The bones in her wrist ached under the crushing grip.
Su Ran’s entire arm had gone numb. The circulation to her fingertips felt cut off, her nails turning pale as the blood drained from them.
His body heat seeped through his palm, unnaturally hot, the kind of feverish warmth that came from surviving several sleepless days on nothing but alcohol and adrenaline.
She did not turn around.
It was not that she did not want to.
She did not dare.
At this distance, with that much force behind his grip, the slightest sign of panic from her would be enough for the man behind her to lock her down completely, like a predator sinking its teeth into the back of its prey’s neck.
“Fu Yechuan, let go.”
Her voice was steadier than she had expected.
Perhaps it was because she had already imagined every worst-case scenario. A broken leg. Becoming a scapegoat. Dying without even a body left behind. Once she had thought through them all, fear lost its edge. Death was death. If she had to die, she would rather know exactly why.
“Answer me.”
His breath brushed against her ear, every word resonating from deep within his chest.
“What exactly are you trying to do?”
“I want to stay alive.”
Su Ran turned around.
The movement was awkward with her wrist still trapped in his grip, but she completed it nonetheless. Face to face. Eye to eye.
His eyes were bloodshot. The dark circles beneath them had deepened into a bruised purple.
Those eyes were dissecting her.
Layer by layer, as if he were carefully unwrapping a package that might contain either a gift or a bomb.
“You think I don’t know?” Su Ran said, her voice slightly hoarse. “If I ran off with that bad check, the best outcome would be getting silenced by the Bai family and dying cleanly as your scapegoat. The worst outcome…”
Her gaze dropped to the hand gripping her wrist, the knuckles white and veins bulging.
“…would you be dragging me back.”
She left the rest unsaid. There was no need.
Fu Yechuan’s fingers tightened spasmodically.
He had thought about it.
Just five minutes ago, he had imagined a hundred different ways to make Su Ran suffer a fate worse than death. Every one of them had been detailed down to the smallest step.
And now she had spoken them aloud, as though she had seen them herself.
“So you’re helping me for self-preservation.”
It was not a question.
It was the verification of a logical conclusion.
“We’re tied to the same rope,” Su Ran said bluntly. “If you turn things around, I live. If you fall, I’m buried with you.”
Fu Yechuan stared at her for a long time.
Long enough.
Long enough that the muscles in Su Ran’s calves began to tremble. The heel of her shoe tapped lightly against the floor, a shake she desperately tried to suppress.
Then he released her.
Not because he trusted her.
Because her reasoning held together.
Someone planning to run would never have torn up a five-million-yuan check. Someone who wanted to survive would.
A red mark remained around her wrist, the shape of all five fingers clearly imprinted on her skin. She neither rubbed it nor glanced at it.
“First step,” she said quickly and precisely, “we recover our startup capital. Three days ago, I pawned a necklace for one hundred and eighty thousand yuan. If we redeem it and liquidate it again, we can get cash.”
Fu Yechuan’s eyelids twitched.
That necklace.
Three carats. Custom-made by a luxury brand.
He had saved four months of salary to buy it for Su Ran, the original Su Ran, on her birthday.
She had pawned it.
He had only learned that fact moments ago, yet he did not have the spare emotional capacity to process it.
“One hundred and eighty thousand.”
He repeated the figure in a flat voice.
“You plan to turn things around with one hundred and eighty thousand?”
“It’s enough,” Su Ran said.
“Enough for what?”
“To buy a stock.”
Fu Yechuan did not laugh, but his expression clearly conveyed the same message.
You must be joking.
“Qiming Technology,” Su Ran said. “Current share price: one point eight yuan. It’s on the verge of being delisted.”
“I know the company.”
His voice turned colder.
“A garbage stock. Are you entertaining yourself at my expense?”
“One week from now, Tianhuan Group will acquire Qiming Technology at a premium.”
She enunciated every word.
“The stock price will shoot past thirty yuan.”
The room fell silent. Not the silence of inaction.
The silence of Fu Yechuan calculating at high speed. Tianhuan Group’s acquisition logic. The value of Qiming Technology’s shell company status. The likelihood of a premium buyout.
He was a businessman.
He knew such a thing was not impossible.
But statistically speaking—
“Trade secret.” The two words came out sharp and clipped.
“Where did you get that information?”
“Everyone has their own sources.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting right now.”
Su Ran met his gaze without retreating.
“You don’t need to know how I know. You only need to think about one thing. Do you have any better cards left to play?”
She placed the knife directly in front of him.
Whether to take it or not was his choice.
Fu Yechuan did not answer immediately.
He turned and walked to the window.
The apartment window was small, the glass yellowed with grime. Outside lay a chaotic sea of urban village rooftops and tangled electrical wires. He stood with his back to her for about ten seconds.
Ten seconds. Su Ran counted her own heartbeat.
“If your information is false,” he said without turning around, his voice drifting from the window like a verdict handed down from afar.
He did not finish the sentence.
He did not need to.
“Then you can do whatever you want to me. I won’t run,” Su Ran replied, finishing it for him.
Fu Yechuan turned around.
He walked to the desk.
The only table in the apartment that could be used for writing was piled with takeout containers and empty liquor bottles. With one sweep of his arm, he cleared them aside. A bottle rolled off the edge with a clatter, spinning twice before bumping into the wall.
He dug a pen and a sheet of paper out of the drawer.
Then he began writing. Su Ran looked at his profile.
His jaw was tight. The fingers holding the pen were lean and defined. He wrote quickly, but every stroke remained firm and deliberate.
She stepped closer and saw the title on the page.
Partnership Agreement.
The terms were simple. Information and capital would be provided by Su Ran.
Investment decisions and execution would be handled by Fu Yechuan.
After the first profit was realized, earnings would be divided according to an agreed percentage, after which all ties between them would end and neither party would owe the other anything.
Relationship terminated. No obligations remaining.
He left the profit-sharing percentage blank and slid the paper toward her, placing the pen on top.
“Fill it in.” Su Ran picked up the pen.
“Twenty percent.” She wrote the number.
20%. Fu Yechuan’s eyes lingered on it for three seconds.
“You provide the information. You provide the capital. And you only take twenty percent?”
There was no surprise in his tone.
Only suspicion. Su Ran had expected this reaction.
To a businessman, anything that seemed too cheap was always the most expensive, because the hidden costs were unknown.
“I’m not after money.”
She set down the pen.
“What I want is for you to let me go after you’ve made your comeback. Completely and cleanly. No pursuit. No investigation. No searching.”
She pointed to the words Relationship Terminated.
“Those four words are my payment.”
Something shifted in Fu Yechuan’s eyes.
A subtle change.
Like something moving beneath the surface of water, though he suppressed it before it could rise.
“You’re that eager to leave me?”
The moment the words left his mouth, even he seemed to pause.
The tone was wrong, too personal.
Not something that belonged at a negotiation table.
Su Ran pretended not to notice.
“I’m eager to stay alive.”
Fu Yechuan said nothing more.
He took the pen and signed his name at the bottom of the agreement. His strokes were heavy, the final line dragging far beyond the rest like a blade that had cut too deep to stop.
Su Ran accepted the pen and signed her own name.
The moment the ink touched the paper, she experienced a strange sensation.
The thread of fate that had originally been severed in the novel was being tied back together by her own hands.
As for where that new thread would lead, she had no idea.
But at least it was not a dead end.
“Two copies.”
Fu Yechuan quickly transcribed a second version and pushed one toward her.
Su Ran folded it and slipped it into her pocket.
“Let’s go,” she said. “The pawnshop closes at five. If we waste any more time, we’ll miss it.”
She had barely turned around when Fu Yechuan’s phone rang.
The ringtone exploded through the cramped apartment like a gunshot.
He glanced at the screen.
“Ah Zhe.”
He answered the call. Su Ran froze mid-step.
Ah Zhe.
Zhou Zhe.
The name detonated from the depths of her memory, carrying with it every bloody event from the latter half of the novel.
The source of the three deadly crises Fu Yechuan faced after his comeback.
The person responsible for every single one.
His most trusted assistant.
The deepest mole planted by the Bai family.
On the other end of the line, Zhou Zhe’s voice sounded urgent and anxious.
“President Fu! The Nanan project has been intercepted by the Bai family! They got the approval documents this morning, and they moved unusually fast. I made some inquiries and heard that someone leaked information from inside—”
“Who leaked it?” Fu Yechuan asked.
“Not sure yet. I’m investigating.”
His tone overflowed with concern and loyalty.
“President Fu, whatever you do, don’t act rashly right now. I’m worried the Bai family’s next move will be aimed directly at you. I’ll stabilize things on my end first and report back the moment I learn anything.”
Fu Yechuan hung up. His expression darkened.
Standing two steps away, Su Ran’s heart pounded painfully.
She stared at the phone in his hand, her fingernails digging into her palm.
Every sentence Zhou Zhe had spoken was a declaration of loyalty.
Every word had also conveniently cleared himself of suspicion.
Someone leaked information from inside.
That someone was him. I’ll stabilize things first.
Meaning: Don’t move. Stay put and wait for the Bai family’s trap to close.
A textbook example of reverse manipulation.
The novel had made it perfectly clear. It had taken Fu Yechuan two full years to uncover Zhou Zhe’s betrayal.
And during those two years, how much blood had that hidden knife drawn?
Su Ran made a decision.
She knew she was moving this piece earlier than planned.
But if her judgment was correct, within the next forty-eight hours Zhou Zhe would use the excuse of “stabilizing the situation” to sever the last remaining fragments of Fu Yechuan’s network and resources.
There was no time left.
“Fu Yechuan.”
He looked up at her. Su Ran did not take a deep breath.
She simply stood there, both hands clenched around the edge of the agreement in her pocket, her knuckles white.
“Just now, he said someone leaked information from inside.”
“So?”
“What if,” Su Ran said quietly, as though afraid the walls might have ears, “the number of people who had access to information about the Nanan project could be counted on one hand?”
Fu Yechuan’s expression remained unchanged, but there was the slightest pause in his body.
Even the rhythm of his breathing shifted.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying,” Su Ran replied, meeting his eyes, “until you determine exactly which side Zhou Zhe is on, don’t let him know any of your movements.”
She did not say Zhou Zhe works for the Bai family.
That would have been too direct.
Given Fu Yechuan’s personality, if an ex-girlfriend suddenly accused his most trusted assistant of being a traitor, his first reaction would not be belief.
It would be suspicious. She only needed to plant a seed.
Let him verify it himself. Just like the bad check.
One phone call was all it took to confirm the truth.
Fu Yechuan’s gaze remained fixed on her face for a full ten seconds.
“Now you’re involving yourself with the people around me too?”
His tone made it impossible to tell whether he was testing her or warning her.
“I’m protecting my own life.”
Su Ran did not back down.
“If there’s a hole in your defenses, I die with you. Don’t forget, we just signed an agreement. We’re tied to the same rope.”
She used the logic he could accept against him.
Not because she cared. Because she was afraid of dying.
Fu Yechuan remained silent for a moment.
Then he slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“Let’s go.”
His voice was still cold, but he was the one who headed toward the door first.
As he passed Su Ran, he did not look at her.
But he paused for half a second.
So briefly that she almost thought she had imagined it.
“The pawnshop closes at five.”
He twisted the doorknob. “Are you coming or not?”
Su Ran followed.
The apartment door swung open, and a damp gust of air rushed into the hallway, carrying the smell of cooking oil from the restaurant downstairs and the distant pounding of construction work.
Sunlight streamed through the window at the end of the corridor, gray and hazy, stretching their shadows across the floor.
Walking half a step behind him, Su Ran studied his back.
His white shirt was wrinkled. A stubborn wine stain marked the collar.
Yet his spine remained perfectly straight, as though no matter how much weight the world piled onto him, that backbone would never bend.
Suddenly, she remembered a line from the novel.
Fu Yechuan was the kind of man who would never ask anyone for help, even if the sky collapsed. So when the day finally came that the world forced him to beg, he stopped being human.
That had been the beginning of his descent into darkness.
And what she needed to do now was make sure that day never arrived.
Not because she was softhearted.
Because the Fu Yechuan who emerged after that transformation would kill her.
Su Ran tightened her grip on the agreement in her pocket and quickened her pace.
Behind them, the apartment door had not closed completely. The wind passing through the hallway pushed it open with a faint creak.
On the floor still lay the shredded remains of the five-million-yuan bad check.
A corner of the paper fluttered in the breeze before settling once more.
No one looked back.