While playing with his phone, Lin Ze saw a corporate news pop-up.
Was it from UI?
Ever since his father had mentioned this enterprise to him once before, he had gone online to keep track of information regarding it.
The moment he clicked into it, the headline “UI Group is in Critical Danger” burned deep into Lin Ze’s eyes.
He frantically scrolled through the text below, rapidly reading.
UI Group was facing a massive sell-off of shares, and its current cooperation with third parties might face operational difficulties in terms of capital flow.
It could potentially implicate the cooperative ventures of dozens of enterprises within the industry.
Large-scale asset partnerships might face bankruptcy, acquisition, and other issues.
Lin Ze read with a pounding heart. The Lin family business his dad mentioned was also currently partnered with UI.
With trembling fingertips, he dialed Lin Zhihsun’s number.
“Beep. The number you have dialed is not answering, please.”
He hung up and called again, but after one or two attempts, it was still unanswered.
Anxious, he hunted for his keys, rushed out of the front door, and called Xiao Qingyao.
“Beep. The number you have dialed is not answering.”
Anxiously tugging at his hair, he roared, “Mom, Dad, what are you two doing?! Why aren’t you answering my calls?!”
His worried shouts echoed through the stairwell.
Anxious and terrified, Lin Ze had beads of fine sweat covering his forehead, the hair at his temples slightly damp, while his heart pounded and hammered faster and faster.
As he ran out to the second floor, his phone suddenly rang. Glancing at the screen, he saw it was a call back from his mother.
Finally, his heart settled slightly, but the hand pressing the answer button was still shaking.
“Mom, why weren’t you and Dad answering my phone just now? I heard that the UI Group we’re partnered with seems to be in trouble. How is Dad supposed to handle this?”
Xiao Qingyao’s emotions burst forth uncontrollably.
Her sobbing sounds came through the phone in broken intervals.
Hearing that, Lin Ze felt his heart clench, furrowing his brows in sheer panic. “Mom, don’t cry yet. Tell me what the current situation is at home first.”
He walked while listening, his footsteps never stopping.
As soon as he reached the exit of the building, he ran into Yi Yan.
The moment Yi Yan saw Lin Ze, a brilliant smile broke across his face, and he immediately rushed right up to him.
“Xiao Zeze, Xiao Zeze, don’t ignore me. Just pretend what I said before was me joking with you!”
Ever since Yi Yan confessed his feelings to Lin Ze last time, even if they crossed paths over the past few days, Lin Ze would still give Yi Yan a cold look.
Yi Yan had pulled out all the stops, sending money, flowers, and gifts, but failed to move him in the slightest. Lin Ze had even thrown the flowers straight into the trash can without a shred of sentiment right in front of Yi Yan.
If it were before, he might have coldly brushed past Yi Yan, but right now he was in a rush, in a rush to get home.
Their area was remote, the roads winding with hardly any tree cover, making it the hottest stretch under the summer sun, and very few drivers ever brought their cars out this way.
Looking at the empty, deserted street nearby, he had no time to wait, nor any spare energy to dwell on Yi Yan’s messy words from before. He grabbed straight at Yi Yan’s sleeve.
“Quick, 56 Yiheting Kang, hurry and take me back.”
“Huh? Is Xiao Zeze in a rush?” Yi Yan said.
He raised his hand and gently smoothed out the tightly furrowed brow on Lin Ze’s face.
Anxious as he was, Lin Ze couldn’t care less about Yi Yan laying hands on him. Without waiting for a reply, he hastily pulled open the car door. “In a rush, extremely in a rush!”
Lin Ze climbed straight into the back seat.
Along the way, his mind was entirely consumed elsewhere. No matter what Yi Yan said to him, he brushed it off perfunctorily with vague responses like “yeah” and “oh.”
The atmosphere inside the car was exceptionally chilly.
Yi Yan raised an eyebrow, his black pupils resembling a deep and mysterious abyss.
Watching Lin Ze fidget with such anxiousness and restlessness was truly quite interesting.
He blatantly scrutinized the person in the back, chillingly tugging at an imperceptible smile.
Half an hour later.
“We’re here.”
“Thank you.” Finished speaking, Lin Ze hurriedly pulled open the car door and got out.
Yi Yan opened his car door and followed closely behind.
Lin Ze noticed him too. “You don’t need to come with me. You can go back first.”
“Fine then.” Yi Yan shrugged his shoulders and turned back toward the car.
He raised a hand to brush back the strands of black fringe at his temple that had been gently flipped up by the breeze, revealing his entirely captivating face.
The one thing that had nothing to do with being handsome right now was his violent temper.
He stared straight at Lin Ze’s retreating back, and only after the person had walked far away did he viciously kick the tire of the Rolls-Royce.
What the heck, he wasn’t even going to invite him inside for a glass of water before leaving?
Did this mean that as soon as he finished using him, he was tossing him aside like trash?
Naturally, Yi Yan had no idea that Lin Ze’s father had fallen ill, nor was it convenient for Lin Ze to bring guests home at a time like this and get distracted from caring for another person.
Yet Lin Ze’s flustered departure without a single word of explanation inevitably left the young master Yi feeling slighted and pissed off.
Upon returning home, Lin Ze found Lin Mother with her hands clasped together on her knees, her legs trembling. Her complexion was ashen, and her gaze darted aimlessly around.
“Mom.”
Startled by the call, Xiao Qingyao’s eyes lit up. “Zeze?”
Frowning, he dropped his backpack, walked up to Xiao Qingyao, and gently soothed her. “Mom, don’t be scared. Our family will be fine.”
Red-eyed, Xiao Qingyao grabbed Lin Ze’s hand.
Even the tears she tried so hard to suppress gave themselves away with her weak, sobbing voice as she spoke. “Zeze, our family got tricked by that company. At first, they promised to lead us upward. Right when work was about to begin, they suddenly claimed their capital chain snapped and told us to come up with half the funds to fill the gap! But where on earth are we supposed to get such a huge sum to plug that hole?!”
As she spoke, Xiao Qingyao’s eyes misted over with tears. Perhaps overcome with grief, inhaling cold air while crying triggered a diaphragmatic spasm, causing her to hiccup consecutively a few times.
“Mom, don’t get too excited yet, catch your breath.” Lin Ze patted Xiao Qingyao’s back to help her smooth her breathing.
Watching Xiao Qingyao in such distress, Lin Ze felt no better himself.
“Your dad begged the enterprises we previously collaborated with, but they only know how to stand by coldly and watch our family’s misfortune. Not a single person is willing to lend money to save us.”
Hearing this, Lin Ze’s hands clenched tightly into trembling fists. When he closed his eyes and reopened them, his gaze revealed only helplessness and desolation.
How could his mother be even more naive than him?
Why would she think people in the industry would reach out and pull you up?
Though he was inexperienced in the world, he knew that once personal interests were involved, nobody would bend over to lend you a helping hand!
Everyone was merely a spectator waiting to watch the show!
If they could live their own lives well, why would they muddy these waters to help you out?
“Nobody wants to help us, we can’t secure financing. Our Lin family is finished! We might even end up tens of millions in debt!” Burying her face in her hands, she wailed despondently.
“Mom, don’t be sad.” There has to be a way.
Yet Lin Ze couldn’t manage to force out those final few words to comfort Xiao Qingyao. They stuck in his throat like gravel, refusing to go up or down.
He knew there was no way, he truly had no way.
He couldn’t put on a brave front, give his mother hope, and then watch it ruthlessly shatter.
He stood up and walked into his father’s bedroom.
He saw that Lin Zhihsun still had a needle inserted in the back of his hand, dripping a bottle of medication.
His tightly closed eyes appeared exceptionally peaceful and serene.
Yet Lin Ze knew all of this was an illusion. The moment his father woke up, he would likely return to a state of painful, unbearable agony, bearing this unmerited pressure.
He took Lin Zhihsun’s hand, lowering his gaze. “Dad, you’ve just worked too hard, pushed yourself too hard. The living conditions you created for me are already good enough, why force yourself like this?”
His thoughts drifted back to his childhood.
“Little Xin, don’t play with a person like this.” A three or four-year-old little boy with a bowl haircut angrily dragged a little girl over to his side.
“Why is that, Little Yin brother?” The little girl bit her index finger, blinking her bright, beautiful large eyes and tilting her head in question.
Blinking his round, dark eyes, Lin Ze stood there blankly, watching another playmate pull the little girl away from him.
Rooted to the spot in a daze, his little hands nervously rummaged through the fabric of his shirt over his belly.
The little boy with the bowl haircut was tiny, but he possessed a trace of the disdain and contempt seen on an adult’s face as he sneered,
“My mom said his dad is a poor, lowly bricklayer. He can only ever be a bottom-tier laborer selling his strength for others his whole life. My mom said people like Lin Ze are best kept at a distance, so he doesn’t corrupt us!”
The girl lowered the finger she had been holding in her mouth, her round fingertips radiating an eye-catching luster under the sunlight. “That’s not right. Lin Ze and I are friends. I, I can’t abandon him.”
“What kind of friends?!” No matter how much the boy said, he still couldn’t get the outcome he wanted to see.
Seeing the girl still taking Lin Ze’s side made him furious!
He pointed his index finger straight at Lin Ze. “Look at him! His face is filthy, and his clothes are old and dirty too.”
Lin Ze couldn’t help glancing down at his own clothes. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No, it’s not like that, this is just when I, when I was carrying my toy car downstairs, I took a tumble, and that’s how my clothes got dirty.”
Refusing to give Lin Ze any chance to explain, the boy directly and loudly interrupted him, spitting out even more vicious words.
“For all we know, he was eating slop somewhere behind your back just now!”
“Slop? What’s slop?” With innocent, captivating eyes, the girl tilted her head in confusion.
The boy curled his lips. “Slop? Slop is what you feed pigs! Hahaha.”
“Ah…” The girl looked at Lin Ze’s clothes, seemingly believing the boy’s words. When she met Lin Ze’s gaze again, her eyes had already shifted to a look of disgust.
Angry, Lin Ze clenched his tiny fists and shouted back defensively, “I didn’t! I didn’t!”
Clearly, he and the boy had been playing very well just yesterday, yet now they could swap to cold faces just to slander him!
“You did, you so did! You’re so filthy!” The boy fiercely retorted right back.
Unable to hold back his anger, Lin Ze rushed forward and gave the little boy a shove.
Who would have thought that a single push would send him tumbling to the ground? Sitting on the floor holding his arm with large teardrops welling in his eyes, the little boy clearly hadn’t expected Lin Ze to be so barbaric!
“You, you actually dare push me?”
“If you talk nonsense again, I’ll hit you!” Even when angry, four or five-year-old Lin Ze spoke in a babyish voice devoid of any real force.