“Yesterday, the rising star of golf who had been widely favored by the public, following five consecutive victories, suffered a crushing defeat in an international competition held at three o’clock in the afternoon local Melbourne time. Starting off on the wrong foot, Lu Zhou’s first ball not only flew into the rough, but he accidentally nudged the missing ball with his foot, resulting in a strict penalty from the referee…”

The three of them were horsing around when the television overhead suddenly began replaying the daytime news.

Lin Qing immediately sobered up, her expression growing distant as she recalled something troubling.

“Lin Qing, are you feeling unwell?” Liang Meng asked with concern, gently patting her back.

Lin Qing deflected: “It’s nothing. I’m probably just tired from the day.”

Liang Meng thought about it — that afternoon, Lin Qing’s slight frame had weathered the pressure of so many people. It really had been mentally and physically draining.

“Why don’t we call it a night?” Liang Meng glanced at Wang Zaiwu as she suggested.

But Wang Zaiwu hadn’t heard her. Instead, he was gazing up at the news on the overhead television with great interest, holding forth: “Oh my! Lu Zhou — crashing out right at the critical moment! What a buzzkill! And to think I’ve been following him since the daily tour started! Rotten luck. I swear, every athlete I get behind ends up falling from grace! Who knows when the domestic golf players in China will ever manage to rise up!”

“Lu Zhou?” Liang Meng paused for a moment.

She vaguely recalled that the sales department at Longquan had previously been in contact with this player.

The department had assessed that this player would have considerable commercial value in the future, and had wanted to lock him into a five-year contract while he was still relatively unknown.

“Ugh! That’s exactly why you can never let a bit of success go to your head! Instant karma!” Wang Zaiwu smacked his leg in exasperation at someone else’s failure to live up to his expectations.

“Hey! Watch what you say! Mind your mouth!” Lin Qing couldn’t help but stand up for Lu Zhou. “Everyone makes mistakes. Victory and defeat are part of every soldier’s experience. Athletes aren’t robots! Besides, the news made it very clear — it was an accident! His foot touched the ball, and that’s why the referee penalized him!”

“Ha, his foot touched the ball? That’s such a rookie mistake.” Wang Zaiwu was dismissive. “All that proves is that this guy was never cut out to be a champion.”

“You—!” Lin Qing’s chest heaved with fury. Never one to take a slight lying down, she went straight for Wang Zaiwu’s most sensitive spot: “Even without a champion’s destiny, at least he got there on his own merit — made it overseas, made the news! Not like some people, who coast along on their family’s money their whole lives, with a bit of cash to their name, just drifting through life doing nothing! Always full of commentary about everyone else, but when it comes to themselves — they probably couldn’t even hold a golf club steady. I have absolutely no respect for people like you — the idle know-it-alls who talk big without ever putting in any effort.”

Wang Zaiwu was baffled. Why was Lin Qing going after him again?

Their horoscopes must be incompatible.

Seeing Lin Qing suddenly flare up, Liang Meng assumed she was tired and throwing a tantrum, and quickly began half-pushing, half-steering her away.

Once they left, Wang Zaiwu was left feeling a little deflated.

He took one last flavorless bite of meat from his skewer, muttered “nutcase,” and went to settle the bill.

Wang Zaiwu’s life philosophy: if you can rely on someone else, never rely on yourself.

So Lin Qing’s jabs, from Wang Zaiwu’s perspective, amounted to something close to a compliment.

“I climbed Spring Mountain just to meet you, carrying a year’s worth of longing…”

Full of good cheer after dinner, Wang Zaiwu hummed a tune all the way home.

He had just stepped under the covered entrance of his villa when he noticed a dark figure standing in the shadows beneath the trees, with a Maybach parked nearby.

“Ji— “

Old habits died hard — he nearly blurted out “Uncle Jiang.”

“Ji— Jiang Han, what are you doing here?”

Wang Zaiwu raised his wrist to check the time, his expression making it clear that the visitor was not entirely welcome.

“I’m here to see your father.” Jiang Han’s voice was cold.

“Then go on in,” Wang Zaiwu said, unbothered. “At this hour, my dad should be home.”

Jiang Han had clearly come prepared. He said he was here for Wang Xiancheng, but in truth, he’d positioned himself to intercept Wang Zaiwu first.

“Something on your mind, uncle?”

Wang Zaiwu was being deliberately obtuse.

“Where were you tonight?” Jiang Han blurted out, flustered.

“Do I need to report my whereabouts to you?”

Wang Zaiwu had caught him exactly where it hurt.

“You weren’t off seeing Liang Meng, were you?”

Jiang Han didn’t have much to go on — he was just taking a shot in the dark.

What he didn’t expect was for Wang Zaiwu to immediately own up without a trace of hesitation: “Yeah, I was. We had barbecue tonight — the two of us and her little assistant.”

The moment Jiang Han heard that Wang Zaiwu had actually gone to see Liang Meng, his composure shattered.

A cauldron of jealousy toppled over inside him all at once.

“Why were you going to see her? You’re just a kid! Didn’t our family make it perfectly clear to yours? No more blind date. The whole arrangement is off!”

Seeing Jiang Han worked up, Wang Zaiwu decided to deliberately wind him up, and replied with cocky indifference: “Since when does your word make it off? Tonight Liang Meng and I had a great conversation — in fact, she was the one who asked me to treat her to dinner!”

“You—!”

Jiang Han had swallowed a bitter dose of medicine with nowhere to spit it out — his face had gone almost purple.

“Uncle, if there’s nothing else, I’m heading upstairs. I’m wiped out.”

As he claimed exhaustion, Wang Zaiwu’s eyes were full of sheer provocation.

Jiang Han felt a surge of genuine, unguarded jealousy.

He couldn’t even get a glimpse of Liang Meng these days, yet this guy had somehow spent an entire evening by her side, eating skewers?

Infuriating.

The Wang Residence. The sitting room adjacent to the wine cellar.

Wang Xiancheng, dressed in a velvet house robe and wearing slippers, had taken out a bottle of his usual whiskey to entertain Jiang Han.

Jiang Han was in full business attire — black dress shirt, black trousers — his face equally dark, sitting in an armchair with his fingers laced together.

“Whatever the matter is, drink first.”

Wang Xiancheng held the bottle out to Jiang Han.

Jiang Han didn’t take it. Instead, he went straight to the point of his visit.

“The price on Ling Xue SOHO — that’s outrageous, isn’t it?”

Jiang Han looked up at Wang Xiancheng.

“Ha.”

Wang Xiancheng gave a light chuckle, set down the whiskey bottle, and showed no sign of surprise whatsoever.

“One point four billion. Well!” Wang Xiancheng was perfectly unabashed. “I bought the land for one billion, built the mall with another four hundred million — and now I’m selling it to you without raising the price by a single cent. What’s the problem?”

Jiang Han laughed coldly. Wang Xiancheng really did have a stunning nerve.

“What was the land worth back then? What is it worth now?” he shot back.

“If you think it’s too expensive, you don’t have to buy it. Who’s forcing you?”

Wang Xiancheng took a leisurely sip of his drink, sat down, and spread his hands with a smile.

Jiang Han thought to himself — they were both foxes who had lived a thousand years. What was the point of playing these parlor games with each other?

He rose to leave. But Wang Xiancheng suddenly caught him by the arm.

“Alright, alright! Let’s talk this through properly. Why are you rushing off the moment you arrive?”

Jiang Han frowned and turned his head to look at him: “Talk it through properly? Is this how you talk things through properly?”

Wang Xiancheng was not the type to swallow any grievance, so he stood up as well, meeting Jiang Han’s gaze directly, and struck the table as he spoke: “Jiang Han, there are some things I don’t normally bother saying. In business, beyond competing on skill and connections, there’s also the matter of fate and fortune. So in public, I have never once said that it was I who gave you your start in the world!”

Hearing him raise this subject for the first time, Jiang Han’s defiance genuinely dimmed a notch.

But if Wang Xiancheng had always kept this to himself, why was he bringing it up now, of all evenings?

Wang Xiancheng lit a cigar, and with the air of a man finally revealing his hand, said: “You give me one point four billion for Ling Xue, and I guarantee Longquan’s share price will rise by at least one point four billion. At that point, you cash out your thirty percent stake in Longquan, and combined with the original value of Ling Xue, everyone walks away happy — nobody loses.”

“Cash out? Who’s going to buy in?” Jiang Han pressed.

“Me, of course. I’ll offer a price that will satisfy both you and President Liang.” Wang Xiancheng smiled.

Jiang Han genuinely couldn’t follow the logic. Was Wang Xiancheng losing his mind?

“Old Wang, since you’ve laid everything out so plainly, let’s speak without any pretense.” Jiang Han shifted slightly in his seat. “Our two families have always kept to ourselves in business. Now that you’ve grown bigger and want to play the capital markets — no one’s stopping you. But why are you so dead set on sinking your teeth into Longquan?”

Wang Xiancheng didn’t take the bait, and seemed to be deliberately concealing something.

Jiang Han exhaled, picked up the freshly poured glass of whiskey from the table, and downed it in one go.

“Old Wang, we’ve known each other a long time. You’re right! Back in those days, you gave me my start — you could say you were the one who recognized my potential.” Jiang Han said, “But the past can only ever remain the past. Don’t keep dragging it back up. I’m married to President Liang now. Longquan’s interests are my interests. I’m advising you to stop scheming against what’s inside it.”

There was a deeper meaning in his words, and Wang Xiancheng took a moment to carefully parse it.

Emboldened by drink, Jiang Han decided to say a little more than usual: “Whatever bad blood there was between you and the Liang family — it’s all in the past. This is now the next generation’s affair.”

By “the bad blood between you and the Liang family,” Jiang Han was carefully glossing over Wang Xiancheng’s extramarital affair with Ning Yanhong.

“So that’s why I introduced our Zaiwu to Liang Meng…” Wang Xiancheng followed Jiang Han’s lead, laying out his reasoning.

“Those two — absolutely not!!”

Jiang Han refused again, and each refusal came with more finality than the last.

Wang Xiancheng was startled, then his expression shifted into a cold, knowing smile: “Jiang Han, don’t tell me that after all these years, you still have designs on Liang Meng? Never mind the fact that you’re already with President Liang — I don’t care whether that’s real or not. The point is, back in the beginning—”

Jiang Han’s composure snapped into icy alertness. His entire bearing went rigid. He knew exactly what Wang Xiancheng was about to say.

And yet, Wang Xiancheng said it anyway.

“Jiang Han, you don’t need to play the saint in front of me. You know exactly why you want to buy Ling Xue. No one understands that better than you do.”

Jiang Han pressed his lips together and said nothing.

“Feeling guilty, are you.” Wang Xiancheng went on, unearthing a chapter of old history: “Back in those days, I told you early on about the news of the West City development. And I said to you: it doesn’t matter if you tell others. At that time, the elder Liangs still hadn’t put all their money into the East City project. If they’d taken what they had left and bought property in West City, they could have recovered at least some of their losses. But you — you, Jiang Han! To make sure you could safely secure ten properties for yourself, you chose to stay silent. You said nothing. And because of that, the elder Liangs were driven so quickly into a corner with no way out, that they felt there was no other choice but to leap from the Ling Xue construction site.”

Jiang Han listened, drawing a long, deep breath, tilting his head back and fighting desperately to contain his emotions.

Wang Xiancheng was not about to let him off. He pressed on: “So all these years, no matter how much you cared for Liang Meng, you never had the nerve to pursue her. The only thing you could do was marry President Liang and bury your feelings for good. These things — no one knows them but you and me. You were an indirect cause of her parents’ deaths. What right do you have to reach for their daughter?!”

Wang Xiancheng jabbed a finger downward and bellowed this out until his face was red and flushed.

Every word he said was the truth. Jiang Han could not refute a single syllable. All he could do was listen in silence.

Beside the wine cellar, the air was thick with the smell of alcohol and damp.

Since they had already come this far in the conversation, Wang Xiancheng abandoned all pretense.

Flushed, he kept his finger pointed at Jiang Han’s face: “And since we’re at it, I’ll tell you one more truth. Why did I arrange for Zaiwu to go on that blind date with Liang Meng? It’s because— it’s because—”

Old Wang was clearly struggling. The words weren’t coming easily.

Back then, Ning Yanhong had come to find him, visibly pregnant. He had asked Ning Yanhong whose child it was.

Ning Yanhong had told him with her own mouth — it was Jiang Yueming’s.

So in Wang Xiancheng’s understanding, it was nothing short of a blessing that Jiang Han kept his distance from Liang Meng. For all they knew, both of them might share Jiang Yueming’s blood flowing through their veins.

All that talk of “destined connection” and “sisterly bond” — what nonsense!

His reading of things was that the elder Liang’s own inability had led to his wife being unable to conceive — and that what later happened was quite obviously a matter of conceiving a child through another man.

Wang Xiancheng assumed Jiang Han knew none of this. But in truth, Jiang Han had known it all for some time — and knew it more completely, more accurately, and in greater depth than Wang Xiancheng did.

Before Old Wang could blurt out his self-righteous conclusion, Jiang Han stepped in ahead of him: “I won’t be with Liang Meng. But Liang Meng will not be with Wang Zaiwu either. I’ve said what I came to say. Get some rest.”

With that, Jiang Han took the glass of wine from Old Wang’s hand and downed it in one go, right in front of him — then turned and walked out with clean, decisive steps.

He had known all along that this conversation would yield nothing. Jiang Han regretted making the trip.

But he had not disclosed Liang Meng’s true origins to Wang Xiancheng. Everything still awaited verification.

Even if it turned out to be true, it was all in the past — and Jiang Han had no desire to see everything connected to the elder Liangs and their sordid entanglements dragged out into the open again.

After Jiang Han left, Wang Xiancheng sat alone on his leather sofa, unable to quiet the turmoil within him for a long time.

In his heart, he hated Ning Yanhong.

And where there was love, there was hatred.

Even though Ning Yanhong had leaped from that high building alongside the elder Liang all those years ago, Wang Xiancheng’s resentment had never dissipated — instead it had curdled inward, into a festering wound.

He wanted to take revenge on Ning Yanhong, on the elder Liang, on Jiang Yueming, on Jiang Han, on Liang Meng.

He wanted to bring Longquan Group under his control — only that could compensate for the regret of never having possessed Ning Yanhong for himself back then.

A person’s entire life is spent using whatever strength remains to patch over the deepest regrets of the heart.

That is a cage no one ever truly escapes.