Chapter 30: The Thirty-Five-Year-Old Lin Ruoxuan

Zhang Xiaoyu was originally feeling a bit embarrassed by Xu Yunzhou's action and her cheeks were slightly red from the surrounding jeers, but being indiscriminately fussed at by Su Qianran like this, her temper instantly flared up.

She abruptly stood up and sneered:

"First of all, Su Qianran, listen to me clearly! Brother Xu and I are perfectly innocent; he gave me a gift to thank me for telling him the truth yesterday! Thanking me for letting him see clearly the ugly faces of certain people! Secondly—"

She deliberately dragged out her tone, her gaze sweeping up and down Su Qianran, full of contempt:

"Just relying on you? Are you worthy of standing here and accusing Brother Xu? Do you still want your face? Do you need me to help you recall, the night before yesterday in the B section of the underground garage, inside that red Ferrari, whose screams could almost be heard by the whole garage?"

"The car windows weren't even closed tight, was it for fear that others wouldn't know that you, Su Qianran, while stringing Brother Xu along talking about marriage, were enjoying yourself in someone else's car?"

With her fig leaf torn off in public, Su Qianran completely lost her rationality.

"It really was you, you little bitch, playing tricks!"

Screaming, she pounced forward, reaching out to grab Zhang Xiaoyu's hair.

Zhang Xiaoyu was not to be outdone either. The two instantly tangled and fought together, screams and curses blending into a cacophony.

"Enough!"

Director Zhang, who rushed over upon hearing the news, had an ashen face and shouted sternly to stop them.

Colleagues nearby hastily pulled apart the two who looked like madwomen.

After asking clearly about the cause of the matter, Director Zhang's cold gaze swept over Su Qianran, whose hair was messy and makeup was ruined, his tone without the slightest warmth:

"Su Qianran! What kind of place do you think the company is? A wet market or your backyard? Just for some trivial matter of fighting out of jealousy, you throw a tantrum and get physical here? Look at what you look like right now! I'm warning you, if there's a next time, pack your bags and leave immediately!"

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding employees who were as quiet as cicadas in cold weather. He deliberately emphasized his tone, which was both a warning to Su Qianran and said for everyone to hear:

"Listen to me clearly, all of you! Mr. Xu Yunzhou, who just left, is an honored guest personally invited by our Chairman Song Jinxuan! Whoever dares to gossip behind his back again, or even maliciously slander him, don't blame the company for pursuing legal responsibility!"

"Chair... Chairman Song's honored guest?"

Su Qianran, who was originally still struggling and full of dissatisfaction, suddenly froze in place, even forgetting the burning pain on her face.

Xu Yunzhou? That Xu Yunzhou whom she thought would find it hard to move a single step after leaving her and could only come back bitterly begging her?

How could he be the honored guest of Chairman Song Jinxuan, who had an unfathomably deep background and was an all-powerful figure in the media circle?

Isn't he just an ordinary programmer?

When... when did he climb such a high branch?

Right at this moment, the phone in her bag rang sharply, breaking her sluggish state.

She mechanically took out her phone, and the moment she answered, Zhao Lili's exasperated voice, carrying a crying tone, exploded in her ear:

"Su Qianran! Just how many things did you hide from me?! Hengchuang Technology! That company was basically opened for Xu Yunzhou alone!"

"As soon as he resigned, the company immediately announced bankruptcy liquidation! What exactly is his background? Ah? The Crown Prince sent down from headquarters for an incognito inspection?"

Gripping the phone, listening to Zhao Lili's almost breaking-down questioning, looking at the messy office area before her eyes, and the gazes of pity, mockery, or curiosity cast by the surrounding colleagues, Su Qianran only felt a wave of dizziness.

Xu Yunzhou...

This man whom she thought she completely controlled and was about to be eaten clean by her and her family, how did he overnight become so unfamiliar, so... unreachable?

What exactly is going on?

...

Top floor, Chairman's Office.

Hearing the assistant finish reporting the farce just now, that Song Jinxuan revealed an unsurprised sneer on her exquisite face.

She picked up her phone, dialed a Huzhou number, and complained with dissatisfaction:

"Cousin! That Xu Yunzhou you asked me to look after, he's not a good thing at all!"

A gentle and slightly lazy female voice came from the other end of the phone:

"Hmm? What happened to him? Making you so angry."

Song Jinxuan immediately recounted today's matter, adding oil and vinegar, focusing on describing how Xu Yunzhou was "of bad character"—clearly still relentlessly pestering his ex-girlfriend Su Qianran, yet daring to openly give an expensive gift to another female colleague in her company.

(TL: "Adding oil and vinegar", an idiom meaning to exaggerate, sensationalize, or embellish the facts of a narrative with vivid, unverified details to sway an audience's judgment.)

"Cousin, I really don't understand, how could you take a fancy to this kind of man? Besides that face of his being passable to look at, what other merits does he have? He's basically rotten mud that can't be plastered onto a wall!"

After the woman on the other end heard this, she didn't get angry as Song Jinxuan expected, but instead just laughed extremely lightly:

"Jinxuan, you're overthinking it. I don't harbor any romantic feelings toward him."

She paused, seemingly weighing her words,

"It's just that he looks... remarkably like an old friend of mine whom I lost touch with many years ago. I only asked you to look after him for old time's sake, as a way of... keeping a memory alive."

Not much emotion could be heard in her voice,

"Since he is so unbearable, then from now on, you don't need to care about any of his matters anymore. Just treat it as if... this never happened."

At this time, Huzhou, inside an old Western-style house hidden deep among parasol trees.

Lin Ruoxuan put down her dedicated encrypted phone.

At thirty-five years old, wearing soft cashmere loungewear, her figure still maintained the gracefulness of a young girl; that was the result of years of strict self-discipline and top-tier maintenance.

Her appearance was treated well by the years, almost showing no signs of hardship.

Only those eyes that once reflected the brilliant lights of NASDAQ were currently settled with bottomless exhaustion and an indifference of having seen all the sails pass by.

On the desk in front of her, the screen of a tablet computer was lit by itself, frozen on a secretly taken photo—Xu Yunzhou, outside a corner coffee shop, was showing a smile to a young girl.

The sunlight fell on his shoulders, brimming with ordinary, within-reach happiness.

Those features, the lines of that side profile, almost seamlessly overlapped with the illusory figure of the "Tyrant" branded deep in her soul for over a decade.

She extended a slightly trembling hand, gently swiping across the screen, the pad of her finger caressing that young and vibrant face on the screen.

A trace of extremely complex emotion flashed through her eyes—there was concern, reminiscence, and a momentary trance, but ultimately, it all turned into a sigh carrying endless desolation.

As if having made some sort of determination, she selected all the video and photo materials in the computer regarding Xu Yunzhou's life trajectory over these years, and without any hesitation, pressed the delete key.

Lin Ruoxuan felt an almost self-masochistic pleasure, as if personally gouging out a festering wound by the roots.

The images of Xu Yunzhou smiling, frowning, and chatting cheerfully with different girls on the screen instantly turned into nothingness, just like he had never left any physical trace in her world.

After doing all this, she slowly stood up and walked into that bedroom where no one was ever allowed to set foot.

On the entire wall facing the door, a huge oil painting was covered, its height almost reaching the ceiling. On the painting was the silhouette of a man.

The brushstrokes of the painting were delicate to the point of being almost paranoid.

Light and shadow were cleverly utilized, and the outlined silhouette bore an astonishing ninety percent resemblance to the Xu Yunzhou who had just disappeared from the screen.

Anyone seeing it would marvel at this "inheritance" spanning across spacetime.

However, those eyes...

That was absolutely not a gaze Xu Yunzhou could possess.

It was not like that man in reality, carrying the joys, sorrows, angers, and happiness tainted by the smoke of human life, with occasional bewilderment or struggle.

These eyes in the painting were deep and sharp, carrying a detachment that traversed dimensions, containing an all-seeing playfulness, and a god-like absolute control.

That belonged uniquely to her "Daddy System," her "Tyrant," after being polished, beautified, and ultimately deified countless times in her memory—the "gaze."

This was the image she barely managed to freeze only after expending incalculable financial and mental effort, turning to multiple retired or contemporary master painters for help, repeatedly modifying according to her fragmented and stubborn descriptions, and even driving away several painters who couldn't understand her requirements.