KN | Chapter 33

Sleeping Beauty and the Rebel

In Minglong’s conference room.

By the time Tan Youming and Shen Zongnian arrived, Zhao Shengge was already reading through the ward’s daily record of expenses and routine entries.

It was more or less the same every day, yet he still read it with great care. He tipped his chin at the two of them. “Wait a moment.”

His head really was very round.

Zhao Shengge closed the laptop expressionlessly.

Tan Youming sat down on the sofa. At first he had assumed Zhao Shengge was handling work, but then he saw him answer a call. Though he kept his voice low, Tan Youming could still vaguely make out words like “soup,” “nutrition,” and “whatever he wants.”

Tan Youming poked Shen Zongnian’s palm, telling him to listen too.

But Zhao Shengge ended the call very quickly, and Tan Youming lost his chance to dig out more clues. He was the sort of person who always had to get to the bottom of things, so before they started talking business, he could not help asking, “Whose call was that?”

Zhao Shengge was very cooperative with his nosiness. “The helper at home.”

Tan Youming asked, “What’s wrong?”

Zhao Shengge took the contract from his hand and lowered his head to flip through it. “She’s raising a cat. It refuses to eat.”

“…”

Tan Youming felt Zhao Shengge was messing with him. “Is this some kind of new deadpan joke?”

Shen Zongnian lifted his eyes too.

Zhao Shengge did not continue. He went straight into discussing business with them.

It was not a particularly formal meeting, but they still talked until night fell. When it ended, Tan Youming asked Zhao Shengge whether he wanted to come with them to visit Chen Wan.

“And Jiang Ying too. Ah Xuan is with him on Bei Island today while he paints something. We’ll meet at the hospital.”

Zhao Shengge refused. “No.” He did not want to go with a crowd, so he casually offered an excuse. “I’m going back to the old residence tonight.”

Zhao Maozheng had been pressing him for days now. Most likely, he meant to call him to account over what had happened at the press conference and on the day of the celebration.

“Fine then.” Tan Youming thought Zhao Shengge was really far too lacking in human feeling, so he reminded him, “But when I throw Chen Wan a discharge party, you better not be absent. No matter how you look at it, him getting hurt has something to do with you too.”

Zhao Shengge did not agree on the spot. He only said, “We’ll talk about it then.”

“…”

The driver was already waiting in the parking garage. After Zhao Shengge got into the back seat, he did not, as usual, open work documents right away. There were several new photos on his phone.

Chen Wan was eating an apple, his lashes lowered, the bead of his lower lip very red. It was impossible to tell whether the liquid running over his fingers was water or juice.

Chen Wan was working with an IV drip in, his complexion a little pale, typing one-handed with a blank face, giving off a very stern feeling.

Chen Wan was not covering himself properly with the blanket. One foot was sticking out, very pale.

When Zhao Shengge returned to the old residence, the servants began bringing out the dishes.

Mr. and Mrs. Zhao were there too. They had just finished an art exhibition in Austria and only returned to the country yesterday.

Zhao Min worked in sculpture, and Wan He painted. The married couple were “perfectly harmonious,” a pair of “artists” built out of money.

From very early on, Zhao Maozheng had realized that Zhao Min had no gift whatsoever for business or politics, so he piled all his anger and all his hopes onto his eldest grandson, training Zhao Shengge strictly from childhood so that the family’s great enterprise would have a proper successor.

Wan He asked Zhao Shengge whether he had been busy lately.

Zhao Shengge was not close to his parents, so he answered only briefly.

Wan He smiled again and asked whether Minglong had recently been cooperating with the Xu family. She said she had heard the Xu family’s eldest miss was not only beautiful but extraordinarily capable, and asked Zhao Shengge whether that was true.

Zhao Shengge said he did not know much about her.

“…”

There was a calm coolness in the way Zhao Shengge spoke. Wan He and Zhao Min exchanged a glance and did not dare ask anything more.

They had always been a little afraid of this son of theirs.

When Zhao Shengge was little, the Zhao couple had thrown their son to the older generation and gone off traveling around the world themselves, reveling in romance and pleasure. Naturally, they had no idea about Zhao Maozheng’s various harsh and cruel doctrines of elite upbringing.

By the time they noticed, Zhao Shengge had already changed from a cold and aloof boy into a young man who was hard to read, profound and sparing with words.

People outside said Zhao Shengge was mysterious. In truth, even they, as his parents, did not understand him at all, nor were they close to him.

Zhao Shengge did not judge whether these parents had done well or badly. He had never expected anything from them.

In fact, he had never expected anything from anyone, including himself.

In a place like the Zhao family old residence, with so many people in it, what he bore on his back was nothing more than a kind of hollow, ostentatious, meaningless responsibility. It weighed a thousand jin and came with shackles. Zhao Shengge had carried it from the age of eight to twenty-eight, and from here on out, he could only go on carrying it.

Looked at from that angle, Chen Wan calling Zhao Shengge a kind person was not wrong.

A sense of responsibility and the willingness to shoulder things were also part of kindness.

After dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Zhao took their leave first.

They still had a touring exhibition in North America ahead of them, and said they might not even be able to come back for the New Year.

Out of politeness, Zhao Shengge said, “Safe travels,” and had nothing more to add.

A very courteous family.

Zhao Maozheng called to Zhao Shengge, “Come with me to the study.”

His own son was not made for it, so he was exceptionally severe with his eldest grandson.

The name “Shengge” had been given with the hope that he would not be shut away in some lofty pavilion, nor drift on empty reputation.

Zhao Maozheng had long been used to deciding life and death, reward and punishment. At his current age, his desire for control had only grown stronger, in both work and life. “Your parents came back, and you still wouldn’t come home.”

If he had not issued repeated orders, Zhao Shengge would not have shown up here today at all.

Zhao Shengge truly did rarely return to the old residence. His impression of the place could not be called a good one. After becoming an adult, Zhao Shengge disliked appearing in the public eye, did not accept interviews, and did not allow photographs to be taken of him, all for the sake of freedom.

And the source of all unfreedom was here.

“What are you so busy with that you don’t even have time to come home?”

This was not really a question, but Zhao Shengge had long stopped caring about Zhao Maozheng’s surveillance and probing. The old man, his years nearly spent, now had nothing left but a bluffing authority that was fierce on the outside and weak within. He could no longer interfere with Zhao Shengge all that much.

At this point, whatever Zhao Shengge wanted to do, there was probably no one left who could point fingers at him.

He picked up the teacup and took a sip, speaking in masterfully useless prose. “Busy with some things.”

“…”

Zhao Shengge did not have much feeling for Zhao Maozheng, but he was capable of speaking nicely to people he disliked or felt nothing for, because if there really were a person or a matter he could not tolerate, there would be far more direct and simple ways to deal with it.

Zhao Maozheng choked on his words for a moment, then fixed him with a stern stare through clouded eyes. “Stop playing word games with me here. What, you think I’m old now and can’t control you anymore?”

“How do you intend to account to me for the Xu family matter? How do you intend to account to them? How do you intend to account to the outside world?”

He spoke with extreme agitation, rapping the corner of the desk so hard with his cane that it rang out sharply, as though Zhao Shengge had committed some unforgivable offense.

Zhao Shengge looked at him with some puzzlement. “First of all, my own affairs do not require me to answer to anyone.”

“Second, it was you who spread word of an engagement to the outside world without my knowledge while I was still abroad. You should be the one giving an explanation to the Xu family, giving an explanation to the public, and if I really chose to pursue it, then you would owe me an explanation as well.”

“…” Zhao Maozheng shouted angrily, “I owe you an explanation too? Do you even know why I did all this?”

“Don’t forget, Minglong signed a ten-year plan with them. The financing for Besa Island is still raising shares, and the construction site at Lychee Point has only just started preparations.”

“Mhm. So I’ve already split up the financing shares, the construction site is preparing to be subcontracted, and as for the contract, I intend to negotiate a termination with the other side.”

Zhao Shengge spoke politely, but he was infuriating. Zhao Maozheng flew into a rage and cursed, “You rebellious brat!”

The old man calmed his breathing a little. “You look down on Xu Zhiying? What about her is unworthy of you?”

“On the contrary,” Zhao Shengge said, without the slightest emotional ripple, “I admire her very much.”

“In fact, the opposite is true. As far as she is concerned, I would not count as a particularly good choice.”

In Zhao Shengge’s eyes, Xu Zhiying was an exceptionally outstanding woman. It was just that this kind of admiration had nothing to do with romantic love.

“Most importantly,” Zhao Shengge told Zhao Maozheng, “I have no intention of binding myself together with the Zhao family. The person I want to work with is Xu Zhiying herself.”

Zhao Shengge knew very well that if a woman could sit in that kind of position in a world of power and profit, it could only prove that she was even more outstanding and more capable than most of the men in the game.

To a certain extent, he admired Xu Zhiying a great deal.

“You don’t dislike her, but you refuse a marriage alliance. So what,” Zhao Maozheng said, his clouded eyes still sharp, “do you already have someone?”

That was the only possibility Zhao Maozheng could think of. But the eyes and ears he had planted around Zhao Shengge had not reported any such thing to him.

“What kind of person is it?” He would never agree to let just any random person step through the Zhao family’s door.

Zhao Shengge did not care about his probing. But perhaps because he himself had not fully sorted it out yet, he gave it some serious thought before answering conservatively, “Not yet.”

An extremely suggestive answer.

“Zhao Shengge, do not challenge my bottom line. You know I have ways of finding out, and ways of interfering.”

“You probably no longer can.” Zhao Shengge was young, but the posture and force of the way he spoke belonged to someone in the superior position. “If one day there really is such a person, then I will hold him tightly in my own hand. If he comes to my side, he will not belong to the Zhao family, not belong to Minglong, not belong to any of the standards and rules you imagine. He will belong only to me.”

The rebellious Zhao Shengge had little morality and little filial piety, but he did not want to provoke the old man any further. So he only said, “Get some rest early. Don’t worry over too much. It’s bad for your health,” then turned to leave.

Zhao Maozheng called after him from behind, “Zhao Shengge, do you still hate me?”

Zhao Shengge’s steps halted.

“Is it because of those models of yours that were burned, or that pitiful dog whose head was blown apart with a single shot?”

Zhao Shengge shook his head very calmly. Looking down at him from above, he said, “I don’t have time to hate you.”

“But after you die, you can go below and ask Bozhu whether it hates you.”

Bozhu, that little dog Zhao Shengge had picked up from a cardboard box on a rainy night when he was thirteen. It had only just been born. Its head was very round.

He did not bring a driver. Zhao Shengge drove a boxy Land Cruiser himself. He did not head straight back to his apartment in Central, but took a route that looped around most of the city, then sped all the way up the coastal avenue and onto Ring Route 375, the site of what had happened that night.

Desolate. By the sea. No guardrails. The damaged section of railing by the greenery and the seaside cliff had not yet been repaired, and in the night it looked like some savage monster baring its fangs.

Chen Wan was crazy.

Zhao Shengge became aware of that once again with perfect clarity.

The Grand Cherokee’s engine output and impact force were equivalent to the combined force of three ordinary Volkswagens. At that extreme speed, to calculate within a matter of seconds the braking distance required to force an emergency stop, then cut across and intercept, the success rate of that kind of extreme prediction was only one in ten million. If it failed, the car would be wrecked, the people in it killed, their bodies smashed beyond recognition.

It was hard to say that someone capable of making such an extreme decision had not also carried a resolve to drag everything down together, a willingness to die with the other party.

Expressionless, Zhao Shengge stepped on the accelerator. The engine let out a thunderous roar as the tires crushed harshly over that strip of death.

His assistant called to report new developments in the case.

“They want to protect him. If you want to make absolutely sure, you’ll probably still have to go in person and talk, and make contact with the people above as well,” the assistant advised. Since criminal liability was now involved, Zhao Shengge would still need to show up himself. “But if we do that, then the time you previously asked me to keep open for the evening after tomorrow will be gone.”

At that moment, Zhao Shengge felt a bit of regret over refusing Tan Youming and the others when they had asked him to go to the hospital together today.

But unless he pressed the other party completely into the ground, there was no way he could set his mind at ease.

“I know.” Zhao Shengge glanced at the newest photo he had received on his phone. Chen Wan was already asleep. The flowers at his bedside were probably the ones Tan Youming and the others had brought over, bellflowers, lilies, carnations. Against that classical-looking face, they made Zhao Shengge think again of some fairy tale about a sleeping beauty who had to wait for someone to kiss her awake.

He truly had never read those stories as a child. Zhao Shengge’s childhood education had contained no warm little segment like bedtime stories. Even the comics and storybooks his classmates at international school had lent him had turned to ashes in Zhao Maozheng’s fury.

Ten-year-old Zhao Shengge had felt very sorry, secretly bought new copies to return to his classmates, and from then on never again accepted comics or games that others tried to share with him on their own initiative.

In the darkness, Zhao Shengge looked at the photos for a while longer, then said to his assistant, “Go make the arrangements. Let’s leave as soon as possible.”

Despite the doctor’s strong recommendation that Chen Wan stay in the hospital for a full week, by the fifth day Chen Wan still firmly went through with his discharge procedures. The company could not do without him for too long.

The auntie had grown attached to him while taking care of him, and she urged, “Mr. Chen, rest a few more days. Your health is what matters. Money can never all be earned.”

She had previously worked at the old residence. After Zhao Shengge returned to the country, she was put in charge of cooking for him. But Zhao Shengge rarely got off work on time and went home in the evenings, so the auntie also rarely came by. She had never once received the kind of appreciation Chen Wan gave her.

Chen Wan was handsome, and his temperament was good too. He did whatever he was told and ate whatever he was given. If she told him to drink soup, he drank soup. If she told him to eat fruit, he ate fruit. The auntie had never seen such an obedient young man.

Chen Wan had previously lost a lot of weight because of the Wanbaohang project. Now, after being looked after, he had put a little flesh back on, and he looked much more spirited too.

The auntie pitied Chen Wan. He had suffered injuries in so many places, and after staying in the hospital for so long, not a single family member had come to see him apart from friends like Young Master Zhuo and the others.

Now and then she overheard him speaking to his mother on the phone. The other side was always either playing mahjong or out shopping. Chen Wan would say that nothing serious was wrong with him, and the other side would hang up very quickly.

Chen Wan smiled. “Auntie, I’m really fine. If I stay any longer, I’m going to grow mold.”

He had no idea that the auntie was an old servant who had been with the Zhao family for more than ten years. He only thought she was an auntie Zhao Shengge had hired temporarily. When he left, he even gave her a big red envelope.

The auntie pushed it back. “No, no, Mr. Chen, this is my job.”

She had already received a generous salary from the young master. The young master had told her that this friend of his was a workaholic, and asked her to occasionally take some photos of him so that they could be used to keep an eye on whether he was honestly resting and recovering.

After learning from Zhuo Zhixuan that Chen Wan had been discharged early, Tan Youming began making arrangements for his earlier plan after all, to hold a discharge party for Chen Wan and drive away the bad luck.

Chen Wan did not want these young masters busying themselves over him, so he took the initiative to say, “Young Master Tan, let me treat everyone. Consider it my thanks to all of you for the concern you’ve shown me during this time.”

Tan Youming said yes and settled on a time with him.

Since it was Chen Wan’s gathering, then naturally he was the one who should invite everyone. Shen Zongnian, Jiang Ying, and several other friends he usually got along well with had all gone to the hospital to visit him, so naturally they all had to be invited. The more difficult one was Zhao Shengge.

Zhao Shengge was hard to invite. That was a consensus in their circle.

Chen Wan had considered whether he could ask Zhuo Zhixuan or Tan Youming to extend the invitation for him, but it did not feel sincere.

This was his discharge dinner.

If he personally made a phone call to every other friend, but only had someone pass on the message for Zhao Shengge, then that was neither polite nor fair.

After thinking it over again and again, Chen Wan finally gathered his courage and called Zhao Shengge’s second assistant, politely and courteously expressing his invitation.

The second assistant was also extremely polite and courteous. Her general meaning was that she would pass the message on, but with great warmth and kindness she also suggested that for this kind of personal invitation, Mr. Chen might try calling President Zhao directly. That way, the odds of successfully inviting him would be higher.

Chen Wan froze. Though he did not know how the second assistant knew, he really did have Zhao Shengge’s private number.

Zhao Shengge had given it to him the day he came to the hospital to see him.

“Those people may not let you off. If you notice anything unusual, call me directly. Any time is fine. Don’t wait.”

Chen Wan had gone still for a moment back then.

Would there even be more than ten people in all of Haishi who had Zhao Shengge’s private number?

Had he somehow become one of the lucky one in ten million as well?

Chen Wan did his best to sound calm. “Alright.”

Zhao Shengge saw him keeping his head lowered, studying that string of numbers with no further reaction, and said, “But I usually don’t answer unfamiliar numbers.”

Chen Wan paused. His delight quietly deflated like a balloon that had been popped.

But then Zhao Shengge said, “You’ll have to give me yours.”

His tone was thoroughly businesslike. Chen Wan lifted his eyes and blinked slowly.