Holding the microphone that was emitting a busy tone, Qin Fengying lingered, reluctant to hang up.

"Mom, who are you calling?"

Lu Baofei suddenly appeared behind her. Qin Fengying patted her chest nervously and rolled her eyes at her.

"It's all because of you! You've almost ruined the Lu family!"

"Lu Baofei, how come I never noticed before that you were siding with outsiders? Do you even respect the Lu family at all!"

Qin Fengying kicked away the blue-and-white porcelain fragments in front of her feet.

Her beloved possessions were shattered into pieces and turned into this state, all thanks to her most promising daughter!

Lu Baofei gripped her stiff fingertips, her eyes suddenly turning sharp.

"You're all confused, but I'm not confused at all!"

"You know how long the Lu Group has been relying on my company for financial support, but I'm not an inexhaustible blood bank!"

"If I don't find a powerful backer, my company will eventually be suppressed and delisted by rivals like the Fan family. Would you be happy then?"

Qin Fengying's lips trembled. After racking her brains, she found no way to refute it.

Seeing her speechless, her shoulders slumped like a deflated balloon, Lu Baofei suppressed her frustration and bent down to unplug the telephone line at home.

...

Huo Jingxi rushed upstairs, bringing with him a damp, chilly breeze.

Du Guanglong folded the umbrella and handed it to the bodyguard who was waiting in the shadows.

Hearing voices coming from upstairs, he frowned, looked around a few times, and said in a deep voice, "What have you found out?"

The bodyguard tucked his hands together in his ear and muttered something.

Du Guanglong's pupils constricted sharply. "What? Brother, are you sure you didn't see wrong?"

The bodyguard nodded solemnly, "There's no mistake, we've confirmed the car's information, it's definitely the young master's private car!"

Du Guanglong ran the tip of his thumb back and forth across his forehead and clicked his tongue.

"No wonder the third brother is so cautious; it turns out he's encountered such a powerful figure."

"What?"

"It's nothing, just get the guys in spirit!"

After saying this, Du Guanglong turned and went upstairs.

...

Three cups of hot tea were laid out on the coffee table.

Lu Yi's face regained some color, and the warm orange light cast a soft halo around him.

Huo Jingxi held two memory cards in his hand, his eyes seemingly about to pop out and shoot into Lu Yi's body.

Du Guanglong didn't know what the two were talking about; one was as calm as a chrysanthemum, and the other was as passionate as fire.

He sat down on the single sofa, picked up his teacup, and blew away the foam on top.

Through the rising steam, he secretly observed the two people facing off.

"Hidden on his person? And it wasn't taken?"

Huo Jingxi finally let out a long sigh of relief, slowly turned his head to look at Du Guanglong, and waved the memory card in his hand.

"The third brother encountered such a wicked person, yet his memory card wasn't lost. Doesn't the eldest brother find that strange?"

He smirked, his left leg dangling over his right.

Before Du Guanglong could speak, he stood up abruptly, strode across the coffee table, and pressed Lu Yi down into the soft sofa.

It happened so suddenly that Du Guanglong didn't have time to react.

By the time he put down his teacup and walked around the sofa to pull him up, Huo Jingxi had already pulled open Lu Yi's bathrobe.

Caught off guard, Lu Yi lost the initiative and allowed him to expose the scar on his side.

Huo Jingxi's eyes were bloodshot as he gritted his teeth and said, "Lu Yi, how could you hurt yourself like this for something so small?"

The tape over his wound was removed, revealing a fresh bloodstain.

Du Guanglong was stunned.

"Third brother, you!"

Lu Yi pushed Huo Jingxi off his lap, pulled up his bathrobe, picked up his hot tea, and took a few sips.

“That’s not just a little bit; I can tell what’s important.”

"After we got up the mountain, Huainan and I discovered that another group of people were watching us. Just to be on the safe side, I had to do everything I could to bring it back!"

"Find a safe place to watch it, the fewer people who know about it, the better!"

Du Guanglong steadied himself and called for someone to fetch the medicine box.

With a mix of heartache and helplessness, she said, "There are three of you. Why did you reopen your wounds and do this? There are so many other places to hide such a small memory card."

"Didn't you ever think about what might happen if that inhuman guy stripped you all naked and searched you?"

He put his hands on his hips and helped the staggering Huo Jingxi.

My temples are throbbing.

"No! If Mr. Gong wanted to do that, he would never let the three of us return to the Huo family alive!"

Lu Yi didn't know why Gong Che had severed ties with the Huo family.

But he had a gut feeling that Gong Che had some unspeakable secret that was hard for ordinary people to understand, and that he was even willing to let the Huo family misunderstand him as cold and heartless.

"You're still speaking up for him?"

Du Guanglong took a deep breath, and seeing Huo Jingxi's gloomy face, he swallowed the rest of his sentence.

"That's not what I meant. Let me change my clothes!"

Lu Yi got up and walked towards the room.

When she opened the door, she saw that it suddenly got dark through the gap under Su Yu's door. She stared at it for a few moments before pushing the door open.

...

Huo Jingxi's private villa basement is an entertainment venue that is off-limits to unauthorized personnel.

Besides Huo Xiao, even Butler Hua was not allowed to enter without permission.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, Huo Jingxi reached out and pressed a row of switches on the wall, and the entire basement was immediately illuminated.

Huo Jingxi handed the memory card to Du Guanglong, then took Lu Yi's arm and led him to the sofa.

"You have some kind of relationship with that illegitimate daughter of the Lin family, don't you?"

Seeing the searching look in his eyes, Lu Yi frowned.

"A little, but not much."

He hadn't heard Lin Xiaoya's name in a long time, and upon hearing it, he couldn't connect her with the "illegitimate daughter of the Lin family".

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!