“Lu Rang!”
When Luo Ying burst into Lu Rang’s office, the investors on the sofa stiffened and turned around, each wearing an expression of horror as they looked at Luo Ying as if they’d seen the living King of Hell.
Lu Rang sat on the opposite sofa, legs slightly apart, hands crossed on his lap, his demeanor elegant and composed.
“Sorry, let’s discuss the endorsement matter later. Excuse me for a moment.”
Lu Rang pulled Luo Ying by the wrist into the adjacent conference room, his fingers long and pale as they pressed against Luo Ying’s wrist, exerting a subtle force.
Once inside, Lu Rang trapped him against the wall, one hand braced beside his ear, lowering his voice to coax gently, “What’s wrong, little ancestor? What’s got you so angry?”
Luo Ying’s sharp edge was instantly blunted by Lu Rang’s disarmingly gentle words. He retreated half a step toward the wall, took a deep breath, turned his face away, and resisted Lu Rang’s approaching chest.
“Does my dad’s bankruptcy have anything to do with you? Why are you the third party in his company’s land reclamation and island connection project? Did you orchestrate the capital chain rupture behind the scenes?”
“Do you hate me that much? Did you keep me and date me just to watch the show of me going bankrupt and penniless?”
“Lu Rang, what exactly do you know, and what are you hiding from me? Tell me! Everything!”
Lu Rang was momentarily stunned by Luo Ying’s rapid-fire barrage of questions. He lowered his gaze, staring at Luo Ying’s flushed, angry face.
After processing the questions Luo Ying had thrown at him, he first pursed his lips, holding back a laugh, but eventually couldn’t contain it. The corner of his mouth lifted, and he chuckled softly.
“Luo Ying, I don’t know anything about your dad’s situation. The land reclamation and island connection project was something he collaborated on with the Jiang family. Wen Qian was the intermediary.”
“I don’t hate you, and I certainly wouldn’t set you up just to watch you suffer. I swear I haven’t hidden anything from you, aside from the things you don’t want to hear.”
“All things considered, Luo Ying, I’m being wronged here.”
Luo Ying wasn’t about to believe Lu Rang so easily. He pulled up the documents Xie Yunyu had found for him, shoving the screen in front of Lu Rang’s face, speaking with righteous indignation, “I saw that contract of yours tucked in the property deed. Why are these two contracts different? You, explain!”
Lu Rang glanced at the phone screen and replied seriously, “This document shows encrypted, anti-theft content. Where did you get it? Your dad’s company has a strong network security system; internal files aren’t easily leaked. So, this one is fake—it can be seen as a decoy automatically generated by the system.”
“Ha? You make it sound so real! Anti-theft? Trying to fool a kid? You think I’d believe that?”
In reality, it didn’t take long for Luo Ying’s suspicion of Lu Rang to waver.
Because on a certain family tracking app, Luo Xiaohe’s location account briefly exposed his position, and the push notification that popped up showed he was right in Haidu City.
His sudden location exposure seemed like he’d done something guilty and wanted to quickly check how far Luo Ying had gotten in his pursuit.
What kind of shady business was his dad up to!
Wasn’t he supposed to be missing and out of contact? How was his location back in Haidu again?
“What’s wrong?” Lu Rang leaned his forehead against Luo Ying’s, his tone full of grievance. “Worried about your dad’s situation?”
Luo Ying seemed to have figured something out, gritting his teeth and stamping his foot. “It’s not worry anymore—it’s murderous intent now.”
“I’ll come back to you about that land reclamation and island connection contract once I’ve sorted this whole mess out!”
Fuming, Luo Ying spent another hour stuck in traffic on the elevated highway before finally arriving at his dad’s company.
The receptionist at the front desk recognized him this time and didn’t stop him.
Luo Ying went straight to the top floor, to Luo Xiaohe’s office area.
He kicked the door open and saw Luo Xiaohe’s tall, capable figure with his back turned. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he was holding a golf club, having just made a clean swing—probably a great shot.
Meanwhile, Fei Yan, who had promised to help investigate the land reclamation and island-linking project, was standing by the distant hole, retrieving the ball that had just been sunk.
“Mr. Luo, I told you not to worry. Young Luo would only go to Lu Rang to get answers, never suspecting it was just our smokescreen…”
Fei Yan was the first to notice Luo Ying kicking the door open. He was bent over, his back visibly stiffening.
“You’re right. This was the only way to give him some real-world experience. Sorry to put Lu Rang through this… Huh, who’s here?”
Luo Xiaohe turned at the sound, the smile on his face instantly freezing. His confident, dashing golf swing turned into a timid, awkward retraction of the club.
“Oh—Xi Xi is here.”
Luo Xiaohe awkwardly put away his golf club, worried the clubs might become “weapons” in the wrong hands. He cautiously pushed the golf cart farther away.
Luo Ying stood at the doorway, trembling with anger, his legs weak. He even found the current situation a bit ridiculous.
So now the truth was out. The so-called disappearance, the bank collections, the billions in debt—it was all just a scheme orchestrated by his father behind the scenes.
Luo Ying strode inside and stood right in front of Luo Xiaohe.
“Dad, are you messing with me?”
“Haha, what do you mean, messing with you?”
Luo Xiaohe, nearly fifty and a titan in the business world, was still afraid of upsetting his precious son.
It was precisely because he feared his son’s anger and couldn’t guide him toward independence and frugality that he and Fei Yan had come up with this terrible idea.
They pretended Luo Xiaohe had disappeared with the company’s funds, had someone from the finance department pose as a bank employee to seize their property, and even sacrificed Luo Xiaohe’s reputation by pushing him into the trending topics. The whole process had been flawlessly executed by him and Fei Yan in the early stages.
Later, they didn’t know where Luo Ying had found some kid who nearly hacked into the company’s server. Fei Yan had no choice but to throw a few dummy contracts his way as a distraction.
In fact, Luo Ying had been looking in the wrong direction. The contracts Fei Yan had tossed out were all problematic, but the land reclamation and island-linking project stood out due to its massive funding, which Luo Ying had latched onto.
Their plan wasn’t entirely bad, though. At least his precious son had learned to develop new projects instead of relying solely on funds and foreign exchange investments like before.
As for making Lu Rang the scapegoat, that was an unexpected twist.
The land reclamation project had indeed been initiated by Luo Xiaohe, but he had originally contacted the Lu family in Jiangdu. Who knew the person sent to sign the contract would turn out to be Luo Ying’s high school classmate?
The small island that had been left untouched was actually meant as a birthday gift for Luo Ying. That’s why, as soon as the funds for the island-linking project were transferred, Luo Xiaohe had temporarily halted the work, worried Luo Ying might not like the idea of connecting the islands. That’s why construction had never started.
After listening to Luo Xiaohe and Fei Yan take turns explaining everything, Luo Ying was so angry he almost laughed.
What infuriated him even more was that while the bankruptcy was fake, being “kept” by Lu Rang was very real!
He had been genuinely working hard to repay debts, while his father and Fei Yan were secretly testing him.
Unbelievable.
At least the only people who knew about him being kept by Lu Rang were him and Lu Rang themselves.
His father only thought that he and Lu Rang had a good relationship, and that Lu Rang had been helping him out lately, without considering anything else.
Luo Ying wore a stern expression, utterly disdainful of the childish test these two had devised.
Now that the bankruptcy situation was completely clear, he could almost break free from Lu Rang.
Thinking about this, Luo Ying felt a bit unsettled.
He couldn’t help but feel that his relationship with Lu Rang shouldn’t end so simply.
Hmm…
At the very least, the fifty million salary he got for free, plus a handsome bed partner, was a rare find.
With that in mind, he couldn’t let Lu Rang find out that he was “wealthy.”
Before leaving, Luo Ying instructed Luo Xiaohe and Fei Yan to keep up the act, pretending on the surface that he still needed to undergo more tests.
Luo Ying never imagined that, after initially worrying about being broke and penniless, he would now have to deliberately pretend to be broke.