Chapter 325: Chapter 325: Able to Contact the Living
"President Duan, let’s not play dumb. You and I both know perfectly well what leverage we’re talking about," Chu Tian said coldly.
"President Chu, it’s important to understand gratitude and learn to be content. I’ve already invested in the Chu Group under the name of Hai Chuan Entertainment—consider that my utmost benevolence. I believe we no longer need to have any further contact," Duan Wenhu said, eager to get rid of Chu Tian. She no longer wanted to have any ties with anyone from the Chu Family.
"President Duan, you know what I want is support from Hai Chuan’s headquarters. You promised to introduce me to Mr. Li. If you go back on your word now, don’t blame me for turning my back on you!" Chu Tian’s stance was firm and unyielding.
Duan Wenhu felt this was laughable. What nerve did he have to challenge her?
She had already handled most of the necessary follow-up — Chu Tian was simply being insatiable.
Not wanting to waste more words on Chu Tian, Duan Wenhu was about to hang up the phone, but then she heard something that made her pupils tremble.
"Dead means dead. Without surveillance, who would know I pushed that person down..."
Wasn’t that her own voice?
"Chu Tian, what do you mean by this!" Duan Wenhu’s fingers instinctively tightened, as though she was about to crush her phone. "When did Li Sulan record this?"
Duan Wenhu had underestimated her. She had been deceived by Li Sulan’s appearance.
She had always thought Li Sulan was purely malicious but lacked much scheming ability. Who would have thought Li Sulan secretly recorded all their conversations?
Chu Tian smiled smugly. "President Duan, my wife’s brain might not be the sharpest, but she’s not as dumb as you’d like to think."
Being insulted to her face, Li Sulan glared at Chu Tian. His lips remained curved in a smile, but his eyes abruptly lost all trace of amusement.
Turning his back to Li Sulan, Chu Tian addressed Duan Wenhu again, "President Duan, how about lending a hand this time around?"
"I’ll try my best," Duan Wenhu said after taking a deep breath to regain her composure. "You’ve probably heard by now—Hai Chuan Group’s CEO is notoriously difficult to deal with. Ruthless, not caring even for family—there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to sway him."
She wasn’t lying; Li Juezhou didn’t even respect her as his aunt—let alone Chu Tian.
"President Duan, that’s your problem. How tight-lipped I remain depends entirely on how strong our partnership becomes," Chu Tian said, openly threatening her without hesitation.
"Got it," Duan Wenhu replied half-heartedly before quickly hanging up.
She feared if the call continued, her uncontrollable anger might explode.
Duan Wenhu suddenly regretted everything. If she had known Qingyue was such a troublemaker and would bring her this much disaster, she never would have impulsively taken him under her wing.
Not long ago, Duan Wenhu had suffered humiliation at Li Juezhou’s hands. Now she had to contact him again—and worse, ask him for a favor. She was extremely reluctant, but it was unavoidable.
To boost her chances of success, she avoided contacting Li Juezhou using her personal identity and instead approached him under the banner of one of Hai Chuan’s subsidiary companies.
Duan Wenhu thought introducing Chu Tian to Li Juezhou would be a challenging task. She had even prepared herself for rejection.
To her surprise, as soon as Li Juezhou learned it was Chu Tian from the Chu Group requesting a meeting, he agreed without hesitation.
He even let Chu Tian set the time for the meeting himself. To an outsider, it might have seemed as though Li Juezhou was the one eager to meet.
Duan Wenhu’s initial reaction was shock; after the shock came anger.
Chu Tian was just a stranger to Li Juezhou, but he was granting this stranger respect while treating her, his own family, with indifference—it was utterly heartbreaking.
Apart from Duan Wenhu’s confusion over why Li Juezhou was being so agreeable, even Chu Tian hadn’t expected the meeting arrangement to proceed so smoothly.
Through Duan Wenhu as a middleman, Chu Tian and Li Juezhou finalized the meeting time.
...
As one of the accused parties, Sang Ning was also summoned to the police station to cooperate with the investigation.
During the police interrogation, Sang Ning answered everything truthfully, but they couldn’t extract any useful information from her.
The internet remained flooded with overwhelming insults. For a regular celebrity, this would be the time to hide and weather the backlash.
But Sang Ning chose to go against the norm—instead of withdrawing, she became even more active online during this tumultuous period.
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Sang Ning posted a new pinned message on her account. Strangely enough, her follower count kept rising because of this.
Bystanders were shocked by Sang Ning’s shameless behavior, yet many contributed to her growing audience.
Her antics sparked a trending hashtag: #HaveYouFollowedSangNingToInsultHerToday#.
Most participants treated the topic as a meme and joined in to follow Sang Ning and send her insults via private messages. Few people genuinely cared about the progress of Sang Youming and Hu Zhi’s case.
Sang Ning was busy maintaining her exposure while also working on gathering evidence for her parents.
She couldn’t reach out to the dead, but the living were still accessible.
Unable to obtain a meeting with Chu Tian and Li Sulan, Sang Ning decided to aim for Chu Xi instead.
Sang Ning planned to leverage Shen Yi, deploying a handsome-man tactic under Shen Yi’s name to arrange a meeting with Chu Xi.
When it came to critical matters, face-to-face discussions were preferable. Despite being at the center of public outrage, Sang Ning donned a disguise and ventured out to meet Shen Yi.
Their meeting spot was on the rooftop of a café. The café used greenery dividers to segment the space into private booths, each separated by significant distances to ensure guests could converse with maximum privacy.
Sang Ning was the first to arrive and take a seat. Shen Yi followed shortly after, not as heavily disguised as Sang Ning, whose head-to-toe covering left no strand of hair exposed, but he did wear a mask and sunglasses.
Shen Yi removed his mask and glasses, setting them aside on the table. Sang Ning pulled down her hoodie and face shield, taking a deep breath before looking directly at Shen Yi. "In the midst of my total internet backlash, you still had the guts to meet me. I’m genuinely moved."
"Whenever you want, I’ll always be ready to meet you," Shen Yi joked. "After all, in the eyes of the online world, we’re the dog couple, aren’t we? Seeing each other daily is perfectly normal for couples."
Sang Ning felt as though Shen Yi was like a different person altogether, capable of uttering such things. She leaned back in her chair, narrowed her eyes, and scrutinized Shen Yi up and down.
Shen Yi stared straight at her, his lips carrying an enigmatic smirk. Stranger still, Sang Ning felt an odd sense of familiarity in his expression.
The way he looked at her—why did it remind her so much of the way Li Juezhou looked at her?