Late at night, everything was quiet and still, the surface-level clamor of the city fading away.
Behind the scenes, individuals began plotting their petty schemes.
The matter of Shen Tiancheng selling his son had originally been discussed on a small scale within the school forum. Lacking any real traction, the post had quickly sunk into obscurity.
However, a day later, someone posted it onto Weibo.
And it was far more explosive than Shen Zhinian’s single sentence.
Founder of Shen Group, Shen Tiancheng, sold his seven-year-old biological son for five million.
A headline like this dropped like a stone into the seemingly calm waters of Jiangcheng, sending wave after wave of ripples spreading outward.
The Weibo posts regarding Shen Tiancheng selling his son included screenshots of the school forum posts along with Shen Tiancheng’s signature on the contract from back then.
Yet that contract had been censored; the contents were incomplete, revealing only some financial transactions alongside a signature belonging to Shen Tiancheng.
As soon as the news broke, despite it being the dead of night, it rapidly trended on Weibo.
Before long, it surged all the way to the number-one spot on the hot search list.
The Shen family held a certain status and prestige in Jiangcheng. A scandal of this magnitude was not only juicy enough for the public to gawk at, but also gave business rivals of the Shen family ample ammunition to suppress and mock them.
Shen Tiancheng had already gone to sleep.
As a result, he was rudely woken up in the middle of the night by a sarcastic phone call from a business rival.
The moment he checked the news online, his vision went completely dark, and he felt as though the sky over the Shen family had collapsed.
Shen Mingyi happened to be at home.
Shen Tiancheng immediately woke up his wife and Shen Mingyi.
The lights in the Shen family household stayed on for the rest of the night, shining right through until dawn.
Several senior corporate executives called in the dead of night, and Shen Tiancheng hastily placated them all by downplaying the situation.
Not daring to breathe a word of this to anyone else, he could only hunker down at home to brainstorm countermeasures.
“Those screenshots on Weibo, the screenshots from the school forum—I saw you in them too,” Shen Tiancheng said, staring at Shen Mingyi. “What on earth happened back then? What did Shen Zhinian actually say?”
Sitting in the single-armchair with his head lowered, Shen Mingyi replied, “My… my brother said he was sold by you when he was little, and that the startup capital used to build the Shen Group came from the money made by selling him.”
“Did he really say that?” Zhao Yi sat beside Shen Tiancheng, looking utterly incredulous. “Could there be some kind of misunderstanding? Zhinian wouldn’t smear the family’s name. He’s a member of the Shen family too.”
“Hmph,” Shen Tiancheng scoffed. “When has he ever considered himself a member of the Shen family! He’d love nothing more than to broadcast these scandals everywhere, hoping the Shen family goes under sooner rather than later! Such an ungrateful wretch!”
Zhao Yi glanced at Shen Mingyi.
Catching her gaze, Shen Mingyi said, “I originally wanted to persuade my brother, but I couldn’t talk him out of it… I tried finding a way to sink the post on the school forum, but I never expected someone would still dig it up to stir trouble. If I’d known, I would’ve used my connections at the school to get the post deleted entirely.”
“You don’t need to blame yourself,” Shen Tiancheng said. “I understand. If someone with malicious intent wants to exploit this, deleting it wouldn’t have helped anyway.”
Shen Mingyi didn’t say anything further.
Although the forum mentioned that it was because he and Shen Zhinian had an argument that Shen Zhinian let those words slip,
he knew that Shen Tiancheng trusted him.
Believing that he had gone to stop Shen Zhinian, only to be misunderstood by others.
He didn’t need to offer any excessive explanations.
“Who could be using this to make a fuss?” Zhao Yi wondered aloud. “Something this big—isn’t this trying to drive the Shen family into a dead end?”
Shen Tiancheng sneered, picked up his phone, and called Shen Zhinian.
After two attempts that were both hung up on,
subsequent calls went straight to voicemail.
Shen Tiancheng slammed his phone down onto the table. “Little bastard! I should have strangled him back then!”
“Dad, this matter definitely has nothing to do with my brother,” Shen Mingyi said.
“Don’t cover for him,” Shen Tiancheng retorted. “This business is tied directly to him.”
“Don’t put it like that. Zhinian wouldn’t do that,” Zhao Yi said.
“Whether he would or not, I know in my heart,” Shen Tiancheng said as he stood up. “Alright, both of you go get some sleep; I’m going to go deal with this.”
“How are you going to fix it?” Zhao Yi asked.
“You don’t need to worry about it,” Shen Tiancheng said. “I’ve thought of a way.”
Zhao Yi and Shen Mingyi exchanged glances.
Shen Mingyi shook his head, signaling her not to ask any further.
Standing up, Zhao Yi said, “It’s already dawn, and I won’t be able to sleep anyway. Let me go make you something to eat.”
Having endured five consecutive days of classes, Saturday finally brought a reprieve from school, and Shen Zhinian had zero intention of getting out of bed this morning.
Before going to sleep, he had hung a small sign on his door that read: Please do not wake me up.
Consequently, nobody came knocking on his door this morning.
Aside from those two annoying phone calls.
Waking up naturally, he checked the time on his bedside table—it was almost nine o’clock.
After lingering in bed for a bit, he fished his phone out from under the blankets, powered it on, ignored the various notifications flooding the screen, and directly dialed Bo Chengjing.
Bo Chengjing answered promptly. “Awake?”
“At home? Or at the company?” Shen Zhinian asked.
“At home,” Bo Chengjing replied. “Young Master, what are your orders?”
Shen Zhinian instantly switched to a feeble voice, coughing twice. “Brother, hurry over. I think I’m running a fever.”
Bo Chengjing: “…”
“Hurry up and come,” Shen Zhinian said. “I’m about to burn my brains out.”
Bo Chengjing hung up the phone and, exactly one minute later, materialized inside Shen Zhinian’s bedroom.
Standing beside the bed, he looked down at Shen Zhinian leaning against the headboard.
Shen Zhinian looked right back at him, a hint of a smile shimmering within his deep, dark eyes.
“Kid, looking at that rosy complexion of yours, you don’t look like you have a fever at all,” Bo Chengjing remarked.
“That’s from burning red,” Shen Zhinian said, his tone carrying a trace of petty grievance. “Don’t believe me? Touch and see.”
Bo Chengjing reached out to feel his forehead, his expression growing somewhat tense. “Get out of bed; I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Seeing him looking so anxious, the smile vanished from the depths of Shen Zhinian’s eyes, and he raised a hand to touch his own forehead. “I’m not even hot, am I?”
“That’s because when you have a fever your hands get hot too, so you can’t tell by touch anymore,” Bo Chengjing said.
Shen Zhinian’s dazed expression faltered for a second. This phrase… why did the tone sound so familiar?
“You’re tricking me,” Shen Zhinian accused.
“Didn’t you trick me first?” Bo Chengjing gently flicked his forehead.
Shen Zhinian gazed at him. Despite possessing eyes that naturally carried a sharp sense of aggression, right now they were filled with sheer innocence.
Bo Chengjing ruffled the top of his hair. “Alright, spit it out. Why did you make me come over?”
“Carry me to wash up,” Shen Zhinian requested.
Bo Chengjing’s expression froze for a second before he said, “We really should go to the hospital; something’s wrong with your brain.”
“You’re scolding me,” Shen Zhinian said.
“I actually want to hit you,” Bo Chengjing retorted. “You’re nineteen, not nine. When you were nine, I already stopped carrying you.”
“So what if you did?” Shen Zhinian argued with absolute righteousness.
Bo Chengjing replied, “I see you just wanted to act spoiled.”
Shen Zhinian straightened his legs, braced his arms behind him, and smiled.
With his deep eye sockets and half-drooping eyelids, he looked gentle and docile.
Bo Chengjing chuckled softly and said, “So, is the pampering session over now?”
“Mm-hm,” Shen Zhinian acknowledged.
Bo Chengjing tapped him lightly on the head. “Little brat. Go wash up and get something to eat.”
“Okay,” Shen Zhinian said.