Volume One, Chapter 11: Are They Foes or Allies?

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Yet behind Steward Lu, there was no one. Steward Lu frowned and said respectfully, “Master, the eldest young master said he had an urgent international meeting to attend to… he may arrive later.”

“Outrageous!” Lu Ye barked. “He just returned to the country yesterday, and he knows today is the family dinner!”

Yu Ting Fu lowered her gaze to conceal her astonishment. It seemed Lu Ye’s relationship with his eldest son was far from harmonious. There was something here she needed to find out.

Suddenly, her phone vibrated in her evening clutch. Wen Yunzhi’s name flashed on the screen—at this hour, it had to be urgent.

“Excuse me, I need to take a call.”

She hurried to a corner of the garden, and as soon as she answered, Wen Yunzhi’s anxious voice burst through: “Ting Ting, I found it! The surveillance footage from before your parents’ car accident!”

Yu Ting Fu felt her blood freeze; this could be the key to the truth.

“The last person they met before they died was Lu Jingyan!” Wen Yunzhi’s voice nearly broke. “In the footage, your father handed her a manila envelope, your name written on it!”

The gentle breeze suddenly turned biting. Yu Ting Fu gripped her phone tightly, her voice trembling with a dark chill. “Are you certain it was Lu Jingyan?”

“One hundred percent! I hacked into the transport bureau’s archive system, but…” Furious typing sounded on the other end. “Someone’s trying to trace me! Come to the usual place right now. I’ll give you the files—”

A shrill burst of static suddenly severed the call.

Yu Ting Fu turned to find Lu Jingyan standing five paces away, his presence silent and chilling. Moonlight glinted off his gold-rimmed glasses, casting a cold sheen. He wore a smile, but his tone was like ice: “What’s wrong, Yu Ting?”

She forced composure, pointed calmly at her phone, her hair trailing a faint fragrance in the breeze, her reddened eyes lowered as she looked at him. “Yunzhi’s had a sudden attack of appendicitis. She’s in the hospital, I need to go.”

Lu Jingyan narrowed his eyes slightly, raising an eyebrow. “So urgent? My brother rarely shows his face, you know.”

“A person’s life is at stake. Please give my apologies to Uncle Lu and your brother.” Yu Ting Fu slipped her phone into her bag and turned to leave.

Lu Jingyan suddenly caught her wrist, a faint crease between his brows. “I’ll have the driver take you.”

“No need. Tonight is your family dinner; I’ll go myself, don’t worry.”

Yu Ting Fu shook off his hand without betraying a hint of emotion. At that moment, the steward hurried over and whispered something in Lu Jingyan’s ear. A fleeting, ambiguous smile tugged at Lu Jingyan’s lips, his expression shifting ever so slightly.

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Taking the opportunity, Yu Ting Fu quickly left, determined not to linger.

At the gate of the Lu family’s old residence, she pulled open her car door. A gust of night wind swept fallen leaves around the hem of her dress. Just as she was about to slip into the passenger seat, a pair of blinding headlights pierced her eyes. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black Maybach gliding to a stop at the entrance.

The door opened, and a tall figure stepped out.

Dressed in a sharply tailored black trench coat, the moonlight accentuated the severe lines of his shoulders. He faced away from her, adjusting his cuffs, revealing a pale wrist adorned with a costly Patek Philippe.

She felt as if she’d seen that watch before. Unconsciously, Yu Ting Fu took a step forward, her high heels crunching a fallen leaf. The man paused as if sensing her presence but did not look back, striding straight into the brightly lit house.

The steward’s respectful voice floated over, “Young Master, the master has been waiting for you.”

So this was the elusive eldest son of the Lu family?

Lu Xing?

Why did he seem both strange and oddly familiar?

Yu Ting Fu hesitated for a second, but Wen Yunzhi’s panicked voice still echoed in her mind—there was no time to think more.

She started the car decisively. The black Bentley shot through the Lu family gates like an arrow.

The engine’s roar shattered the night as Yu Ting Fu’s car screeched to a halt in front of a villa on the outskirts—the one her parents had loved most in their lifetime.

“If you hadn’t come, I’d have been tracked to my parents’ house!” Wen Yunzhi’s wine-red hair blazed like fire under the lights as she hunched over three monitors, her fingers a blur on the keys. Sweat glued her bangs to her forehead. All three screens flashed crimson warnings.

Yu Ting Fu kicked off her heels, standing barefoot on cold marble. “Who are they?”

“Level one—at least national-level hackers,” Wen Yunzhi bit her lip, her fingers flying, “they’re triangulating our physical location.”

“Use this.” Yu Ting Fu tossed her an encrypted USB. The two worked in seamless tandem to set up virtual nodes.

Suddenly, all the lights in the villa went out. The room was eerily silent, save for the clatter of keys.

Three minutes later, the lights flickered on again.

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Wen Yunzhi let out a long breath. “Finally lost them—pack up!” She collapsed onto the sofa, gulping iced coffee. “Ting Ting, look at this.”

The screen switched to a blurry surveillance video. Her parents were arguing with Lu Jingyan in a parking lot, furiously handing him a file folder with her name on it. At the crucial moment, the video was suddenly covered with layers of snowy static.

“Is this all that’s left?” Yu Ting Fu clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. “This shows nothing—it doesn’t prove Lu Jingyan killed them.”

She still remembered at her parents’ funeral, Lu Jingyan gently wiping away her tears, promising to protect her forever. How laughable.

“There’s also this,” Wen Yunzhi switched windows, pulling up a yellowed photograph. “That Lu family eldest you asked me to check—his name is Lu Xing. This is the only image I could find. What’s even stranger, there’s no record of any of his international flights—like—”

“Like his existence was deliberately erased.” Yu Ting Fu stared at the blurred photo. The man’s tall, striking silhouette radiated nobility, undimmed by the passage of years.

Her eyes narrowed—the arc of that shoulder, the tilt of the head, matched perfectly with the back she’d just seen at the Lu residence.

There was another silhouette like that in the depths of her memory, but she could never quite recall it.

This man seemed even more formidable than Lu Jingyan.

Was he an enemy, or an ally?

Dining room, Lu family old residence.

The crystal chandelier scattered icy light, illuminating the varied expressions around the table. The long table was set with pristine white linen and exquisite Western dishes, though no one had the appetite to eat.

Bo Xingzhou strode in with long, measured steps and took his seat. Xu Qian, recalling what had happened today in the underground garage, looked pale and unwilling. Her arm, still in a cast, throbbed with pain.

Lu Ye sat at the head of the table, his face dark as he fixed his sharp gaze on his newly returned “eldest son.”

“I hear from your brother you have a girlfriend?”

Bo Xingzhou’s expression was indifferent. His slender fingers traced the rim of his wine glass, his gaze unreadable, his voice deep. “Not a girlfriend—a wife.”