Chen Motong Has Nowhere to Retreat

Some people in this world are happily dating, while others are naturally suffering misfortune.

If that misfortune drags more people into its wake, then the superimposition of those two misfortunes is undoubtedly a suffocating pain.

Inside a villa on a vast private estate—the kind rarely seen even among worldly tycoons—Chen Motong trembled as she watched her father. The stern middle-aged man standing in the center of the hall, as grim as a warrior servant, beat one of her brothers until he was drenched in blood. A tight circle of siblings stood around, watching this brutal drama with cold indifference.

The unlucky brother, covered in blood, still twitched with lively agony, while a ferocious, bull-like bloodthirsty dog nearby eyed him hungrily, waiting for the father's command to pounce, claw, and bite.

Judging by the lineup, it looked like a family meeting, but the scene itself was forcibly shaped into a grim, cold-blooded torture trial, staining the concept of "family" with a bloody hue it should never have had, making anyone who saw it frown.

In truth, Chen Motong couldn't even recognize which of her brothers this nearly lifeless wretch was.

Because she had a total of fifty-four siblings. Aside from a few twins and triplets among them, most didn't share the same mother.

But that didn't mean Chen Motong's father was a frivolous playboy. On the contrary, in her eyes, this father was precisely a cold and ruthless man.

Father Chen prided himself on his dragon bloodline and invested in numerous medical institutions through the family business, using this opportunity to find poor women willing to serve as surrogates for artificial insemination, spreading his lineage.

As for the children born, they naturally had nothing to do with those surrogate mothers. He simply took the babies away—those of mediocre talent were sent to nurseries funded by the family, while only those with excellent bloodlines received his personal education.

In this way, he could cultivate heirs with the best bloodlines and the highest talent, expanding the family enterprise.

This was the Chen Family—a clan run like a corporate model. All the children were this man's employees, most of them low-level workers, while a few—including Chen Motong and her fifty-five siblings—were elite employees with a chance to manage the family's assets.

Since they were employees, there was naturally a strict system of rewards, punishments, promotions, and demotions.

Father Chen would periodically take time to check on these elite children—every weekend or during long holidays—personally reviewing their report cards during school years and rewarding the top performers. This system continued until they were formally assigned various family tasks.

As for the one now beaten half to death, he was being punished for poor performance.

Chen Motong's siblings were each in charge of different affairs, and she didn't know the reason for that one's punishment.

She only vaguely heard Father Chen shouting words like "goods intercepted" and "they caught us with evidence" during the beating.

As far as Chen Motong knew, even if the family got caught by the authorities for illegal business, they had plenty of ways to handle the trouble.

But this time, Father Chen's unprecedented rage suggested that, in his view, this was a problem requiring a huge price to resolve. That cost was enough to ruin his mood so badly that he lost his composure in front of all the children.

'So, he's run into a force even he fears? One he can't deal with?' Chen Motong's eyes flickered, and the next moment, a nearly treasonous thought popped into her mind—

'If only this family could just disappear.'

Ever since her mother's death and learning of Father Chen's methods, she had no attachment left to this family.

But Chen Motong quickly crushed that thought. Father Chen's iron grip had become an invisible force, deeply manipulating every one of her siblings in this family. He wove a web of power, rewarding or punishing with every move, pouring his will deep into the children's minds.

Chen Motong had tried to resist, but everyone else was like puppets pulled by invisible strings, falling deeper into the spider's web. Now, these siblings watched their own kin nearly beaten to death without shedding a tear, instead secretly hoping one more would die so there'd be one less to split the inheritance.

This made every interaction with her siblings feel like there was an invisible, tragic wall between them, growing thicker with age—

"Motong," her father finally finished cleaning up the mess in the hall, casually wiping a few drops of blood from his face, revealing a perfectly measured, kind smile as he walked toward her. But given that he'd just wiped off his own child's blood, that smile might better be described as bloody and horrifying.

"Although many children in this family have deeply disappointed and pained me, you, Motong—my finest daughter—have never let me down, and you never will, right?"

Disgusting!

"My name is Nono, not Motong!" The girl Chen Motong snarled like an angry lioness. She couldn't stand this man's face anymore. As a child, she'd been fooled by the warm facade he'd built, but her mother's death had torn a bloody gash through everything, making her see the family's underlying logic: it devoured people.

Since then, she'd drawn a line between herself and this family, renaming herself Nono.

"Alright, alright, Nono."

The man didn't get angry, instead showing a helpless expression, as if he saw not a lioness but a hissing kitten.

He indulged Chen Motong's rebellious behavior. His thinking was simple: as long as she was the best among the children, she'd get his special care. Though Chen Motong had no word spirit, she learned everything faster than her siblings, and that alone was worth his "investment." Her monopoly on Father Chen's favor also stoked burning jealousy among the other siblings.

"Nono, do you know the Gattuso family?"

"Huh?" Chen Motong's face showed confusion. Trapped in the estate, she didn't understand why her father suddenly brought up that surname.

"The Gattuso family—the rising star of the Secret Party, an Italian Mixed-Blood Family, and one of the seven holders of the Board of Directors Seat at the Secret Party's headquarters, Cassell College." Father Chen first wrapped those terms in a halo of shining power—

"At the same time, the current head of the Gattuso family, Pompey Gattuso's son, Caesar Gattuso, has reached the age suitable for engagement. Nono, the Chen Family's situation isn't optimistic. We need the Gattuso family's strong support."

The bewilderment on Chen Motong's face slowly faded as realization dawned... This man wanted to marry her off to the Gattuso family for an alliance!?

The man's words remained gentle, but his tone was ice-cold and brooked no argument. "Motong, my beloved daughter, the family needs you."

Despair rose like a silent, swelling tide, quietly drowning Chen Motong's heart.

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