"It's him — I heard from your father that Sheng Kai has set his sights on Luo Ningxi. He's planning to come to our home in a couple of days to discuss a marriage alliance between our two families……"
"Would Dad really have the heart to marry Luo Ningxi off to Sheng Kai?"
Jiang Jingya let out a cold snort, a calculating gleam flickering in her eyes. "There are problems with the group's operations. Sheng Kai agreed to inject capital—for the sake of the company, your father had no choice but to agree."
"Oh my God! That's amazing!"
Luo Zhiqin was excited, yet couldn't help feeling a pang of jealousy.
Luo Ningxi was nothing but a vixen!
She'd barely broken up with Yu Chengnan before a moneyed old man like Sheng Kai set his eyes on her. He truly wanted to destroy that face of hers.
……
The rumbling was no less than a thunderbolt crashing down from a clear sky.
Luo Ningxi staggered backward several steps, her entire body going weightless.
The man who had spent the night with her—he was actually a gigolo hired by Luo Zhiqin?
Father, all for the sake of the company, was actually planning to marry her off to some decrepit old geezer?
She had seen Sheng Kai before.
Throughout the cocktail party, he had been leering at her the entire time!
There were also no shortage of rumors about him in the outside world — they said he was a perverted deviant who had played around with and caused the deaths of quite a few girls!
This was nothing but a fire pit — did Father actually consider her his own flesh and blood?
When the Luo Group was raking in money at the height of its glory, she — the daughter of his ex-wife — had never once tasted a shred of her father's affection. And now that the Group's cash flow had run into trouble, they expected her to sacrifice her own happiness?
By what right!
Luo Ningxi refused to accept it!
Without alerting a soul, she slipped away in silence.
That afternoon, Luo Ningxi waited outside the Yu Group Building until Yu Chengnan appeared.
"Is it you?"
Yu Chengnan regarded her with cold indifference, as though looking at a complete stranger. "Haven't I already said — Zhiqin is the only one I love. To avoid any misunderstanding, you'd better not come looking for me in private."
The lengthy speech Luo Ningxi had prepared was shattered to pieces by his few heartless words.
A year ago, they were still making plans for the future together.
A year later, he had come to see her as a stalker, a delusional psycho who fantasized about him, a two-faced schemer trying to steal her own sister's boyfriend — he found her utterly repulsive.
She softened her voice and pleaded, "My father and stepmother are trying to force me into marrying some old man. I had absolutely no other choice but to come to you…"
"What does any of this have to do with me?" Yu Chengnan asked, his expression blank.
Luo Ningxi suddenly felt like she was a joke.
Knowing full well that he had forgotten her, why did she still turn to him for help the moment trouble arose — instinctively, like a child who never grew up?
"I'm sorry, I've disturbed you. I'll leave now…"
Her words spent, she turned and fled — as if desperate to salvage the last shred of her dignity.
The moment she turned away, tears began to fall.
Yu Chengnan, I really did try.
If one day you truly think of me, please do not blame me for my weakness.
Watching her panicked figure flee into the distance, Yu Chengnan's brows furrowed deeply—yet the moment he received Luo Zhiqin's call asking him to dinner, his expression eased back to its usual calm.
……
Twenty minutes later, a marriage announcement quietly exploded across a social dating app.
Marriage Seeking: Female, 23 years old, 165 cm tall, 48 kg. Currently employed at my family's company. No hereditary diseases, no bad habits. Family is reasonably well-off — father runs a small business, owns a home and a car. Seeking a reliable gentleman who is honest, kind-hearted, grounded, and driven. Must come from a harmonious family background, not a mama's boy, no excessive drinking or gambling, no history of serious illness.
……
On the other side.
Imperial Capital. The top-floor office of a certain high-rise building.
The man stood by the window, one hand tucked into the pocket of his dress trousers, his silhouette straight and slender — like a proud, solitary eagle.
"Boss." Assistant Mo knocked and stepped inside, deferential to a fault. "I've tracked down the information on that girl from last night, and… there are also some rather interesting things I think you might want to see."
Li Bochen slowly turned around. The pale golden sunlight streaming through the window fell upon his handsome face, as though a faint halo had been gilded upon it.
Assistant Mo handed over an iPad. "She's posting a marriage ad online."
"A marriage notice?"
Li Bochen stared at the contents of the marriage notice, an inscrutable dark gleam flickering in the depths of his eyes.
"This is indeed quite interesting."
That very morning he had pledged to take responsibility for her—she hadn't even spared him a glance, and turned right around to openly post a marriage notice online?
Was this slapping him in the face?