Haiwan Guoji.
The most renowned hotel in Mingyun Cheng.
Ji Huanlan had arranged for those investors to stay here.
“Second sister-in-law?”
Ji Huanlan looked over.
Shen Ran had a good sense of style, walking over with a smile: “Second sister-in-law, you’re here for a meal too?”
“Mm.”
“Didn’t my second brother come with you?”
“I’m here on business.”
“Oh, alright, alright. Then I won’t keep you.” Shen Ran was perceptive and quickly took his leave.
Ji Huanlan had arranged to meet with the heads of the enterprises she had previously invested in. They talked for a long time, seemingly enjoying each other’s company, and naturally, quite a bit of alcohol was consumed.
When her father was alive, she never attended social engagements; she only followed him and participated in decision-making.
Now that she had stepped into the spotlight, she naturally couldn’t avoid certain matters.
From 3:30 in the afternoon until 11:30 at night, only then did this business engagement come to an end.
Ji Huanlan was extremely courteous, personally seeing each person to their accommodations one by one.
The evening breeze blew, and a fine drizzle shrouded the air.
Drunkenness flooded her mind. Ji Huanlan stood at the hotel entrance, letting the night wind blow over her as her vision grew increasingly dizzy.
Wang Huo held an umbrella over her. “Chairman Ji, shall I take you back to rest?”
In her haze, Ji Huanlan took out her phone and sent a message to Shen Xi.
But before she could even finish sending it, she heard the sound of arguing and fighting coming from behind.
She turned around.
Wang Huo wasn’t drunk. Today, he was only responsible for observing and accompanying; Ji Huanlan had done all the drinking.
He reminded her: “It’s the young master’s younger brother.”
“What is he doing?” Ji Huanlan was dizzy and couldn’t see the chaotic tangle of people clearly.
Wang Huo: “…Getting beaten up.”
Ji Huanlan: …
Shen Ran was indeed getting beaten up—by five or six people at once.
Those people were Shen Shuo’s friends. When they ran into Shen Ran here, they acted on Shen Shuo’s signal to pick a fight and beat him up.
After all, who told him he belonged to that damned Shen Xi?
“You bastard of a bastard son, how dare you even use the surname Shen?”
“Shen Xi’s lackey!”
“Serves you right that your mother couldn’t show her face!”
“Filthy seed!”
Shen Ran covered his head and curled up his body, a flash of hatred passing through his eyes, but he didn’t fight back.
He survived by relying on his second brother. When the Shen family was in turmoil, and those illegitimate children and Shen Xi’s own brothers all mysteriously met with accidents or death one after another, he alone remained unharmed.
Shen Ran knew that was Shen Xi showing mercy.
So he didn’t want to cause trouble for his second brother.
“Damn it…”
“Who’s that?”
“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong!”
The weight on Shen Ran suddenly lifted, and those people who had been kicking and punching him, even spitting on him, suddenly all disappeared.
He opened one eye that hadn’t swollen shut yet and looked over, then froze.
At the main entrance of the hotel.
Under the brilliant, bright lights, an aloof woman in high heels stood in the center, with a man accompanying her at her side.
And her bodyguards, well-trained, had those who had been beating him on their knees begging for mercy in just a few seconds.
Wang Huo walked over and personally helped him up: “Young Master Shen Ran.”
Shen Ran had blood at the corner of his mouth and ached all over. “Thank you.”
His second sister-in-law was still standing there, her gaze frighteningly indifferent, her cheeks slightly flushed, yet her expression utterly blank.
After a long moment, the woman parted her lips, and her hoarse voice drifted through the hotel lobby, making even passing guests stop to watch.
“Kneel.”
Shen Ran instinctively moved to kneel, thinking he had caused trouble and upset his second sister-in-law.
But his legs didn’t bend. Wang Huo held him up and said quietly, “She doesn’t mean you.”
Then he saw the men who had been beating Shen Ran gradually kneel before him, kowtowing and begging for mercy.
Not only that, the head of the bodyguards publicly spat on those men and poured drinks over their heads.
Ji Huanlan’s bodyguards returned every single method those men had used against Shen Ran.
After that, the bodyguards forced those men to lift their heads.
Shen Ran’s heart was pounding violently.
Only then did the woman who had not moved a muscle from start to finish speak in a slow, measured tone—
“Take a good look at his face.”
“His name is Shen Ran. The young master of the Shen family. Shen Xi’s younger brother, and Ji Huanlan’s brother-in-law.”
She corrected how those men had addressed Shen Ran.
Backing him up!
Absolutely backing him up!
“Yes, yes, yes! We were blind and failed to recognize a mountain before us. Young Master Shen Ran, we’re sorry…”
“Sorry, sorry…”
Wang Huo asked, “Who told you to cause trouble?”
Those men fell silent again.
Ji Huanlan turned around, her head growing dizzier. “Throw them into the sea to feed the fish.”
“No!”
“It was Shen Shuo who made us do this! He’s the one who told us to do all of it!”
Oh.
That brat whose leg she had broken and then re-set.
In the car.
Shen Ran sat in the Maybach, his emotions still not settled.
The woman sat on the left side, eyes closed, fingertips pressing against her temples. “The Shen family has doctors, right?”
Shen Ran thought she was feeling unwell from the alcohol. “Yes, we have several.”
Ji Huanlan said nothing more.
Shen Ran’s face was bruised, looking quite serious—especially his right eye, which was swollen terribly, his eyelid a deep purple.
He was drenched, a complete mess.
He had assumed the car was heading back to the Shen residence, but it stopped midway at some point.
“Get out.”
Shen Ran wasn’t the least bit angry that she was kicking him out. He got out swiftly. “Thank you, Second Sister-in-law, for your help today.”
Unexpectedly, Wang Huo also got out. “Mr. Shen Ran, go inside and clean yourself up.”
Shen Ran was dazed.
He had never imagined that Ji Huanlan had stopped the car just so he could tidy himself up.
When he came out, aside from the injuries on his face, everything else was back to normal.
By the time they arrived at the Shen residence, it was already one o’clock.
The distance from the east side of the city to the west side really was quite far.
“Madam.”
The butler had been waiting for her. Noticing the smell of alcohol on her, he signaled a servant to brew a hangover soup.
Shen Ran stood at the door without entering, because he remembered what those men had said earlier—that if Ji Huanlan didn’t allow someone in, no one could enter.
This morning, he had only been able to enter because his second brother had let him in.
Ji Huanlan, now feeling the effects of the alcohol, was less controlled in her emotions than usual. Her gaze was slightly unfocused, yet all the more bewitching, impossible to read.
“Standing at the door like a door god?”
Shen Ran: …
He entered cautiously but didn’t go further inside, obediently standing still.
“Where’s Shen Xi?”
Ji Huanlan sat on the main sofa in the living room—an antique piece in reddish-brown, exuding luxury from every angle.
A large carpet lay spread across the center of the living room, its intricate patterns making Ji Huanlan’s head spin even more.
“The master is upstairs,” the butler said.
The hangover soup arrived quickly, and Ji Huanlan didn’t stand on ceremony. “Find a doctor to tend to his wounds.”
The butler acknowledged the order.
Upstairs, in the master bedroom.
Having learned that Ji Huanlan had returned, Shen Xi did not go downstairs.
Guan Qi said, “President Shen, Shen Ran came back with the madam, and his face is bruised.”
Shen Xi said nothing, looking at the message he had just received.
Ji Huanlan: How is your relationship with Shen Ran?
In her presence, he seemed habitually unwilling to hide anything.
Ji Huanlan glanced at the man’s just-received reply in the living room and instructed the butler, “Call everyone from the Shen family over here.”
It was already past one in the morning, and most people were asleep by this hour, but the butler went out without any hesitation to summon them.
“Shen Ran, come here.”