Chapter 131: Poisonous Mail

"Don't touch it!" Zhao Chen's voice was as cold as the Siberian cold wave. He completely ignored his hand that was still bleeding. He pinched Yu Ling's wrist bones with such force that it hurt!

"What are you doing?!" Yu Ling was so angry and scared by his sudden attack and that terrifying look that she tried hard to break free!

"Poisonous email!" Zhao Chen held her wrist tightly, his eyes fixed on Yu Ling's lit phone screen like knives! On it, a preview of a new email read eerily:

"Personally from Chairman Yu Ling: Top-secret supplementary evidence regarding your husband, Mr. Zhao Chen's true debts and the requirements for cooperation with the Gu Group."

The sender was actually an anonymous address that looked like a string of garbled characters!

"Gu Qianqian's trap!" Zhao Chen's voice was thick with icy poison. "Click it, and the virus will steal everything from your phone in seconds! Xinghui's underwear and your privacy will all be ruined!"

Yu Ling shuddered! Looking at the venomous email title, and then meeting Zhao Chen's eyes, as cold as the abyss, yet guarding her tightly, a chill instantly rushed from the soles of her feet to the top of her head!

Just then!

The cell phone Zhao Chen had stuffed into the blood-stained Shiba Inu's apron pocket began to vibrate like crazy! It wasn't a call, but a dense, alarming sound!

Zhao Chen's brows were twisted into a knot, still holding Yu Ling's wrist like an iron clamp. With the hand that was not injured but covered in blood, he took out his tacky-looking encrypted mobile phone in a very awkward manner.

The moment the screen was unlocked, dozens of encrypted messages from special assistant Lin Feng, accompanied by blood-red exclamation marks, flooded the screen like a waterfall!

"Red alert! Anonymous mass emails sent via GQQ! Target: Star Shine executives and Ms. Yu's email address! Stealing core data!"

"Synchronous! The Gu Family's Three Dogs' media pre-release is online! Title: "Xinghui Chairman Caught in Shocking Scam, 'Bankrupt Husband' Suspected of Being a Corporate Spy"!"

"Five minutes later! Push to the entire network! Troll army in place!"

"S-rank countermeasures executed! Gu Group's (CG) main offshore funding chain—global freeze! Bank runs on affiliated banks initiated!"

"Gu's Core Holdings..."

The last one, as short as a poisoned dagger:

"CG stock price... circuit breaker at opening!"

Zhao Chen's gaze darted across the screen like an icy scanner. The moment the word "fuse" entered his eyes, the last shred of warmth that belonged to "husband Zhao Chen" completely evaporated, leaving only the absolute coldness and controlling indifference of the helmsman of a multi-billion dollar empire.

He suddenly raised his eyes and stopped looking at his phone.

The moment he raised his eyes!

Above Yu Ling's wrist, which he had firmly grasped, her own phone screen lit up due to her struggle! A sudden push notification from a financial app, with a blood-red title, burned into her retina like a red-hot iron:

"Breaking! Gu's Group (CG) plummets 20% at opening, triggering a circuit breaker! Rumors circulate online that its overseas funding chain has been completely frozen by a mysterious force! A multi-billion dollar debt crisis has erupted!"

The huge black title, accompanied by the picture of the iconic skyscraper of Gu Group, was like a heavy hammer, hitting Yu Ling's optic nerve!

Gu's... circuit breaker? Freeze? Billion-dollar crisis?!

Yu Ling's brain buzzed, completely shutting down! A flood of information flooded in like a tsunami! One moment she was furious over Zhao Chen's "bankruptcy," and the next, the family stronghold that Gu Qianqian was so proud of… collapsed right before her eyes?!

This sudden turn scared her to death! She subconsciously wanted to get closer to the screen, to see the news clearly, to figure out what was going on in the world!

However--

Just when her eyes were drawn to the eye-catching title and she wanted to focus!

A big hand covered with sticky blood and a bloody bear Band-Aid, with unquestionable arrogance and an almost paranoid desire to protect, "snapped", covered her eyes tightly!

Zhao Chen's voice, deep and hoarse, but filled with absolute control, pressed against her earlobes, exploding like thunder, each word making her eardrums buzz:

"Close your eyes!"

"This kind of dirty stuff..."

“…Don’t look!”

The world instantly fell into a sticky darkness mixed with the aroma of blood and truffles.

Time seems to be frozen.

I don’t know how long it took.

Maybe it's only three seconds, maybe it's as long as a century.

The bloody hand covering his eyes moved away slowly and reluctantly, feeling sticky.

The light poured in again.

Yu Ling blinked subconsciously, and there seemed to be a little warm moisture on her eyelashes that did not belong to her.

She saw that Zhao Chen had stood up straight. His face was still frighteningly pale, and the cold sweat on his forehead continued. His injured hand was wrapped in thick gauze like a dumpling, and a little blood still seeped out, staining the edge of the gauze and his dark trouser legs red.

He didn't look at Yu Ling, nor at the pool of blood and garbage on the floor. His gaze passed through the huge French windows of the kitchen, out into the hazy nightscape of Haicheng. It seemed as if the deadly argument, the bloodshed, the virus alert, the collapse of the Gu Group, had all been a mere warm-up.

His voice was not loud, but it clearly penetrated the blood and chaos left in the kitchen. It was filled with a resolute coldness and absolute determination, as if he was reading an imperial decree:

"Lingling."

"From now on."

"Your phone, computer, everything that can connect to the internet..."

"Confiscated."

He slowly turned around, and the hand that was still dripping blood, very naturally and with an unyielding dominance, once again grabbed Yu Ling's cold wrist - this time, it was not to stop her, but to declare sovereignty and...to mark territory.

He pulled her, completely ignoring the wound on his hand, the blood and mess on the ground, and the storm in Yu Ling's eyes. He walked straight to the living room.

"After I put those 'dirty things'..."

“…before being swept into the trash.”

"You are under my protection."

late at night.

In Haicheng's top private hospital, the lights in the VIP ward were dimmed to a soft, warm yellow.

Yu Ling huddled on the sofa beside the hospital bed, wrapped in the cashmere blanket that Zhao Chen had forced upon her and which carried his scent.

She was holding a cup of hot milk that the nurse had just brought her, but her eyes were a little straight, and she was looking at the man on the hospital bed who had just had his wounds stitched up and was closing his eyes to "rest".

Zhao Chen's face still looked pale. His hand, wrapped like a large white bun, rested on the snow-white quilt, a faint red bloodstain visible at the edge of the gauze. His breathing was steady, as if he were asleep.

The ward was so quiet that only the slight hum of the instruments could be heard.

Yu Ling's heart felt like it had been thrown into a washing machine. Tonight's series of magical plots played madly in her mind on a loop.

Gu Qianqian's viciousness, the fake bankruptcy documents, the blood splatter in the kitchen, Zhao Chen's frantic attempt to catch the jar with his bare hands, that blood-stained bear band-aid, the deadly virus email alert, the news of Gu's circuit breaker, and Zhao Chen's final, bloody words, "You're mine"...

All this made her exhausted, and she felt an inexplicable sense of panic.

She subconsciously took out her mobile phone which had been "confiscated" by Zhao Chen and then "disinfected and inspected" by his special assistant named Lin Feng before being returned to her.

The screen lit up, clean. The poisonous email and the news about Gu's company were erased as if by an eraser, leaving no trace.

For some unknown reason, she opened the browser and her fingers uncontrollably tapped "Gu Group Circuit Breaker".

The search page was instantly flooded with massive amounts of the latest news!

"Gu Group's opening price plummeted 20%, triggering a circuit breaker! This is the largest single-day drop in ten years!"

"Mysterious short-selling report strikes home! Gu's overseas funding chain is suspected to be completely frozen!"

"Gu Group urgently suspends trading! Billions of dollars in debt exposed!"

"Who is behind this? The short-selling report's signature has sparked speculation online!"

Yu Ling's fingers unconsciously slid down, and her eyes were suddenly hooked by the subheading of a financial news flash:

"… Rumor has it that this precise short-selling report on Gu's was released by an anonymous analyst, using a rather dramatic codename, possibly "The Revoked Pancake Man"…"

"The Pancake Man with a Revoked License"?!

Yu Ling's fingers seemed to be frozen and froze on the screen in an instant!

She suddenly raised her head, her eyes like a searchlight, shooting at the man who was "sleeping" with his eyes closed on the hospital bed!

The warm yellow light outlined his deep features. His pale face had a sense of fragility and illness. His hand wrapped in gauze lay quietly, looking harmless no matter how you looked at it.

Yu Ling's heartbeat, however, at this moment, was like an out-of-control drumbeat, pounding wildly against her chest! A chill mixed with an absurd and extremely shocking feeling instantly swept through her body!

Pancake Man...

License revoked...

On the hospital bed, Zhao Chen's thick eyelashes trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly.