Chapter 174 The Past

The living room of the Jiang family villa fell into a deathly silence.

Time passed by second by second, until the atmosphere around him seemed so oppressive that it made people breathless, Chen Haishu finally spoke tremblingly.

"Cang Hui... was taken away by that group of people..."

The stubborn old man who was once so proud and arrogant seemed to have his spine broken at this moment. His voice choked several times when he opened his mouth, and then he knelt down in front of Jiang Wanning under her astonished gaze.

"Please, Miss Jiang, I really have no other choice, so I came to you. Please, help me save her, okay?"

"Just consider it because she's your grandmother's junior sister, or if she needs any compensation... I'll give it to her, I can afford it...!"

"Don't! Mr. Chen, please don't do this. I can't stand this!"

Jiang Wanning, who was sitting on the sofa, was so frightened when she saw Chen Haishu's action that she stood up suddenly and hurried forward to help the man up.

At the same time, she and Xie Yanchuan exchanged a glance. As the latter helped Chen Haishu up, he couldn't help but lower his brows in thought: "Mr. Chen, we must definitely help you with this, but before we help you, you must at least tell me what happened between Ning Ning and me."

Chen Haishu still lay on the ground and refused to get up.

The old man's once straight spine was now hunched as if it had fallen to dust.

After a long time, he seemed to sigh deeply and slowly told the two of them what had happened between him and Chen Canghui.

Apart from being Jiang Wanning's grandmother's junior sister, Chen Canghui's background is actually not outstanding.

She came from an ordinary well-off family in Suzhou. Because of her outstanding talent in jade carving, she was noticed by the master she and her grandmother shared and was accepted as his last disciple.

She and Chen Haishu, who is a few years younger than her, are childhood sweethearts and have grown up together.

The two were originally well matched, one was a businessman and the other a craftsman, and in the blink of an eye they reached the age to get married, which should have been a beautiful story.

Unexpectedly, at that time, Chen Canghui's family suffered a sudden change. After his father owed a huge amount of money from gambling, he jumped off the building and left, leaving behind his mentally broken and crazy mother and a shocking amount of debt.

It was around that time that Chen Canghui had just gained some fame in the jade carving world.

But for the sake of her seriously ill mother, she finally chose to betray her master and embarked on a path of no return.

"Teacher Chen...did she later help those people make imitation jade artifacts?"

At this point, Jiang Wanning suddenly thought of the jade bracelet she had seen at an auction before, which was almost identical to the one carved by her grandmother.

Combined with the fact that Chen Canghui happened to be out of town during that time, everything seemed to make sense.

That jade bracelet that is almost indistinguishable from the real thing must have been made by Chen Canghui.

Chen Haishu obviously didn't expect Jiang Wanning to guess this so quickly. He looked up at her with obvious surprise.

But soon he seemed to have thought of something and laughed at himself: "You guessed right. You are worthy of being the descendant of an old friend..."

"As you can see, I don't really understand jade, and I have no idea about the jade carving industry... For all these years, as Cang Hui's husband, I haven't been doing my job properly."

Later, as Jiang Wanning had guessed, Chen Canghui did go down the path of making high-quality imitation jade wares.

At first, she only took some small orders that could barely make a living, but later, her mother's madness and huge debts were like a bottomless pit, which became the last straw that broke her back.

It also forced her to walk into deeper and bottomless darkness.

"At that time, Cang Hui wanted to handle all of this alone. She didn't even tell me and canceled the engagement without my permission."

"Of course, there's nothing much to say about these past relationships."

"Don't look at us living together now...in fact, we just got our marriage certificate a few years ago."

At that time, Chen Haishu thought that everything would be cleared up, and they had finally ended their past miserable lives. At least they could retire together in this remote small town in a foreign country.

But it turned out that their thoughts at that time were too naive.

Chen Canghui has a skill that no one else can replicate. He can turn a piece of extremely cheap and shabby jade into treasure and sell it for tens, hundreds, or even tens of millions of dollars. This in itself is an illegal gray industry.

She wanted to withdraw, but how could those who had already tasted the sweetness from her and were entangled with her let her go easily?

"Those people are also creditors." Chen Haishu rubbed his face in pain as he spoke of this. "The last time you went to C City Town and saw the scene at our house, it was them who did it."

"Later, with the money given by Miss Jiang and Mr. Xie, Cang Hui and I moved away from that place and found a new secluded place to hide. But unexpectedly, we were discovered by them in the end."

"They asked Cang Hui to continue her previous activities and forcibly took her away from me..."

As if recalling the scene at that time, a look of horror emerged on Chen Haishu's old face: "Those people are really crazy!"

"In order to completely sever Cang Hui's last remaining ties to the outside world, he even went so far as to murder me to silence me. It was only thanks to my good fortune that I was able to escape with my life when the car fell off a cliff."

"...I knew that my own abilities would be like an ant trying to shake a tree against those people. I was overestimating my own capabilities, so I came here."

"I know this is difficult... but this is my last hope."

As Chen Haishu finished his last words, the already quiet living room instantly became even quieter.

Even though she had expected it, Jiang Wanning was still shocked after listening to Chen Haishu's account of the whole incident.

After being silent for a long while, she seemed to have found her voice again.

But he felt his throat dry, and it was difficult for him to finish a whole sentence: "Mr. Chen... I am covering up for the crime by helping you, do you know?"

Chen Haishu was silent for a moment, and finally said dejectedly: "Of course."

"I promise you, as long as I can rescue Cang Hui from those people, I will take her to surrender."