Almost the instant Tang Li received the USB drive, the phone rang.

She was startled, and when she came to her senses, her forehead was covered in sweat and her palms were wet. She even had to try several times to answer the phone.

The call was from Song Beiye.

Happy birthday, my queen.

Tang Li slumped to the ground, her face pale, and weakly replied:

"I've received the birthday wishes, but the following sentence is unnecessary. I just want to be my own queen."

Song Beiye laughed heartily on the other end of the phone; judging from his voice, it was quite windy on his end.

Are you still speeding outside in the middle of the night?

Song Beiye held his phone out the car window, listened for a few seconds, then brought it back and said loudly:

"I'm rushing toward you at rocket speed."

He must be on the highway.

Tang Li reminded:

"Drive slowly, or your driver's license may be revoked."

Song Beiye closed the window, and it immediately became much quieter on the other end of the phone.

"No joke, I should be able to get to Tanzhou before your book signing ends. I have a generous gift for you then, I'm sure you'll like it."

There are already enough gifts.

Tang Li cleared his throat and asked:

"How were your brother's funeral arrangements handled? We haven't received any news of his death from the Eastern Song Dynasty. Did you deliberately conceal it?"

When Song Beiyu was mentioned, Song Beiye changed the subject:

"I'm sleepy driving at night, so I'll listen to some music to perk myself up. Don't stay up late, listen to me, and go to bed early."

He hung up the phone after saying that.

Tang Li was completely baffled.

"Who wants to listen to you?" Tang Li muttered.

These words sound quite heartwarming coming from the domineering CEO in the book, but in reality, being told this by someone I have no feelings for feels very strange. It doesn't feel wonderful at all; instead, it makes me feel uncomfortable.

However, after Song Beiye's interference, Tang Li's tense mood completely disappeared.

She quickly checked the time, then hurriedly got up and went to the study.

Before Huo Chenyu returned, I copied the contents of the USB drive and then put it back in the safe.

After doing all this, she texted Huo Chenyu and asked:

"Where did you go? I woke up and didn't see you."

Huo Chenyu replied quickly:

"Something urgent needs to be done at the company, I'll be back before dawn. Don't worry, you can sleep peacefully."

That's good!

Tang Li asked him where he had gone because she was afraid he would suddenly come back.

After confirming that he wouldn't be back anytime soon, Tang Li took her laptop back to her bedroom and, after calming herself down as much as possible, opened the video on the USB drive.

It contains a recording.

It should be described as a recording of negotiations.

The background noise was chaotic, but Tang Li immediately recognized that it was Laomiao Street in Jincheng.

At the entrance of Laomiao Street, there was a blind man who sat there playing the erhu all year round. The sound of the erhu in the recording was very clear. Tang Li immediately took out his mobile phone and sent a message to Xu Ji.

"After you wake up, go to Laomiao Street for me and focus on checking out the teahouses there, especially those close to the alley entrance."

The old teahouses there are not usually renovated easily. If the person in the recording had been there, the owner of the old teahouse should have remembered him.

There were three voices in the recording.

Two of them were talking the whole time, but when the last recording came out, they only said two simple words: "Gone."

It must have been left by the person who made the recording.

One of the two main characters in the dialogue is Huo Yishen.

Huo Yishen's voice was very distinctive. Although six years had passed, Tang Li recognized her father-in-law's voice immediately.

As for the other voice, Tang Li guessed it was from the Scumbag family.

After all, Huo Chenyu found this USB drive in the scumbag's house.

Tang Li recorded the person's voice on his phone and sent it to Yunxi, asking her to identify him.

Yunxi kept thinking about the strange man from earlier that day and couldn't sleep all night. When she received a WeChat message from Tang Li, she excitedly asked:

"Did you get the USB drive?"

Tang Li hummed in agreement.

Yunxi called her:

"It's Zhongqi's father's voice. Lili, what's on the USB drive? What's in this recording?"

In this recording.

Huo Yishen said to Zha Tiesheng:

"I can provide you with any help you need, but I only have this one condition."

The recording was probably impromptu, so the earlier part of the conversation wasn't recorded.

In the recording, Zha Tiesheng firmly rejected Huo Yishen:

"I would never do anything against my conscience."

The two couldn't reach an agreement, and neither spoke for a long time.

There was an awkward silence for about a minute. When Huo Yishen spoke again, he said, "Our generation has limited capabilities. No matter how much territory we expand, it will eventually be handed over to the next generation. The Tang family may seem weak, but it is not so easy to swallow up. Moreover, that girl from the Tang family is very powerful. If you fail in your first strike, you could easily be swallowed up by them. Have you thought about this risk?"

This sounds like... the Zha family wants to swallow up the Tang family.

The competition back then was really fierce. If the Zha family wanted to rise to power, they had to eliminate one of the four rivals.

Both the Huo and Sheng Rong families are very powerful, and the Eastern Song Dynasty has a large family system to support it.

In comparison, the Tang family was rather weak and could be considered the easiest to bully.

Zha Tiesheng replied with a smile:

"I'd rather join forces with the Tang family than deal with the Huo family, who are like tigers fighting for their skin."

These words were nothing in themselves, but Huo Yishen suddenly roared:

"I'm telling you this right now: the day you join forces with the Tang family will be the day your scumbag family brings about its own destruction."

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!