Page 32

Ye Mingzhao chuckled softly. "You know quite a lot."

Chu Hengyi said, "A little more than you imagine."

An ant crawled across Ye Mingzhao's shoe. Lowering his head to watch the lone ant trudge along, Ye Mingzhao asked casually, You didn't message me just to congratulate me, did you?

Chu Hengyi said, "Why did you have Dagger investigate Hua Rui's whereabouts? Does she have something I need?"

Dagger was the private detective Chu Hengyi had secretly recruited. In the original novel, Chu Hengyi had planted this pawn beside Ye Mingzhao for a long time, then had him turn against Ye Mingzhao at a critical moment and hand the Ye family all the evidence that Ye Mingzhao had been investigating and framing Chu Hengyi with ulterior motives.

Ye Mingzhao's finger, which had been teasing the ant as he crouched down, paused slightly. He had not expected Chu Hengyi to reveal his hand so quickly.

Listening to the faint, intermittent laughter from the other end of the call, Chu Hengyi sank into thought.

Just as Ye Mingzhao had guessed, Dagger was not supposed to have been exposed this early. But Chu Hengyi had quickly realized that since Ye Mingzhao had found out about his plans for Lanhe Yaoji and deliberately sabotaged them, Dagger's connection to him was probably no secret either—at least, it should not have been a secret to Ye Mingzhao.

That suspicion had been confirmed when Dagger suddenly received an assignment from Ye Mingzhao to investigate Hua Rui's whereabouts. Coupled with the fact that Ye Mingzhao had uncovered the connection between his adoptive parents and the human traffickers who had abducted him shortly after returning to the Ye family, Chu Hengyi had developed an inexplicable feeling.

It was as though the code that had always run according to plan in his memories had suddenly malfunctioned. Chu Hengyi was very curious about why Ye Mingzhao had changed like this. So he told Zhou Yueze about the reporters. On one hand, it was to get close to the Zhou family; on the other, it was also a test for Ye Mingzhao.

Seeing that Ye Mingzhao remained silent for a long time, Chu Hengyi added, "Three hundred million, in exchange for the secret of a woman who has nothing to do with you. You won't lose out."

Sensing Chu Hengyi's relentless probing, Ye Mingzhao laughed again. He gently thanked the production assistant who had just run over to remind him that filming would begin in ten minutes. After the man left, he smiled and abruptly brought up another matter. "Zhou Film and Television Company has no dealings with Xingyue Film and Television. Why did Zhou Yueze suddenly approach Zhu Junjie to play the second male lead in The Prince's Transformation?"

Chu Hengyi fell silent in perfect understanding.

Since Ye Mingzhao had put it so plainly, he had no choice but to admit it. The means he had used to place Zhu Junjie in the The Prince's Transformation production crew were indeed exactly the same as Ye Mingzhao's methods of placing reporters beside Zhou Yueze.

Ye Mingzhao said, "I haven't even held it against you for copying me."

Chu Hengyi readily gave way. "Then may I ask Teacher Ye if he would be willing to offer his student some guidance?"

Ye Mingzhao chuckled. "Then you'll have to prepare a greater fee for becoming my student."

Chu Hengyi raised a brow. "Three hundred million isn't enough?"

Ye Mingzhao said, "There's an old Chinese saying: teach your apprentice everything, and the master starves. I'll have to teach you with the resolve to die."

Chu Hengyi suddenly laughed aloud. His low laughter vibrated Ye Mingzhao's eardrums through the radio waves.

Ye Mingzhao quietly waited for him to finish laughing, then politely informed him, Think it over. I have to go film now.

With that, Ye Mingzhao hung up and rose to walk into the filming area.

Listening to the busy tone in his ear, Chu Hengyi carefully reviewed everything they had said, failing to notice Madam Ye cautiously entering the room.

"Let's talk." Madam Ye carefully studied every shift in Chu Hengyi's expression. "Your father transferred one percent of the shares under his name to Zhaozhao. I wanted to say—"

"If you want to ask for my opinion on that matter, my answer is that I don't care. Forget one percent—even if Chairman Ye transferred all 28.8 percent of the shares under his name to Ye Mingzhao, I would have no objection."

Chu Hengyi did not wait for Madam Ye to finish. He looked openly at her as she sat across from him on the sofa.

In contrast, Madam Ye looked deeply uneasy. She seemed to want to speak but stopped herself, her delicate hands clenched tightly together on her knees. Yet the conflict within her was even greater than the tension displayed by those hands.

"Then why did you betray Zhaozhao—" Before she could finish, Madam Ye abruptly fell silent. She looked at Chu Hengyi with a face full of pain, not knowing how to continue.

She did not want to blame Chu Hengyi, nor did she want to hurt him. She merely—merely hoped that the two children could live in peace.

Chu Hengyi chuckled. With great interest, he studied Madam Ye, who had just sternly questioned why he had betrayed Ye Mingzhao and now wore an expression of profound regret. Then he slowly said, "Telling Zhou Yueze about the reporters wasn't betrayal."

"Only betraying someone who has given you their trust counts as betrayal. There has never been any trust between Ye Mingzhao and me. Without trust, where could betrayal possibly come from?"

If they truly had to use the word betrayal, it was not Chu Hengyi who had betrayed Ye Mingzhao. Because the one who had placed his trust in another had never been Ye Mingzhao.

"There's something else I'm curious about." Chu Hengyi tilted his head slightly and asked, "You raised Ye Mingzhao for eighteen years. Could you really not know his temperament and methods? With his schemes and calculating nature, could he truly be bullied by those fools who can't read the situation and have nothing but garbage in their heads?"

Without waiting for Madam Ye's answer, Chu Hengyi continued, "Or did you know perfectly well that no one could bully him, yet still feel sorry for his circumstances?"

Madam Ye's lips trembled as she looked at Chu Hengyi with sorrow in her eyes.

She did not know how to answer his question. Did she truly not know Ye Mingzhao's methods and depth?

He was the child she had raised with her own hands. She had watched him go from crawling unsteadily to running and jumping, from a crying infant into an intelligent and capable strategist who controlled the bigger picture. She had attended every parent-teacher conference in the capacity of his mother and celebrated every honor he achieved with him. How could she not know how outstanding that child was?

But as a parent, even knowing that one's child had grown into an adult capable of standing on his own, how could one bear to leave him alone to face the wind and rain, to face the overwhelming malice around him?

Tears filled Madam Ye's eyes as she looked helplessly at Chu Hengyi.

One was the adopted son she had raised for eighteen years, not related by blood yet closer than family. The other was her biological son, whom she had failed for eighteen years. Madam Ye wanted to treat them equally, but helplessly discovered that no matter what she did, it seemed inevitable that she would hurt the other one.

Chu Hengyi rose on his own and looked down at Madam Ye, whose face had gone somewhat pale. He sincerely remarked, "You are a devoted and wonderful mother."

"Unfortunately, that love and care were never meant for me."

After saying that, Chu Hengyi did not spare Madam Ye another glance before turning and leaving.

With a sharp buzz, Yu Mingze, whose face was flushed with excitement after receiving the massive investment of eighty million, raised the megaphone in his hand and personally called out, "All departments, get in position! Scene eighty-six, take one, action!"

Fu Shen, played by Ye Mingzhao, stood at the entrance to an alley filled with muddy water, dressed in a black three-piece suit. The puddles left by last night's rain had dirtied his custom-made Italian leather shoes.

The veteran actor playing Fu Shen's father stood opposite him and said excitedly, "You're no young master of the Gu Corporation. You're my son, Fu Shen. Even if you turned to ashes, I'd still recognize you."

"I knew it! That little idiot at home never looked like my seed. Turns out I was right!"

"I don't know what the hell you're up to, brat, but now that you're the eldest young master of the Gu Corporation, you must be loaded, right? Hand over a million or two first to show some filial respect to your old man. Don't worry—you're my biological son. You only prosper if I get something out of it, so I won't go around telling people."

Fu Shen looked coldly at his unreasonable biological father, then suddenly smiled. "Do you think trash like you could produce someone as exceptional as me?"

In that instant, the resentment and madness that flashed through Fu Shen's eyes stunned everyone in front of the monitors, including the seasoned actor performing opposite him.