Chapter 1
A Terrible Nightmare
“Young Miss, that’s—”
The old butler, Mr. Zhong, suddenly pointed to the front and stammered, his voice filled with horror.
Sang Qianqian raised her head and saw a figure rapidly falling from the roof of the seven-story villa in the faint morning light, crashing heavily onto the ground.
As blood splattered everywhere, Sang Qianqian’s footsteps froze, and her vision turned dark.
Her world collapsed in an instant.
“Dad!”
A heart-wrenching cry resounded through the morning’s quiet manor, causing the garden crows to fly up in alarm.
Sang Qianqian stumbled over. Her legs turned to jelly as she knelt before her father, Sang Pengcheng. She cried bitterly as her eyes swept over his corpse.
“Young Miss, I’m afraid the Master had no choice but to take this path. The capital chain has been broken, and now the group is in huge debt.”
Mr. Zhong’s tears streamed down his face. “Yesterday, Master kept calling until his throat became hoarse. However, not a single bank or company was willing to lend him money to help him out…”
Sang Qianqian’s tears gushed out like a broken string of pearls. Her heart was in excruciating pain, and she almost fainted.
Yesterday, her father had suddenly called her. He told her he’d transferred her some money and asked her to live a good life abroad. Over the call, she knew that her father was hiding something from her.
To ease her worries, she bought a plane ticket back home overnight. But, alas, she was a step too late.
Sang Qianqian sobbed and choked, “The Group has always been running well, so how did the capital chain suddenly break?”
“It’s all Shen Hanyu’s fault. He was the one who deliberately targeted the Sang family and put us in this terrible state!”
Mr. Zhong’s voice became angry. “All of this was caused by Shen Hanyu. He returned to Ming City to take revenge on the Sang family!”
Shen Hanyu, Shen Hanyu…
Those two words awakened the depths of her distant memories. It was him. He returned?
Sang Qianqian could vaguely make out the sound of footsteps slowly walking toward her.
She raised her head. Through her teary eyes, she saw a man.
The man was wearing a well-cut black suit. He was unusually handsome, but his eyes were cold as ice. He looked down at her quietly.
She knew this person, but she couldn’t recognize him anymore.
He wasn’t the handsome young man from her memories.
He was Shen Hanyu, the founder of the global communication company, Phoenix Technology. He’d returned to Ming City to avenge the Shen family years after leaving.
Mr. Zhong was held back by a few bodyguards in black as he stood not far from Shen Hanyu.
“Young Miss.” Mr. Zhong wiped his tears, his expression sorrowful. “The Sang family’s residence is now his.”
All the Sang family’s assets had been seized and auctioned off, including the old mansion. The buyer was Shen Hanyu.
In just a short time, the Sang family had changed.
The Sang family’s reputation in the business world, which generations had painstakingly managed, had all been destroyed and turned to dust.
Sang Qianqian slowly got up. The immense grief and long crying had made her dizzy, and she almost fell.
The man reached out to hold her in time, his arms steady and strong.
She pushed him away with a pale face and gritted her teeth. “Why? Why did you do this to my dad?”
The man looked at her expressionlessly. His dark eyes were like a deep pool of ice in the winter, and his voice was extremely cold. “Why don’t you ask yourself?”
Sang Qianqian was stunned. She felt as if the whole world came crashing down on her as the near-forgotten memories of her youth slowly surfaced in her mind.
She’d fallen in love with Shen Hanyu many years ago, but he’d rejected her.
In a fit of anger, she called her father and cried. To stand up for her, her father forced Shen Hanyu to drop out of school and leave Ming City. Furthermore, he even used some means to bankrupt the Shen family’s company.
Shen Hanyu’s father was so upset that he died soon from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, and Shen Hanyu disappeared into thin air after that.
Who would’ve thought that Shen Hanyu would return to Ming City and pay back what the Sang family had once done to the Shen family?
So, in the end, she was the one who harmed her father and the Sang family?
“So, you’re taking revenge on the Sang family because of me?” Sang Qianqian asked in a trembling voice.
The man lowered his eyes to look at her, his eyes carrying an indescribable meaning.
“Sang Qianqian,” he said slowly, “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
The man’s voice was extremely low and magnetic, but it was as cold as frost. When Sang Qianqian heard it, she felt chills run down her spine.
He’d been looking for her for a long time?
He couldn’t find Sang Qianqian to exact revenge; thus, he vented all his hatred toward the Sang family instead.
“I’m sorry for what happened back then.”
“Shen Hanyu, I’m the one you hate. You didn’t have to…” Sang Qianqian cried.
The words were at the tip of her tongue, but she choked and couldn’t continue.
What should he have not done? He ruined the Sang family and caused her father’s death.
However, the Sang family treated the Shen family the same way!
Sang Qianqian was in a daze, feeling like she was having a nightmare.
However, her father’s cold and stiff body on the ground reminded her that this wasn’t a dream.
She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t. It was as if a huge rock blocked her throat.
Sang Qianqian’s body trembled violently, and her vision turned black as she fainted.
…
When she regained consciousness, she was in prison for some reason.
Through the thick visiting glass, Sang Qianqian saw Wen Xu, dressed in prison clothes with cuffed hands.
Other than her father and brother, Wen Xu was the closest person to her. They had played together since they were young, and Wen Xu always called her Sister Qian.
They weren’t brother and sister but were as close as siblings.
In her memories, the initially handsome young man now looked haggard. There was an unconcealable melancholy and sadness in his eyes.
Wen Xu was originally the president of a film company, but he was caught in a rape scandal. Not only did he lose his reputation, he was also sentenced to 18 years in prison and fined several billion by the court for crimes such as illegal business and tax evasion. Eventually, the company went bankrupt.
Shen Hanyu was the only person who could have caused Wen Xu such a tragedy.
Other than him, no one could make the Sang and Wen families fall and become pushovers within a day.
After she was released from prison, Sang Qianqian went straight to Shen Hanyu’s company. She wanted to beg him to let Wen Xu off, regardless of the price.
However, she didn’t manage to meet Shen Hanyu. Instead, she was forcefully sent to the mental hospital by a few men in black suits.
“President Shen doesn’t want to see you.”
Someone was talking to her. Their face was blurred in the smoke, but their tone was cruel. “Sang Qianqian, you can spend the rest of your life here. This is President Shen’s last act of kindness to you.”
However, that wasn’t mercy. It was torture that was more terrifying than dismembering.
Sang Qianqian had the same tragic ending as her father on a stormy night. Jumping down from the 13th floor of the mental hospital, blood splattered on a rainy night as she died with her eyes wide open.
…
Sang Qianqian suddenly sat up, an intense fear taking over her heart.
She panted heavily, cold sweat dripping down her forehead. The terrifying scene in the dream was still lingering in her mind.