Chapter 37
The rain gradually intensified.
The funeral was over, and the guests slowly descended the mountain and left the cemetery.
Standing in front of Grandma Yan's grave, Yan Shiting turned and left, preparing to descend the mountain.
Yu Li silently held up the umbrella and followed behind him.
There were too many people at the funeral, and he didn't dare to reveal his close relationship with Yan Shiting. He hadn't gotten very close to Yan Shiting in the past few days.
Yan Shiting was unaware that he was following behind him.
After walking past several rows of tombstones, Yan Shiting turned and walked in another direction.
Yu Li was a little puzzled, then heard Dr. Yan beside her say, "That's the direction where Shi Ting's parents' graves are. He probably wanted to visit them on the way."
Yu Li remained silent, watching Yan Shiting's retreating figure, then turned to Dr. Yan and said, "I'll go keep him company. Dr. Yan, you should go ahead."
Dr. Yan seemed a little surprised, and after a moment of hesitation, he nodded and said, "Okay, the ground is slippery, be careful."
She paused for a moment, then added, "Xiao Yu, if you want to know more, you might as well ask Shi Ting directly."
“There are some things that have been on his mind for a long time.”
Yu Li stood there stunned for a long time before nodding and following Yan Shiting in the direction of the umbrella.
After walking for a while, he saw Yan Shiting stop in front of a tomb where two people were buried together.
Yu Li suddenly stopped and looked at Yan Shiting's back.
The rain poured down, and the raindrops splashed up as they hit the ground.
Even with an umbrella, Yan Shiting's trouser legs were still soaked by the rain.
The wind was strong, and the hem of his coat fluttered wildly in the wind and rain.
Yu Li watched for a long time.
For some reason, he suddenly remembered the day of Grandma Yan's birthday banquet, and Yan Shiting under the ivy covering the walls.
Back then, he only noticed that Yan Shiting was preoccupied, but now, seeing the overlapping figures of Yan Shiting in the wind and rain with those under the ivy, Yu Li finally understood that Yan Shiting had also been very sad back then.
Yu Li pursed her lips tightly.
He walked towards Yan Shiting and silently stood behind him.
Seemingly sensing his arrival, Yan Shiting slowly turned around.
The moment he saw him, Yan Shiting's eyes changed slightly.
Before Yu Li could figure it out, Yan Shiting stepped forward, grabbed his hand, and said, "Let's go."
Yu Li turned her head to look at the tomb where the two people were buried together.
Yan Shiting then said in a deep voice, "I'll bring you next time."
Yu Li withdrew her gaze and looked at Yan Shiting.
After a moment, he nodded slightly: "Okay. Brother, if you're not going to the company this afternoon, let's go home together."
Yan Shiting squeezed his hand tighter and nodded, "Okay, I won't go."
Let's go home together.
-
After descending the mountain, there were not many people left at the foot of the mountain.
Upon arriving at the parking lot, Yu Li spotted Yan Sui confronting two people in a corner.
He looked closely and realized that one of the people opposite Yan Sui was the same one who had previously said that Yan Shiting was cold-blooded and ruthless.
The man looked visibly guilty, with a red handprint on his left cheek.
Yu Li glanced at Yan Shiting, who was talking to Dr. Yan, and walked towards Yan Sui, wanting to see what had happened.
As Yu Li approached, she heard Yan Sui say fiercely, "Zhou Xuetao, if my brother is heartless towards his family, then what am I? Do you think I don't know whether my brother is good to his relatives or not? Who are you to judge me?"
"If you have the guts, say these things to my brother's face next time."
Beside him, a man who looked a few years older quickly said, "I'm sorry, Yan Sui, my brother is spoiled by his family. I'll have my dad discipline him properly when we get back."
The man looked anxious, and after speaking, he glared fiercely at the man named Zhou Xuetao.
"Apologize to them right now!"
Zhou Xuetao's lips twitched a few times, and he said in a low voice, "I'm sorry, Yan Sui."
Yu Li slowly stopped walking.
It seems that Yan Sui overheard this person's comments about Yan Shiting, which is why he blocked the person and confronted him.
It seems that the matter has been resolved.
Yu Li thought for a moment, then turned around and left, heading to the depths of the parking lot to find Yan Shiting.
Having kept vigil last night, Yan Shiting was a little tired and closed his eyes to rest after getting into the car.
Yu Li raised the partition and reached out to grab Yan Shiting's hand.
Yan Shiting grasped his hand in return.
Neither of them spoke.
As the car drove away from Xishan Suburbs, heavy rain pounded on the ground all the way, and it didn't stop for a long time.
Yu Li didn't fall asleep as soon as she got on the bus. She would occasionally look at the scenery outside the window and occasionally glance at Yan Shiting, who was resting with his eyes closed.
He suddenly remembered what he had just heard Yan Sui say to Zhou Xuetao.
Clearly, Yan Sui knew very well that his brother treated him well and cared about him a lot.
Yan Shiting doesn't have many relatives and friends, and Yu Li doesn't want the two brothers to develop a rift over that little incident.
Yu Li bit her lip, making up her mind.
It was already 2 PM when we got back to Wan Ting.
Because of the heavy rain, the sky was gloomy, and the house was somewhat dark.
Just as Yan Shiting was about to turn on the lights in the room, Yu Li suddenly hugged him from behind.
"elder brother."
A muffled sound came from behind me.
Yan Shiting paused, then heard Yu Li ask, "Brother, do you want to confide in someone?"
"If you want to talk to someone, you can tell me."
On his last night at Yu Li's hometown, Yan Shiting also said this.
At that time, he knew that Yu Li was in a bad mood and wanted to let Yu Li express herself, and also wanted to understand Yu Li better.
That night, he heard Yu Li, who was usually strong, say in a sad tone that she missed her father.
And now, Yu Li said the same thing to him.
Perhaps, it was not much different from his original purpose.
-
The weather was dim, but the house was lit with warm lights.
Yan Shiting and Yu Li sat in rocking chairs by the French windows, watching the rain outside.
Ever since that night on my birthday when we broke the distance between us, the distance we deliberately maintained no longer exists when we sit together.
At this moment, the two were shoulder to shoulder, and Yu Li heard Yan Shiting's deep voice ask him:
Where would you like to start listening?
Yu Li leaned back against the cushion and said, "When you and Yan Sui were very young?"
Upon hearing Yan Sui's name, Yan Shiting lowered his eyes slightly to look at him.
Then, Yan Shiting slowly said:
Before Yan Sui was born, my parents were very busy and couldn't take care of me.
At that time, the Yan family business had just been established, and my parents were busy with the business.
Yan Shiting didn't feel anything about not having his parents around. He had been independent since childhood and never felt lonely.
He doesn't even need friends; he's perfectly content on his own.
It wasn't until Yan Sui was born that Yan Shiting had a "playmate".
While his parents were busy, he took meticulous care of his younger brother, raising a tiny infant who couldn't even roll over to become a little boy who would follow him around calling him "brother."
Before long, the Yan family's business stabilized, and their parents had more time to spend with them.
It must be admitted that during those years, Yan Shiting gradually came to understand the meaning and beauty of "companionship".
When Yan Sui was six years old, their father passed away due to illness, and soon after, their mother also passed away.
The family members they thought would always be there for each other have now left them.
Afterwards, since Yan Shiting and Yan Sui were still minors, their shares were entrusted to their uncle Yan Yufeng for safekeeping, and the thriving Yan family business thus fell into the uncle's hands.
Uncle Yan Yufeng is ambitious, but in reality he's a good-for-nothing.
“Under my parents’ management, the Yan family mainly operated in real estate and successfully went public by taking advantage of the era’s dividends.”
"Yan Yufeng mismanaged the project. In order to save costs and gain more profits, he used substandard materials. The new building became a shoddy construction project, failed the inspection, and was abandoned. Many people returned their houses."
During that period, Yan's Real Estate, which was originally known for its most beneficial policies to the people, became universally despised within a year.
A friend of Yan Shiting's father couldn't bear to see the Yan family business collapse so quickly, so when Yan Shiting was seventeen, he called him to his side and taught him how to do business and observe market trends.
Yan Shiting was highly talented and had been mentored by his father since childhood, so he quickly discovered many problems within the Yan family.
After he came of age, he took back his shares with his lawyer and participated in shareholders' meetings as a shareholder, interfering with Yan Yufeng's decision-making.
The conflict between uncle and nephew delighted some people. Later, because Yan Shiting's points were always insightful and his proposed solutions were profitable for the Yan family, he gradually gained the support of some shareholders.
A year after joining the Yan family, Yan Shiting discovered evidence of Yan Yufeng's family's embezzlement of public funds and illegal fundraising.
"Besides that, there is also..."
The banquet ended.
He looked at the floor-to-ceiling window, frowned, and his eyes gradually became sharp.
Yu Li noticed his change in mood and took his hand.
In addition, there was the matter of his uncle Yan Yufeng being sentenced to death.
...
It was the twelfth lunar month then, and New Year's Eve was fast approaching.
As the lawyer prepared to sue Yan Yufeng's family, Yan Shiting noticed that one of Yan's shareholders was also acting strangely.
He followed the clues and discovered that the shareholder had partnered with Yan Yufeng to plot the murder of his father, Yan Hongfeng.
Taking advantage of living with Yan Hongfeng in the manor, Yan Yufeng administered a slow-acting poison to Yan Hongfeng, a process that lasted for six months.
The poison would slowly take effect in the body of the person who ingested it, eventually weakening them, causing organ failure, and leading to death.
Before the poisoning was discovered, Yan Shiting had always believed that his father had died from illness or overwork.
He witnessed it all. In his father's final days, he worked until midnight for the Yan family, growing weaker and weaker until he was so exhausted that he could only lie in bed, constantly vomiting blood.
But his cause of death was not illness, but poisoning.
Yan Shiting only thought that his uncle Yan Yufeng was stupid and incompetent, but he never expected that he would be so greedy.
Not long after my father died, the shares were still with my mother.
In his anxiety, Yan Yufeng also poisoned Yan Shiting's mother, Liu Yuening.
This time, he used a large amount and poisoned the plants frequently. In less than two months, Liu Yuening and Yan Hongfeng died from the same cause.
That's why Yan Yufeng left behind evidence in his haste.
Nineteen-year-old Yan Shiting sat in his room all night looking at the evidence.
As dawn broke, he went downstairs with trembling hands and saw Grandma Yan, who had come to beg him to let Yan Yufeng go.
At that time, although Grandma Yan didn't care much about him, she didn't hate him like she did later.
Seeing that he was distraught, Grandma Yan didn't rush to talk about Yan Yufeng's matter, but instead asked him a few words of concern.
Yan Shiting looked at her kind and gentle face, and then at Yan Sui, who looked innocent and naive, standing next to her.
Finally, he let Yan Sui go out to play, took Grandma Yan to the study, and showed her all the evidence of the poisoning.
"Grandma, do you think I should let Yan Yufeng go?"
His only intention was to persuade Grandma Yan to stop protecting Yan Yufeng, considering that her second son had been murdered.
However, when Grandma Yan saw the evidence, she showed no shock whatsoever; instead, her gaze darted away, revealing only her guilty conscience.
"Shi Ting, the dead can't be brought back to life. Let's give our living relatives a chance to live and stop dwelling on those old grievances..."
Looking at the expression on her face, Yan Shiting instantly understood something.
His mind went blank, and it took him a long, long time to find his voice again:
"You knew all along?"
He pressed on: "When did you find out? After you poisoned the body, or before you poisoned it?"
Grandma Yan avoided his gaze and remained silent.
Nineteen-year-old Yan Shiting was not as composed as he was at thirty-one.
He looked at the guilty-looking Grandma Yan, his eyes reddening, and felt a sharp pain in his throat as if it were being cut by a knife.
He lowered his voice, each word seemingly squeezed out from his throat:
"Grandma, please answer me."
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