April Fools' Day Bonus

"Mrs. Shen, I beg to differ..." This time, it was Li Rongxiu's mother, Zhuang Meiru, who spoke. "We women can make some mistakes, but there are some mistakes we absolutely cannot make. I don't mean to be harsh, but behavior like your daughter's—if this were in the old days, she would be made to kneel before the ancestral hall and drowned in a pig cage. Even if society is more open-minded now, a disgrace is still a disgrace. Miss Shen has gone too far this time. All of Wancheng now knows that the Li family's legitimate grandson has been cuckolded. Even if your daughter worships freedom in love and doesn't care about fidelity in marriage, the Li family still has its reputation to uphold."

As she spoke, Zhuang Meiru simply pointed at the Chi family, who had quietly followed in behind the crowd. "I think the most urgent matter, Mrs. Shen, is figuring out how to discuss the marriage with the Chi family. Surely you can't wait until your daughter's belly swells and the child is born, only for the household register to list the father as unknown."

Though Zhuang Meiru's words were logical and well-founded, and did not sound nearly as sharp as Yao Pingting's, they hurt Mrs. Shen more deeply than a knife through the heart.

Upon hearing this, Shen Manyao instantly lifted her head to look at the expressionless Li Rongxiu. Her lips trembled for a long while before she tearfully accused him in a voice full of resentment, "Why did you do this? Even if I wronged you, do you hate me so much that you have to ruin me before you'll be happy?"

"Now, you've finally gotten your wish!"

April Fools' Day Bonus

Hearing Shen Manyao's accusation, Li Rongxiu innocently shrugged. Just as he was about to speak, a man covered from head to toe in green fell from the sky and crashed onto the carpet.

Everyone: "...(⊙o⊙) Ah!"

The green-covered man let out a miserable scream, then scrambled up from the floor and dazedly shook his head. He pulled a blue card from his pocket, waved it before everyone, and said, "The system crashed today, and the world you all exist in was accidentally deleted. So all of you have been erased. You can stop fighting now. Take a break and get ready to reincarnate!"

The crowd exchanged helpless looks, then rolled up their sleeves and rushed forward to give the green-covered man a thorough beating before cursing their way out of the scene.

The End.

Chapter 10

Listening to Shen Manyao's accusations, Li Rongxiu shook his head with a headache and spread his hands innocently. "I didn't switch the photos. I was only curious about your past after hearing what Chi Junhao said. I wanted to know whether you had ever dated anyone else. So I hired Pandora's Box to investigate you... but all I can say is that the results of that investigation were truly unexpected."

At that, Li Rongxiu deliberately glanced at Chi Junrui, who had lifted a stone only to drop it on his own foot, and Chi Junhao, whose face shifted between green and white as he realized he had outsmarted himself. He sneered at the pale-faced Shen Manyao. "The Li family and the Shen family have been friends for generations. You and I grew up together, after all. Even if you didn't love me, I always thought there was still some friendship between us. Yet I never expected you to marry into the Li family while carrying another man's child. What, did you really think the Li family were fools who would raise someone else's child?"

"...Your scandal with Chi Junrui was exposed, yet instead of reflecting on yourself, you blame me for hiring someone to investigate you. In your eyes, was I, Li Rongxiu, simply meant to be cuckolded? Meant to become a sinner who muddled the Li family bloodline?"

The more Li Rongxiu spoke, the more disappointed he became. Looking at Shen Manyao collapsed on the bed, capable of nothing but weeping and wildly blaming others, he suddenly felt that the goddess-like image once firmly fixed in his mind had turned to ashes. The Shen Manyao before him... was nothing more than a shameless, unreasonable person with a twisted face, someone who had ruined another person's relationship.

Faced with this utterly changed Shen Manyao, Li Rongxiu suddenly found himself unable to muster any interest. In his previous life, what he had obsessed over for so long was why Shen Manyao had abandoned him for Chi Junrui, and done so in such a cold, decisive manner. At that engagement ceremony, Shen Manyao's unhesitating turn away and her elegant, composed condemnation became Li Rongxiu's eternal nightmare. It cemented his reputation as a useless playboy and made him the laughingstock of Wancheng's elite families for more than a decade. He had never been able to let it go.

But in this life, he had been the one to abandon Shen Manyao first. Watching this adulterous pair look like beaten dogs before everyone, Li Rongxiu suddenly felt the thorn lodged in his throat disappear. He realized there was no need to waste his precious time on trash like Chi Junrui and Shen Manyao. There was nothing wrong with beating a dog that had fallen into the water, but disrupting his own rhythm and ruining his own life just to do so would be foolish.

Thus, Li Rongxiu let out a wistful sigh, gave everyone a slight nod, then turned and strode out of the cramped, suffocating lounge without looking back.

He passed through the dazzling, dreamlike engagement venue, like a castle from a fairy tale, shook off the paparazzi waiting at the entrance, and drove away alone. His bright red sports car sped along the empty, silent mountain road, circling again and again. Li Rongxiu wanted to use this to release the frustration that had accumulated over two lifetimes, to let all his grudges and lingering resentment scatter with the wind. Then tomorrow, he would welcome a brand-new day.

That night, when Li Rongxiu returned to the Li family home, he faced an intense interrogation from the entire family. Though Grandpa Li had already learned most of the truth from the private detective, some details still required Li Rongxiu's explanation. The Li family men unanimously believed that only by investigating every cause and consequence of the matter in meticulous detail, knowing both themselves and their enemy, could they gain the upper hand in future contests and maximize their benefits.

Li Rongxiu thoroughly understood this habit of the elders: forming partnerships after business marriages, then immediately tearing each other apart once those partnerships collapsed. So he spent nearly two hours explaining all his methods and thoughts—including how he had met the founder of Pandora's Box on the yacht and exchanged benefits with him to obtain proof of Chi Junrui and Shen Manyao's relationship.

During this account, Li Rongxiu particularly emphasized that he had originally planned to send someone secretly into the villa Chi Junrui and Shen Manyao had bought in Wancheng's southern district for their affair, where they could install hidden cameras and gather evidence. But after making a deal with the founder of Pandora's Box, he had abandoned that less-than-honorable plan. Still, given his assistant Fei Man's efficiency, Li Rongxiu had reason to suspect that a third person must have learned of this instruction, even though it was never actually carried out.

The Li family men unanimously praised Li Rongxiu's conduct. In their view, men born into wealthy families had to be "elegant by nature," so certain un-gentlemanly and undignified little tricks had to be carried out behind the scenes, then concealed so tightly that no one could ever find out.

Just as Li Rongxiu had handled this matter—he had heard rumors about his fiancée and therefore hired a private detective to uncover the truth. There was nothing wrong with that. But if, because he suspected his fiancée was with someone else, he had broken into a private residence and installed cameras to violate another person's privacy, then he would have invited criticism.

That was why, when Li Rongxiu first gave Fei Man his instructions, he had repeatedly stressed that he wanted the people Fei Man hired to photograph Chi Junhao and Shen Manyao being intimate in public. Li Rongxiu understood that if he used improper means to obtain evidence of Shen Manyao and Chi Junrui being together, he could expose their true faces—but his own reputation would also suffer as a result.

Who would be willing to trust someone who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals? Put another way, who would want to associate with such a person?

People said that a gentleman knew what to do and what not to do, and there was also the saying: do not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire. Though the Li family men were brilliant strategists in business and known as "cunning foxes," they still hoped their children would understand what it meant to be upright.

Therefore, after hearing Li Rongxiu's concerns, his eldest brother, Li Rongyu, proudly and calmly said, "I'll handle the aftermath. No one will learn of your 'momentary impulse.'"

After hearing his brother's promise, Li Rongxiu immediately relaxed. In his heart, his elder brother—who had never dropped the ball or let him down—was extremely reliable.

Of course, the Li family also found certain aspects of the matter suspicious.

For instance, Grandpa Li was very curious why Pandora's Box knew so clearly about something the Li family had been unable to uncover even after mobilizing so many resources. The evidence Pandora's Box had presented at the engagement ceremony began a year and a half earlier. At that time, Li Rongxiu and Shen Manyao had merely been dating like children playing house, and the Li family had not even decided to form a marriage alliance with the Shen family. So why had Pandora's Box so strangely fixed its attention on Shen Manyao and Chi Junrui?

Faced with Grandpa Li's question, Li Rongxiu spread his hands with malicious delight. "The reason is simple. Because the true mastermind behind Pandora's Box is Shen Yujun."

At the sudden mention of an unfamiliar name, everyone in the Li family frowned in unison and signaled for Li Rongxiu to explain.

Li Rongxiu smiled. "Shen Yujun's mother is Shen Lixue."

Upon hearing that, the Li family men had not yet reacted, but the Li family women, who had always paid close attention to gossip, immediately understood. Li Rongxiu's mother, Zhuang Meiru, said, "So he's her son."

Seeing the confused expressions on her father-in-law, husband, and son, Zhuang Meiru sighed and promptly explained, "She was the Shen family's grandaunt who was driven out twenty years ago for becoming pregnant before marriage. That matter caused quite a sensation in Wancheng back then. Unhappy with the marriage the family had arranged for her, the Shen family's grandaunt secretly ran away on the eve of her wedding. When the Shen family found her two years later, Shen Lixue even had a child. But strangely, no one knew who the child's father was. At the time, Shen Lixue's fiancé, the eldest young master of the Wang family, couldn't swallow that humiliation. He coerced and tempted the Shen family patriarch into driving Shen Lixue out, then somehow forced Shen Lixue to her death. Only that child remained—given the Wang family's way of doing things, the child likely would not have lived long either. If outsiders had not mocked the Shen family for allowing the Wang family to force their eldest daughter to death for the sake of profit, making the Shen family feel too ashamed, they would never have reluctantly brought the child back into the family to whitewash their own conduct in the matter. That child probably would have..."

"...But that year, you and Father were in Country A handling the company's listing, and Rongyu was still young, so none of you remember much about it. Later, the Wang family declined, and the entire family left Wancheng to immigrate to Country C in North America. Even fewer people remembered it after that."

Upon hearing this, everyone sighed along with Zhuang Meiru. But it also explained why Pandora's Box had been able to dig up Shen Manyao and Chi Junrui's old affair from more than a year ago. In everyone's eyes, given Shen Yujun's status and hatred for the Shen family, Pandora's Box likely held not only the scandal of two young people, but all of the Shen family's secrets in its database.

Grandpa Li could not help shaking his head with a sigh. "Whenever people discussed the younger generation of each family, no one ever paid attention to this child from the Shen family. Yet without making a sound, he has accomplished so much. He must be quite calculating."

Li Rongxiu curled his lips unconcernedly and reminded them, "But I promised him that I would never reveal his true identity. Please help me keep this secret. We can't let the Shen family notice him."

In Li Rongxiu's eyes, Shen Yujun was an excellent move—a hidden piece to use against the Shen family. And judging from the expressions of the Li family men, they all seemed to share Li Rongxiu's thoughts.