Chapter 168: On the brink of bankruptcy
Decades of hard work, the accumulation of several generations, were wiped out after that damn Peninsula Hotel dinner and that crazy daughter's hysterical performance!
And the instigator of all this... Gu Changhai's bloodshot eyes turned towards the bed very slowly and heavily, like a rusty bearing.
Gu Qianqian huddled on the large hospital bed, like a wind-ravaged leaf. The wound on her forehead from colliding with the bedside table had been treated and bandaged, but it couldn't hide her pale face or the bottomless fear and resentment in her eyes.
The expensive silk nightgown she was wearing was empty, as if her soul had been drained away, leaving only an empty shell.
"Dad..." Her lips moved, making a weak, mosquito-like sound, with a trace of last, unrealistic hope, "Zhao Chen... Zhao Chen can't be so heartless... For our Gu family... He sees..."
"Shut up!!!"
Gu Changhai suddenly jumped up from the sofa like a ignited powder keg! He rushed to the bedside in a few steps, and his large, veiny hands, like iron pliers, fiercely grabbed Gu Qianqian's hair that was scattered on the pillow! The force was so great that it almost ripped her scalp off!
"Ah——!" The severe pain made Gu Qianqian scream miserably.
"Zhao Chen?! You dare to mention Zhao Chen?!" Gu Changhai's voice was hoarse and distorted due to extreme anger and despair, and his saliva sprayed all over Gu Qianqian's face, "Look at what you have done! Look!!!" His other hand trembled as he pointed at the huge LCD TV hanging on the wall of the ward.
The TV screen played financial news silently.
The picture is cut into several shocking pieces:
One is the Gu Group's stock price trend chart, which is as tragic as jumping off a cliff and is marked in red and bold.
One is a close-up of the huge ship of Gu's Shipping, which is sealed with seals and looks like scrap metal in the Port of Rotterdam.
One shows a chaotic scene downstairs of Gu Real Estate’s headquarters, where angry suppliers and owners are holding blood-red banners and sitting in protest.
The most eye-catching part was the latest headlines that were broadcast in a rolling broadcast:
"Gu Group has officially filed for bankruptcy protection!"
"A once powerful family, overturned overnight!"
"All assets under the names of Gu Changhai and his daughter have been frozen!"
Every scene was like a red-hot iron, burning the eyes of Gu Changhai and Gu Qianqian!
"The Gu family is finished! It's ruined by your own hands, a fool like you!" Gu Changhai grabbed Gu Qianqian's hair and pressed her terrified face hard against the TV screen, almost embedding it into the cold LCD panel. "Are you still dreaming?! Still thinking about that Zhao Chen?! He wants us dead! He wants the Gu family to be annihilated without a burial place!!"
Gu Qianqian was held down until she couldn't breathe, tears and snot all over her face. The wound on her forehead had broken open again, blood staining the gauze. The immense fear and the undisguised, consuming hatred in her father's eyes, which threatened to devour her alive, made her tremble like a sieve.
"No...no...Dad...I'm doing this for the Gu family...I want to win him back..." She argued in vain, her voice broken and hoarse.
"Recover?! Using your delusion? Using your despicable methods?!" Gu Changhai suddenly let go of her hair, like throwing away a bag of dirty garbage.
He staggered back a step, his tall body shaking violently with extreme anger and despair. He pointed at Gu Qianqian, his fingers trembling like a candle in the wind, and his voice was as cold as a judgment from hell:
"Now! Immediately! Get up!" Every word was chilled with ice. "Go apologize to Yu Ling! Apologize publicly! Kneel down and beg for forgiveness! Tell me clearly about all the dirty things you've done, one by one! Beg her to show mercy! Beg the man behind her... to leave the Gu family a chance to survive!"
Kneel down and apologize? To that bitch Yu Ling?!
Gu Qianqian suddenly raised her head, her bloodshot eyes blazing with resentment and unwillingness! She was being forced to kneel down and beg for mercy from the woman who had stolen her brother Chen and ruined her?! This was worse than killing her!
"No! I won't go!" She screamed, her voice shrill, "I will never bow to her even if I die! Zhao Chen... Zhao Chen must have been deceived! As long as I see him..."
"You want to see him?! What can you bring to him?!" Gu Changhai let out a shrill, night owl-like laugh. He suddenly pulled something out of the inner pocket of his suit and threw it hard on Gu Qianqian's hospital bed!
“Dang!”
There was a crisp sound of metal collision!
It was a small, cold metal dog tag with a suspicious hint of dark red on the edge!
The dog tag is extremely simple, without any decorative patterns. On the front, two cold capital letters are laser-etched:
GQ
(Gu Qian)
On the back, there is a smaller, but more eye-catching line of English:
"TERMINATED. G-THREAT."
(Terminated. G-Class Threat.)
G-Class Threat! Terminated!
Gu Qianqian felt like she'd been struck by a thunderbolt! She stared intently at the cold dog tag lying on the snow-white sheets, at the initials of her name and the glaring "Target Eliminated" sign! A chill shot from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, instantly freezing all her blood!
This… This… This was something that had fallen from the body of the man who had snuck into her hospital room like a ghost after the dinner at the Peninsula Hotel, silently placed a dagger against her throat, and warned her, "If you touch my wife again, I'll kill her next time!" The man with the cold eyes, the incarnation of death!
He...he is Zhao Chen's man! He represents Zhao Chen's attitude!
Zhao Chen...really...want her to die?!
The immense fear, like an icy tide, instantly drowned all of Gu Qianqian's resentment and unwillingness! More despair than bankruptcy or her father's hatred, it made her feel overwhelmed!
She finally realized with unparalleled clarity what a terrifying being she had provoked! This wasn't a man she could imagine, plot against, or salvage! This was... a god who controlled her life and death!
"Did you see that?! Did you see that?!" Gu Changhai watched his daughter turn as pale as death and tremble all over. He knew that the dog tag had completely shattered her fantasy. His voice was filled with a cruel pleasure and deeper despair. "Apologize! It's the only thing you can do! It's the only way for the Gu family to survive! Now! Immediately! Go and apologize!!!"
Gu Changhai's roar echoed in the VIP ward, making the crystal chandelier buzz.
Gu Qianqian collapsed on the hospital bed, like a puddle of completely melted mud. The cold dog tag engraved with "GQ" and "TERMINATED" burned through her retinas like a red-hot iron, piercing through her last shred of ridiculous fantasy.
Zhao Chen was not the star she could imagine, but the sword of Damocles hanging over her head that could crush her at any time!
"I...I'll go..." She squeezed out a broken breath from her throat, tears mixed with the blood oozing from her forehead, and flowed down in embarrassment, "I'll go apologize...I'll go beg her..."
Genting Highlands 1601.
Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, the night view of Haicheng was as dazzling as a starry sky. Inside the window, the lights were bright, but the air was filled with the silent smell of gunpowder.
Yu Ling hugged her knees, curled up in the corner of the large sofa in the living room. Her phone had been tossed aside, the screen still frozen on the cold page displaying the transfer record of "100 million Shiba Inu coins."
Virtual currency worth astronomical amounts, a crypto wallet named after her... Zhao Chen casually said, "Epic skins from game dividends"...
All this was as absurd as a bizarre dream, yet it was so real and weighed heavily on her heart.
She felt like she was standing in the center of a huge, unfathomable vortex, surrounded by swirling fog and suffocating wealth and power, and the person who put her here was now...
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