jiang Wei heard it loud and clear.
Still, she’d come, she’d brought the fruit basket and the soup. That was enough. She’d done what she could.
Father Ling watched her walking away, struck by a sense of déjà vu.
“She’s the one who brought these, sir,” one of the bodyguards said quietly, glancing at the basket in his hand. “Should we send them in to Young Master?”
“Take care of them yourselves,” Father Ling said. “Zhi Ning is still inside. If she sees them, there’ll be trouble.”
The bodyguard immediately understood.
When Father Ling entered the room, he walked in on a tender little tableau: a beautiful young woman feeding Ling Ze by the bedside.
Catching sight of his father, Ling Ze subtly relaxed.
Being alone with this woman, Wang Zhi Ning, made him uncomfortable.
But the whole family kept calling her his childhood sweetheart, the fiancée he’d loved for years. She’d saved his life, twice.
By all rights, he should have been grateful.
She had the looks, and while her family couldn’t compare to the Lings, they were still strong enough to make the alliance worthwhile. Marrying her would only strengthen his claim within the family.
“Dad,” he greeted.
“How are you feeling these days?” his father asked. “Head still hurt? Remember anything?”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore… and I still don’t remember anything.”
“If you don’t remember, then don’t force it,” his father said. “Before, you wouldn’t believe it. After the paternity test and your mother’s old photos, you finally did. I don’t know who you get that stubborn streak from.”
He remembered how, after waking up, Ling Ze had refused to engage, eyes cold, guarded, suspicious, nothing like his usual self.
Maybe this was the real him.
It was his fault. He had wronged Mu Rou back then…
“Zhi Ning, you’ve had your hands full with Ze lately,” he added.
Wang Zhi Ning’s cheeks flushed slightly, but she quickly collected herself.
“Uncle Ling, Ling Zeis my fiancé. This is what I should be doing. It’s not hard at all,” she said graciously.
Father Ling nodded.
He’d chosen her himself, this was the only kind of daughter-in-law worthy of the son he’d raised with his own hands.
Mu Rou’s death had haunted him for years.
Everything the Ling family owned would someday belong to Ling Ze. He had other children, but once Ling Ze took over, he was sure his eldest wouldn’t treat them poorly.
Unsurprisingly, this heartwarming little scene was quickly snapped up by the media.
Soon enough, news of the Wang–Ling engagement spread like wildfire. A powerful alliance between two giants, a marriage made in heaven, the papers laid on the praise thick.
Childhood sweethearts.
A beauty who saves her beloved.
A perfect match.
Fated lovers.
If it sounded good, they wrote it.
Wang Zhi Ning’s visits became even more frequent. Over time, Ling Ze slowly began to believe the story.
Especially when he looked at her face, there was always a strange sense of familiarity.
Maybe… they really had known each other for a very long time.
Jiang Wei knew nothing about any of this.
Even though Ling Ze had cut contact with her, a regular deposit still appeared in her bank account. She never touched it.
Everything that had happened in high school felt like a dream.
A brief, dazzling fever.
For a while, she’d stepped into a world that wasn’t hers, Ling Ze had taken her skiing on the peaks of Karas Snow Mountain, deep-sea fishing on the open sea, all-night parties on a yacht.
But all of that was just one small point on the long line of her life.
The road ahead was too long to linger over passing scenery and forget to move forward.
City C, Maple Hill Villas.
Mu Yang’s eyes were bloodshot as he led a group of men up to one of the villas. The gate was literally sawed open with an electric cutter. The moment they stepped inside, the scene that hit them was a mess of naked men and women sprawled across the floor. The air was thick, cloying, saturated with that sickly osmanthus-like stench, like the whole place was sweating lust and rot.
On the big sofa to the left, two men and a woman were still in the middle of their thrusting, not even registering that anyone had come in. Or maybe they did notice, but like animals in heat, they were too far gone to see anything but flesh.
“Mu Yue!!”