evidence

She brought the recording alone, naturally unafraid that Master Wan would suspect her of instigating anything.

The recorder spun in her palm as Gu Nan scanned Wan Ye's ever-changing expression, which eventually settled into a cold and indifferent one.

Who exactly are you?

Gu Nan slowly withdrew her gaze, tilting her head slightly to look out the window. The temperature was clearly below zero, the weather was dry and cold, and it hadn't snowed yet.

Fortunately, the weather was clear, allowing her to hear the subtle sounds hidden in the corner.

He gave an irrelevant reply: "Master Wan, you should save your breath. The people in your courtyard can't beat me."

Master Wan probed: "Avenge the Xue family? Judging from your age, you are about the same age as the youngest daughter of the Xue family, but I saw her die with my own eyes. Everyone has already been buried."

Gu Nan smiled arrogantly: "Perhaps, the vengeful spirits have returned to claim our lives?"

"Nonsense."

Master Wan's tone was unfriendly. After his stern reprimand, he stopped looking at Gu Nan and kept glancing at the door. As time went by, the frequency of his tapping on the table gradually increased. His deeply lined old face showed little change in expression, but his pursed lips revealed a subtle expectation.

Gu Nan followed his gaze and looked outside; only fallen leaves remained outside the door.

Guessing what Master Wan was waiting for, Gu Nan chuckled without adding any pleasure: "Master Wan, there's no need to stall for time. The Chu family is struggling to survive and can't afford to worry about you."

At this point, Jin Yan must have already delivered another recording to Chu Lin. Before reporting back to the Shen family, the Chu family will probably be more anxious about who sent the recording.

The evidence provided by Shen Ming revealed that the silent third person was actually the old master of the Shen family. She pretended not to know, and since Shen Ming wanted to drag the Chu family into this mess, she didn't mind helping him out.

"The Chu family? Hmph." A cold snort escaped his nose, laced with disdain.

"Isn't it the Chu family?" Gu Nan lowered her voice, her tone relaxed, as if she were simply chatting about the weather. "Could it be..."

He paused deliberately, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Master Wan holding his teacup, looking down to drink his tea while feigning composure.

"Meng Qing." The two words were uttered without warning.

The tea spilled instantly, the brown liquid splashing onto his nose. Master Wan's eyes narrowed, flashing with a ferocious light. He quickly composed himself, put down the teacup, and smoothed his sleeves as if trying to cover up the incident.

Gu Nan smiled and said, "It seems that Master Wan still cares more about this person."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Gu Nan didn't expose his feigned ignorance.

He strolled leisurely to the empty seat next to Master Wan and sat down, his hands naturally resting on the armrests. He looked into the distance, where he could take in the magnificent osmanthus tree in the courtyard.

A gentle breeze swept through the branches, and the red ribbons tied to them swayed in the wind.

She stared at the red rope, her expression calm, but a closer look revealed a hint of sadness, and her tone of voice betrayed no emotion.

“He Wu is indeed somewhat clever, but the difference in strength is too great. He was able to easily escape from the hands of your Wan family’s well-trained bodyguards and hold out until I arrived to rescue him, which gave him a chance to call for help. Master Wan, I have always wanted to ask you, in your plan, should Lu Yushi have come to rescue me?”

Everyone was testing Lu Yu's attitude towards her, including herself.

She didn't give Master Wan a chance to change the subject, assuming that he wouldn't choose to continue pretending to be stupid at this moment, and suddenly turned around to look at him: "Your target is not He Wu, nor me, but Lu Yushi, right?"

When his secret was exposed, Master Wan's expression changed. He adjusted his posture, resting his arm on his knee. Soon, as if feeling uncomfortable, he lifted the armrest again. His face still wore an air of composure as he praised with a forced smile, "You are indeed smarter than I imagined."

Gu Nan didn't respond. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed faint footsteps coming from the shadows outside the door. Master Wan's composure was simply because he thought he could keep her in this courtyard forever.

He chuckled knowingly, then released all the hypotheses that had been swirling in his mind for over a month: "Meng Qing has given you too much information, and you don't trust her, so you had He Wu provoke Xue Li to test whether I would retaliate against He Wu. If I help Xue Li, it will prove that Meng Qing is telling the truth. At Ping An Hospital, if Lu Yushi helps me, you will persuade Kang Shengtai to turn against me and work for you. Conversely, if Lu Yushi supports the He brothers, you will find a way to make me lose faith in Lu Yushi, thus making me agree to cooperate with you from the inside."

"No matter what Lu Yushi chooses, it will be entirely beneficial to you... no, I was wrong, it will be entirely beneficial to you." Her voice softened, her long eyelashes drooped, and her eyes dimmed.

It took her a month to understand Master Wan's despicable nature, but how long did it take Lu Yushi to realize that the day Master Wan had given him a choice that only brought him more harm than good?

"You succeeded, and you failed. I didn't expect He Xiao to actually put up with it and even went to Chen Yue to apologize to me. I also didn't expect Xue Li to be so magnanimous and willing to forgive and forget and treat He Wu like a child. So, I came up with a second wicked plan."

Master Wan listened quietly throughout, confirming the truth she had calculated and overturned countless times over countless sleepless nights.

"Let He Wu die by my hand."

She stared intently at Master Wan's expression, gleaning a definitive answer from the subtle pauses in his fingers.

"It's no secret that I've fought with the Wan family's bodyguards; everyone knows they're no match for me. So, your only target is He Wu. As long as something happens to He Wu while he's by my side, and He Xiao thinks I abandoned him, planting the seeds of hatred in his heart, it's only a matter of time before Kang Shengtai and Lu Yu turn against each other."

Having said that, Master Wan became relaxed and calmly shifted his gaze to Gu Nan.

"Then how do you explain locking both of you in the cold storage in the end?"

Gu Nan sneered: "If Master Wan can miscalculate once, can't he miscalculate twice? You didn't expect Shen Ming to want my life even more. In front of the cold storage, your bodyguards didn't even have time to react."

She took Shen Manman to buy Yun Ting's work, which angered Shen Ming so much that he wanted to kill her to silence her.

"But I'd like to ask a more specific question: was Master Wan aware that Wan Yi was almost beaten to death?"

"Does it matter?" Master Wan still had a smile on his face, as if he were mocking something trivial.

Gu Nan stared at him for a long time, a chill rising from the bottom of her heart and spreading throughout her body along her bloodstream.

It was just a good thing Wan Yi wasn't there.

“If my people want to be of one mind with others, they will naturally have to pay the price for their choices.”

Gu Nan avoided eye contact, her mind uncontrollably recalling the day after she was discharged from the hospital, when Jin Yan gossiped with her with a mischievous grin, and how Lu Yushi's act of saving someone only resulted in trouble for him—it was truly outrageous.

It seems there's no logic to it. Master Wan isn't a good person, but isn't she a bad person too? She takes advantage of other people's generosity and tramples on it.

She took a deep breath and steered the conversation back to the topic that had strayed from her original subject.

"You and Shen Ming both want Lu Yushi to disappear from Beicheng. You have a common goal, and in the eyes of outsiders, your relationship is unbreakable. But you ultimately want different things. You want to continue to consolidate your position in Beicheng, but the Shen family is no longer willing to share with you. As long as you and Lu Yushi both get into trouble, Beicheng will be controlled by the Shen family."

Master Wan suddenly realized, and a string of scattered thoughts in his mind came together. His eyes lit up: "Shen Ming has evidence that Lin Jianye and I burned down the Yun Jian Villa, so you deliberately approached Shen Ming and used him to deal with me... Who exactly are you!"

Gu Nan ignored him: "You think that the dirty deeds you, Lin Jianye, the Chu family, and the Shen family committed together back then can keep you allies for life? But Shen Ming wants to use this evidence to make the Wan family, the Chu family, and this evidence disappear together."

Her gaze was cold and disdainful: "Are you sure you still want to keep your secret?"

Unable to find the lost videotape, the evidence Shen Ming provided only proved that Lin Jianye and Master Wan had discussed how to tamper with the security system, and that the Chu family had provided another complete security system for the two to experiment with.

She knew nothing about how everyone was trapped in the villa, how the fire started, whether there were other people in the villa to help, or how they escaped inspection after the fire was extinguished.

After a long while, applause broke out in the quiet room and lasted for a full two minutes. Master Wan smiled nonchalantly.

"Knowing that Shen Ming harbors ambitions to control Beicheng alone, you manipulated his mind, repeatedly planting in him the subconscious belief that the Shen family had a chance. He thought he was a hunter, directing you to target the Lu family, pushing me and the Chu family out to take the fall, so that no one in Beicheng could stand against the Shen family. In reality, you were the mastermind behind the whole game. I underestimated you, thinking that your arrogance was all due to Lu Yushi's influence."

Gu Nan remained noncommittal.

Master Wan closed his eyes, as if reviewing his mistakes: "At this point, even if I clearly tell Shen Ming that he is just a pawn destined to die on your chessboard, he won't believe me. Instead, he'll think I'm at my wit's end and trying to drag the Shen family down with me. Gu Nan, you're very good at manipulating people's hearts."

The tone of his voice was gentle and persuasive, as if he were praising someone.

"You flatter me, Master Wan. There are things I didn't foresee. For example, you would risk your own son's life just to have a reason to confront Lu Yushi." That day, she sensed that his attacks were aimed at vital points, and at the critical moment, she had He Xiao contact Wan Yi. She thought that at least the Wan family's bodyguards wouldn't harm Wan Yi.

I don't want to make a big mistake.

"I have another purpose for coming here today, to thank Master Wan properly. You taught me how to force someone to choose between two unfavorable options."

The room was silent. Master Wan lowered his eyelids and spoke in a low voice, as if he had reached the end of his road and would no longer struggle.

"Back then, Lin Jianye did indeed approach me to plan an accident, but I didn't agree. The Shen family didn't want a new power to emerge in Beicheng, and the Chu family coveted the Xue family's vast assets. The two of them reached an agreement with Lin Jianye: the Chu family wanted money, Lin Jianye wanted fame, and the Shen family got what they wanted. As someone in the know, I either helped them or I was bound to be targeted by them and had no choice but to get on their bandwagon."

The same rhetoric and the same helplessness as Shen Ming.

Gu Nan sneered inwardly, "Why didn't you seem flustered when you were receiving benefits?"

"Then please have Mr. Wan make these words public in the name of the Wan family at 9 a.m. tomorrow."

Master Wan seemed to have thought of a joke and chuckled. His thick skin trembled slightly, and his eyes were full of sharp shrewdness. After he had finished laughing, he spoke: "If I am not mistaken, at 9 a.m. tomorrow, Shen Ming will also report me and the Chu family in the name of the Shen family."

"yes."

The two looked at each other, one strolling leisurely, the other with ease.

They were all calm and unhurried, believing they had the upper hand.

Master Wan raised his hand and made a gesture, and then heard noisy footsteps outside the door. He stared at Gu Nan with a cruel smile on his face: "What a pity."

"What's a pity?" Gu Nan ignored the voice outside the door.

"When you were so self-righteous and used Lu Yushi's traceability system to gain Shen Ming's trust, did you ever think that you had caused Lu Yushi a lot of trouble? Today you need his help, but tomorrow is the bidding day, and he is probably too busy to deal with your business."

"What does Master Wan mean?" Gu Nan pretended not to understand.

"You came here to show off and say so much, do you think I'd give you the chance to leave?"

Gu Nan chuckled: "I'm presumptuous? That's a better word for Master Wan."

As they were talking, the bodyguards outside the door had already rushed into the room.

Each of them had a serious expression, a steady and powerful gait, and their hands behind their backs moved with crisp and clean movements. They stood on both sides with their eyes straight ahead.

Outside the door, a woman's voice came from afar.

"In your eyes, how stupid is she to come to your headquarters alone and court death without being fully prepared?"

The familiar tone, the familiar arrogant arrogance.

Master Wan's composure froze, his fingers gripping the corner of the table tightly, relying entirely on his life experience to maintain his dignity.

Gu Nan merely glanced down. In the past, she relied on Master Wan's reluctance to openly confront Lu Yushi to act arrogantly, but now she relied on more than ten days of sleepless nights.

Meng Qing had no influence in Beicheng and had been unable to investigate her enemy for a long time. She probably observed Lu Yu's indulgence towards her from the shadows and was afraid that she had someone else in her heart. So she no longer trusted the promise made that night and turned to Master Wan, using her secret to achieve cooperation with Master Wan.

Fortunately, Heaven took pity on her and averted this unsolvable disaster because of the sins Wan Sizong had committed in his childhood.

Some things don't need to be said outright. Gu Nan didn't turn around, nor was she interested in hearing about the grudges between Meng Qing and the Wan family.

He turned to leave.

Master Wan suddenly spoke up: "Grab her."

The courtyard was full of bodyguards, but not one of them made a move.

Gu Nan looked up at the sky, a cold wind blowing across her face, dispelling the lingering gloom in her eyes.

She trailed off, turning back with a half-smile: "I forgot, we agreed to give Master Wan two choices. Since Master Wan doesn't want to make those words public, he can also choose..."

The color had already drained from Master Wan's face when he could no longer command his bodyguards. His gloomy eyes shot over: "Speak."

Give me proof that the Shen family helped you destroy the evidence of your crimes.

"Crack."

The glass shattered into pieces.

Master Wan suddenly sprang to his feet, his tilted body seemingly ready to devour someone. He clenched his teeth and squeezed out a few words: "You never intended to give me a way out!"

Gu Nan laughed arrogantly, but her eyes were red with a hint of displeasure: "When you forced Lu Yushi to choose between two options, you didn't intend to give him a way out, did you?"

She glanced at the time: "There are still 18 hours until the bidding opens. Mr. Wan, please consider it carefully. I'll be waiting for your decision at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

"I'll give you evidence that the Shen family set fire to their house, and you'll let me go."

"Master Wan is wrong. You have no right to negotiate with me."

"Then I can choose not to say anything." Her exasperated tone had completely lost its initial composure.

“Of course.” Gu Nan said slowly, “You can choose not to say anything. But Shen Ming has given me so much, are you willing to let him get what he wants? Tomorrow is your last chance. These things, the lives of dozens of people in the Xue family, are enough to keep you in there until you die.”

Who are you?!

Gu Nan didn't answer, and her steps as she left the house seemed to have lifted a heavy burden from her body.

Master Wan's voice was urgent: "Leave me here, I can help Lu Yushi..."

"Didn't you always know that I don't care whether Lu Yushi lives or dies?" He glanced at Meng Qing with a hidden meaning in his words, his gaze lingering on her clenched fingers for a moment.

"Gu Nan."

Stuck in his tracks once again, Gu Nan glanced at the woman in front of him, guessing the hesitant words beneath her twitching lips, and spoke first.

"You saved my life in Ulm that day, and I'm returning the Xuncheng cold storage to you. On the day at Xingyin Temple, you helped me stand up for Wanting, and I'm repaying you by helping you find the real culprit. We're even now, and we don't need to see each other again."

Meng Qing's personality and attitude towards life were very similar to hers, and they had a life-or-death friendship. She wanted to befriend her, but fate had other plans.

She would never want someone who had betrayed her once.

Looking up at the sky, I saw tiny snowflakes beginning to fall.

I reached out and held the daisy in my hand; the cold wind blowing into my nostrils seemed to carry a bitter taste.

I wonder if Lu Yushi thinks the same way.

Meng Qing lowered her voice: "Thank you."

"No need." Gu Nan withdrew her gaze and turned to leave.

Provoked by Gu Nan's attitude, Meng Qing brushed her fingertips against Gu Nan's sleeve, her eyes darkened, and she clenched her fist and withdrew it.

“I did scheme against you, but ask yourself honestly, do you really blame me? You haven’t even avenged your own grievances yet, but at this time, you’re wasting even more energy helping me investigate the truth. Is it because you’re afraid that my revenge plan will affect Lu Yushi? If my enemy were the Wan family or any other family in Beicheng, that would be fine, but if, unfortunately, it happens to be the Lu family, would you still help me as you say?”

Noticing Gu Nan's hesitation, Meng Qing's assertiveness slowly softened: "I'm not making excuses for myself. You also have your own vengeance to seek. If you were me, what would you do?"

Gu Nan had no intention of arguing with Meng Qing about right and wrong. Her voice was calm: "When you had the accident as a child, Lu Yu was under 11 years old. It's impossible that he hurt someone. His parents are kind and gentle, and they would never do something so heinous."

He sighed silently, "Of the Lu family, I only care about these three people."

Stepping into the swirling snow.

Meng Qing persisted, "If I can secretly help Lu Yu, can we still be friends?"

Knowing she was short of money, he allowed her to continue pretending to be J and even entrusted her with managing the boxing ring in Xuncheng.

She was slow to realize Gu Nan's loyalty.

Gu Nan neither turned around nor stopped, her voice drifting behind her through the snowflakes.

"You shouldn't have touched Xue Li."

As soon as I stepped out the door, I took out my phone.

Jin Yan sent a message: [Chu Lin did indeed go to intercept Shen Ming; the two got into a big fight on the side road, it was quite a spectacle.]

Gu Nan: [Is the flight arranged?]

Jin Yan: [Don't worry, the old man will land in North America in three hours. I've already arranged for people to meet him there. What about you?]

"Me?" Gu Nan murmured softly, "Just one last step."

Please take good care of Wanyi for me.

After pausing for a moment, still feeling uneasy, he sent messages to Su Di and Ye Xu respectively.

One of them is Lu Yushi's junior sister, and the other is the captain of the chess team. In terms of feelings, there is Su Di; in terms of public opinion, there is Ye Xu.

Even if Lu Yushi is furious and wants to retaliate with Wan Yi, with these two people around, they can at least hold out until she arranges a doctor in North America.

The heavy snow in the northern part of the city fell all night, leaving a five-inch layer of snow on the ground. The snowflakes, which had not stopped falling until dawn, surrendered and withdrew at sunrise.

Just in time to catch my flight today.

On her phone, Shen Ming subtly reminded her to be careful.

Soon, Shen Manman sent her the address, urging her to go there as soon as possible.

Gu Nan stood by the window, glancing back at the clean room. There was nothing she absolutely had to take with her. She rarely stayed in one place for long, and whenever she left, she never felt the slightest bit of reluctance.

Even after getting into the taxi, the dazed look on his face hadn't faded at all, and he inexplicably gave the wrong address.

She didn't see the familiar car at the gate. The maid greeted her warmly as usual. She tried to pull her left hand out of her pocket several times, but ultimately didn't let go. She brushed off the maid's pleas and went upstairs.

The study door opened with a gentle push.

A document sat in the center of the desk. Gu Nan didn't bother to look at it; the bank card she had been clutching all the way, still warm from her body, landed directly above the document.

She let out a breath and sent a message to Chen Li.

[From now on, Xingzilou will offer the maximum preferential treatment in all its collaborations with the Lu family. Regarding blockchain research and development, we will spare no effort to assist Lu Yushi, even if Xingzilou incurs losses. Furthermore, my share of the profits will be deposited into this account.]

Money was probably the most useless thing to Lu Yushi, but it was all she could give him.

A maid's voice came from outside the door: "Madam."

Shi Nian'an's voice drifted from afar, barely audible: "Where did I put that set of Peerless Elegance that I photographed last time?"

"Please wait a moment, I'll go get it."

Gu Nan opened the door a crack and, taking advantage of the two people not paying attention, quickly went out.

Before leaving, she glanced one last time in the direction of the study. Clutching the necklace in her palm, she resolutely turned her gaze away.

—If I have the chance, I will definitely apologize to you properly.

In the waiting room, Shen Manman had been waiting for a long time, and her impatience was almost impossible to hide.

"Why did you take so long to arrive?"

"Let's go." Gu Nan's voice was indifferent. The relationship had been made clear, and she didn't need to think about what awaited her at the destination of this flight.

Shen Manman didn't say a word the whole time; the same trip, but completely different attitudes.

Gu Nan was enjoying her freedom and took a nap on the plane. She had many dreams, one after another, she saw the torrential rain that she had nowhere to hide from when she was a child, and the trembling at the foot of Xingyin Temple. The face became clearer and clearer, noble and aloof, pressing her step by step, questioning her why.

call--

I opened my eyes and was shocked to find my forehead covered in cold sweat.

"We've arrived," Shen Manman said coldly, and quickly went out the door.

Gu Nan took a deep breath to calm herself, stood up, and the moment she reached the door, gazes shot towards her from all directions like arrows. Before her, Shen Manman, clutching the hem of her coat, was intently descending the stairs step by step.

The sound of the wind carried a chilling urgency.

Gu Nan caught up with Shen Manman in a few steps, and before anyone could react, she suddenly tightened her grip on Shen Manman's neck, her gaze slowly sweeping over the bodyguard's face, which was filled with shock and anger.

She leaned close to Shen Manman's ear and said, "Miss Shen, I'm sorry."