Volume One, Chapter 116: Your Retribution Has Come...
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[Wanwan, I already know about the forum matter. As long as you come home, I will immediately step forward to help clear up the rumors for you.]
The sound of rushing water filled the air as Sang Wan lay face down in the covers, breathing softly.
She was looking at the lit-up phone screen where Lu Jinnian had sent the message.
Sang Wan wore an expression of utter speechlessness.
Never mind that they were already divorced.
Even if they had not divorced, Lin Chaochao was still living in the Lu family villa to this day.
What exactly did Lu Jinnian want?
To have the two women serve one husband together?
Just thinking about it made her want to vomit.
Sang Wan tapped the screen, marked Lu Jinnian's message as spam, and tossed it into the trash.
When she arrived at the company on Monday, the moment she stepped into the elevator Sang Wan sensed something was wrong.
The elevator that could hold more than ten people had been full of laughter and chatter just a second earlier.
The male colleagues were talking about where they had gone to kill time over the weekend.
The female colleagues were sharing what delicious food they had eaten and what shade of lipstick they were wearing today.
Yet the instant Sang Wan walked in, everyone fell automatically silent.
Sang Wan understood at once.
The elevator stopped at the sixtieth floor and she left.
As the doors closed she caught the sharp-eared whisper, “So she’s Sang Wan.”
Sang Wan understood perfectly.
Further ahead she heard the discussions inside the office.
“That S… it couldn’t be our department’s Sang Wan, could it?”
“Of course it’s her! Just last week we ran into her husband and son at the company entrance. The three of them were chatting and laughing so happily. Who would have thought they were already divorced—and that she abandoned her husband and child!”
“You have to admit, beauty is a woman’s most powerful weapon! Other people’s divorces end in bitter enmity, yet hers… her ex-husband still brings their son to pick her up after work. Tsk tsk tsk, you can’t help but admire her…”
“Then that thing about her seducing the Boss—could that be true too?”
“…”
No one answered.
Yet the whole group exchanged glances.
They all thought of the mysteriously increased morning and afternoon teas these past days.
And of that message Lou Ye had @’ed Cheng Jingran with in the hot-spring villa team-building group.
He had given Senior Sang a ride on the way.
It was into this eerie silence that Sang Wan walked into the office.
“Engineer Sang, morning!”
“Sister Sang, morning…”
The familiar greetings were the same as always; the crowd scattered like birds and beasts.
Sang Wan answered politely and went to sit at her workstation.
Then she received a note passed over by Xiaobai.
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“Sister Wan, don’t take it to heart! I support you!!!”
Sang Wan felt both moved and guilty.
She shared one of the coffees she had brought from home with Xiaobai.
It was not yet time to start work. Sang Wan sipped coffee and ate breakfast while browsing the local forum and Weibo.
On the forum everything looked peaceful, as if the wild revelry of that night had been an illusion.
On Weibo one could still search up the scandal about former high-society madam S juggling multiple boats.
Yet whether it was entertainment marketing accounts or the Imperial Capital paparazzi accounts, they all cleverly avoided any mention of the Lou family or the Young Master.
The scandal’s heat was soaring; the comment sections were filled with all sorts of wild guesses.
Quite a few people guessed it was her—after all, the news of Sun Yueqing’s murder had caused a sensation back then, and connecting it to her was almost obvious.
The first person who sprang to mind was Ke Yifan’s mother. Sang Wan called Ke Yifan.
The phone rang once; the work group chat beeped with a notification for a full-department meeting.
Sang Wan hung up, took her notebook, and headed to the conference room.
“The key projects for the fourth quarter are as shown in the PPT…”
Six project design proposals appeared on the large screen. Cheng Jingran signaled the assistant to distribute the materials to everyone present. “Design Department One and Design Department Two will form six groups in total. We’ll meet on Friday and speak with design drafts. As for how to divide them, discuss among yourselves.”
Next came detailed analysis of each project.
By the time the meeting ended it was noon; the whole group was starving and, after dropping off their things, hurried to the cafeteria.
Sang Wan checked Weibo again; the gossip she had browsed a few hours earlier had completely vanished.
There was also a missed call from Ke Yifan on her phone.
Sang Wan called back.
“Little Wan…”
The moment the call connected there was a cacophony on the other end. Ke Yifan said in a low voice, “I’m at the airport. I’m returning to the Magic City today. From now on, I won’t be coming back.”
“All the best!”
Sang Wan hesitated again and again, then asked softly, “Brother Fan, I wanted to ask…”
She wanted to ask whether the forum exposés had been arranged by Ke’s mother.
Sang Wan had not finished speaking when the call was cut off.
Inside the cabin, Ke Yifan looked at his mother beside him, his face ashen. “Mom, what exactly are you trying to do?”
“That question should be mine. Yifan, what exactly are you trying to do?”
Turning the phone off was not enough.
Ke’s mother, fuming, wanted to pull out the SIM card but had no convenient tool.
The restroom door opened; she rose, walked forward, and threw Ke Yifan’s phone into the trash bin.
Ke Yifan froze.
His mother scolded furiously, “You were doing perfectly well working in the Magic City, yet for the sake of one Sang Wan you insisted on transferring back to the Imperial Capital. And what good did it bring you?”
“Not only was the whole trip wasted, you even lost the department director position that was already in your hands, and you dragged me into becoming the laughingstock of the hospital after a lifetime of work.”
The more she spoke the angrier she grew; the places where she had fallen on the back of her head and shoulders began to ache dully.
Ke’s mother said with bitter disappointment, “What on earth is so good about that Sang Wan? I think she’s nothing but a jinx…”
“He Yihui!!!”
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Ke Yifan roared in fury, drawing frequent glances from those around them.
Ke’s mother froze.
“Heaven watches what people do! You’ve been a doctor all your life—don’t you know there is retribution in this world?”
She had never dreamed that one day she would be cursed by her own flesh and blood.
Ke’s mother’s face instantly flushed crimson.
Ke Yifan turned to look out at the runway. “I never liked studying, still less wanted to study medicine. It was you who told me that only by studying hard and becoming someone above others could I master my own destiny and obtain what I wanted.”
“I listened to you, did as you wished, studied hard, and became a good doctor. Yet what was the result?”
He turned back to look at his mother, his eyes hollow. “What I wanted, from beginning to end, was only one Sang Wan.”
Ke’s mother half-opened her mouth, eyes round as saucers.
For a moment she did not know whether to feel fortunate for her early sharpness in cutting off any hope between Sun Yueqing and Sang Wan,
or to regret that, knowing full well her son’s intentions, she had still insisted on sending him there for tutoring because of his rapidly improving grades.
And so it had come to this day.
In his mind was Sang Wan’s delighted cry of “Brother Fan” at their first meeting,
and all the chain reactions that had followed after Ke’s mother appeared.
Ke Yifan knew that between him and Sang Wan there was not the slightest possibility left in this lifetime.
“My retribution has already arrived!”
Ke Yifan’s face was dark.
He thought again of Sang Wan’s hesitant words on the phone just now,
of his mother’s secretive calls these past few days, and of the money that had flowed out like water.
Ke Yifan looked at his mother again, his gaze so gloomy it seemed ready to drag her into the endless Avici Hell as well. “You had better not have done anything. Otherwise, just wait and see—your retribution, mine, our whole family’s… will arrive very soon!”
???
He was threatening her?
The son she had given birth to and raised, for the sake of one Sang Wan, was threatening her?
During the two-and-a-half-hour flight, Ke’s mother was both furious and filled with hatred, wishing only that time could reverse.
Had she known it would come to this, even if Sun Yueqing’s name resounded throughout the entire world, she would never have sent Ke Yifan to her house for tutoring.
Her heart full of disappointment in her son and hatred for Sang Wan, Ke’s mother was so angry her chest ached.
The plane jolted as it landed at Magic City Airport.
The moment she powered on her phone it began chiming and buzzing nonstop.
Calls.
WeChat messages.
Text messages.
Looking at the overwhelming 99+ notifications, it was as if the curse just now was coming true one by one. Ke’s mother’s face turned deathly pale.
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