Chapter 946 - 989: First Encounter
After he got home, he didn’t come to see me right away. He went straight to his study to deal with work. Only after he finished did he seem to remember I’d been pushed into the swimming pool that afternoon, and then he finally came into my room.
I told him it was that woman who pushed me into the pool.
The reason I told him wasn’t because I expected him to stand up for me or punish that woman. In my mind, I was just stating a fact.
Unfortunately, not only did he show not the slightest intention of blaming that woman, he even accused me of wronging her.
Looking at that face which was both familiar and strange, my heart was ice cold. Even though I’d never placed any hope on this father, I still hadn’t expected that my life would be completely worthless in his eyes.
I don’t understand—since he doesn’t care about me at all, why did he bother bringing me back?
Because of this incident, he sent me away—sent me to the United States, left me there all alone to study in that foreign place.
In the United States, I met Yan Qinghan. He’d also been sent over by his father. During those eight years there, Qinghan and I depended on each other to survive.
I’d been quiet and withdrawn since childhood, not good at expressing myself, but Yan Qinghan never minded. No matter what I said, he always wore that easy-going grin, and it was like he always knew what I was thinking.
And he was also the only friend I had in my entire life.
We stayed together in the United States for eight years. In those eight years, we studied together and started a business together. Bit by bit, our Microsoft Company grew bigger and bigger. We opened one branch after another. When we were nineteen, our company successfully went public in the United States.
When I was twenty, if Mu Huajian hadn’t urgently called me back, I think I might’ve stayed in the United States for the rest of my life.
After I returned to Jin City, Mu Huajian handed over the entire Mu Group to me and officially retired.
At first, I didn’t know why he would do that. Only after I took over did I realize the company had long been riddled with holes. On the surface it still looked glamorous, but in reality it was already an empty shell. The reason he passed the Mu Group to me was simply to make me the scapegoat, to dump all the responsibility on me.
I refused to accept being underestimated by him, so I used my connections from the United States and asked Yan Qinghan for help, leading the battered Mu Group in a bloody breakout.
I spent four whole years on it—no sleep, no rest, working day and night—and finally reversed the situation, letting the Mu Group temporarily survive the crisis.
It was in that same year that I met the first woman in my life.
Two years after I returned to Jin City, Yan Qinghan also came back from the United States. That year, through Qinghan’s matchmaking, I got to know Gu Xingchen, Huo Junmo, and Xiang Qingshi. The five of us became good friends.
Later, the five of us were collectively called the Jin City Five Young Masters, but in truth, only Yan Qinghan and I were the closest. No matter when, he could always tell what I was thinking.
When I was twenty-four, Mu Huajian picked out a woman for me—Gu Xingchen’s biological younger sister, Gu Xingyu. For the sake of expanding the Mu Group, he wanted me to marry Gu Xingyu.
I didn’t agree, but I didn’t oppose it either. I knew I would never fall in love with any woman in my lifetime. To me, no matter who I married, she would only be a tool for reproduction. There would never be any real feelings between us.
So, I attended Gu Xingyu’s twentieth birthday banquet as invited.
But that day, I met her—Ruan Zhitong.
That night, she stood beside Gu Xingyu, wearing a white dress. She looked so pure, so sweet—like a white flower bud about to bloom, her whole being radiating a kind of cleanliness from the inside out.
Seeing her, it was like seeing a sheet of white paper untouched by any stain. For someone like me, whose soul was filthy, I had an urgent desire to grab hold of that clean sheet, hoping she could purify my heart.
But I’ve never been good at expressing myself. Even when I’m interested, I don’t take the initiative to speak.
What I didn’t expect was that the very next day after Gu Xingyu’s birthday banquet, she actually took the initiative to come to the entrance of my company, sought me out, and confessed to me.
I don’t know what exactly I was thinking at the time. I wouldn’t call it excitement, but I was happy, at least a little. After a moment of silence, I agreed to her request.
I didn’t know whether being with Ruan Zhitong was right or wrong. I only knew she was very pure, cleaner than any other woman. What I wanted was simply that feeling of cleanliness.
Compared to the Gu Group, Ruan Zhitong’s family business wasn’t as big, so naturally Mu Huajian didn’t agree to us being together.
Originally, a woman was something I could take or leave, but I couldn’t stand him meddling in my life, controlling me in every way. I was no longer that ten-year-old kid who would let him direct my entire life.
So I resigned from my position as president of the Mu Group and moved out with Ruan Zhitong.
Back then, although there wasn’t earth-shattering happiness, I felt very relaxed—an ease I’d never had before, like the weight on my shoulders had suddenly lifted.
I didn’t know how long we could keep living like that, but I knew that if possible, I wasn’t opposed to marrying her.
Ever since my mother started having sex with different men right in front of me every day, I’d felt that women were filthy—extremely filthy—too dirty to even touch.
Before I met Ruan Zhitong, I thought all women were the same, all dirty. So it didn’t matter who I married.
But after meeting Ruan Zhitong, I realized she was different, unique. She was the cleanest woman of them all. If a man had to marry a wife, I’d rather marry her.
Precisely because of her purity and cleanliness, I couldn’t bear to defile her. I just wanted to take her virginity on our wedding night and make her wholly mine.
Unfortunately, she still let me down.
I actually saw with my own eyes her lying in bed with another man. Dirty, so dirty. All I could think was that she was just as filthy as any other woman.
At the time, I turned around and left without the slightest hesitation. I thought I’d be heartbroken, angry, devastated—but in the end, I felt nothing at all. I didn’t even feel the sense of loss that comes when something precious is stolen from you.
After leaving Ruan Zhitong, I went back to the Mu Group again.
Every now and then, Yan Qinghan would come to tell me some news about Ruan Zhitong. He said she’d developed anorexia, lying in bed hovering on the brink of death, kept alive only by IV drips.
He asked me, for the sake of what we’d once had, to go to the hospital and see her. I didn’t go.
Since we’d broken up, we were strangers. I didn’t feel I had any need to see her. Even if she really starved to death, it would have nothing to do with me.
[PS: Two more Chapters to go, will update later! Muah!]