After I told Ye Zhi everything I had heard from Vice President Wu, I kept a close eye on her expression. I didn't know how much she knew about this chilling conspiracy, and I hoped that the information was valuable and not just gave her the absurd feeling that I had been used by someone else.

Unexpectedly, Ye Zhi did not show any change in expression. She even shifted her gaze away from me and became indifferent. My heart gradually cooled down because Ye Zhi probably already knew about these shocking news.

I silently turned around and looked across the river again. There, lights surrounded the area, and the unpredictability of people's hearts was hidden under those lights and concealed in the high-rise buildings... This filled me with a sense of crisis, even though I knew it had nothing to do with me, I still couldn't control myself.

“Michael, I appreciate that you care about my affairs so much, but I don’t want you to get involved, not before, not now… You should have your own life. If you keep dragging this on, I’ll become your nightmare sooner or later!”

"The biggest nightmare of my life is that I can't get over this knot in my heart!"

Even if it's solved, so what?

"At least you have no worries now... What am I after? I just hope you can be happier, because I know better than anyone that behind your seemingly glamorous life lies a life full of scars."

"Even if I am happy, what will you get?... I don't want you to give me a righteous answer; I hope you can answer me based on reality."

"I can only tell you with a solemn heart... Only when you are happy can I let go of my worries and walk away quietly... Otherwise, I will still miss you, and that's something I can't control."

Ye Zhi gripped the railing tightly, then said to me in a very low voice, "Why can't you understand what I'm thinking?... If Wu Jingkun (Vice President Wu) comes to you again, tell him that if he really cares about his son, he should come to me in person... I'm very disgusted by his current behavior... We can talk about his son's matter, but the premise is that he must come to me in person."

I looked at Ye Zhi, feeling a mix of emotions; I knew that when she said those words, she had already compromised with Vice President Wu... In the end, I had become her Achilles' heel.

After a soft sigh, I fell silent, and Ye Zhi also fell silent... The cold wind was like a dull knife, piercing into my bones and giving me a chilling sensation; Shanghai winters are just too cold!

If we're talking about this season, Phuket is still the most comfortable place to stay.

I finally spoke to Ye Zhi and asked, "What exactly did you go through in Thailand?... I now know the outcome, but I don't know the process. I want to know how you escaped this ordeal."

Ye Zhi looked at me, and I looked at her. I saw the struggle in her eyes, and I knew she didn't want to drag me into this.

In the bottomless vortex.

I said to her again, “I’m asking you these questions not to get involved, but because I want to know what pain you were going through back then… Otherwise, it’s hard for me to let go of the hurt you caused me during your year of disappearance… For me, the prerequisite for letting go of this past is that I must first understand you.”

Ye Zhi frowned subconsciously, her nails digging tightly into the railing. After a long while, she finally spoke to me, "It wasn't that I was lucky, it was that someone spared my life... I was drunk on the yacht at the time, and when I woke up, I was already in the sea... The waves were so big, even the best swimmer couldn't have survived. I don't know who put a life jacket on me. I drifted in the sea all night until the next day when I was rescued by the fishermen on the island... I remember very clearly that the yacht was in shallow water and was anchored..."

"If you wanted to harm you, why did you put a life jacket on you in the first place?"

"I didn't understand it either... but I knew very well that someone was trying to harm me... At that time, I was in a critical period of my power struggle with my father, and he was the first person I thought of... My heart was broken! I am his biological daughter, and even if he was dissatisfied with me, he shouldn't have used such extreme methods to deal with me... I didn't believe it was him, and I didn't know who else to suspect, so in this unclear situation, I could only choose to play along... Later, Cao Jinbo successfully invested in the Cangshan Villa project, and even Binjiang Group's overseas investments were involved with him... His unusual relationship with Binjiang Group gave me another guess, probably similar to what you just said... My father was used by him, and there was a deep bond of interests between them... Haven't you noticed that Cao Jinbo's accumulation of wealth over the past year has exceeded the normal range?"

I was stunned for a moment, then some details came to mind... I remembered when I first went to Dali, Cao Jinbo was just a gangster boss who was forcibly selling our seaside inn to us... This proved that the profits from a seaside inn were already something he valued highly, so his assets at that time should have been in the tens of millions, not exceeding a hundred million... But now, the amount of money he has spent on An'an alone is astonishing... He bought An'an two luxury cars worth over a million each, and a large apartment in Shanshui that was worth at least 4 million each on the market. And this is only what I know... The only explanation for this huge difference is that his wealth has exploded. Otherwise, given his cautious nature, it would be impossible for him to squander money so lavishly.

He profoundly showed me what it means to have "hell empty and all the devils on earth." A chill ran through me again, and I stared blankly at Ye Zhi... I felt as if I were in her perilous situation: towering waves in the sea, feeling suffocated, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of salty seawater...

I finally spoke to Ye Zhi and asked, "Since you already suspect Cao Jinbo, why don't you try to bring him to justice?"

“I long for this day more than anyone else, but I have no evidence… The most difficult thing is that this happened on the soil of another country, so there is no way to collect evidence… And the police in Thailand have already classified this incident as a normal shipwreck accident…”

"It must have been Cao Jinbo who bribed officials... I heard that government offices over there are extremely money-grubbing!"

"It's not impossible... Perhaps this is the greatest helplessness in the world... watching your enemy stand in front of you, but you can't do anything about it!"

(End of this chapter)