Chapter 18: Half of the Shen Family’s Shares are Yours
The Haicheng media had always been known for their “keen sense of news.” A bit of wind or movement could ferment into a storm in a short time.
Fu Yue refreshed the page and found that some serious financial media had begun to join in. They used headlines like “The Fu Family’s Son Has Poor Private Morality, Impacting the Group’s Image” to pour this dirty water onto the Fu Group.
Fu Yue looked at the tens of thousands of comments and shares under the news, his heart cold. Just then, his phone vibrated, and the words “Eldest Brother” jumped on the screen again.
As soon as the call connected, Fu Cheng’s icy voice came through the receiver: “Come home immediately.” Then, the call was hung up.
“What did your brother say?” Shen Junnian asked.
“He told me to go back now.”
“I’ll go with you.” Shen Junnian stood up immediately. “With me speaking for you, it should be easier to pass.”
Fu Yue looked at him, a trace of warmth crossing his heart, but he still shook his head. “Shen Junnian, thank you. But this is a family matter.”
Fu Yue clearly knew what bringing Shen Junnian back would mean. At a time when the family’s reputation was damaged, to quell public opinion and stabilize the cooperation with the Shen family, the Fu family would very likely force the two of them to “go public.”
Shen Junnian wanted nothing more, but this was definitely not what Fu Yue wanted. Shen Junnian stared at him for a moment and said no more, picking up his car keys: “Then I’ll drop you off.”
Fu Yue didn’t refuse.
At midday, the sky was as dark as evening, with icy rain falling continuously. Shen Junnian dropped him at the entrance of the Fu mansion. Fu Yue walked in alone.
The atmosphere in the living room was so oppressive it felt like it could be wrung out like water. His father, Fu Zheng’an, sat in the head seat’s armchair, his face ashen. Eldest brother Fu Cheng stood to one side, his expression unreadable.
As soon as his second brother, Fu Yan, saw him, he immediately came forward, his face full of worry: “Xiao Yue, how could you be so careless!”
Before Fu Yue could speak, the teacup in Fu Zheng’an’s hand was thrown at him, smashing heavily on the floor by his feet into a dozen pieces. Fu Yue felt a faint sting in his thigh; a porcelain shard had likely cut him.
“You still have the face to come back!” The old man’s roar echoed in the living room.
“Father, listen to me…” Fu Yue tried to explain the sequence of events that day, but the anger on his father’s face never dissipated.
“Xiao Yue, explaining is useless.” Eldest brother Fu Cheng finally spoke. “The loss has already occurred, and the group’s stock price has been affected.”
Seeing Fu Cheng speak, second brother Fu Yan didn’t dare say any more words of pleading. Fu Zheng’an stood up, called for the butler, and took a heavy red sandalwood stick from a nearby rack.
“Serve the family law!”
Fu Yue was a bit panicked. Was this kind of plot point, which he had only seen in novels, really going to happen to him? Oh, wait, he was in a novel…
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
The butler was clearly showing mercy to Fu Yue. But even if the “family law” wasn’t hit hard, it still hurt. Fu Yue grit his teeth and didn’t resist or plead. The stick fell on his back one by one, the dull pain accumulating and spreading.
“I’ve spoiled you too much since you were a kid, that’s why you’ve become so lawless! You don’t consider the consequences of your actions.” Fu Zheng’an pointed at Fu Yue.
Second brother Fu Yan tried to persuade him, but Fu Zheng’an grew even angrier and raised his voice. “Keep hitting!” Fu Zheng’an shouted sternly. “Hit him hard!”
The butler’s movements paused for a second, then he applied a bit more force. No one dared to speak again. The huge living room was left with only the dull sound of wood hitting flesh and Fu Yue’s suppressed panting.
Cold sweat began to break out on Fu Yue’s forehead, dripping down his cheeks and hitting the floor.
“From today on, all your bank cards, real estate, and cars are frozen and reclaimed!” Fu Zheng’an’s voice was sharp and heartless. “I want to see how long you can last without the Fu family backing you!”
He raised his hand to signal a stop, and the stick finally ceased to fall. “Get out.” Fu Zheng’an said coldly. “Come back when you’ve figured things out.”
Fu Yue slowly stood up straight. Without looking at anyone, he turned toward the door. The door opened, then closed. In his palm were two painkillers the butler had quietly tucked into his hand.
The road leading outside the mansion gates had no cover, and the icy rain soaked Fu Yue to the bone instantly. He stumbled along, his back burning with pain, and his stomach aching from hunger. Between the seminar and rushing back to the Fu house, he hadn’t even had time for lunch.
Just then, his phone lit up. Fu Yue took it out and saw it was an urgent push notification from the Fu Group’s office OA:
[The core financial system has crashed, and all data for uncompleted reimbursement applications has been lost. Employees involved are requested to keep their original receipts and resubmit once the system is restored.]
Fu Yue’s heart sank; he immediately felt something was wrong. This was the very system he had optimized the architecture for last week; theoretically, it shouldn’t have such a fatal error in such a short time. He was about to click on the email details when a dialog box suddenly popped up.
[Your account permissions have been blocked.]
Fu Yue tried to click again but could no longer access the company OA. He frowned, realizing the problem. No wonder no matter how much he explained just now, Old Man Fu wouldn’t listen. Someone must have sabotaged the system, and the blame had likely fallen on him.
This Fu family was indeed deep. Fu Yue was thinking—
Suddenly, a beam of blinding headlights hit him from the front. Fu Yue squinted. That familiar black G-Wagon was still parked opposite the Fu mansion. Shen Junnian, holding an umbrella, ran quickly toward him. The umbrella shielded him from the rain. He had been waiting outside without leaving.
“How are you? Why are you so pathetic?” Shen Junnian grabbed Fu Yue’s arm, his thumb touching the icy body temperature under the soaked clothes. Under the streetlights, Fu Yue’s face was almost transparently pale, and his eyelashes were covered in raindrops.
“I’ve been kicked out.” Fu Yue’s voice was a bit raspy.
Shen Junnian looked pained and went to support Fu Yue’s shoulder. But the moment he touched him, he heard a suppressed gasp.
“Hiss—”
“They hit you again?” Shen Junnian’s voice turned low.
Getting no answer, Shen Junnian immediately took off his own trench coat to wrap around him, half-hugging and half-pushing him into the car: “Come with me! We’re going to Switzerland right now to register our marriage. Afterward, you’ll be a Shen, and no one will dare touch you.”
“After marriage, half of the Shen family’s shares are yours. The Fu family will have to be polite to you.”
“Marry me, I’ll take care of you!”
Shen Junnian was furious, outputting a whole stream of words. The driftwood was right before his eyes, but Fu Yue couldn’t grab it. Not only was marrying a man something he couldn’t accept, but Fu Yue was more worried about his identity changing. In the original work, Fu Yue was always the “youngest Fu son” who acted as an assist. His relationship with Shen Junnian had always been just ambiguous.
Once this point changed, Fu Yue was worried that the subsequent assist plots wouldn’t be able to proceed normally. Especially given Shen Junnian’s almost paranoid possessiveness, if Fu Yue really became “his,” he might not even have basic freedom of movement.
So, as of now…
Fu Yue used force to shake off Shen Junnian’s hand, taking a step back to distance himself. He could only say sorry to this deep-hearted childhood friend; he would find another way to repay him in the future, Fu Yue thought.
“Shen Junnian,” Fu Yue’s voice was very light, but his refusal was firm, “I don’t need it.”
Fu Yue took off the trench coat Shen Junnian had just draped over him and stuffed it back into his hands. Shen Junnian froze on the spot. Rainwater slid down his handsome face; it was hard to tell if it covered anything else. The two of them confronted each other in the torrential rain.
Eventually, Shen Junnian was the first to withdraw his hand. He let out a sigh of disappointment, turned, and returned to the car. With a kick of the gas, the black G-Wagon’s engine let out a roar and vanished into the curtain of rain.
The world was left with only Fu Yue, and the endless ice-cold rain. The injury on his back and the emptiness in his stomach intertwined into sharp pain.
Fu Yue didn’t wallow in his emotions. He swiped open his phone screen and clicked on the payment app. He had a cash balance of over ten thousand yuan. Fortunately, the Fu family could only freeze his bank cards; they couldn’t touch the balance in his phone. This was all his current assets.
His phone battery was down to 10%. The ride-hailing app showed that on this damn rainy day, the queue was expected to be three hours long. Fu Yue put away his phone and stepped forward without hesitation. Along the winding mountain road, he walked down from this brilliant, high-end mansion district step by step.
Fortunately, before he transmigrated, he was someone who had struggled and suffered. He could endure this bit of pathetic embarrassment.
An hour later, Fu Yue finally walked out of that wealthy district and returned to the city streets filled with the atmosphere of the mundane world. He found a 24-hour convenience store and pushed the door open. He bought a cup of noodles and had the face to ask the clerk to borrow a charging cable, saving his phone.
Sitting in a seat by the window, the scalding noodles warmed his icy stomach. While watching the phone screen’s battery percentage grow, he looked out at the traffic outside. The rain was being lit by the streetlights into a blurry net, and Fu Yue’s brain began an absolutely rational analysis.
This scandal crisis came too precisely. It was immediately followed by the Fu system crash and his account being blocked. Connecting everything, he could be 100% sure someone was behind this. This wasn’t a small-scale prank or some romantic debt left by the original owner. This was the first real-world predicament he had encountered since coming to this world.
He calmly listed his task list in his head. First, solve the accommodation problem; at the very least, he couldn’t sleep on the streets. Then, quickly handle the relationship between Ji Linyue and Chen Bai to repair their favorability. The system’s “nude photo punishment” was truly insidious; he didn’t want his “apple” to be sent to anyone’s phone. There was also the matter of finding the truth about the Fu system’s problem; that was the key to his turnaround. As for the scandal, dealing with the media required resources, which he temporarily lacked.
Fu Yue finished the noodle soup, swallowed the painkillers, and unlocked his phone. For now, he needed a place to stay. He clicked on an accommodation app and began searching for nearby budget hotels. Price, location, reviews… Then he downloaded a rental app to compare. He calculated carefully, wondering how long the money in his hand could last.
Just then, a call from an unknown number suddenly jumped on the screen. Fu Yue frowned, hesitating whether to press the answer button.
[Host, Chen Bai is in danger. This is a distress call. Answer it! Answer it now!]
“Hello!”
“Excuse me, are you a friend of Chen Bai? I’m Chen Bai’s landlord; he left you as his emergency contact.” A strange female voice came from the other end of the line, her tone very anxious. “He just fainted in the hallway.”
Translator’s Note:
Term Check:
- Family Law (家法): A traditional concept where a family elder uses a physical implement (like a stick or cane) to punish a younger family member for bringing shame or breaking rules.
- Switzerland (瑞國): In many web novels, authors use “Ruiguo” as a pseudonym for Switzerland, often associated with luxury, banking, or specialized marriage laws.
- Apple (蘋果): A slang/euphemism sometimes used for a certain part of the male anatomy in “clean” versions of web novels.
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