Chapter 111: Lin Huaizhi Violently Beats Chu Xiaoran
“How am I not worth it!”
Chu Xiaoran was clearly still immersed in his past glory and unable to pull himself out. Even his tone carried a sense of accusationâ
“Fang Mo told me!”
“He said you had a lionâs big mouth and asked Yun Ziliao for fifty million, plus a bottle of rare wine thatâs priceless!”
“What is fifty million! What is rare wine! Itâs only a few hundred thousand! When you were promoting me back then, you spent several times that amount! Not to mention the gifts you gave to directors for a few roles!”
“Back then, you didn’t ask if I was worth it; you just promoted me. Why are you asking if I’m worth it now!”
The voice, growing louder and louder until it reached its peak, suddenly snapped. After finishing this tirade, Chu Xiaoran was panting.
“Heh.”
Lin Huaizhi suddenly let out a cold laugh.
“Chu Xiaoran, in the past, I thought highly of you and felt you were alright, so I promoted you. After all, money canât buy my happiness. But things are different now. Now, I don’t think much of you, so naturally, I have to ask if you’re worth it.”
Hearing this, Chu Xiaoran became agitated again, even stepping forward to grab Lin Huaizhiâs shoulder.
“Then tell me, where exactly am I not worth it!!”
Lin Huaizhi grabbed the wrist Chu Xiaoran was trying to reach out with. With a sharp turn and a surge of strength, he gave Chu Xiaoran a shoulder throw.
The sound of a heavy object hitting the ground was distinct.
It was accompanied by Chu Xiaoranâs cries of pain.
Lin Huaizhi didn’t stop. He knelt beside Chu Xiaoran, one hand gripping his collar while the other pounded into Chu Xiaoranâs face.
The young manâs face was hidden in the darkness.
The downward-crushing fists quickly gave Chu Xiaoran a bloody nose. The way he threw those punches made him look like a wild beast.
Humans always like to use civilization to disguise their savagery. After becoming a successful person, Lin Huaizhi was humorous, witty, gentle, and generous most of the time. But once that outer skin was peeled away, he was still fierce and vengeful.
Recent events weren’t many, but every single one of them reminded him of the sh*tty things from his past.
The darkness.
The memories that were painful and maddening.
Ever since he stabbed Zhang Qiang, the dark side of his heart had been magnified to the extreme. During that period, he took an aggressive stance toward everyone he met. It took a long time for him to reintegrate into a normal life.
He had always worked hard to control the beast within.
But Chu Xiaoran just had to show up right now, when he was extremely displeased, when he was on the verge of losing control, and flash his presence before him like a madman.
“I told you… not to… appear… in front of me!”
“I told you… to learn… to listen!”
The young manâs voice fell word by word along with his actions. It wasn’t until Chu Xiaoran no longer had the strength to struggle or scream that Lin Huaizhi stood up, his fists covered in blood.
He stood straight, tilting his head to stretch his neck and shoulders. Then, he looked down at Chu Xiaoran, who was struggling to crawl up from the ground with a face full of blood. With a sneer, Lin Huaizhi got into his car and drove away.
As for Chu Xiaoran…
Lin Huaizhi wasn’t afraid of him calling the police at all. Chu Xiaoran had already started to loathe Fang Mo; it was only a matter of time before they broke up. Fang Mo had Yun Ziliao backing him, and Yun Ziliao was not someone Chu Xiaoran could afford to provoke.
That was why Chu Xiaoran wanted to return to Huaimeng.
As long as Chu Xiaoran wanted to return to Huaimeng, he would have to endure whatever Lin Huaizhi did to him and swallow his grievances.
He would never let outsiders know.
Of course, if Chu Xiaoran wanted to call the police, that was fine too. There was a blind spot in the surveillance of Huaimengâs underground parking lot, and Lin Huaizhi had always parked his car in that exact spot.
Only Chu Xiaoran and he knew what happened here today. Even if Chu Xiaoran tried to drag him down, a single personâs testimony wouldn’t be enough to be believed.
But none of that was important.
What was important was that Chu Xiaoran actually had the nerve to come looking for him. It seemed Yun Ziliaoâs abilities weren’t all that great.
Lin Huaizhi placed a call to Yun Ziliao.
“Lin Huaizhi?”
Yun Ziliaoâs voice sounded surprised, but it quickly turned into a tone of someone who had everything under control. “I thought you were better at keeping your cool. In the end, you still have to ask for help. Though, what I didn’t expect was that youâd ask me for help.”
Yun Ziliao paused.
A sense of pleasure traveled through the phone.
“But it makes sense. Huo Chen has been kicked out of the Huo Group and has long since lost his say there. Even if he wanted to help you, heâs powerless. Besides, when it comes to controlling public opinion, no one is more suited than those of us in the entertainment industry.”
Yun Ziliao clicked his tongue.
“Lin Huaizhi, youâre in the entertainment industry; you and Huo Chen donât belong together. Especially now that heâs fallen out with the Huo familyâthat family will never acknowledge your relationship.”
“Seriously, follow me.”
“As long as youâre with me, I guarantee Iâll handle these matters perfectly. That man online claiming to be your father… I can take care of him too.”
Lin Huaizhi listened to Yun Ziliaoâs long speech before calmly adding a sentence: “He’s ‘claiming’ to be, but itâs also a fact. He indeed shares my blood.”
Yun Ziliao fell into a sudden silence. A moment later, the disgust in his tone was palpable.
“He looks like thatâhitting every mark for short, ugly, and poorâwhile youâre obviously tall, rich, and handsome. Are you sure youâre biologically related? Youâre sure you aren’t some ‘true or false young master’ who got switched at birth?”
Yun Ziliao came from a good family background, but he hadn’t entered the entertainment industry just to play around; he had taken it seriously.
Therefore, he was just as familiar with popular novel plots and tropes as Lin Huaizhi.
“Of course not.” Lin Huaizhi thought of the woman in his memory, and a trace of a smile touched his lips. “I inherited my motherâs looks and her height. As for being rich, I built that myself. It has nothing to do with him.”
Yun Ziliao also laughed.
“You are indeed the most hardworking person Iâve seen all these years. To reach your current height, you deserve every drop of alcohol you drank and every hour you put in.”
Before Lin Huaizhi could speak, Yun Ziliao continued, “Lin Huaizhi, I donât know the inside story of these events, but I believe you aren’t the kind of person who would stab someone for no reason. If you really need help, you can tell me. After all… we were once friends.”
Friends…
Did that count as being friends?
Lin Huaizhi didn’t have many friends. The one he considered a friend, Chu Xiaoran, was just a leech trying to step on him to climb up while sucking him dry. And Yun Ziliao…
He indeed had some decent times with Yun Ziliao. They could talk about any topic and occasionally went out for dinner.
If Yun Ziliao hadn’t kept pursuing him and, after being clearly rejected, resorted to drugging him, Lin Huaizhi wouldn’t have unilaterally announced the end of their friendship.
They… should have counted as friends.
Lin Huaizhi didn’t like to dwell on the past. No matter how much one might regret later, what was done was done, and the harm had already been caused.
He and Yun Ziliao could be competitors.
They could even be enemies.
But they could never be friends again.
“I appreciate the sentiment and thank you for your trust. However, I can handle these things myself. I didn’t call you for anything else todayâI just wanted to tell you to keep a tighter leash on your new employee.”
Yun Ziliao instantly understood his meaning.
“You mean Chu Xiaoran?”
“He went to find you?”
Translator’s Note: “Lion’s big mouth” (ç ĺ大éĺŁ – shÄŤ zi dĂ kÄi kÇu) is a great idiom for making an extravagant or unreasonable demand. And the “shoulder throw” (éčŠć – guò jiÄn shuÄi)âLin Huaizhi is such a boss! Heâs not just a pretty face. Yun Ziliao mentioning the “True or False Young Master” (çĺĺ°çş) trope is a hilarious meta-reference to a very popular genre in Chinese web novels where babies are switched at birth.Â
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