Chapter 63. He came to plead for mercy.
Li Kaiji was a refined scholar throughout his life, and he never dreamed that he would raise a son with such a temperament.
“If the engagement were still in effect,” Li Kaiji said with a long silence, his voice filled with pity, “your mother and I could still help you deal with it. Now that the engagement is over, you are free, and the princess is free too.”
Li Zhan twitched the corners of his lips, but the smile didn't reach his eyes: "Whether she's free or not is up to her father."
Sheng Man asked calmly, "Where have you been all this time?"
Li Zhan stretched and said, "Nowhere."
“Tell me the truth,” Sheng Man said calmly, without getting angry, “the house your grandfather gave you, did you sell it?”
Li Kaiji paused.
Clearly, they didn't know about this.
Li Zhan took a cigarette out of the pack, didn't light it, and casually held it between his fingers: "Hmm."
Sheng Man: "You want money?"
"Um."
"do what?"
"Start a company."
"What company?"
The mother and son exchanged questions and answers smoothly, and Li Kaiji clearly caught on to something: "What kind of company are you starting? The lady in the market didn't want your shop, so you're just abandoning it?"
“You don’t need to ask him,” Sheng Man closed her eyes. “The engagement is over, but he’s not in a hurry. And with what he just said, what kind of company could he possibly start?”
"......"
Li Kaiji lost his composure: "You want to go against the Jing family?"
“Who’s going against them?” Li Zhan retorted sarcastically. “Just because he’s in business doesn’t mean I can’t. Who says only he can run the Haishi business?”
Li Kaiji was out of breath.
Need I say more?
With the title of the young master of the Li family, who would dare to disrespect him? Given the same choice, who would give up on him and choose the Jing family instead?
“Those old clients of the Jing family were brought back by Jing Zishan with a lot of shamelessness,” Li Kaiji said solemnly. “Don’t try to take them from him!”
Li Zhan raised an eyebrow: "If Uncle were as kind as you, the Li family would have gone bankrupt long ago."
Li Kaiji shouted fiercely, "Li Zhan!!"
"Mind your own business," Li Zhan stood up, his thin figure exuding a sinister aura. "Whatever he took from me, I'll make him return it to me with his own hands!"
Unlike Li Kaiji, Sheng Man didn't lose her composure. She looked at her son and said, "Gege used to like you. I could tell."
Li Zhan's eyes welled up with tears: "What happened that day was all arranged by her."
Even if I liked him before, I don't want him anymore.
"......"
“She deliberately had someone notify me that she was at the Huibinlou restaurant,” Li Zhan sneered. “She deliberately texted Zhuo Yueyue to ask her to come over, she deliberately orchestrated a meeting between me and Zhuo Yueyue, then deliberately kicked Zhuo Yueyue into the pool, and arranged for me to rescue her, so that her parents and everyone else would see it—”
It was all part of her scheme.
In order to get rid of him, she put the Li family in the spotlight.
“Jing Zishan, Jing Ge,” Li Zhan enunciated each word, “Does any of them really care about the Li family? Since they don’t care, why should we care? Why should you think about them?”
Li Kaiji and Sheng Man seemed stunned.
The Huibinlou incident caused a stir in the industry, and Li Zhan was heavily criticized. Everyone thought it was a coincidence, or that their own son was a scoundrel.
I never imagined there were any other possibilities.
“The Li family gave the Jing family so much,” Li Zhan sneered, “who knows if this is a scam orchestrated by the father and daughter together.”
Li Kaiji and Sheng Man exchanged a glance, both seeing the astonishment and shock in each other's eyes.
Until Li Zhan strode away.
Li Kaiji suddenly felt exhausted: "The children are all grown up, I can't control them anymore, let them be."
The more the elders interfere, the more unbelievable things become.
“We’ll talk about other things later,” Sheng Man said absentmindedly, “we still need to investigate Zhuo Yueyue thoroughly.”
The dissolution of the engagement went so smoothly that it was completely beyond Jingge's expectations.
But the shackles on her hands and feet were finally removed on this day.
The feeling of relief.
Faced with Cai Zhiyi's indignant rant against Li Zhan's attitude, Jing Ge remained unimpressed: "You took so many things from them and you're still criticizing them. Is it any wonder they have a bad attitude?"
“…” Cai Zhi felt that she had changed. “Go home and live here.”
Jing Ge: "No, there's no such thing as a free lunch. I need to work. I'm going to return what you took. You're shameless, but I'll take it back."
"......"
After being rebuffed several times when she tried to vent her frustrations, Cai Zhi rarely called her home anymore.
After the dramatic annulment of the engagement came to an end, Jing Ge's once hopeful mind cooled down, and he completely let go of his feelings for his family, focusing all his energy on working and making money.
In December, after delivering orders to the market, Jing Ge drove Xiao Zhang, the accountant, to Li's company.
Xiao Zhang went to Li's company to reconcile accounts, while Jing Ge brought some gifts that the company specially customized to thank its customers as part of his year-end visit.
The Li Group building soars into the clouds, its outdoor facade displaying the wildly popular giant screen advertisements of the year.
On the ground floor, which stretches to the ceiling, a person standing on the marble floor reflecting their image instantly appears very small.
Xiao Zhang glanced down at his own clothes and sighed, "You look like an outsider. Can we suggest to General Manager Zhang that we get some elite-looking uniforms for him to wear? Womei is a leading enterprise, after all."
Jingge looked down at his clothes and then at the staff moving around in the lobby on the first floor: "I thought I would automatically become like this when I grew up."
"..." Xiao Zhang laughed, "And now?"
Jing Ge: "Wouldn't it be inconvenient to fight with the workers while wearing a suit and high heels?"
It's even more inconvenient for her to walk tens of thousands of steps in the market.
Xiao Zhang was overjoyed.
As the elevator went up, Jingge stared blankly at the mirage outside the transparent glass.
When you think of formal attire, you think of constraints, as if your words and actions must follow certain limits. But that day at the police station, when Li Mushi broke Hong Mao's wrist with such ease, without making a single big move from beginning to end, it was still terrifying.
He was the only person Jing Ge had ever met who never spoke harshly, yet could strike with a swift and deadly blow.
For him, formal attire is not a constraint, but rather an aura of authority and dignity.
Xiao Zhang went to the finance office to reconcile accounts, and Jing Ge gave them gifts and said some polite, social words.
These days, she's gotten used to hanging out with Amanda and has overcome her social anxiety, speaking polite and respectful words and making harmless jokes without blushing or skipping a beat.
Once she was sure there was no one behind her, she wanted to learn everything.
Jing Ge accepted a few candies from someone and said with a smile, "I'll take them to Sister Lin."
"Go ahead, go ahead, we won't be here that fast. Let's go to the restaurant together for dinner later."
"Try our Li family's working meals too."
The Li Group is very large and has many departments, so we can only visit a few departments that have business dealings with Womei.
When they reached the top floor, just as the elevator doors were about to open, Jingge heard several clamors and pleas.
Upon seeing her, Lin Mi hurried over: "Little Ancestor, what brings you here at this hour?"
“...Ah,” Jing Ge said blankly, “Sister Lin, I’ve come to give you a gift on behalf of the company.”
Lin Mi blocked her view and whispered, "Don't tell me who you are. Those people over there... are Liu Sisi and Meng Shi's family members. They're here to plead for them."
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