After Lin Qing and Jiang Han left, Lin Mom immediately collapsed.

She clutched Lu Zhou’s hand, tears streaming, unable to fathom how the daughter she had raised with her own hands could have become someone with such a warped moral compass — a grasping woman willing to sell herself for money and status.

“Lu Zhou — do you think it’s my illness that drove Lin Qing to this?”

“Auntie, please don’t overthink it.” Though Lu Zhou’s own heart was tangled in a hundred knots of sorrow, he still forced himself to swallow the pain and did his best to comfort her. “Perhaps things aren’t the way we’re imagining…”

“What have I done to deserve this!” Lin Mom struck the sofa cushions, wailing.

Liang Meng was still harbouring some resentment toward Lin Mom, but seeing the old woman in this state, she couldn’t bear to let it show.

So she wrapped herself up tighter in her clothes, gave Wang Zaiwu a meaningful look, and said to Lu Zhou: “Keep an eye on things here. We’re going out to get something to eat.”

“I can’t eat!!!” Lin Mom cried out in anger.

She simply couldn’t make sense of any of it.

Liang Meng gave the sorry scene a resigned glance: “You may not be able to eat, but I’m hungry. Zaiwu, let’s go. Lu Zhou, what do you want?”

Lu Zhou gave Liang Meng a quiet wave from behind Lin Mom’s back.

He was signalling: don’t provoke her.

Liang Meng pointedly ignored him. The thing she hated most in the world was people putting on a dying act — declaring hunger strikes was just another version of that.

People who truly wanted to die never made a scene about it.

She had understood this long ago.

What Lin Mom was doing — using self-inflicted suffering to hold them morally hostage, trying to make them forgive Lin Qing — Liang Meng saw through it completely.

And she refused to play along.

So Liang Meng said deliberately: “You didn’t raise your own daughter right — don’t make it seem like that’s somehow our fault. This is Lu Zhou’s apartment. You’re living here, and your daughter’s run off with another man, and now you want to starve yourself to death and stop the landlord from eating? That’s going too far, isn’t it? Take a good look at Lu Zhou — start to finish, what has he done to wrong either of you two, that he deserves to end up like this?”

“Exactly.” Wang Zaiwu chimed in without any further thought.

And with that, the two of them marched out, stride for stride.

Lin Mom shed a string of sad and bitter tears, and reaching out a feeble hand to Lu Zhou’s, she managed to say: “Child — I’m so sorry for what you’ve been put through.”

Lu Zhou helped Lin Mom lie down, let out a long sigh, and said nothing.

Given the state of things before him, aside from wanting to run out and beat Jiang Han to death, he genuinely had no idea what to say.

Out the door, Wang Zaiwu asked Liang Meng: “Why did you deliberately provoke Lin Mom just now? That doesn’t seem like you at all.”

Liang Meng pulled her coat around herself and kept her eyes fixed ahead: “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

Before long, the two of them arrived at a noisy, bustling spot.

“This is what you meant by ‘when we get there’?”

Wang Zaiwu sat down, looking surprised.

“Go get me a family bucket.”

Liang Meng plonked herself down and gave the order.

“Are you serious. You’re still running a fever — let me feel.” Wang Zaiwu reached up to press his hand to her forehead, and she batted it away.

“I told you to buy it, so go buy it!”

“It’s not even Thursday.”

Unable to get his way, Wang Zaiwu could only grumble his way over to the counter.

When he came back and set the food down, Liang Meng immediately rubbed her hands together and reached eagerly for the steaming fried chicken.

Wang Zaiwu was bewildered: “You’re acting like you’ve never had KFC before. Wouldn’t someone like you — such a refined young lady — normally refuse to eat junk food?”

“Mind your own business.”

With that, Liang Meng threw herself into the meal with great enthusiasm, eating with such relish that oil ran around her lips.

Wang Zaiwu could barely look, but still he propped both arms on the table and asked: “You still haven’t told me — why did you deliberately provoke Lin Mom earlier?!”

Liang Meng bit into a piece of original-recipe chicken, then set it down and said: “Zaiwu, let me ask you something. We haven’t known each other that long — what’s your gut feeling about me?”

Wang Zaiwu scratched the back of his head: “I don’t know… hard to say. I honestly don’t feel much of anything… I mean, I don’t want to sleep with you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Liang Meng knocked the chicken leg against his head: “That’s not what I’m asking.”

Wang Zaiwu thought for a moment and went on: “I really don’t know. Honestly — sometimes you kind of scare me, but I also don’t know why, the moment you call me, my body just moves on its own, and I come trotting over like I have no say in the matter. Like some kind of bloodline compulsion.”

Liang Meng listened, unsatisfied.

Wang Zaiwu read her expression and knew he’d missed the point again.

“All right, just tell me — do you think I’m a good person or a bad person? And more importantly: would I ever sell you out?” Liang Meng guided him, all mysterious air.

“I… probably wouldn’t,” Wang Zaiwu answered, going along with it.

“Are you sure?” Liang Meng pressed.

“I’m sure.”

He thought for a moment, then said what had come to him first.

“Exactly! Same as me.” Liang Meng had gotten the answer she wanted. “Look — I know you’re supposed to guard against people, even if you shouldn’t wish harm on them. But from the moment I met Lin Qing, my gut feeling was the same as yours: I felt she wouldn’t harm me or sell me out. And in these three months of working alongside her, I never once sensed that she was the type to go running after money or abandon her principles the moment a man came along.”

“So what exactly are you trying to say?” Wang Zaiwu took a sip of cola, lost.

“If bad people had it written on their faces, what would we need the police for?”

Liang Meng said nothing more, but winked at Wang Zaiwu — letting him figure it out.

Before long, Wang Zaiwu’s expression shifted, and he slapped the table in excitement: “You mean — if Lin Qing isn’t someone who’s been hiding her true nature all this time, then she and Jiang Han are putting on an act?”

“Bingo! Exactly.”

Liang Meng confirmed it.

“So you deliberately provoked Lin Mom — that was still part of pushing Lin Qing?”

It had to be said — Wang Zaiwu was no fool.

Liang Meng blinked, confirming he’d got that right too.

“Then why are we eating KFC?” Wang Zaiwu was still puzzled. “It’s not like this stuff is anything special — total junk food.”

Liang Meng raised a drumstick and explained at leisure to Wang Zaiwu: “When I was small, I was half raised by my sister and half by Jiang Han. My very first time eating KFC was when they both brought me here. But after I hit puberty, my sister wouldn’t let me eat it anymore — she said if I wanted some, I had to wait until I grew up. Jiang Han, though — he said: the day Liang Meng stops wanting KFC, that’s the day she’s grown up.”

“That’s so childish — measuring whether you’ve grown up by whether you still want KFC.”

Wang Zaiwu bit into a piece of chicken, finding this all a bit silly.

Liang Meng knocked him again: “It’s a signal! Have you ever heard of that? Before making an important decision, eat something you normally love. If it tastes different, it means something’s wrong with the decision — think it over again. Or if something you eat all the time suddenly tastes different one day, that’s a sign to be careful and cautious that day. That’s a signal.”

“So you really do love KFC!”

After all that winding explanation, Wang Zaiwu finally understood — the outwardly composed and imperious Liang Meng genuinely had a soft spot for this cheap junk food.

Liang Meng pursed her lips and kept eating.

Seeing her in better spirits, Wang Zaiwu couldn’t help pushing: “So — what about Jiang Han?”

Liang Meng said: “Honestly, when I first found out about Jiang Han and Lin Qing, I was pretty angry too. But after being angry for a bit, it passed. Zaiwu, let me tell you a secret.”

With that, Liang Meng crooked a finger at Wang Zaiwu.

He leaned his ear in. “Jiang Han and my sister — I’m not angry about that either. Because I know: those two are also putting on an act.”

“What?!“

Wang Zaiwu stared in utter disbelief.

“What?! None of this makes any sense at all!”

Liang Meng picked up another piece of a burger, looking pleased with herself: “There’s only one circumstance in which Jiang Han would abandon me — and that’s when he truly can’t manage it himself, when he’s about to go under. He’s done.”

Wang Zaiwu was completely at sea, deeply sceptical of Liang Meng’s breezy confidence in her hold over Jiang Han.

Liang Meng told Wang Zaiwu: “I was basically raised in Jiang Han’s arms when I was little. My sister told me — once he had me in his arms, he would never let go, no matter what. Only once, when a bulldozer at a construction site lost its brakes and came barrelling straight at the two of us — then Jiang Han threw me to someone standing nearby. Luckily, at the very last second, the machine managed to stop. My sister said: by the time Jiang Han threw me, he’d already calculated the speed and knew for certain there was no getting away — that’s the only reason he let go.”

The Liang family’s affairs were a lot to take in. Wang Zaiwu was having trouble digesting it all.

When Liang Meng finished, she even warned him with a mild edge of menace: “Don’t tell anyone, you hear me.”

Wang Zaiwu thought: who would I even tell? My dad?

“So you’ve figured all of this out, and yet you’re still here putting on your own act?” Wang Zaiwu was baffled once more.

“The illness of the heart must be treated with the medicine of the heart — and only the one who tied the knot can undo it.”

Liang Meng shook her head helplessly. There are some things that only those directly involved can truly understand.

“As long as the knot in Jiang Han’s heart isn’t untied, there will always be a galaxy between us.”

Wang Zaiwu didn’t understand, and didn’t particularly want to. All he wanted to know was: what do we do now?

“So what do we do with this whole disaster of a situation?”

Liang Meng still didn’t answer Wang Zaiwu directly. Instead, she suddenly turned the subject onto him.

“Zaiwu, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” His head was already starting to ache.

“You’ve got a pretty solid education and some real ability, I’d say. So why do you always dodge anything connected to your family’s business? It’s like you’re deliberately drifting through life, as if you’re terrified your dad will drag you back to take over the company.”

On this topic, Wang Zaiwu had ten thousand things to say.

“Liang Meng, you have no idea what it’s like — the troubles of being born into money. From the moment we come into the world, luxury cars, luxury properties, designer watches, high-end goods — even time — those are the things worth the least to us. Because they come as easily as breathing.”

“Such a hardship.” Liang Meng gave him a flat look.

“I’m serious. But think about it — what do I have besides those things?” Wang Zaiwu spread his hands. “My dad, on the surface, has an enormous company, a massive money-making machine, just waiting for me to inherit. The moment I step into Wanheng, I’ll be treated like an absolute crown prince! But in reality?”

Liang Meng waited for him to continue.

“In reality — the moment I sit down inside Wanheng, I see: to my left, the veteran ministers who have fought at my father’s side through countless battles. To my right, the most trusted guardian of my father’s finances — my own aunt. In front of me, my father’s most trusted advisor — my second uncle. Behind me, my uncle-in-law, shoved in by my mother’s connections to manage logistics! The moment I take that seat, I am absolutely and completely a puppet — tethered and controlled on all sides. I can’t even make the smallest move according to my own ideas without being treated as a defective puppet. I can’t even scratch myself without permission!”

Wang Zaiwu laid out what was, by his own account, the most embarrassing plight of the modern second-generation heir.

Liang Meng laughed a little, and felt a pang of sadness too.

Because some of what Wang Zaiwu described overlapped with her own experience.

But she still pressed him: “And you never thought about fighting back?”

Wang Zaiwu gave a bitter smile, and in the next instant returned to his usual air of careless indifference: “What’s the point of fighting? Wanheng is already worth several hundred billion. For me to try to surpass my father’s wealth through my own entrepreneurship and hard work — I’d probably have to start grinding from the late Ming Dynasty.”

“But what if it wasn’t purely about the money?” Liang Meng asked, still patient.

“Hmm?”

Wang Zaiwu couldn’t quite see where Liang Meng was going with this.

So Liang Meng stopped speaking in riddles and said it plainly: “My guess is that this time around, Jiang Han and Lin Qing’s partnership is meant to force me to give up — to tell me that Jiang Han won’t be helping me anymore. Or perhaps can’t help me. Given Longquan’s current position, trying to turn things around on my own would be extremely difficult. Losing control means this game is already lost. From everything you’ve just said, you must already know that once your father swallowed Longquan, he’d definitely send in his own trusted people to take over and sit in the CEO’s chair.”

It was a common trait of the older generation of businessmen — put loyalty above ability; choose those you trust over those who are talented.

“So?” Wang Zaiwu waited for Liang Meng to continue.

“I’m planning to go out on my own.”

Liang Meng said what had truly been behind her fever these past few days.

The anxiety, the distress — all of it was her steeling herself to make this decision.

“And… what does that have to do with me?” Wang Zaiwu asked.

“I want you to help me.”

“Me?” Wang Zaiwu jabbed a finger at his own nose, looking utterly incredulous. “I can’t even bring myself to go back home and take over the family business — and now you want me to go head-to-head against my own father?! What possible reason would I have to say yes? You’re asking for my life!”