Page 11

Ye Mingzhao glanced at Yu Mingze and answered with a question instead. "Have you read The Art of War?"

Yu Mingze froze. "Huh?"

Ye Mingzhao smiled faintly.

The Art of War said: Warfare is the way of deception. When the enemy seeks gain, lure him with profit; when he is impulsive, provoke him; when he is arrogant, feed his pride; when he is united, sow discord among them. Attack where he is unprepared; act when he least expects it. [Note]

When an enemy was greedy for profit, tempt him with benefits. When an enemy was impulsive, find a way to enrage him. When an enemy thought highly of himself, make him even more arrogant and reckless. When an enemy was united within, find a way to drive a wedge between them and break them apart. Launch attacks where the enemy had no defenses, and act when he least expected it. That was the key to victory.

In the darkness, the Maybach shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, piercing precisely toward the road ahead.

Ye Mingzhao reclined leisurely against the leather seat, his eyes closed as he rested.

He had already made his move. Next, it would depend on how Chu Hengyi responded.

Chapter 9

A few hours later, Ye Mingzhao returned to the Ye family in New Sea City.

The black Maybach had only just shut off outside the gate when his second brother, Ye Mingxi, who had returned from a business trip abroad, came charging out like a cannonball. He impatiently yanked open the car door and grabbed Ye Mingzhao by the arm. "You're finally back. I just heard from Mom and Dad that you're leaving the Ye family. Why?"

As he spoke, Ye Mingxi leaned half his body into the car and lowered his voice mysteriously. "Did that brat Ye Mingyi say something to you behind our backs? No matter what he said, don't take it to heart. Ye Mingyi is my younger brother, and so are you. You don't need to deliberately distance yourself from us just to spare his feelings. Mom and Dad would be heartbroken too."

Ye Mingzhao smiled slightly, his gaze passing over Ye Mingxi's shoulder to land on Chu Hengyi, who stood quietly at the entrance.

Ye Mingzhao did not know whether Chu Hengyi had heard Ye Mingxi's words, but he figured the man could probably guess.

After all, he was someone who had been reborn once.

Many paths in life changed according to one's choices, but there were also many things that could not be changed no matter how many times one lived through them. Such inevitable choices were called fate.

Noticing Ye Mingzhao's gaze, Chu Hengyi walked forward step by step. At some point, rain had begun to fall from the sky, thin as silk and softly pattering.

The man, nearly six and a half feet tall, approached little by little through the rain curtain that stretched between heaven and earth, like a beast that had inadvertently wandered into the civilized world. People noticed his magnificent coat first, then his powerful physique, then his sharp claws and fangs. After that brief moment of admiration, however, the wild, beastly aura radiating from him made their hearts race and their skin crawl. Without realizing it, they began to worry whether his intrusion would hurt them.

Only the hunter hidden in the shadows would calmly load his gun and aim its muzzle at the solitary beast. He would patiently wait for the instant the beast swung its claws, then pull the trigger.

Then, the beast would fall beneath the hunter's gun, and the hunter would become a hero who saved the world.

Or perhaps the hunter would fall beneath the beast's claws, and the beast would feast to its heart's content amid corpses and dripping blood.

That was probably the fate ordained for hunters and prey.

"I ran into your adoptive parents' younger son, Chu Qingyi, at the audition. He told me that the whole family missed you and worried you weren't doing well with the Ye family. So I suggested that after the audition, he could come back to the Chu family with me to see you. But he ran off while I was auditioning." Ye Mingzhao took the initiative to speak, sounding somewhat regretful. "It seems he doesn't love you as much as he claims."

Ye Mingzhao blinked his dark, unfathomable eyes and looked smilingly at the silent Chu Hengyi. "You lived with the Chu family for eighteen years. Did they treat you well?"

The instant Ye Mingzhao asked that final question, Chu Hengyi's handsome, hard-set face changed. He clenched his back teeth, making his sharply defined jawline appear even colder and more cutting. His amber eyes also deepened beneath the endless drizzle, obscure and unfathomable like a bottomless pool of autumn water.

Ye Mingzhao's phone chimed. He glanced at the message sent by Lawyer Liu, and the smile on his face grew even brighter. "Chu Jianguo and his wife have already gotten off the plane. Lawyer Liu is taking them to the New Sea Municipal Public Security Bureau. Do you want to go take a look?"

Before Chu Hengyi could speak, Ye Mingxi was already shouting, "Of course we're going! If those two really have something to do with the traffickers who abducted Mingyi back then..."

The clarity in Ye Mingxi's eyes abruptly turned fierce. "I definitely won't let them off!"

"Is this New Sea? No wonder it's a big city! The roads here are so wide, and the buildings are all so tall!"

The black Mercedes sped along the highway as Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan pressed themselves against the windows, staring wide-eyed at the streetscape rushing past on both sides.

Skyscrapers rose one after another into the clouds, and brilliant neon lights glittered in the night. Shallow puddles along the pedestrian street reflected the city's blazing lights, and the bustling, prosperous nightscape left them dizzy with fascination.

"Oh my, Hengyi really is lucky! I heard the Ye family is the richest family in New Sea City. Hengyi is the Ye family's third young master, so he'll definitely be rich in the future, right?"

"At least it wasn't for nothing that our Chu family raised him with such hardship for eighteen years. The boy knows how to be grateful. The moment he returned home, he knew to have his biological parents repay us for raising him."

"It looks so prosperous here. Have we reached downtown? Where's the house the Ye family is giving us? Is it really worth more than thirty million?"

Zhao Meijuan happily pulled out her phone and held down the power button. "I need to record a video and post it to my Moments so those old sisters can see—"

Before she could finish, a shrill ringtone suddenly sounded inside the car.

Zhao Meijuan answered it and even put it on speakerphone. "Hello? Qingyi, guess where your dad and I are right now?"

Her voice overflowed with barely restrained excitement. "You'll never guess it. Your dad and I came to New Sea! The Ye family sent someone to pick us up. They said they're transferring a house worth more than thirty million in downtown New Sea City into your dad's name to repay our family for raising your brother—"

"The Ye family already knows about Second Uncle." On the other end of the phone, Chu Qingyi cut off Zhao Meijuan in an anxious tone. "I called you dozens of times. Why didn't you answer?"

Zhao Meijuan froze. Before she could process it, she muttered, "I was on the plane just now. Lawyer Liu said phones had to be turned off during the flight."

"You're with the Ye family?" A chill ran down Chu Qingyi's spine, and his scalp went numb.

Sensing something was wrong, Chu Jianguo snatched the phone away. "What did you just say? What does the Ye family know about your Second Uncle?"

Chu Qingyi took a deep breath and barely managed to calm himself. "I ran into the Ye family's adopted son, Ye Mingzhao, while auditioning at Hengzhou Film and Television City this afternoon. We talked for a bit... He suspects that the kidnappers who abducted my brother back then were connected to our family!"

The moment he heard that, Chu Jianguo's head buzzed, and his heart went cold.

He instinctively reached for the door handle. With a click, the driver locked all the doors. Lawyer Liu, seated in the passenger seat, turned back with a smile. "There is no need for concern, you two. That idea is merely the third young master's... oh, no, Young Master Mingzhao's personal speculation. He suggested that I first bring you to the Public Security Bureau for a DNA test. If it is all a misunderstanding, Young Master Mingzhao will apologize to you."

"But now it seems," Lawyer Liu paused slightly, looking meaningfully at the phone Chu Jianguo was gripping tightly in his hand, still on speakerphone, "Young Master Mingzhao's suspicion has some basis after all."

The black Mercedes sped onward. Outside, the sudden rain had just ceased, and the warm breeze was pleasantly intoxicating. Yet Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan felt as though they had fallen into an ice cellar, helplessly allowing the car to carry them toward an endless abyss.

"You can't treat me like this! I'm Chu Hengyi's adoptive father! If it weren't for me, that little bastard would have frozen to death eighteen years ago."

"That's the Ye family's child! The Ye family's third young master! Our Chu family raised that child for eighteen years, and this is how they repay us?"