DASFAM_58
The night had seeped into every corner of the estate.
Inside the villa where the second branch lived, Fang Yuhua looked at her husband's swollen face, feeling both furious and heartbroken.
"Aunt Zhang! Hurry up and bring the ice pack and the anti-swelling ointment! What is wrong with that old lady? Has she lost her mind?"
"......"
Shang Yun suppressed the fire in his chest, finding his wife's nagging unbearable, "Will you calm down! Are you not afraid that screaming this loud will reach Mother's ears?"
"And no matter what, she is still my own mother! Stop talking nonsense."
Fang Yuhua knew she was in the wrong and quickly took the ice pack from the servant's hands, "I am just worried about you, aren't I? Behind closed doors, who would dare let it spread."
She carefully pressed it against her husband's face, "Out of nowhere, why did she strike so hard? And she only hit you!"
"Hiss!"
The pain made Shang Yun 'hiss' sharply, and he grabbed the ice pack to press it himself, "I'll do it myself. You never know your own strength."
Fang Yuhua was left speechless, and turned her blaming gaze onto her eldest son, "Songming, your father was hit and you had no reaction at all? You didn't even try to protect him!"
"Mom, stop making a fuss. Grandmother struck in the conference room. Who would have dared to stop her? The first branch was also scared stiff at the time. As for the third branch..."
Shang Songming thought of those two brothers and Bai Xu's smug expression, and could not help but grind his back teeth, "Who knows how gleefully they were laughing on the inside!"
Fang Yuhua then remembered that key figure 'Shang Yanxiao' and pressed on in disbelief, "Shang Yanxiao has been bedridden for so long. He really has no aftereffects at all?"
She had not attended the shareholders' meeting today. Everything that had happened, she had heard from her husband and son.
Shang Songming let out a cold snort, "What aftereffects? He looked perfectly fine to me!"
"And that Bai Xu. He actually hid it from us and brought Grandmother to the scene! If they had not carefully plotted this whole thing, how would our family have ended up in such a disgraceful mess?"
All three branches had attended the shareholders' meeting, yet somehow Shang Yun was the only one who got slapped!
Shang Songming thought of the harsh words the old madam had let out. His face darkened, "Dad! What do you think we should do next?"
"Grandmother has already made it clear. From now on, regardless of group affairs or other assets, they will bypass you and Auntie entirely and be handed directly to the grandchildren of the next generation."
Whether it was Shang Qishun, who had always stood firm, or Shang Yanxiao, who had awakened and returned, or even Shang Queyan, who ranked behind him!
Every single one of them was no easy opponent to deal with! This was clearly setting him up to lose out!
The more Shang Songming thought about it, the more resentful he felt, "You expect me alone to compete against all of them? With what?"
"......"
Shang Yun did not respond. Overcome with fury, he hurled the ice pack in his hand straight at him.
The ice pack slammed into Shang Songming's chest, and the pain sent him jumping off the sofa, "Dad, what are you doing?"
"You useless wretch. When I told you to sharpen your skills in business on ordinary days, why didn't you listen? And now you have the nerve to ask me what to do?"
The right side of Shang Yun's face was still stiff, making his speech slightly slurred, "If only you could have traded places with any one of your cousins and let them be my son instead, the second branch would not be in this situation!"
Shang Songming did not like hearing that, "Dad!"
Fang Yuhua also pushed back, "What are you talking about? How is our son inferior to any of them? At most, he just had a bit less luck."
"Exactly!"
"Exactly nothing!"
Shang Yun pointed in the direction of the third branch's villa, "Take Shang Queyan. How many years later than you did he join the company? Yet before the old master's accident yesterday, he was still willing to give the project to him and not you! Tell me, what use are you!"
Shang Songming was proud by nature, and being scolded like this left his face ugly. He was just about to storm off when a pampered voice drifted down from upstairs to stop him.
"Dad, Brother, are you two done fighting? Can't you let a person sleep!"
Tap, tap, tap.
The sound of slippers hitting the floor rang out as Shang Le'er came hurrying down from the second floor.
The moment Fang Yuhua caught sight of her precious daughter, she immediately broke into a warm smile, "Xiao Er is awake? After sleeping so long, are you hungry?"
Because the old master had suddenly fallen into a critical condition, Shang Le'er, who had been studying in England, had rushed back from thousands of miles away and only arrived this evening.
She had been asleep for less than an hour when the arguing downstairs woke her up.
At the sight of his daughter, whom he had not seen in a long time, Shang Yun's expression softened somewhat, "Xiao Er, come sit."
Shang Le'er smiled, "Okay."
She noticed her brother's sulky, aggrieved face and walked over to him, "Brother, stop being upset. We haven't seen each other in so long. Don't your dear little sister get a big hug?"
Although Shang Songming could be a bit of a mess in his daily affairs, his affection for his younger sister was genuine.
Out of consideration for Shang Le'er, he reluctantly pushed down the friction between himself and his father, "After more than half a year apart, how are you even thinner? Have you been eating properly out there?"
"I have, I have."
Shang Le'er pulled him back down onto the sofa and casually picked up a tangerine from the fruit bowl on the coffee table, "Here."
"......"
Shang Songming silently took it and, without a hint of complaint, began peeling it for her.
Shang Yun and Fang Yuhua exchanged a glance, and the latter said, "That temper of yours, only your sister can keep it in check!"
Shang Songming's hands never stopped moving, "I wouldn't dare provoke her. She's been a little pest since we were kids."
"Who are you calling that!"
"Whoever answered, that's who!"
The atmosphere in the living room eased considerably.
Shang Le'er took the peeled tangerine and spoke without the slightest reservation, "Dad, Mom, and Brother, if I were you, I would sit back and watch the tigers fight. Give up this battle you were never going to win in the first place."
"......"
Shang Songming and Fang Yuhua were momentarily stunned.
Shang Yun understood what she meant, but still found it hard to accept, "What do you mean?"
Shang Le'er chewed on a tangerine segment with a completely relaxed expression, "Dad, isn't the situation obvious enough by now? While Third Brother was incapacitated, the first branch must have been frantically building up their influence behind the scenes."
"From what I heard you say just now upstairs, Fourth Brother has also been advancing very quickly these past six months. It seems he has already overtaken my brother by a wide margin."
"......"
Being put down by his own little sister, Shang Songming choked on his words and swallowed it.
Shang Le'er continued, "Now Third Brother is back, and his capabilities speak for themselves. And do you all know? That person beside him, the one called Bai Xu..."
Fang Yuhua furrowed her brow and cut in, "What about Bai Xu?"
Seeing her family's reaction, Shang Le'er knew they were completely in the dark, "Bai Xu has been making quite a name for himself in Singapore lately. He founded a venture capital firm and secured the Singapore Eaglet Cinema project. He is clearly no ordinary figure."
"......"
Three faces, all stunned.
Shang Songming barely managed to find his voice, "How, how did you know that?"
"Dad, you're getting on in years and your thinking has gotten fuzzy along with it."
Shang Le'er answered calmly, "If you have the will to look into something, what is there that cannot be found?"
"You are all so fixated on taking a share from the group that you have no attention left for anything else. When you are too deep inside the situation, of course you cannot see anything clearly."
Shang Yun let his daughter scold him without a word of objection.
Shang Le'er slowly picked at the white threads on the tangerine segments, "You always say that Grandfather and Grandmother are biased, yet our second branch still has no shortage of food or clothing, does it?"
"If you ask me, what is wrong with being a quiet, content shareholder of the group?"
Though young, Shang Le'er saw through things with rare clarity.
Being a laid-back shareholder still meant collecting regular dividends from the group!
Put in effort for projects that fall within your abilities, and if it truly does not work out, let someone else take over. What is the point of fighting to the death?
"To say something unpleasant, between the first branch and the third branch, which one can we actually beat? It would be better not to end up being used against our own interests."
Shang Le'er looked at Shang Yun and spelled it out word by word, "Dad, don't you think the first branch had already laid their trap long before this shareholders' meeting was called early?"
If the third branch had not shown up today, the seat of acting chairman would most likely have already fallen straight into the first branch's hands.
"......"
Shang Yun suddenly recalled Qi Shanshui, who had sided with the first branch earlier that day, and his expression shifted.
Shang Le'er kept delivering blunt truths one after another, "Even if the group truly ended up in our second branch's hands, Dad, where would you find the energy to manage it? And my brother simply does not have what it takes."
What is destined to be yours will come. What is not, do not force.
Shang Songming snatched the last tangerine segment back from her hand, displeased, "Watch how you talk. Can you stop looking down on your brother all the time?"
Shang Le'er smiled and pulled out a tissue, "Dad, the sooner our family withdraws from this war, the more of what we have might be preserved."
Shang Yun hesitated, words stopping before they came out, "Xiao Er, you are being too naive."
Over all these years, the family had fought and grabbed at each other, and resentment and grudges had long since taken root between them.
A weariness he had never felt before crept into Shang Yun's heart, "Look at the other two branches. Do either of them seem easy to provoke? If we just give up like this, I am afraid in the end there will not even be bones left of us after they are done."
At this point, there was likely no turning back.
"Dad, we do not need to fight. But we can pick a side."
Shang Le'er's eyes sparkled with lively intuition, "The first branch as a whole cannot be trusted, but I think Third Brother and Fourth Brother are alright. Why not try taking a different path?"
......
Knock, knock.
A knock at the door sounded.
The butler, Uncle Lin, carried the freshly brewed tea into the study of the main hall, "Third Young Master, Young Master Bai, you came straight to the room the moment you got back. Is there something urgent?"
Having heard that Shang Yanxiao was returning to the country, the butler and his wife, Aunt Zhuang, had prepared a whole table full of dishes, only for him to leave it all untouched and head straight upstairs.
Bai Xu glanced at Shang Yanxiao, who was weighed down by something on his mind, and spoke up on his behalf, "Uncle Lin, we have a video conference shortly. It is work related."
He offered a harmless excuse, "Once we are done here, we will come down to eat."
Some truths were not suited to be revealed before they had been fully understood.
Something else came to Bai Xu's mind, "Where is Queyan?"
The butler replied, "He is having dinner with the old madam in the main house. He has not come back yet. I will head down then. Let me know anytime if you need anything."
"Alright."
The study door closed.
Bai Xu turned to look at Shang Yanxiao, walked over and kept him company, "Don't be nervous."
Shang Yanxiao said, "I suppose I have been waiting so long that now, just as the truth is within reach, I feel an unease I cannot quite put into words."
He was afraid both that his long-held suspicions might be wrong, and that the truth might be just as cruel as he had imagined.
Buzz, buzz, buzz
An unknown overseas video call came through.
Shang Yanxiao's expression went taut, and he instantly pressed to accept the call.
He handed the other Bluetooth earpiece to Bai Xu, with no intention whatsoever of keeping him out of this.
Bai Xu pulled a nearby chair over and sat down beside him.
On the other end of the video, a man with a full beard appeared. He looked at Shang Yanxiao and Bai Xu on the screen and said, with some uncertainty, "Mr. Shang?"
"That's me."
Shang Yanxiao answered cleanly and without hesitation.
The bearded man then looked toward Bai Xu at the side, and seemed to hesitate.
Shang Yanxiao saw through his uncertainty, "This is my partner."
"......"
Bai Xu was momentarily taken aback.
The bearded man caught on, "Understood, Mr. Shang. I am the private investigator in charge of looking into the matter you entrusted to us. My name is Victor."
Shang Yanxiao got straight to the point, "Victor, just tell me the specifics directly. Xie Qi said you found Chelkin?"
"Yes. Our people found Chelkin in an underground gambling den. He has been in a terrible state lately. If he cannot pay back his gambling debts by the end of the month, they will seize him and harvest his organs."
Victor had not acted hastily right away. Instead, he deliberately waited a few days, confirmed that Chelkin had no way out, and only then stepped in to offer help.
"I approached Chelkin and gave him a sum of money, then used a trick to get some alcohol into him, and that was enough to loosen his tongue."
"Chelkin said that the driver who caused the accident, Charlie, was an idle man in his day-to-day life who would occasionally try his luck at local casinos. But two months before the accident, Charlie lost nearly three hundred thousand US dollars in a single night."
Both shock and disgust coexisted in the depths of Bai Xu's eyes, "Three hundred thousand US dollars? That is no small amount for an ordinary person."
Gambling was like a bottomless pit. Once you stepped in, there was no coming back.
"Charlie was living in terror and misery during that period, and it affected his work more than once. But what broke him most and filled him with the deepest regret was that his wife discovered she was pregnant at that very time."
"......"
In the midst of overwhelming debt, a new life had arrived in the family.
It could have been a new reason to push forward, but it could just as easily have become an unbearable, indescribable pressure.
From Chelkin's perspective as an outsider, Charlie simply felt the weight crushing down on him more and more. He kept muttering that he did not want to live anymore, that he might as well be dead. His work performance grew even worse, and he was warned by his supervisor multiple times, to the point of nearly being let go.
Shang Yanxiao glanced at Bai Xu, "The accident investigation report at the time did indeed note that the crash happened because Charlie was under excessive mental strain and was distracted while driving."
Roughly two weeks after Charlie's wife was found to be pregnant, Charlie one day suddenly did a complete reversal, his spirits lifted. He went out of his way to find Chelkin alone and asked him to lend his identity information to open an HS bank account.
After that, Charlie came clean to Chelkin, saying that a gambling acquaintance he had met at the casino had asked him to help carry out something significant.
A surge of hatred rose abruptly in Shang Yanxiao, and he clenched his fist tight, "Something significant?"
That was murder, plain and simple.
Charlie instructed Chelkin that if money appeared in the account after some time, he was to pass it along to his wife. As a middleman for the favor, Chelkin would also receive a separate ten thousand US dollars.
The human heart is hard to read, and the whole thing was absurd from the start. All the more so when enormous amounts of money were tangled up in it, which was sure to drive those who had abandoned their conscience down a crooked path.
Victor continued laying out the details he had uncovered, "Before it happened, Charlie also said that even with a truck hitting a passenger car, there was still some chance of survival. He figured it was worth a gamble."
Bai Xu's tone was equally cold, "Ha. A true gambler to the end. And Charlie just trusted him that much?"
"Chelkin had always been good at putting on the act of a decent man. No smoking, no drinking. He and Charlie had also been colleagues and partners for years. But as it turned out, this person truly could not be trusted."
A week later, one man deliberately took leave to escape his shift, and the other calculated his timing to drive alone, staging an accident that ended up taking himself along with it.
"After Charlie died, his wife was devastated and suffered a miscarriage. And when Chelkin saw the amount in the bank account, greed consumed him, and he took all the money for himself."
Fearing the police might come knocking, he immediately used the funds in the account to purchase luxury goods, then brought them to the black market to be exchanged back into cash through barter.
To cover his tracks, he deliberately found a small inn that asked no questions as long as you paid, and kept himself hidden there for nearly three months.
During that time, Chelkin gradually picked up a gambling addiction through the people around him at the inn, betting bigger and bigger, drifting from one underground casino to the next day after day.
"...Until we found him."
Shang Yanxiao's breath trembled, and he pressed through gritted teeth, "What about the person who put Charlie up to it? Who is it!"
Victor said, "Chelkin never met him in person. But Charlie had been careful while he was alive. Afraid the other party might deny everything afterward, he secretly took a photograph."
He had also told Chelkin that if the payment never came, he was to go straight to the police and report it.
It was just that Chelkin received the money in the end, and out of pure self-interest, he pushed the whole matter out of his mind.
Bai Xu caught sight of Shang Yanxiao's hand, still trembling even after clenching into a fist, and wrapped it tightly in his own, "Yanxiao, stay calm."
He asked on his behalf, "Is the photograph still there?"
Victor said, "I just got hold of it. I'll send it over now."
"Alright."
A notification chime sounded, and a photograph appeared on the computer screen.
Perhaps because it had been taken in secret, the image was somewhat blurred, and you could make out the unsteady hand and racing heart of the person behind the camera.
"That build, it is the same person who made the wire transfer at HS Bank."
"Chelkin only knew the rough outline from Charlie's side. The person was apparently Chinese, went by 'Brother Wang,' fourth tone, uncertain which Chinese character it was, and was probably in his early thirties."
Bai Xu found the name unfamiliar, "Brother Wang?"
So did Shang Yanxiao. He enlarged the face in the photograph. Though blurred, the features and facial structure were still faintly distinguishable.
Bai Xu stared at the computer screen, feeling a nagging sense that the person in the photo looked somehow familiar, though he could not put his finger on why.
Then, in a sudden flash of clarity, he and Shang Yanxiao opened their mouths at almost the exact same moment.
"A' Xu, this person looks like..."
"Yanxiao, I think I know who he is!"
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