Wang Tai sat at her dressing table, too restless to settle — one moment knocking over the wintersweet toner, the next sending the lid of the caviar cream rolling across the floor.

Wang Xiancheng was leaning on the headboard scrolling through his phone. The fussing, rattling sounds grated on his nerves considerably.

“Tomorrow have someone move this table into the walk-in closet, along with all those bottles and jars.”

Wang Xiancheng didn’t even look up as he shifted his position and said it.

Wang Tai immediately went still and quiet.

But she had been turning it over in her mind, and since it was, after all, a matter of her son’s lifelong happiness, she could not help but open her mouth: “Xiancheng, about the matter of forming a marriage alliance with the Liang Family…”

She hadn’t even finished the sentence before Wang Xiancheng cut her off imperiously. “What? You want to question my decision?”

Wang Tai’s hand froze mid-air, applying hand cream, and she cast a timid glance at her husband’s expression through the mirror.

This time, Wang Xiancheng was also looking at her.

Wang Tai immediately broke eye contact and, feeling awkward, shifted her manner to something soft and coaxing. She walked to the edge of the bed and said gently, “I was just asking. It’s my son too, after all. There are plenty of excellent young women out there — none of them any less accomplished than Liang Meng. Of course, I’m not saying your choice of Liang Meng is wrong — it’s just that she’s two years older than our Zaiwu.”

“So what if she’s two years older?” Wang Xiancheng shot her a cold glance and snorted. “Haven’t you heard? When the woman is older, it’s a jackpot.”

“Right.” Wang Tai retreated another notch in her manner. “But Liang Meng is almost thirty. And I’ve seen the girl at a private dinner — reed-thin arms and legs. Her backside is round enough, I suppose, but it’s not very large — doesn’t really look like the child-bearing type. Xiancheng, what if we…”

Wang Xiancheng had never had much patience with Wang Tai. He went straight into full assault mode. “I’ve kept you in comfort for over twenty years, and this is what’s in your head? Did you grow up in the mountains? Whether someone can bear children has nothing to do with the size of their backside! You think you’re raising sows? By that logic, a two-hundred-pound woman would be the best option — bring one home for Zaiwu and she’ll deliver a whole litter! What kind of thinking is that?!”

Wang Tai was splattered with spittle, but since she was genuinely too afraid of her husband to do anything about it, she could only wait for it to dry on its own.

“Xiancheng…” Wang Tai said awkwardly and ingratiatingly, shaking his arm.

“Stop babbling! Say another word and I swear, I — Wang Xiancheng — can go out tomorrow and have another son!”

Wang Xiancheng pulled his legs up, sat on the bed, and suddenly erupted into irritation.

“Xiancheng…” Wang Tai was furious but didn’t dare show it. “I was just saying it casually. Please don’t actually get angry.”

But Wang Xiancheng refused to back down and pressed on to make his point. “Liang Meng takes after her mother in build! Her mother could bear children — so she can too!”

Wang Xiancheng had just opened the one wound best left closed.

Wang Tai, stumbling into the opening, steeled herself and pressed on: “Her mother — Xiancheng, the whole circle knows about the Ning Yanhong situation. She was married to the elder Liang for years without producing a child. In the end it was through ‘receiving’ — taking in the eldest daughter — that they had any at all. In terms of genetics…”

No matter how much Wang Tai feared her husband, her dislike of Liang Meng came from deep in her gut.

Her own close friends had daughters lined up for consideration — how had it come to this orphan girl with both parents gone? An aging spinster at that.

Wang Xiancheng picked up his phone and slammed it down. He shot Wang Tai a look of pure, cold fury and stood up.

“Your genes are wonderful! You produced two — and one didn’t make it! I’m sleeping in the study.” Wang Xiancheng stabbed his wife in the heart without mercy.

The atmosphere plummeted to freezing.

Wang Tai’s stomach was full of bitter grief, but she had only herself to blame — she had been the one to say something that put the head of the household in a foul mood.

Seeing his movement, she rushed after him and wrapped both arms tightly around him from behind, pressing her face against his back and pleading, “Xiancheng, I was talking about our son — please don’t be angry. I’ll do whatever you say.”

Feeling Wang Tai relent, Wang Xiancheng’s steps hesitated for a moment, and he stopped.

“But, Xiancheng — you at least have to give me a reason. Why does our family have to marry Liang Meng specifically?” Wang Tai said, in a small, pitiful voice.

Wang Xiancheng turned around and held out his left hand.

Wang Tai immediately understood and ran to fetch his pipe, then lit the tobacco for him.

Wang Xiancheng settled onto the sofa and exhaled two rings of smoke.

Wang Tai stood beside him, head lowered, like a child who had done something wrong.

“Jiang Han…” Slowly, those two syllables emerged from Wang Xiancheng’s lips.

In the wisps of smoke rising and curling, Wang Tai was at a complete loss.

“That young man — because his business has done reasonably well in recent years — considers himself my equal now.” Wang Xiancheng’s eyes held a great deal of displeasure. “Back in the day, he was one of my errand boys! Whether I let him into the game at all was entirely my call.”

“But what does Zaiwu marrying Liang Meng have to do with Jiang Han?”

Wang Tai asked, not following.

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking!”

Wang Xiancheng gave her a sidelong look and knocked the pipe sharply against the arm of the sofa.

Wang Tai went silent.

“I simply want to put Jiang Han back in his place! Let him remember where he stands!” The displeasure in Wang Xiancheng’s eyes hardened into something ruthless. “The moment Zaiwu marries Liang Meng, Jiang Han becomes my nephew’s husband. Whether he acknowledges it or not — that’s where he falls in the generational ranking.”

So that was it.

Wang Tai was somewhat reassured.

If the sole purpose was simply “putting Jiang Han in his place,” then she could accept that reason.

But Wang Tai had a persistent feeling that there was more to this marriage alliance between the two families — that it had been something Wang Xiancheng had been sitting on for a long time, and that it was not this simple.

It was just that her husband had never once shared his real thoughts with her, and pressing him further would get her nowhere.

Wang Tai let out a helpless sigh.

Having explained himself, Wang Xiancheng got up and still went to sleep in the study.

“Xiancheng! Xiancheng…”

Wang Tai called after him urgently, but nothing could hold him.

Jiang Han returned to Tan Gong, and his secretary brought in the acquisition contract for Ling Xue Soho.

“Sir, your…”

The secretary looked at the purple bruise on Jiang Han’s temple and was uncertain whether to call in the private physician for treatment.

At that moment, Liang Xing came in wearing a dressing gown, carrying a glass of wine.

The secretary discreetly withdrew.

Jiang Han behaved as though she were not there. He shook out the contract and quietly began reading through it.

He had grievances pent up inside, some of them directed at Liang Xing.

If she hadn’t spent the entire afternoon urging him on and provoking him repeatedly, perhaps tonight he wouldn’t have acted so rashly and walked into a whole evening of misunderstanding.

When a person makes another person deeply uncomfortable, sometimes the body language says it before words are needed.

Liang Xing could feel his indifference. She took a sip of wine, still clutching a brown envelope in her hand, and walked over.

“Ha — Old Wang really does have a wide-open mouth.”

Jiang Han buried himself in the printed pages and gave a cold laugh — partly to Liang Xing, partly to no one in particular.

“The price is that outrageous?” Liang Xing sat down and asked.

Jiang Han stood, turned his back to her, and went to pour himself a drink.

“As outrageous as it gets.” He let out a weary breath.

Liang Xing lowered her head and pressed her lips together softly. Rather than pursuing that topic with Jiang Han, she forcibly changed the subject: “More outrageous than tonight’s blind date?”

The hand pouring whisky paused for a moment.

That she could so easily turn to something else in the face of something this significant — it meant that neither of these two sisters had thought or felt in the way he had assumed.

Before going to stop Liang Meng from going on a blind date with another man, Jiang Han’s head had been hot; on the way back, the night wind had cooled it, and with the blood settled, his heart had gone cold again.

“Liang Xing.”

Jiang Han’s throat moved. He drank deeply from the amber liquid.

“Why did you agree to the Wang Family arrangement, then go back on it?”

On his way back, Jiang Han had realized he never found out the answer to this — and yet he had let Liang Xing manipulate his feelings and use him as a pawn. How utterly foolish of him.

“Oh, nothing really,” Liang Xing said, making herself sound unconcerned. “I just suddenly felt it wasn’t a good fit.”

“Is that so.”

Jiang Han turned around and looked at her with a cold, sharp gaze.

“What particular reason could there be?” Liang Xing responded calmly and evasively.

Seeing she wasn’t telling the truth, Jiang Han gave what might have been a faint, nearly invisible smile and walked toward her.

He had returned to his habitual composure and ease. He sat down slowly across from Liang Xing before finally speaking two words: “Daiwei.”

Liang Xing didn’t react. She set down her glass and continued to parry smoothly. “Hasn’t he gone to Sansen? Thank you to Lord Jiang for taking him in and solving Longquan’s immediate problem.”

Jiang Han had been waiting for exactly those words.

What Liang Xing didn’t know was that Daiwei, eager to streamline the process and join Sansen as quickly as possible, had already presented Jiang Han with a token of allegiance.

All these years, Liang Xing had regarded Daiwei as a trusted confidant — mainly because there were certain things that had to be handled by someone seasoned and adept.

Jiang Han pulled a thick stack of documents out of a drawer and slapped them down forcefully in front of Liang Xing.

Liang Xing thought it was something else — she picked it up, glanced through it, and said with perfect indifference: “Paper can never fully conceal fire, can it.”

But it was Jiang Han who became agitated.

He shot to his feet: “I always wondered why Longquan’s market value kept rising. Now I understand — it was all your doing.”

That stack of papers was evidence Jiang Han had gathered showing that Liang Xing and the Wang Clan Group had been colluding, manipulating the share price of one of Longquan’s subsidiaries upward.

But what Jiang Han could not work out was this: if Liang Xing had secretly been in league with Wang Xiancheng all along, why had she this very afternoon done everything in her power to stop Liang Meng from going on that blind date with Wang Zaiwu?

Every action a person takes is in service of a purpose.

What Liang Xing had done that afternoon was glaringly at odds with any logic he could construct.

“What sisterly love?” Nothing — not sisterly devotion — could outweigh a share price increase. That was simply a fact.

And this was also the very reason Liang Xing had sought out Jiang Han tonight.

He would have gotten there eventually even without asking — Liang Xing had already decided she wanted to lay everything out on the table.

Since he’d asked, Liang Xing simply played her highest card.

“Take a look at this.”

She slid the brown envelope across to him, on top of the stack of papers Jiang Han had just pushed her way.

“What is it.”

Jiang Han opened it with curiosity.

By the time he had gone through it calmly, his pale fingers had unconsciously curled into a fist and pressed against his own lips.

The photographs in the brown envelope unmistakably showed Wang Xiancheng.

And there was a row of check-in records from the Hongxing Hotel.

A mystery that had floated in Jiang Han’s mind for years — pressing on him, suffocating him — dissolved in this one moment, as clouds part to let through clear sky.

Jiang Han stood up, trembling, the photographs in his hand. His whole body was shaking.

Liang Xing remained coldly composed and continued in a voice stripped of all warmth, needling him: “Jiang Han, in this world, there has never been such a thing as a truly noble person, and no one ever genuinely feels remorse from the bottom of their heart for what they have done wrong.”

Jiang Han said nothing. His head was down, his eyelashes trembling.

“When people occasionally let their guilt show in front of the person they’ve wronged, it is only so they themselves can feel easier about the days that follow.”

Liang Xing’s gaze, as she gave a dry smile, was saturated with contempt.

She continued to strip away the truth she had found.

“Jiang Han. Were you really so unable to go to Liang Meng — so unable to accept her — all these years solely because you witnessed my parents fall from that construction site with your own eyes, and couldn’t live with that?”

Jiang Han’s face went red. She had seen right through him.

Liang Xing picked up her glass and swirled it. “Years ago, I still believed you. But from the day you made up your mind to marry me instead, I began to doubt. Love is possession, it is selfish desire. No one is great enough to simply want their beloved to be happy and willingly go marry someone else. Even backed into the very last corner, a person would still want to try — to see if they can be with the one they love — let alone when the only thing standing in the way is that small, negligible drop of guilt inside you!”

“Stop talking.”

Jiang Han had been shaken to his foundations. He tried to stop Liang Xing.

“What do you mean — ‘ashamed to face my parents’? What do you mean — ‘unable to live with it’?” Liang Xing suddenly erupted, her voice rising several notches. “Jiang Han — you are a man who always follows through on what he decides, who always gets his hands on what he wants. I only understood it this afternoon, too — the reason you’ve spent all these years wanting to be close to Liang Meng, wanting to possess her, while at the same time exerting every effort to push her away — is because…”

“I told you to stop talking!!”

Jiang Han could not bear to hear the truth spoken aloud. He clapped both hands over his temples and, with every ounce of force he had, cut her off.

Yes. The evidence was now irrefutable — Jiang Han could no longer pretend.

All these years, the guilt over Liang Meng’s parents had been nothing but an excuse.

The commercial world devours people — it always has. Everyone fights with whatever they have.

To survive in business, the first rule is to strip away weakness and pursue advantage without sentiment.

Profit above all, accept the gamble and accept the loss, winner takes all.

As for remorse and guilt — they are merely tools to blunt the resentment of those who have lost, once the goal has been achieved. Nothing more.

The true reason — the thing that had genuinely kept Jiang Han from going to Liang Meng, from taking her — was this: all these years, he had suspected that Liang Meng and he might share blood.

And the photographs Liang Xing had just handed him now brutally revealed that years ago, Ning Yanhong had been involved with Wang Xiancheng — an improper relationship.

The dates on the hotel records fell within the one or two years before Liang Meng was born.

Life could truly be this lurid.

Jiang Han’s head was splitting with pain.

So Aunt Ning — she had not only been entangled ambiguously with his own father, Jiang Yueming. She had had another man on the side as well — Wang Xiancheng.