“Director Jiang!”

Lin Qing glanced down at her phone and suddenly said: “The price of stainless steel 2589 has started to fall!”

“Keep your eyes on it.” Jiang Han’s expression turned focused and sharp. “Buy long.”

“How much?”

“Twenty million.”

Lin Qing sat back down in front of her screen and swiftly executed his instructions.

Jiang Han leaned over and stood beside her, watching the screen.

“Director Jiang, it’s still falling.” Lin Qing.

“Keep buying.” Jiang Han.

“Still falling.”

“Buy.”

One round of trading led into the next, and before they realised it, over an hour had passed.

Coming down from the battleground of the futures market, Lin Qing let out a long breath. Beads of sweat had formed at Jiang Han’s temple too: “Keep watching tomorrow.”

“Director Jiang, how much of a budget do we actually have?” Lin Qing asked.

Jiang Han slid Lin Qing’s mouse and settled his energy in his core, without answering.

This battle between bears and bulls — Jiang Han and Wang Xiancheng’s zero-sum game — would ultimately end with one of them destroyed.

The gun was already loaded. Until the very last bullet was spent, Jiang Han would not surrender.

“Oh no — Mom!”

She’d forgotten the most important thing!

Lin Qing, snapping back, bolted like a runaway pony.

Jiang Han caught her arm.

Lin Qing’s look could have killed.

“I’ll drive you.” Jiang Han said with mild disdain, glancing down at her. “Were you planning to walk?”

Fair point.

Lin Qing deferred to Jiang Han’s arrangement and obediently got into the black Maybach.

Meanwhile.

Liang Meng was sitting in Lu Zhou’s Volvo, already driving circles — growing more anxious with each pass — around the blocks surrounding the apartment.

“We can’t go on like this forever.”

Liang Meng checked the time again and again. There was still a pile of things waiting for her at Longquan.

“Do you think she’s gone to stay with relatives in Shanghai?”

Lu Zhou turned the steering wheel and replied: “Probably not. If she had relatives, do you think Lin Qing and Lin Mom would have had to borrow my apartment?”

“Then could she have gone to the train station? To stay with relatives in another city?” Liang Meng asked.

Lu Zhou shook his head: “I don’t think so either. Lin Mom has to go to the hospital for regular check-ups for her illness. And even if others don’t know the full picture, she does. If she went to impose on relatives at a time like this, and something were to happen — she’d be causing them grief. Both Lin Qing and Lin Mom are people with very strong pride who hate troubling others.”

“Then where could she be? Shanghai has so many hotels.” Liang Meng propped her chin on her hand, gazing out at the high-rises crowding the skyline.

Lu Zhou said: “Liang Meng — how about you try calling Lin Mom again? I think as long as she hasn’t switched her phone off, there’s still a chance.”

“What do you mean?”

Lu Zhou analysed calmly: “Lin Mom left so suddenly. We actually don’t know who she’s hiding from. We assumed it was us — but I just thought of something: she might just as easily be hiding from Lin Qing.”

Liang Meng nodded. There was some logic to that.

So she pulled out her phone and dialled Lin Mom’s number, again and again, without stopping.

At last, Lin Mom finally couldn’t hold out against Liang Meng’s relentless series of calls, and picked up.

In the end, Liang Meng and Lu Zhou tracked Lin Mom down inside an internet café.

When they found her, the old woman was in that smoky, hazy place playing three-player mahjong — and having an absolutely wonderful time.

Honestly, she was something else.

“What are you doing? Don’t you know I have a lot on my plate? All you do is cause trouble!”

Though Liang Meng’s mouth was all complaint, she quietly let out a long, relieved breath.

Lu Zhou followed behind, silently lugging all the large and small pieces of luggage.

Liang Meng, like a parent, kept walking and kept scolding the sheepish Lin Mom as if she were a child.

“Lin Mom, you’ve really outdone yourself! Playing at an internet café! Is this something a sixty-year-old woman should be doing? You think you’re sixteen?!” Liang Meng went on, then asked: “Have you taken today’s medicine?”

“I have.” Lin Mom first answered meekly, and then raised her head in self-righteous indignation. “I haven’t eaten, though!”

“Haven’t… eaten?”

Liang Meng was so exasperated she laughed.

“Well, what would you like to eat?”

“I want a drink.”

“A drink?”

That, Liang Meng absolutely could not agree to.

“Lin Mom, do you not know what your own body can handle? You want to drink — are you planning to drink yourself half to death first, and then really fleece me and Lu Zhou, to leave money for Lin Qing?”

“Liang Meng, what kind of way is that to talk?!”

The words stung, and Lin Mom’s face made no effort to hide her displeasure.

Liang Meng truly couldn’t hold back any longer — the truth was, she’d long been wanting to stand up for Lu Zhou.

So the three of them came to a small garden. Liang Meng ducked into a convenience store and bought a bottle of Snowflake beer, handed it to Lin Mom, and took the opportunity to clear the air.

“Lin Mom, please don’t think I’m being harsh. When you look at the world, does anyone exist for you besides your own precious daughter?”

Liang Meng said, arms folded, her fine heels clicking against the ground.

“The time we’ve all lived together — it’s one thing that you were never particularly warm toward me. But Lu Zhou! Lu Zhou gave Lin Qing his genuine heart. He respected you with complete sincerity. And you still wanted to use even him!”

Lin Mom took a small sip of the beer, glancing carefully out of the corner of her eye at Lu Zhou standing nearby, still trying to wriggle out of it: “How exactly did I use Lu Zhou?”

Liang Meng said clearly: “The agreement you had Lu Zhou sign. Would you dare bring it out for me to look at?”

“What agreement?” Lin Mom’s voice dropped, now thin as a mosquito’s whine.

Liang Meng pressed her lips together, too tired to play along with the act.

She just wanted one honest answer from Lin Mom.

“The agreement you pressured Lu Zhou into signing when you borrowed money from him to buy a place — did Lin Qing know about it?”

Seeing that Liang Meng already knew, Lin Mom had no way to dodge it and had to answer truthfully.

“If I said she didn’t know — would you believe me?” Lin Mom looked up at Liang Meng, defiant.

Liang Meng’s response was surprisingly easy: “If that’s what you say, I’ll believe it.”

“Liang Meng, why are you bringing up the agreement all of a sudden?” Lu Zhou, standing to one side, looked confused.

“Lu Zhou, haven’t you always wondered why Lin Mom made you sign that agreement?” Liang Meng told him. “The truth is, Lin Mom was guarding against you. She was afraid that once you and Lin Qing were married, that apartment wouldn’t be solely Lin Qing’s anymore. To make sure it stayed as pre-marital property, she had you sign that agreement! The whole time, she knew perfectly well about your feelings for Lin Qing!”

“This…” Lu Zhou furrowed his brow, trying to absorb what Liang Meng was telling him.

“And while I’m being blunt — Lin Mom and Lin Qing have been taking advantage of you all along. Or more precisely — taking advantage of your feelings.”

“Liang Meng!”

Lin Mom hugged her knees, looking pitiful, and called out to stop her — and then couldn’t stop the tears from coming again.

Lu Zhou, seeing Lin Mom weep so forlornly, looked at Liang Meng and asked her with a glance to say no more.

But Liang Meng had no intention of stopping for Lu Zhou’s sake. She continued to Lin Mom: “Now you know how to cry? You looked like you were having plenty of fun inside that internet café — three-player mahjong, having a grand time! What was stopping Lin Qing from coming to find you? Isn’t she your cherished, beloved daughter?”

That struck Lin Mom where it hurt most.

Indeed — Lin Qing had followed Jiang Han’s advice, kept herself busy going long on futures, and had only called once after Liang Meng, then ceased to show any further concern.

By now, Lu Zhou and Liang Meng were already out searching the city for Lin Mom — and Lin Qing would surely have known about it too.

Lin Mom was overcome with grief.

“Fine! It’s all my fault!” Lin Mom sat on the edge of the flower bed, gave the ground a fierce, hard stamp, and said: “Go ahead — put me out of my misery!”

Lu Zhou crouched down to soothe her: “Lin Mom, Liang Meng doesn’t mean it that way.”

“Hmph.” Liang Meng gave a dismissive laugh. “Always threatening to die! Who exactly are you frightening?”

After finishing that bottle of Snowflake beer, Lin Mom had actually sobered up considerably.

She gazed up at Liang Meng from below, and said: “You all know I’m a woman who doesn’t have long left. But I’ve always prided myself on living with dignity — I hate owing people. Liang Meng, what was so wrong with having Lu Zhou sign that agreement? I was willing to let him marry my daughter, whom I raised through every hardship — and protecting a little pre-marital property is too much? Isn’t Lin Qing worth a few hundred thousand? What right do you have to accuse me of using Lu Zhou?”

Liang Meng wanted to argue back, but Lu Zhou held her firmly in check.

“A woman’s vulnerability is the source of her strength as a mother.” Lin Mom went on. “If I had another decade or two, then after Lin Qing and Lu Zhou were married, if she were wronged in any way, there’d still be someone to stand up for her, a haven to come home to. But I don’t have that much time. So I had to rack my brain and use every means at my disposal to make sure that before I go, Lin Qing has an apartment to call her own. That way, if she’s ever unhappy in her marriage one day, she’ll still have her own place to go back to.”

Hearing this, the fire in Liang Meng dimmed, and her manner was no longer as fierce as before.

“As for that agreement — what of it? I borrowed money from Lu Zhou, I paid the interest on schedule, I returned every penny. I’m not pocketing his money.” Lin Mom continued to make her case. “It was a gentleman’s agreement — protection against good-faith betrayal, not foul play. Liang Meng, wasn’t I within my rights to do this? If Lu Zhou didn’t want to sign, he was perfectly free not to.”

“As if he could ever say no…” Liang Meng looked at Lu Zhou now, still wearing that expression of sympathy for Lin Mom, and knew he was completely and utterly in the grip of the Lin family.

Lin Mom continued: “And Liang Meng — you keep saying I was never genuinely warm to you. When was I not genuine? Is it just because you’re not my child? But think about it — ever since we’ve been living under the same roof, whatever food there was for Lin Qing, there was for you too. I washed clothes and tidied up for both of you, and I treated you exactly the same.”

“I never asked you to do any of that for me.” Liang Meng wasn’t letting it go.

“You’re right! You didn’t ask me — I did it of my own free will!” Lin Mom stood up. “You say I was only good to you because you’re my daughter’s boss, and I admit that — in the beginning, that’s exactly what I thought! If I’m good to you, you’ll be good to my daughter. What could be more straightforward than that? It’s just the simplest common sense of human relationships. I don’t understand why you had such a strong reaction to that.”

“Because I…”

Liang Meng faltered.

She had lacked parental love since childhood, and so she had an almost obsessive need — verging on extreme — for love that was sincere and selfless.

Even toward Liang Xing — there were times when Liang Meng wondered whether her sister was only so good to her in order to secure her place in the Liang family as an adopted daughter, to have the legitimate standing to hold Longquan’s shares.

Love worn as a mask to get what one wanted — she would rather not have it.

“All right, all right. Let’s not say any more.”

At that point, Lu Zhou stepped in to smooth things over.

“We’re all exhausted today, and there have been a lot of misunderstandings. How about this — let’s go home first, and talk things through calmly at home. All right?”