The night is deep.
On the top floor of the Chao Group, the lights in the president's office were still on. Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, the city's dazzling yet cold lights shone brightly.
Chao Youye stood alone in front of the window, her figure looking particularly lonely and thin in the empty office.
He had just finished a late-night video conference with overseas shareholders, and with his fluent English and unquestionable strength, he stabilized the confidence of investors shaken by Chao Nanxing's imprisonment.
His throat felt dry and tight, with a hint of blood. His temples throbbed, the backlash from the core of rules like countless cold steel needles, repeatedly piercing his nerves.
He won. Wu Meng and Wu Zeyu were disgraced, Chao Nanxing was imprisoned, and while the Chao Group experienced some turmoil under his leadership, it had initially stabilized.
He had the power he had always dreamed of, enough to protect everything he wanted to protect.
But... why is there only an endless coldness and emptiness in my heart? Why does every breath carry a deep-rooted exhaustion and... loneliness?
Just when this extreme fatigue and cold feeling of nothingness was about to swallow him up, the office door was silently pushed open.
Ye Qingliu walked in with a cup of steaming milk in his hand.
He still had that cool and reserved look, and his gaze behind his silver-rimmed glasses was calm and unwavering.
He gently placed the milk on Chao Youye's large desk.
"You need to rest." Ye Qingliu's voice was calm, yet it carried an undeniable power. "The load on the core of the rules is approaching criticality. If you suppress it forcefully, the consequences will be unpredictable."
Chao Youye didn't look back, but just looked at the snow flying outside the window, and said in a hoarse voice: "Almost... There are still some tails to be cleaned up..."
He was referring to the final step of completely eliminating the remaining forces of Wu Zeyu and a few old stubborn people within the group who were still holding on to hope.
"Leave it to the people below." Ye Qingliu walked to his side and looked at the snow scene outside the window with him, "Or, leave it to me."
Chao Youye was slightly startled and turned his head to look at Ye Qingliu. Ye Qingliu's gray-blue eyes looked particularly deep behind the glasses. He looked back at him calmly, as if he was talking about something very ordinary.
"You..." Chao Youye opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say. Ye Qingliu had helped him too much, too much to repay.
The suppression caused by the backlash of the rules, the technical support provided for the crucial call with Chief Prosecutor Li before his confrontation with Chao Zhenghong, and the countless obstacles that he had cleared for him after he took over the group by quietly using the Ye family's resources...
This friendship was so heavy that he could hardly bear it.
"We are friends." Ye Qingliu seemed to see through his thoughts. His voice remained calm, but with a strange warmth.
He paused, then added, "Besides, watching you tear yourself apart will affect my observation data."
Chao Youye was silent for a moment. Deep in his cold eyes, something subtle seemed to loosen up. He slowly reached out and picked up the cup of warm milk on the table.
He lowered his head and looked at the milky liquid in the cup. The hot steam blurred his pale face.
"Ye Qingliu," his voice was very soft, with a long-lost, almost fragile fatigue, "Am I... becoming scary?"
He personally sent his father to prison, cruelly destroyed Wu Meng and her son, and suppressed opposition voices within the group with iron-blooded means.
He became the kind of person he once hated the most - cold, calculating, and unscrupulous.
Ye Qingliu didn't answer immediately. He looked at Chao Youye's drooping eyelids, covered by long eyelashes, and at his slightly trembling fingertips holding the milk cup. After a moment, he spoke calmly:
"You're just making the only choice you can make. To protect what you believe is worth protecting, cut off the source of harm."
His voice was like a cold logical analysis, yet it also carried a kind of compassion that saw through everything.
"To escape from the thorn bushes of darkness, you can only endure the pain of being pricked and pull out the thorns by the roots. The process will inevitably be bloody. Whether it is terrifying or not depends on where you end up."
He raised his hand and gently patted Chao Youye's cold and tense shoulders, his action carrying a rare, awkward sense of comfort.
"Drink it, then go to sleep. As for the rest," Ye Qingliu turned his gaze to the falling snow outside the window, a cold and sharp light flashing across the depths of his gray-blue eyes, "I'll watch over it for you."
At that moment, the office's internal line suddenly rang. The secretary's respectful voice came over: "Boss Chao, the front desk reports that a man named Mu insists on seeing you. He says... that if you don't come, he'll wait in the lobby downstairs until dawn."
Chao Youye's fingers gripping the milk cup suddenly tightened! Her fingertips instantly turned pale as if she had lost blood.
Mu Xinrong!
How could he come?!
A huge panic and an even deeper fatigue that almost drowned him instantly seized him!
He was in this state now… his hands were bloody, his body was cold, and deep in his soul was the backlash of the rules that could erupt at any time… How could he see him? How could he dare to see him?
"Tell him..." Chao Youye's voice was dry and tense, with a barely perceptible tremor, "...I won't see anyone!"
"Yes, President Chao." The secretary responded.
The phone was hung up. The office fell into silence again, with only the rustling of snowflakes falling outside the window.
Chao Youye maintained a rigid posture, the warmth of the milk cup in his hand becoming scorching. He closed his eyes, his thick eyelashes casting a fragile shadow beneath his pale eyelids.
Deep in the frozen lake of my heart, something seemed to be struggling and colliding violently, trying to break through the ice, but was suppressed by a stronger willpower.
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