Chapter 18 Chapter 18 The Cuckoo Occupies the Magpie's Nest*Li Xuan
Before he actually met Li Zhuo, Li Xuan had already memorized this name. The reason was that the day he was reborn was the day Li Zhuo was born.
Even though more than ten years have passed, he still remembers that day very clearly.
In the millennium, on the fifth day of the first lunar month, in this special year that comes only once in a thousand years, the streets and alleys are filled with the festive atmosphere that is several times stronger than in previous years.
Passersby were wearing all kinds of new clothes, with happy smiles on their faces, walking with their relatives and friends.
In a corner of a dark alley, a child was wearing thin, worn and completely ill-fitting clothes. The soles of his shoes had come unglued and were barely tied with rubber bands. His fingers were red from the cold, and his hair and face were disheveled, looking like a little beggar!
But he didn't care at all, not at all.
He excitedly checked his shrunken palm, and kept looking around at the strange yet familiar environment. He stumbled deeper into the alley and finally stopped in front of a small rusty iron door.
The two or three children inside had also been waiting for a long time. When they heard the approaching footsteps, they couldn't wait to open the door and anxiously stretched out their skinny arms to ask how the day was.
"How's it going?"
"Is there anything to eat?"
"Didn't the grandma who lives at the end of the alley say she'd leave some for us? Isn't she home?"
The child outside the door ignored the begging hand. His breathing was rapid, his pupils slightly dilated, and he just kept asking the same question: "What time is it now?!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Are you crazy?!"
"Oh, I'm going to be hungry again today."
“…”
*
In fact, when he saw the three children, Li Xuan already knew when he was reborn: he returned to the time when he was still in the orphanage.
In this world, there are kind-hearted people who do their best to pay out of their own pockets for the children who are not related to them so that they can have a second home again. There are also evil people who cheat both sides under the pretext of running an orphanage and swallow up all the donations from kind-hearted people from all walks of life.
Unfortunately, the welfare home where Li Xuan stayed belonged to the latter. The director ate a lot of delicious food, but the children in the home were starving and their faces were pale.
Li Xuan was not called this name at that time. In his previous life, in order to climb out of the muddy life, he put in many times more effort, sweat and hardship than others. With an amazing perseverance, he became the first person in the school to go to high school and even to get out of that northern county.
He was so ambitious at that time, thinking that he could change his fate, but in the end he could only become a senior worker.
The first boss was an idiot who couldn't even solve basic math problems. He was just a lucky pig who caught the trend. He relied on his outdated experience to talk big, but in fact it was Li Xuan who was busy running around every day.
Even though he worked so hard, when the company was caught in a public opinion storm due to the boss's greedy and foolish personal behavior, Li Xuan was ruthlessly pushed out, became a scapegoat, and was fired.
If it were someone else, they might have collapsed long ago, but Li Xuan still managed to turn things around with one breath.
This time, he didn't choose to work for anyone, but instead started his own business. Although he endured a lot of hardships in the early stages and his company was a bit small, the advantage was that the market was a blue ocean, and he soon saw profits...
No one expected that an accident would happen again. The framework that Li Xuan had worked so hard to build was quietly taken over by another large company in the industry.
He saved evidence and hired a lawyer, spending hundreds of thousands before the trial even began. However, the other party falsely accused Li Xuan. The other party was wealthy and powerful, and he, an ordinary citizen, could not afford to waste time in this war of attrition, and soon ended up bankrupt...
All the memories of his past life flashed rapidly through the mind of the newly reborn Li Xuan. In addition to the development in the next few decades, a bold plan quickly formed in his mind.
He had suffered a lot in his previous life because of the prefect's rules and because he had no connections, so the first step in his plan was to change his own background.
After careful selection, Li Xuan chose the Li couple.
Not only because he had crossed paths with them in his previous life due to some business dealings and was relatively familiar with them, but also because of a rumor.
Haishi is one of the top first-tier cities in China. Its unique geographical location, superior industrial economy, concentrated education and hospitals, and generous social welfare have attracted countless wealthy people from all over the world to gather here.
The Li family is one of them.
As a family that has quickly risen to prominence by taking advantage of a trend, the Li family is actually not yet a top-tier wealthy family in Hai City. It belongs to the middle echelon, neither better nor worse than the top.
The dividends of the past era allowed the Li family to quickly accumulate wealth that could not be spent in several lifetimes. What he lacks now is fame.
In the extremely xenophobic atmosphere of Hai City, other outsiders form their own groups. However, in order to get rid of the label of nouveau riche and to integrate into the so-called real upper class, Li Huachuan, the head of the Li family, often takes his wife and son to attend celebrity gatherings in various circles.
Why bother?
Li Xuan didn’t understand it in his previous life, but that didn’t stop him from thinking that this was a good breakthrough.
He had a very clear investigation into the Li family. Li Huachuan and his current wife had a son. His current wife was not in good health. If nothing unexpected happened, this son should be the only heir to the Li family.
Li Huachuan has always had a good reputation outside, especially his performance in public has earned him the title of a good husband and a good father. Regardless of whether it is acting or not, this image has been established.
However, there is no impenetrable wall in this world. As long as you investigate carefully, you can always follow clues to find out some old stories.
For example, Li Huachuan had a first love in his early years. The two were very affectionate when they were young, but later went their separate ways. After his first love died, Li Huachuan learned that he and her had a son. At that time, he was already married. To save face, he could only secretly go to look for the child, but unfortunately, the child was already dead when he found him.
This should have nothing to do with Li Xuan, but as luck would have it, Li Huachuan's illegitimate son was in the same orphanage in the same small county as Li Xuan.
Then this matter is far different.
Even if he was older than the dead child, so what? He was already very thin, so it wouldn't be difficult for him to pretend to be an illegitimate child.
Another example is the case of the Li family's only son, Li Zhuo, who nearly died in a fire when he was just over a year old. Although the Li family explained the incident as an accident, the true story was that Li Huachuan had been having an affair with a maid before his wife became pregnant, and later kicked her out for unknown reasons. The maid harbored a grudge and sought revenge.
Wouldn't it be easy to do something with this hatred if we just manipulate it a little bit?
A soul that has experienced ups and downs awakens in a young body, and the eyes that should have been innocent reveal the deep calculations unique to adults.
*
It was a long time before Li Xuan realized that the day he was reborn was Li Zhuo's birthday. It was as if an invisible hand had connected two completely unrelated lives together.
The rebirth of Li Zhuo's first life is also the rebirth of his second life, which sounds very mysterious.
In the end, with the reborn Li Xuan taking advantage of his foresight to plan ahead, he successfully achieved the first step of his plan: changing his own origin.
Although there were no major mistakes in the overall plan, things are unpredictable after all, and some minor details did not go as expected.
For example, Li Xuan originally just wanted the maid to take Li Zhuo out and hide him secretly for a while.
His main purpose was to guide the Li couple to find him smoothly along the arranged route, so that Li Xuan could use some vague physical evidence to make Li Huachuan mistake his identity. He just needed to wait for him to enter the Li family and then release Li Zhuo.
As a result, the maid sold him.
Okay, let’s just sell it. Li Xuan thought that as long as the first step of the plan was successful, only then could the subsequent actions proceed smoothly.
But what he didn't expect was that when his second step of the cannibalization plan was only halfway through, an unknown program team actually found Li Zhuo.
Is it okay if he finds it back? He has worked so hard for so long, if Li Zhuo comes back and threatens his position, won't all his efforts be wasted?
After hearing the news, Li Xuan couldn't believe it at all, and this disbelief became even stronger when he saw Li Zhuo in person at the airport.
The Li Zhuo he saw was completely different from what he remembered: a weather-beaten face, eyes full of vigilance, and a thin and small figure...
It is difficult to describe Li Xuan’s mood at that time.
And what about the couple from the Li family?
Perhaps it was a true expression of their feelings, especially during the fresh period of getting back together, the belated huge emotions hit the two people's heads, they were too guilty, and wanted to make up for all the debts they owed to the poor and unfortunate child.
She bought him all kinds of custom-made luxury clothes, paid a lot of money to hire well-known foreign teachers to teach him various skills at home, and even used the most advanced medical aesthetic technology to remove some of the obvious scars on his hands...
In Li Xuan's memory, Li Zhuo was very smart. As long as he was given some time, he would grow up quickly, but who would be disadvantaged by such a situation?
It's obvious.
So Li Xuan took action as a matter of course.
*
In the past ten years of getting along with each other, Li Xuan has seen through his current adoptive father and understands how cold and selfish his nature is and how profit-oriented he is. His adoptive mother is a yes-man with no opinions of her own.
It's so easy to deal with them!
As long as you don’t care about family love, paternal love, or maternal love, as long as you show qualities that are useful to them, as long as you play with them, they will naturally stand on your side and naturally show "love".
But Li Zhuo didn't know all this. As a child who had just been found, he was full of natural and ignorant admiration for his biological parents who had been separated from him for many years.
He was close to them, cared about them, and valued their every word and every look.
Is it because you care too much about them that you become so hysterical towards them later, trying to do all kinds of tricks to attract attention, thinking that this will gain their care?
In fact, whether it was running away from home or the schemes set up against Li Xuan to make him look bad, in the eyes of real adults, his behavior was nothing more than a painless prank played by a child.
He didn't know that his son and family affection were not important to Li Huachuan. What was important was who could bring him more benefits and who could make him more face.
Not to mention that in Li Huachuan's eyes, Li Xuan is also his biological son. Even if he is a real adopted son, he can still abandon his biological son as long as he performs better.
In his previous life, Li Zhuo could give him more topics to talk about in front of outsiders, so of course he would be nice to them, but what about the country bumpkin in this life who spoke with an accent?
Maybe there was only a little bit of family affection between us during the first two days of meeting.
Narcissistically believing his genes weren't too bad, Li Zhuo was sent to an international school. Did Li Huachuan care whether Li Zhuo adapted? Did he care whether Li Zhuo was ostracized or bullied?
No, I'll just look at his performance.
Li Zhuo was indeed inexperienced, and he was too eager to show off. Under simple provocation, he did many ridiculous and foolish things, and these things were spread to everyone through Li Xuan's manipulation...
This obviously touched Li Huachuan's soft spot of being extremely concerned about his reputation, so he became increasingly impatient with this "stupid son" who he had just found and with whom he had not spent much time.
It was as if he and Li Zhuo were taking the same exam, one was an open-book exam and the other was a closed-book exam. Li Xuan, who was taking the open-book exam, couldn't imagine how he would lose.
So the fact that Li Zhuo was sent to study in another province was naturally brought to the surface.
Li Huachuan's initial thoughts were even more cold-blooded. He was unwilling to acknowledge his son and only wanted to send him to an ordinary public school and let him fend for himself.
After all, they had only been together for a little over a year, and he and his son weren't very familiar with each other. It didn't matter whether he was there or not. Li Huachuan hadn't even considered his living expenses at first...
Perhaps Li Zhuo's mother was really reluctant to let go. Although she hadn't seen her son for more than ten years, he was her own son after all. But she was used to accepting her husband's words, so her opinion became insignificant.
Li Xuan squeezed Li Zhuo, the real young master of the Li family, out of the Li family more easily than he had imagined, just like a cuckoo that successfully occupied the magpie's nest.
Pretty vicious, right?
Li Xuan himself also thinks so. He is indeed a villain who will do anything to achieve his goals. As long as his plan can succeed, he is willing to use everything.
And now, he has quietly replaced some of his own people on the board of directors, and he has promoted many new people throughout the group for training...
The cannibalization plan is about to succeed.
Li Xuan's gaze lightly fell on the occupation card in front of the desk, especially focusing on the word "agent". Soon, it would not be long before these two words would be removed.
He pursed his lips happily. After all, waiting for a whole day was too long.
*
“Knock, knock, knock…”
There was a crisp knock on the door outside, followed by a familiar dull male voice.
"Mr. Li, you've been working all morning. It's getting late. It's time for lunch."
Li Xuan said loudly: "I understand."
He hated being interrupted while working, and the other assistants knew this and would not take the initiative to interrupt him. But the person who reminded him was Hong Lin, Li Xuan's personal bodyguard and an important confidant who followed him all the way.
When Li Xuan was just reborn, he said Potian was just a little kid of a few years old. Even though he had many grand plans in his head, he was too young to do anything, so he could only let this person do it for him.
Whether it was buying stocks obediently in advance, contacting, intimidating, or threatening someone at a designated location, or secretly contacting a wealthy family's nanny, Hong Lin did almost all of these things for him.
In his previous life, Hong Lin was a school dropout and a gangster. He had an elderly grandmother at home. He usually made a living by violently collecting debts for loan sharks offline. Later, he was imprisoned for manslaughter.
Li Xuan found him after he was reborn.
Hong Lin had just finished a group fight. His ferocious eyes were intimidating without him even being angry. A fresh wound on his brow was still bleeding. He was smoking a wrinkled cigarette that he had picked up from somewhere.
Other children would have run away long ago, but Li Xuan, with an adult soul inside him, admired him even more. Great! This is exactly the kind of sharp knife he wanted!
So the little brat, who was not even as tall as the other person's thigh, shouted out Hong Lin's full name shamelessly, saying that he knew everything about him and that if he wanted to make money, he had to listen to him.
Hong Lin's first reaction was to laugh out loud. He looked down at the ragged "little beggar", rummaged through his pockets, and found a piece of flattened candy.
"Here, take it and eat it."
Li Xuan didn't answer. He continued to stare at him firmly with his dark eyes, and repeated in a tone that could be described as weird: "You will go to jail in the future, but as long as you listen to me, I can make you a lot of money, so that you can afford to cure your grandma..."
Later he agreed.
Hong Lin followed Li Xuan all the way from the shabby little county town to the leading big city of Haishi. He witnessed with his own eyes how Li Xuan "occupied the magpie's nest" and even contributed a lot to it.
When Li Xuan just arrived at the Li family and had not yet established himself, when Li Xuan wanted to do something but was not convenient to show up, when Li Xuan did not want anyone to speak, no matter when, he would always use his fists and weapons to clear everything for Li Xuan.
Later, Hong Lin's only relative, his grandmother, passed away. From then on, he did not take his monthly leave and stayed by Li Xuan's side almost 24 hours a day, protecting his safety and carrying out his orders.
More than ten years have passed in the blink of an eye, and he has always been a good dog who is loyal to his master.
But... Li Xuan still had some concerns, because Hong Lin knew too much.
When he was reborn a few years ago, he exposed too many unreasonable anomalies in order to gain Hong Lin's trust and quickly raise funds to do more things. As long as you think about it for a while, you will definitely discover the secret of his rebirth...
Including later... he had too many handles.
Even though he knew that the possibility of Hong Lin's betrayal was extremely small, this person's existence was like a hidden danger, a hidden thorn, and a bomb that might explode at any time.
An idea naturally came to his mind: wait until the cannibalization plan succeeds and then secretly get rid of him?
Li Xuan mentioned summer vacation for no reason in the morning. When he went upstairs, he heard an employee on the phone and heard the word "brother" from the external receiver.
He suddenly remembered that Li Zhuo had also called him brother. When he first arrived at the Li family, Li Zhuo had approached him cautiously and communicated with him awkwardly, wanting to have a good relationship with him.
What a pity...
In fact, Li Xuan had thought about cooperating with Li Zhuo, especially when he saw the harsh environment of Pingshan Village through the camera of the program crew. He thought that this "Xiao Que" who had experienced hardships would harbor hatred towards the Li couple after returning, so it was not impossible for them to become allies.
But... Li Zhuo was too soft-hearted. He really loved that couple as his parents. Even though they were abandoned, he still held on to the last bit of hope. It was really... really pitiful.
He had no idea that Li Huachuan had forgotten him long ago. Even when Li Xuan took the initiative to mention summer vacation, the man had no idea that he had a son who was studying far away in Changyang.
Standing up and leaving his desk, Li Xuan suddenly remembered that today was June 1st. He took out his mobile phone, opened an app, and skillfully entered the transfer page.
What should I write in my message to my brother this time?
He had a headache. He had been thinking about random things before. What should he write this time? Just then, his phone received a holiday notification, so he simply wrote it down.
Account name: […]
account:【…】
Transfer amount: 30000.00
Transfer note: [The hot summer is coming, remember to drink water. ]
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