He watched Su Ning’s retreating figure, stumbling and struggling as she walked away from the estate, taking in every bit of her disheveled appearance.
“Sir, Miss Su didn’t bring an umbrella. It’ll probably take her some time to walk out and hail a taxi. What do you think…” the assistant hesitantly inquired.
The man spoke coldly, “Give her an umbrella.”
“Yes, sir.”
However, just as the assistant was about to step forward, a car approached from the distance outside the window.
In the next moment, Li Boyan witnessed with his own eyes as Su Ning got into that car.
The assistant recognized it immediately, “Sir, it’s Qin Muye.”
Hearing this, Li Boyan’s gaze darkened.
Then, without showing any emotion, he lit a cigarette and began smoking, exhaling clouds of smoke.
He let the swirling smoke obscure the receding figure of the car.
Only after a long while did he speak calmly, “Investigate the matter of Su Ning’s grandmother for me!”
Inside the black Bentley, Qin Muye had turned on the heater, but Su Ning still felt cold.
She was wrapped in a blanket with a towel around her head.
Her entire appearance was so disheveled, as if she had just come out of a sauna.
“Ning’er, what did Li Boyan say? Did he agree to spare Grandma?”
Su Ning looked at Qin Muye with empty eyes and told the truth, “He wants me to marry him.”
Upon hearing this, Qin Muye was thunderstruck, “No, Ning’er, you absolutely cannot agree to this. It’s a conspiracy!”
Qin Muye knew that Su Ning was responsible for the deaths of Li Boyan’s wife and child.
Five years ago, Li Boyan personally sent Su Ning to prison.
Now that Su Ning was out of prison, Li Boyan was holding Grandma Su hostage.
Making such a demand of Su Ning was nothing but a greater scheme for revenge!
Su Ning looked despondent, her tone full of helplessness:
“I know, but this is the only condition under which Li Boyan will spare Grandma.”
Qin Muye shook his head in panic, “No, Ning’er, you can’t agree to this. I love you; I can’t stand by and watch you jump into a pit of fire. It’s a trap—this is definitely a trap Li Boyan has set for you. If you marry him, he’ll torture you to death!”
Su Ning was his fiancée; he loved her and would never allow Li Boyan to harm her.
He had already waited for Su Ning for five years; he couldn’t lose her again.
“But, Grandma…”
“Don’t worry, give me some time. Let me think of a way.”
“Brother Muye…”
Qin Muye interrupted her, “Ning’er, say no more. Trust me; I have a way to rescue Grandma.”
“How will you rescue her?”
Su Ning was well aware that Li Boyan held immense power in Jiang City. Five years ago, sending her to prison had been a mere matter of a single word from him.
Over the past five years, the senior inmates in prison, all acting on Li Boyan’s orders, had subjected her to various forms of torture every day.
If she hadn’t been tough, obedient, and compliant, she might have died in prison long ago.
Qin Muye knew Su Ning was worried about him. He reached out, tightly grasping her slender hand, and reassured her, “Don’t worry, I’ll find a way.”
“Okay.”
The Su Residence.
Not long after Su Ning rang the doorbell, her cousin Su Jinyi opened the door.
Upon recognizing Su Ning, Su Jinyi immediately blocked the doorway with her body and spoke to Su Ning with sharp, cutting words.
“I thought it was Dad coming back from his social engagements. I never expected it to be you, a murderer. So, Su Ning, have you served your sentence and been released?”
Aunt Chen Susu came out upon hearing the noise.
She looked Su Ning up and down, taking in her disheveled appearance wrapped in Qin Muye’s coat, her eyes filled with contempt.
“Counting the time, it’s exactly five years. Today is the day you’re released, but why are you, this jinx, still coming here?”
Su Ning couldn’t be bothered to respond to their remarks, coldly retorting, “Move aside!”
“Dream on!”
Chen Susu fired back without a hint of consideration, “This is our home, not yours.”
“This is the house my mother left for me. You’re just like a cuckoo occupying a magpie’s nest!”
Su Jinyi looked at Su Ning with displeasure, “Don’t be naive. Five years ago, after you went to prison, Grandma transferred the property to my dad. This is our home now, no longer yours.”
Such shameless words instantly made Su Ning’s face turn cold. “On what grounds?”
Chen Susu didn’t hold back, “On the grounds that we raised you from age three to eighteen.”
“Search your conscience—did you really raise me? Every penny I spent in the Su family came from my mother.”
Su Ning sneered coldly, glaring at the woman before her.
“So what? At least we included you in the Su family registry. Otherwise, you’d be a bastard with a mother but no father to raise you.
Don’t forget, your philandering father climbed up by draining your mother’s health. It was us who took you in—otherwise, would you even be here today?”
Chen Susu’s sharp words hit the mark, each syllable piercing like ten thousand ants gnawing at Su Ning’s heart.
They tore open the unhealed scars in her heart and rubbed salt into the wounds.
Su Ning hadn’t forgotten that when she was three, her father had an affair and abandoned her and her mother for another woman.
What was infuriating was that her father’s relationship with that woman was built on exhausting her mother’s health and overextending her life to advance his own position.
Both her parents were teachers. To further his studies, her father enrolled in an on-the-job postgraduate program.
Then he left her mother and her, who was less than a month old, to study in another city.
For three years, he never came home. Even on the rare occasions he returned, he would use his busy studies as an excuse to stay for just a few days before rushing off again.
Her mother, knowing her father was career-driven, longed for his company but never interfered with his studies.
She always took him at his word and supported him.
She thought that after persevering for three years, once her father graduated, he would return to her, and the three of them would be together forever.
Little did she know that over those three years, he had fallen in love with someone else.
Every holiday he didn’t come home was spent with that woman.
At graduation three years later, her mother waited for her father to return and reunite with them, but instead, she received divorce papers.
Her mother couldn’t persuade him to stay and could only watch helplessly as her father heartlessly abandoned them.
Unbeknownst to her, over those three years, her mother had not only raised her alone but also covered her father’s tuition and living expenses, all while caring for his parents.
The constant toil, day and night, left her mother ill and exhausted.
Soon after the divorce, her mother, weighed down by depression, developed liver cancer.
Before her mother passed away, to ensure Su Ning could continue her education and have a roof over her head, she donated her organs.
The money from this was used to buy a house for Su Ning, set up an education fund, and cover living expenses.
But now, after five years in prison, not only had the house her mother bought with her life been ruthlessly taken by her uncle’s family,
She was also subjected to such venomous humiliation by her aunt!
Su Ning’s heart ached terribly, so much that even breathing felt painful.
“This house belongs to my mother. If you dare take it away, I’ll fight you to the death!”
Su Ning gritted her teeth, spitting out the vicious words with dark intensity.
Her mother was already gone. She had to protect the last memento her mother left for her.