Chapter 62. Li Li looked at him: "I..."

Li Li looked at him and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tan Su stopped there and did not continue.

She seemed to calm down instantly. Tan Su licked Li Li's candy-like lips, feeling her soft, warm breath, his hand resting on the back of her ivory-white shirt, stroking her prominent spine. Like a child.

He suddenly softened at some inexplicable reason.

Tan Su said, “Li Li, you have an instinct to care for the weak and vulnerable. I’m glad you came to visit me when you knew I was in trouble, but I’m really not used to playing the role of the weak for a long time.”

"Similarly, as you said, my struggle with Tan Congxu does not distinguish between justice and evil. He and Tan Yi are not weak. Based on the Tan family bloodline, they have been well-off all their lives. All their difficulties stem from their overestimation of their own strength and provocation. This is not worth your excessive favoritism."

Li Li asked calmly, "Why would I side with someone who betrayed and hurt me?"

Tan Su smiled: "Is that so?"

She thought, "Of course, I won't favor anyone who poses a threat to the Li family."

——

The pavilion in the Chinese garden has two long corridors that seem to stretch endlessly into the night. Li Li was stopped by a waitress a few meters away in the square pavilion. Through the window, she could vaguely hear voices, flickering lights, and clinking glasses inside.

The lingering unease from leaving Tan Su hadn't faded; the dampness from the water seeped up to my feet, a murmur of unease settling in my heart.

A few minutes later, the door to the private room was opened by a waiter. When Li Li went in, everyone else had already left through another door.

Li Zhoudu was quite drunk. He looked up at Li Li in front of him, her figure blurry, and said, "Pour me a cup of tea, little kitten."

The figures blurred, and he saw a short-haired girl in a denim miniskirt raise her hand to stop the waitress in a cheongsam from interfering, and tell her to "get out".

He laughed.

She walked towards him and placed the porcelain cup filled with tea into Li Zhoudu's palm.

The fleeting touch of body temperature caused Li Li to release her grip, and Li Zhoudu tilted his head back and gulped down the cold tea.

"Who are you meeting tonight?" he heard the person next to him ask.

Li Zhoudu even had the mood to joke: "You've come to check up on me?"

“I’m not joking! Li Zhoudu.”

Li Li sat beside him, her expression sorrowful: "You really shouldn't get involved in the Tan family's affairs anymore. It's all just as you said, a murky mess inside. Don't get involved anymore."

Li Zhoudu put down the porcelain cup: "Is that so?"

“Tan Su hasn’t lost control of the Yanqi board of directors at all,” she murmured. “All the illusions he created for the outside world—the rejection of the financing—were just to draw attention to Huisheng. He himself…”

Li Zhoudu interrupted, "I know."

Li Li was stunned.

Li Zhoudu nodded: "I know what he's up to."

Li Li was at a loss for words. She was overwhelmed with mixed feelings and choked up for a long time before finally saying, "So Tan Yi and the others also know."

"Them?" Li Zhoudu shook his head with a smile. "They're in trouble, aren't they? But Tan Su has finally revealed his true intentions; even the most foolish person should have realized it by now. Didn't you already know about this?"

Li Li was stunned. She felt like her brain couldn't process what she had thought of. She had always believed that Li Zhoudu had obtained the leaked financial report from Tan Congxu.

"Where are your sources? How could you possibly know more than them?"

Li Zhoudu raised his hand to his upper lip: "Don't ask."

He looked at Li Li, who was in a daze, raised his hand and pinched her cheek, and asked with a light sneer, "You wouldn't be putting me in the same position as Tan Congxu, that idiot who has been defeated time and time again and is put on the dinner table without even realizing it?"

"Who do you take me for? Someone who would let him manipulate and control me?"

Amidst the jumbled information, Li Li grasped the key point: "Did you know all along and just watch the situation unfold to this point?"

The alcohol brought a dizzying headache, and Li Zhoudu closed his eyes uncomfortably: "Both sides are things I need to deal with. They're fighting amongst themselves and wasting each other's time, so why should I interfere?"

Li Li sensed the unspoken implication: "Are you still planning to take action against Tan Su?"

Li Zhoudu didn't speak for a few seconds. His hand was held, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Li Li squatting in front of him, a tiny little thing.

She said, "I've been with Yanqi for so long. Tan Su is a deep and sensitive man who plans everything meticulously. He might have noticed your presence, brother."

Li Zhoudu said, "You've been terrified of him, Li Li. Tan Congxu's repeated defeats have made Tan Su an omniscient and omnipotent god in your mind."

"Anyone with eyes can see he's doomed to lose."

Li Zhoudu sneered: "Tan Su showed a flaw, and Tan Congxu couldn't wait to use all his resources to bring him down. Doesn't he realize that with the mess he's dealt, how could he possibly beat the wealth Yan Qi has accumulated over decades?"

She pleaded, "Brother, don't be like them."

You are proud and independent. You have the best family background and the best parents. Why get involved in irrelevant people and things and end up in a bad situation?

Li Zhoudu's gaze turned cold: "Who are you begging me for?"

"Little kitten, didn't I tell you not to help outsiders against me?"

"I didn't!" Li Li said excitedly. "I don't understand why you always assume I would betray you?"

“You’re not the only one in this world who wants the family to be well! We are all the grandchildren of Grandpa, and we all feel the same way about the Li family!”

"Yeah?"

Li Zhoudu's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice low and brooding: "How could your heart possibly be even a fraction of mine?"

"Go back to your studies, little kitten. This is none of your business."

——

On the eve of Tan Su's flight to N City to attend the vote by Huisheng to remove Gu Weihua, Li Li went to see him.

They hadn't done that in a long time. In the hotel room, Tan Su forcefully pushed into her body, their bodies becoming one.

The hastily torn skirt and suit shirt were thrown on the ground. The afternoon air was scorching, and their intertwined bodies were inseparable. Even with the air conditioning on, their skin quickly became sticky.

Li Li felt as if she were floating on a misty cloud. She bit her lip so hard that it left marks, but Tan Su pressed his fingers against her chin to stop her: "Don't bite your lip."

"I'm leaving, Tan Su," she said immediately.

Tan Su plunged in deeply and leaned down to kiss her: "Okay. Go back and study hard. I'll come see you when I have time. You have to reply to my messages often."

He will be embroiled in a power struggle with multiple parties for the next year, which will not be particularly easy, and it will be difficult to guarantee that he can visit again once a month as before.

He kissed Li Li's fingers: "I'll wait for you to come back."

Li Li's eyes welled up with tears. She suddenly flipped over and sat on Tan Su, grabbing his neck and saying, "If you dare!"

She suddenly remembered Tan Yi, and very suddenly remembered how she had once threatened him in a very unreasonable way: If you dare to cheat on me, this and that will happen.

In the end, it was nothing more than this.

She couldn't continue speaking at this point.

Tan Su noticed her distraction and suddenly pressed down on Li Li's thigh, making a violent movement to force her to come back to her senses.

Caught off guard, she collapsed onto Tan Su's chest, dazed.

"You haven't finished yet," Tan Su whispered in my ear. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"The Li family belongs to me."

With a sob in her voice, Li Li said, "You dare to do the same dirty tricks you did to your uncle, just try it!"

"What kind of logic is it to not fight back when you're being attacked?"

Tan Su joked, "You really don't care about me at all."

He's the Great Demon King, Li Li doesn't care about him at all.

Her fingernails dug deep into Tan Su's chest, forcing him to nod: "You must promise, or don't touch me again."

At the critical moment, he was so startled by that action that his scalp tingled. He pulled Li Li into his lap, lowered his head to press his face against hers, and began to suck on Li Li's soft tongue.

He admitted that he had been blinded by lust.

He was her devoted follower.

——

Li Li and Li Zhizi returned to school, and in an instant, the weather cleared up, and the impending turmoil in the country no longer concerned them.

The only way she could learn about things was through domestic news media.

Just hours before the vote at FISH, Yanqi's CFO, Lü Dai, announced the acquisition plan for TICC.

The voting results at Huisheng were severely disrupted by this incident. Some shareholders who had been persuaded by Tan Congxu changed their minds and abstained from voting, thus the resolution to remove Gu Weihua failed.

Following the meeting, TICC strongly condemned Yanqi's hostile takeover attempt and will take active measures to address it.

Ming Baiquan, the largest shareholder of Frasers, said in an interview after the meeting that he has not given up and will hold another meeting soon to clarify the management of Frasers.

Li Li looked at the familiar names on the news and wondered how they were manipulating the situation. To outsiders, these were just short, insignificant names, like black ants, with no real meaning.

For ordinary people, eating and drinking as usual is more important than the question of what to eat for dinner.

The changes in the upper echelons of power did not even affect You Chang, who shared photos of herself taking her annual leave to the amusement park on her WeChat Moments.

Li Li gave her a thumbs up.

When Li Zhizi returned this time, she found that Li Li had changed a lot. She used to be very easygoing and talkative.

These days, I spend more time lost in thought, and I often hear footsteps in the corridor late at night, as she gets up to get a drink of water.

One time, she got up with her, turned on the light in the stairwell, and watched her raise a glass in the living room. She asked, "Is something on your mind?"

Li Li said no.

She just couldn't sleep.

"You never seemed to have insomnia before."

Li Li remained silent.

She seemed to have become Tan Yi from long ago, unable to sleep and with endless thoughts.

Li Li would occasionally bother Tan Su late at night, asking him if he was still keeping his parting promise.

Tan Su was often in the office or in meetings at that time. He would try his best to reply when he could, and if he really couldn't reply, he would wait for several hours.

But by then, Li Li had already fallen asleep.

Tan Su replied to every message she sent, asking her why she wasn't asleep yet, what she ate and drank for dinner, and asking her to send him her homework.

But he never answers this question directly, perhaps because he fears that one day he will be forced to confront those disappointed eyes.

One day at noon, after finishing her homework, Li Li went downstairs for lunch and heard a familiar voice calling her.

She spotted Tan Yi among the crowd coming and going on the first floor.

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Author's Note: [Please!]