The Wu family’s ethical melodrama quickly surpassed Wu Nian in heat.

Soon, people dug up more information—Wu Guo was not acting violently for the first time. Over the years, no one knew how much blood had stained his hands; this was merely the first time he had slipped up.

And that slip was fatal.

His father, Wu Liang, was considered a well-known entrepreneur—your typical case of a man who gets rich and goes bad. He had so many mistresses outside that they were impossible to count, yet on the other side he and Mrs. Wu maintained a “true love” persona.

One claimed he didn’t care about youth or beauty, only kindness; the other claimed she didn’t care about money or power, only character and charm.

That loving-couple image lasted so long largely thanks to Wu Guo. After all, every time Wu Liang caused a pregnancy outside that could cost a life, it was Wu Guo who went behind the scenes, bang bang, to force abortions.

Netizens considerately dubbed him: “Abortion Bro.”

Whether it was that the first time made the second easier, or that even crime can become addictive, Abortion Bro had probably grown numb to blood over the years, and his methods later became increasingly heavy-handed.

Wu Liang’s previous mistress had her child knocked out in a collision at a late stage of pregnancy; her uterus was damaged as well, and it had to be removed. The woman couldn’t withstand the blow and not long after jumped from a building to her death.

This matter once appeared on social platforms, but it was quickly suppressed.

From that time on, Wu Liang actually suspected that it wasn’t Wu Nian who had done it. Although Wu Nian had come to him to take responsibility, she was so poor—where would she have gotten the money to suppress the heat? However, he was ruthless toward his daughter and rather softhearted toward his son, and in the end he didn’t pierce that layer of paper.

He hadn’t expected that just as Wu Nian had exploded in popularity, the matter would immediately be dug up again.

First, the woman’s family made a scene online; now it was clear that Wu Nian’s team had taken the opportunity to send them straight onto the hot search in one go. Once public opinion had fermented enough, Wu Nian directly delivered Wu Guo’s criminal evidence to the police station.

With the evidence conclusive and public opinion pushing the wave, Wu Guo’s intentional injury resulting in death would very likely earn him ten years of fixed-term imprisonment.

“Did you know this long ago?”

When Meng Yanxi returned from his business trip, Jin Zhao asked him.

“Which part do you mean? If you’re talking about the ten years of fixed-term imprisonment, then yes, I did know that long ago. I studied law.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

Meng Yanxi hadn’t seen his girlfriend for a week while on his business trip and missed her terribly. After saying just one sentence, he took off his coat, tossed it on the floor at will, and hugged her to kiss.

Jin Zhao missed him too, and soon had no time to think about other people’s affairs. Meng Yanxi pushed her toward the bedroom.

“I haven’t showered yet,” Jin Zhao reminded him softly.

Meng Yanxi paused for a moment, then directly pushed her into the bathroom.

Compared with the spacious bathroom on Meng Yanxi’s side, this one seemed a bit cramped. But even in such a narrow bathroom, Meng Yanxi enthusiastically switched through seven positions.

Jin Zhao was shocked by President Meng’s ability to pioneer and explore.

But that was only the beginning.

Jin Zhao knew him very well—only after returning to the bedroom would he truly start to exert his physical strength.

It was just that tonight’s situation was somewhat different.

Before, no one lived downstairs or next door, so it didn’t matter how he went at it. These past two days, a new teacher had moved in downstairs.

The school-provided transitional housing—although the conditions were already quite good—still couldn’t avoid the common problem of housing in this era: poor soundproofing. The day the downstairs neighbors moved in, Jin Zhao could hear the sound of things being moved around even while she was in the bedroom.

When Meng Yanxi entered her, she clung to him, her fingers instinctively tensing and pressing hard. Beneath her fingertips were the man’s solid muscles. Tightening, relaxing, blood surging hotly.

Her voice trembled as she reminded him by his ear, “Someone lives downstairs now, you—y-you restrain yourself…”

Under the blunt light, Meng Yanxi stared straight at her, his pitch-black eyes filled with desire.

He couldn’t restrain himself at all.

“Back to the bathroom?” His voice was scorching and hoarse.

The bathroom was too stimulating; Jin Zhao immediately shook her head.

The man gave a low laugh, bit her lip, and kissed her densely, saying, “Alright, then don’t make a sound.”

……

Jin Zhao was still thinking—was this something she could control? Why didn’t he control himself a little?

But very soon she knew—he did control it, and he was very good at it.

All the mouths on her body were firmly blocked by him. Jin Zhao’s scalp tingled; every time she wanted to scream out, it ended up only turning into deep, heavy kisses with him.

A feeling of neither being able to live nor die.

That night, the bedroom was even more stimulating than the bathroom.

After it ended, Jin Zhao basically fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Meng Yanxi was full of stamina and repeatedly wanted to linger with her afterward, but by then his girlfriend was already sleeping like a little kitten.

Meng Yanxi felt both annoyed and amused, kissing her endlessly—kissing her hand for a bit, then her brows and eyes, then her mouth.

Jin Zhao was stirred awake by him, a bit of morning grumpiness on her as she pushed him—pushing his face, not letting him burrow over.

Meng Yanxi pulled her hand away and said, “It’s winter break now, don’t you not have classes?”

Even without classes she would still get tired, okay? She wasn’t a doll.

“Aren’t you tired?” Jin Zhao pried her eyelids open a slit and barely gave her boyfriend a look.

The man thought about it seriously, then asked in return, “How could happiness be tiring?”

Jin Zhao: “……”

Too much happiness, too much stimulation, can be tiring too!

Meng Yanxi chuckled softly. “Be a little understanding, I might have been pent up for too many years. At the beginning I can’t quite rein it in. It should get better later.”

Jin Zhao felt that sounded like empty promises.

How long was ‘later’? How much better was ‘better’?

Did it mean not like that, or not like this? Or not being so nasty as to deliberately use his mouth?

Jin Zhao didn’t pay him any more attention and quickly fell into a sweet sleep.

Meng Yanxi affectionately kissed her again, but didn’t deliberately wake her anymore. After he’d indulged in his one-sided tenderness to his heart’s content, he turned off the light and went to sleep holding his girlfriend, fully satisfied.

The phone screen on the bedside lit up, a faint glow illuminating the pair of mandarin ducks embracing on the bed.

Meng Yanxi picked up the phone with one hand. Meng Shixu was calling.

Only then did he release Jin Zhao from his arms and, moving lightly, go to the living room.

Meng Shixu: “Did Wu Guo come looking for you?”

Meng Yanxi: “Mm. I ignored him.”

Meng Shixu: “Someone got photos of him meeting you.”

Meng Yanxi: “I know. It’s already been handled.”

Meng Shixu’s tone turned grave. “Yanxi, why would you make such a low-level mistake? Where did things go wrong—did you fail to anticipate the consequences, or did you not receive the information at all? If it’s the latter, Zhuang Yu doesn’t need to come to work tomorrow.”

The reason rich people are rich, to a large extent, is that their information channels are exceptionally smooth. From major international situations to the slightest stir within their circles, they are always the first to know everything.

The fact was, Meng Yanxi had sensed the wind even earlier than Wu Guo himself.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t realized the Wu family was about to face catastrophe; otherwise, Wu Guo wouldn’t have spent that period unable to find him no matter where he went.

Meng Shixu fell silent for a moment, then suddenly thought of something and asked, “Did he track you down through your Moments?”

The New Year’s Day skiing post.

Meng Yanxi said flatly, “Don’t worry. Just a chance encounter. I’ll take care of it.”

Public opinion is the most uncontrollable force. Once public opinion is combined with deliberate guidance, it quickly becomes a raging wildfire. Moreover, the Wu family had always been high-profile, and their reputation was, well, so-so. As a result, once something happened, the wall fell and everyone pushed—countless eyes fixed on them, digging deep. Those watching the spectacle, those condemning.

Not only was the Wu family thoroughly exposed, even who Wu Guo had met recently and who he had eaten with were all dug up.

These people were either Wu Guo’s friends, or even richer and more powerful than the Wu family, and every one of them ended up subjected to scrutiny from all sides, even malicious speculation.

Friends were accomplices; wealth and power meant having shielded Wu Guo. All were reported, none spared.

Meng Yanxi was the sole exception.

Wu Guo had chased him to the hotel to seek him out during that extremely sensitive period. Although Meng Yanxi had only seen him for three minutes, he was born with keen intuition and always acted thoroughly. Before leaving that very day, he had dealt with all possible hidden dangers, including surveillance and photos.

As for who had taken the photos, he already had a good idea.

When seeking help failed, Wu Guo wanted to drag him onto the same boat. But such methods looked utterly immature to Meng Yanxi.

Meng Yanxi had never regarded Wu Guo as worthy of notice. In fact, Wu Guo coming to see him had indeed posed no threat to him at all.

What he truly hadn’t anticipated was that his father’s girlfriend from back then—the one he had forced to break up—would jump out at this moment to stir things up.

Ten years ago, the young starlet had quickly fallen out of favor after losing Meng Shixu’s backing. She later retired from the industry, got married, had children, and completely faded from public attention. Usually, when she posted on Weibo, there were barely any comments. But when Wu Guo’s crimes were being fiercely discussed online, Mrs. Xu suddenly posted her own experience with a hashtag—

“Condolences. This circle is just like this—human lives are treated like grass. My experience and Ms. Liu’s can’t even be called similar; they’re exactly the same. After my miscarriage back then, I’ve had no children to this day. The person who hurt me had even greater means and power than Wu Guo. He just didn’t expect my life to be so cheap, that I’d cling on and survive.”

Riding on Wu Guo’s wave of attention, the post quickly climbed the hot search as well, and everyone began guessing who that person was.

It wasn’t hard to guess. The internet always leaves traces—who she had dated before, who among them had a son, and beyond that, who was more powerful than the Wu family… Very quickly, someone left a comment asking whether it was Meng Yanxi.

That comment was immediately liked by the blogger.

Soon, people dug up incidents from many years ago: a female celebrity’s unexpected miscarriage—back then it had all been rumored to be the work of Meng Shixu’s son, and in the end the matter fizzled out.

But as Wu Guo’s downfall unfolded, those old stories were immediately dragged back into the light.

At this point, the focus of public opinion shifted from the Wu family to the Meng family.

Meng Yanxi’s high profile was the kind born of objective excellence. As a person, he was actually quite mysterious, and his prior reputation had been good. Because of this incident, however, the internet was suddenly flooded with attacks against him.

Netizens’ emotions have never followed reason. You can’t imagine how vicious and filthy the words can be that complete strangers, who have never met you, are capable of spewing.

Yunsheng’s stock price plunged along with it.

Meng Yanxi himself made no response. Only Meng Shixu, through Yunsheng Group’s PR team, publicly released a surgical record proving that Meng Shixu had undergone a vasectomy ten years earlier. Meng Yanxi’s situation was different from Wu Guo’s—he had no need to take action at all.

But that surgical record failed to appease the inflamed public. Instead, it was accused of being fabricated through vast influence and collusion with the hospital.

Even the hospital was reported.

It was late February. Winter break had ended, and Jin Zhao had just started classes.

During breaks she even heard students discussing the matter; she cut them off with a cool expression.

Meng Yanxi seemed not to be affected emotionally. It was just that, whether out of fear of implicating her and having her dragged into the insults, or because he was busier, he hadn’t come to see her for many days. When she went to Shanshui City, he wasn’t there either.

They video-called at night. He looked as calm as ever, only asking suddenly, just before hanging up, “Lingling, do you believe me?”

Jin Zhao’s eyes instantly burned.

In fact, he hadn’t suppressed a single comment about him online. Meng Yanxi had always been like this—never proving his innocence, never caring about others’ opinions. Only to the people he cared about would he explain.

“Yes, I believe you.”

She had never doubted him.

Those days, whenever Jin Zhao had free time, she held her phone scrolling through Weibo—during breaks too, opening it the moment class ended.

Mrs. Xu seemed to have tasted the sweetness of traffic and soon began livestreaming to sell products, often using the incident as her topic, with many people tipping her. Jin Zhao never watched livestreams, but she replayed every single one of Mrs. Xu’s. If the platform didn’t allow replays, she spent money on Xianyu to have someone record them for her.

She always believed that the more one talks, the more mistakes one makes. Say enough, and holes will appear.

In one livestream, someone asked when the incident had happened.

The date Mrs. Xu gave made Jin Zhao’s gaze flicker; she pressed pause.

July 20.

July 20 of her senior year in high school.

July 21 was her birthday.

Jin Zhao immediately contacted Zhuang Yu.

It was something from eight years ago—far too long past. Zhuang Yu hadn’t yet been following Meng Yanxi back then, and Meng Yanxi himself might not even remember. But under Jin Zhao’s insistence, after many twists and turns, Zhuang Yu finally found a boarding pass.

A boarding pass from July 19 of that year—Meng Yanxi flying from Suiyi to London Heathrow—stamped with both the airline’s and the airport’s seals.