Chapter 13 The Beggar CEO
The next morning, the financial world of Jingcheng experienced a massive, unprecedented earthquake.
The news of my identity exploded across every major news network.
The Ye family officially announced my return, backed by irrefutable DNA evidence.
The stock market reacted violently. Ye Consortium stocks skyrocketed, while companies associated with the Lin family were instantly blacklisted and went bankrupt before lunch.
I sat in the penthouse office of the Ye headquarters, looking out over the sprawling Jingcheng skyline. I was wearing a sleek, blood-red power suit, my hair pulled back into a sharp, uncompromising ponytail.
My newly appointed assistant knocked on the glass door.
"President Ye," he said, bowing respectfully. "CEO Lu Chen is here to see you. He has been waiting in the lobby for three hours."
A slow, vicious smile curved my lips. Three hours. The man who used to make me wait up until 3 AM for him to come home was now sitting in a lobby like a common beggar.
"Send him in," I said.
A moment later, the double doors opened.
Lu Chen stepped into the office. He looked entirely different from the arrogant god I had known.
His usually immaculate suit was slightly rumpled, his tie was loosened, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
He looked like a man who hadn't slept, a man whose entire reality had been ripped out from under him.
He stopped in front of my massive mahogany desk, staring at me with a desperate, burning intensity.
"Fifty million," he said, pulling a cashier's check from his pocket and placing it on my desk. "The severance you asked for. It's yours."
I glanced at the check, then back up at him, raising a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
"CEO Lu," I laughed softly. "Are you confused? As of 9:00 AM this morning, my personal net worth exceeded 500 billion. You think I care about your petty fifty million yuan?"
Lu Chen slammed his hands flat on my desk, leaning forward. "I don't care about the money, Yan-yan. I care about you. I didn't know. I swear to god, I didn't know Lin Wan was manipulating me. I didn't know what they were doing to you."
"Ignorance is not an excuse for cruelty," I said, my voice hardening into ice. "You watched me bleed. You watched your servants feed me cold leftovers. You let Lin Wan break my spirit every single day. And worst of all, you blamed me for taking the place of your precious white moonlight."
Lu Chen flinched as if I had physically struck him.
"She was never my white moonlight," he whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, ugly desperation.
"When I was a boy, I was kidnapped. I was locked in a dark basement for a week.
A little girl, a fellow captive, shared her bread with me.
She kept me alive. She promised we would survive.
When the police raided the place, we were separated.
All I remembered was her smile, and a small, plum blossom birthmark on her collarbone. "
He looked at me, his dark eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I spent twenty years looking for her. Three years ago, Lin Wan came to me with a fake burn scar on her collarbone, claiming she was the girl. I was so blinded by my gratitude that I let her blind me to everything else."
He reached out, his trembling fingers gently brushing the lapel of my red suit, right over where my birthmark rested.
"It was you," Lu Chen choked out, a single tear escaping his eye and rolling down his cheek. "It was always you, Yan-yan. I pushed away the only woman I ever truly loved, to protect a monster who was trying to kill her."
The room fell deadly silent.
In my past life, this revelation would have made me collapse into his arms. It was the romantic resolution I had prayed for every night.
But I wasn't the foolish Su Yan anymore. I was Ye Yan. And my heart was a fortress of ice.
"System," I whispered in my mind.
[Host?]
"Turn off his system-assigned target immunity."
[Target lock removed. You are now fully authorized to destroy Lu Chen.]