DASFAM_74

"……"

The slap was truly unexpected.

Shang Qishun's glasses were sent flying to the ground along with it, and the left side of his cheek instantly blazed with a hot, blood-rushing pain.

He turned his head to the side and was silent for a long moment, before letting out a soft laugh of indeterminate meaning.

From childhood to adulthood, Shang Keyi had never once hit him. That she would now raise her hand without a word made it plain just how deeply he had enraged her.

Seeing that he still had the nerve to laugh, Shang Keyi not only shed none of her former tenderness, but sharpened her reproach, "Shang Qishun, are you deaf? I told you to kneel!"

"……"

Shang Qishun felt the taste of rust spreading through his mouth, his eyes growing dark.

He inconspicuously pressed his tongue against his swollen cheek, then knelt straight down, "Mom, what's made you so angry?"

The tone sounded meek, yet the downcast gaze cast a small shadow beneath it.

Shang Keyi curled her fingers around her own equally-stinging palm, "You still know I'm your mother?"

She let out a bitter laugh, her seeing-through gaze fixed tightly on her son, "Shang Qishun, oh Shang Qishun— even now, at this point, you're still going to keep up the act in front of me? Still unwilling to tell me the truth?"

No mother knows her son better than she does.

As Shang Qishun's own birth mother, how could she possibly not know the ambition and ruthlessness her son concealed beneath his gentle exterior?

Shang Qishun suppressed the bloody taste spreading through his mouth, "What truth?"

Seeing that he still refused to admit it, Shang Keyi pressed him directly, "The car accident that took out the entire third branch of the family, does it or does it not have anything to do with you?"

Shang Qishun raised his eyes to look at Shang Keyi, then immediately lowered his gaze again, "Hasn't Dad already turned himself in and confessed? If I had anything to do with this, why would the police have let me go?"

Shang Keyi thought of Wu Wei, and the bitterness she had barely managed to hold back washed over her once more.

By now, she had finally, finally come to see the truth clearly, "Your father— no, Wu Wei, he is not a good man."

"But he kept up the pretense for so long, and all for power and money. He hid the matter of his illegitimate son from me for over thirty years, so how could he possibly have asked that person to hire a killer? That's a criminal act!"

Shang Keyi had once been something of a romantic fool, but now that she had thought it through, the logic naturally followed.

Hiring a killer. Staging a car accident. Two dead, two injured.

Even if Wu Wei's heart had truly grown that cruel, he should not have dragged his own illegitimate son into it. Unless—

A thought suddenly flashed through Shang Keyi's mind. Absurd as it was, it was enough to connect every last thread.

—Unless someone had long known about the illegitimate son, and had used that knowledge to hold Wu Wei and Wu Chengwang, father and son, in their grip.

Shang Keyi's breath hitched, and she stared in disbelief at Shang Qishun kneeling before her, "Shang Qishun, you— you knew all along that your father had an illegitimate son outside, didn't you?"

The last word had barely fallen before she lost control of the surge rising in her chest and took half a step back.

Shang Keyi struggled to steady herself, her eyes rimmed red, "Say something! If you don't make this clear to me today, I'll go straight to the police station and get the truth out of Wu Wei myself!"

"……"

Shang Qishun shook his head with a faint smile, "Mom, being too clever isn't always a good thing. You've lived to this age, would it really hurt to be a little oblivious sometimes?"

His tone had turned entirely cold, without even a trace of the warmth that ought to exist between mother and son.

Shang Keyi heard his roundabout admission and suddenly felt as though she had become the greatest joke in the world, "You really— you really knew all along that he had an illegitimate son out there? And you deliberately kept it from me?"

Grief and fury twisted together, and she instinctively raised her hand again, "Shang Qishun, do you still see me as your mother at all?"

In the moment just before the slap could land, Shang Qishun's expression turned cold as he suddenly reached up and seized her wrist, "Enough!"

Shang Keyi froze.

Without his glasses to conceal them, Shang Qishun's eyes looked even colder and more merciless, "Yes, you guessed it all correctly—"

"I knew of that illegitimate son's existence before you did. I deliberately kept it from you. I used my father's secret as leverage to make both him and his illegitimate son work for me. The car accident involving the third branch, I was the one behind it all. So what?"

Shang Qishun flung Shang Keyi's hand away and gave a cold laugh, "Two dead in the third branch, Wu Wei and Wu Chengwang locked up, and I walk away without a scratch. That is the reality."

Shang Keyi could no longer hold herself up and collapsed onto the sofa, feeling as though the Shang Qishun before her had somehow become a stranger.

"Shang Qishun, how did you end up like this!"

"Mom, you have it wrong. I have always been exactly like this!"

Shang Qishun rose from the floor, his fingertip brushing against his already swollen cheek, "Of course, the reason I became who I am today— all of it is thanks to you."

"……"

Shang Keyi's pupils contracted, "What did you say?"

Shang Qishun looked down at his mother from above, "From the moment I was old enough to understand anything, you never stopped telling me that I was the eldest son of the Shang family, that the old man had placed his greatest hopes in me as his firstborn grandson."

"As long as I became accomplished enough, the old man would very likely hand the entire group over to me one day."

In order to earn the approval of the old Shang couple and the entire family, Shang Qishun had pushed himself relentlessly from childhood.

"But then what? Around the time I turned eleven or twelve, your tune began to change."

Shang Qishun raised an eyebrow with casual indifference, yet the past stood vivid before him.

"You would tell me that I, as the elder brother, could not afford to be outshone by Shang Yanxiao, the younger. Even though he and I were five or six years apart, you considered him the greatest threat to my future inheritance of the group."

"It was you who pushed me, little by little, to treat him as my imagined enemy!"

"It was you who pushed me, bit by bit, to see him as a thorn in my side!"

Even as the facts proved that Shang Yanxiao had indeed grown into someone exceptional and capable— surpassing Shang Qishun and becoming, in the eyes of outsiders, the most likely heir to the group.

And all the while, the hostility Shang Qishun held toward him had, with the passage of time, taken root so deeply it could no longer be pulled free.

Shang Keyi shook her head, wanting to argue but finding no place to begin.

She had always been fiercely competitive in everything, and so she had set strict demands on her only son, hoping Shang Qishun would become the most outstanding among the younger generation— yet she had never taught him to harm anyone.

Shang Keyi's heart was a tangle of feelings, her breath coming with difficulty, "No matter how fiercely you competed with him, you should never have staged a car accident to harm your younger uncle and his wife!"

Shang Qishun remained unmoved, "Mom, how is it you still haven't learned? The one who actually acted was never me."

"As for your father's illegitimate son— don't blame me for keeping it from you. Knowing your nature, you would have caused an uproar, and then I would have lost a piece on my board for nothing."

"……"

Shang Keyi's tears had long run dry, and she even felt a sense of absurdity. Had this been before today, she could never have imagined it—

The child she had carried for ten months and brought into the world had in the end become a cold, sharp blade that cut her until she bled.

"The one in the third branch who truly deserved to die, isn't he still living just fine?"

Shang Qishun paid no attention to Shang Keyi's expression, his gaze fixed on the direction of the third branch's villa outside the window, "Perhaps I should have regrets. Back then, I didn't strike hard enough."

Had he known the first branch would suffer such a devastating fall, he should have moved swiftly for a second strike right after the car accident.

Whether it was Shang Yanxiao, who had feigned his coma, or Shang Queyan, crippled in both legs, or even Bai Xu, who had been 'forced' into the Shang family— he should have dealt with all of them while he still had the chance.

If there was anyone to blame, it could only be that Shang Yanxiao's early performance had truly deceived everyone, including him, far away overseas.

Shang Keyi choked on her breath, feeling every hair on her body stand on end, "Qishun, what else are you planning to do? Listen to your mother— stop this, won't you?"

Just let it all end with Wu Wei.

"Too late!"

Shang Qishun shouted, his teeth clenched, "After everything I've sacrificed all these years, and then to be ruined by the third branch— no matter what, the Shang Group must ultimately be mine!"

Shang Keyi could not bring herself to watch her own flesh and blood walk into an abyss from which there was no return.

She rose to her feet, intending to reason with him again, but stumbled and fell miserably at Shang Qishun's feet, able only to clutch his leg, "Qishun, I'm begging you as your mother! I…"

Shang Qishun paid her no heed, stepping back without mercy, and picked up his glasses, "Mom, rest assured, I won't be making any moves in the near future."

Shang Yanxiao and Bai Xu were no fools. They were certainly waiting right now for him to slip up.

"From today onwards, you stay home and rest well. The matters of the group and the subsidiaries, leave them to me."

Shang Qishun put his glasses back on, and at once resumed that air of refinement, "But Mom, you need to see things clearly—"

"Because of Dad's matter, Grandfather and Grandmother have grown cold toward you. The second and third branches will never side with you. Dad is certainly going to prison. For the rest of your life, you have no one to rely on but me."

"……"

Shang Qishun bent down and, with the appearance of a dutiful son, helped Shang Keyi up from the floor, "Mom, you'll keep this secret for me, won't you?"

Shang Keyi could find no words to answer. She felt as though there was no way back and no way forward.

"It's getting late. I'll head upstairs and rest first, you should rest early too," Shang Qishun did not bother to argue with her any further, and after saying his piece, walked straight upstairs.

Shang Keyi stood rooted to the spot, a helplessness unlike anything she had ever known spreading from her heart through her entire body. The wind and snow outside the window seemed to be falling heavier than ever.

—Crackle and pop.

The firewood in the fireplace burned a vivid red.

Bai Xu eagerly took the tongs from the butler and raked four or five large sweet potatoes wrapped in foil out from the mouth of the fireplace, "It smells so good. I wonder if they're done yet?"

Snowy days were made for roasted sweet potatoes.

Shang Yanxiao saw him reaching bare-handed to tear at the foil and quickly stopped him, "A' Xu, be careful, it's hot."

Bai Xu obediently pulled his hands back, "I just really want that first bite."

Shang Yanxiao turned to the butler beside them, "Butler Lin, could you bring some thick gloves and a small knife?"

Bai Xu added, "And a spoon."

Lin Bo replied with a warm smile, "Of course, I'll go fetch them right away."

Nearby, Shang Queyan pulled the blanket on his legs a little tighter and returned to the matter at hand, "Shang Qishun has no connection to the car accident? There's really no other evidence to be found?"

Bai Xu nodded knowingly, "Shang Qishun isn't someone who slips up so easily. He certainly made thorough preparations in advance, which is why he could afford to be so brazen once things came to light."

Using Wu Wei and his illegitimate son as a single chain of contact, engineering the car accident to harm the third branch, and now that things had fallen apart, Wu Wei had no choice but to protect this more promising son born in wedlock—

One had to admit, this move had been both ruthless and masterful.

Shang Yanxiao took the thick gloves and small knife from the butler, and while helping Bai Xu with the roasted sweet potatoes, analyzed the situation at hand, "In the short term, Shang Qishun shouldn't be making any more moves."

Shang Queyan gave an understanding nod, "Right. Knowing we may be watching him from the shadows, he'll inevitably lie low for a while."

Bai Xu's gaze remained fixed on the foil-wrapped sweet potatoes. He picked out the largest one, "Yanxiao, I want this one!"

Shang Yanxiao smiled inwardly, "Alright."

Shang Queyan caught the exchange between the two and gave a light cough.

Bai Xu shifted his attention back to him, "Things being this way is fine for now. With New Year's and then the Spring Festival holiday coming up, it's time we had a proper rest."

"That said, since Shang Qishun won't be able to move against us openly for a while, he'll likely pour more energy into commercial ventures on the surface."

After all, winning over senior shareholders still required delivering tangible results.

Shang Queyan had this well in mind, "Don't worry. I won't let him have his way. Not a single project that belongs to our third branch will I give up, and as for the projects the first branch has their eye on, I'll find every way to take those too."

"Mm."

Bai Xu trusted in the abilities of this 'male lead of the original story', "The Zhongdi Railway project that Miss Bai introduced has been pushed back to early March next year, so I find myself with some free time for now."

Shang Yanxiao split open the charcoal-roasted sweet potato and spoke casually, "With Queyan handling the group's affairs, I'm not worried. Should we go out and have some fun?"

"……"

Shang Queyan thought for a moment he had misheard, "Brother, what did you say? Wait, you're really planning to dump all the group's affairs on me?"

"If you can't handle it, I'll come help."

Shang Yanxiao tossed back a reply, then turned and held the steaming sweet potato out in front of Bai Xu, "Want a taste?"

Shang Queyan watched the scene before him in silence so profound it was deafening.

Bai Xu picked up the small spoon beside him and scooped out a bite. The flesh, sweet enough to drip with syrup, still carried a wisp of heat.

Shang Yanxiao asked with a smile, "How is it?"

Bai Xu made a small pained sound and couldn't quite bring himself to swallow, "Mm, still a bit hot."

Shang Queyan couldn't bear to watch, yet found himself craving that bite of charcoal-roasted sweet potato all the same.

The fireplace at home had always been there.

Growing up, he had eaten plenty of sweet potato dishes of all kinds, but a preparation this simple and unadorned— he had never actually tried it before.

Shang Queyan looked toward Shang Yanxiao and attempted to appeal to him the way he used to, "Brother, I want some too."

Shang Yanxiao's attention was entirely on Bai Xu, without even a sideways glance to spare him, and simply brushed him off, "Aren't the gloves and knife right there? You're a grown man, do it yourself."

–

TL: Muji

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