Su Qinghan’s breath caught for a moment.
Her father’s voice continued.
“I’m going to shut down all your credit cards.
Your supplementary cards, your savings accounts, all your funding sources—completely frozen.
You’ll have to figure out how to cover these losses yourself.
When you’ve filled that hole of over a hundred million, then you can come back and talk to me.”
“Dad.”
“And that apartment you’re living in is under my name.
Next month’s rent, you’ll pay yourself.”
The call ended.
A busy tone came from the receiver—beep, beep, beep, beep, one tone after another, like something slowly collapsing.
Su Qinghan held her phone, sitting motionless in the driver’s seat.
Outside the window, the city’s nightscape was still brilliant.
The skyscrapers in the distance were lit with dense rows of lights, like a starry sky inverted on the firmament.
On the streets nearby, pedestrians were still walking, in groups of two or three, chatting and laughing, forming two completely different worlds from this black car still on the roadside.
Su Qinghan suddenly felt cold all over.
That cold didn’t seep in from outside her skin; it emanated from the cracks in her bones.
It was as if thousands of ice needles had pierced into her blood vessels at the same time, drawing out the warmth bit by bit, leaving a numbness and stiffness that paralyzed her.
She lowered her head and looked at her hands.
Those hands were fair, slender, and well-maintained, with clear nail polish on the nails, faintly glossy under the dashboard light.
Money was just a number to her, something she never needed to think about.
These hands had never worried about money.
From childhood, she had whatever she wanted, bought whatever she wanted.
But now, her father told her that all of this was gone.
Credit cards suspended, accounts frozen, even the apartment she lived in—she had to pay rent herself.
‘How was she supposed to maintain her relationship with Jiang Muyun?’
Jiang Muyun’s words just now still echoed in her ears.
“You’ll give me whatever I want, right?”
“Right,” she had said.
“Money is no problem.”
‘But what if money really is a problem?
What if she has no money?
Would Jiang Muyun still look at her like that?
Would she say, “When we graduate, we’ll be together”?’
Su Qinghan didn’t dare to think.
She leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
‘Who did this?
Why did the intermediary make a mistake?
How were the hidden clauses added?
Was it negligence, or someone’s behind-the-scenes manipulation?’
She didn’t know.
She only knew that up to now, all her life, all her pride, all her foundation had been built on the family’s wealth.
She was Su Qinghan, the eldest daughter of the Su family, heir to the Su Group.
Those titles gave her everything: respect, admiration, adoration, and Jiang Muyun.
‘If all of that is gone… who am I?’
Su Qinghan opened her eyes, staring at the blurry nightscape outside the windshield in the dark car.
Since childhood, she, Su Qinghan, had never bowed her head to anyone, nor had she ever admitted defeat in anything.
She was born with an unyielding nature.
When she was a child learning horseback riding, she fell off seven times, and each time she gritted her teeth and climbed back on.
On the eighth time, she rode better than everyone else.
When learning to ski, she broke her collarbone, wore a cast and stayed home for a month.
The day after the cast was removed, she was back on the slope.
She didn’t believe she would lose now.
Since her father had cut off her financial support, she would earn it herself.
Start from zero, build from scratch.
She had knowledge, ability, and connections.
She could use these to earn money, to fill that hole, to prove to her father that she, Su Qinghan, was not someone who was nothing without the family.
She believed she would always have a chance to turn the situation around.
But before that, she needed to borrow some money first.
At least pay next month’s rent and maintain daily living expenses.
Su Qinghan picked up her phone, opened the contacts, and found the most trusted person among those dense names.
Dai Feng.
She entered the chat screen and typed a line.
[Su Qinghan: Dai Feng, are you free? I have something to talk to you about.]
After sending it, she put her phone back on the passenger seat and restarted the car.
The engine roared, and the car slowly drove into the night.
She had to maintain that calm, dignified, and unapproachable demeanor.
This secret must not leak out.
She couldn’t let others see her misery, couldn’t let anyone know that the eldest daughter of the Su family now had no money at all.
At least in front of outsiders.
At least for now.
Su Qinghan gripped the steering wheel, gazing heavily at the road ahead.
The headlights illuminated a small patch of darkness; more darkness still awaited her ahead.
The bathroom was filled with thick steam.
Bai Yan’er closed her eyes, reclining against the edge of the bathtub, her entire body immersed in the warm water.
The bathtub was huge, large enough to hold two people lying down at the same time—a custom order she had made from Italy, made of pure white marble, smooth like a jade stone washed by water for a thousand years.
A layer of fine, dense foam floated on the water’s surface, milky white and soft like clouds, hiding the body underwater in a vague silhouette.
The air was filled with a mixed scent of sea salt and lavender, clear and cool with a hint of sweetness.
Bai Yan’er’s hair was loosely pinned up at the back of her head with a dark blue shark clip; a few stray strands slipped out from the gaps in the clip, wetly sticking to her slender neck.
Her phone was placed on a waterproof stand by the bathtub; the screen was still lit.
The call had ended.
That call just now was from her personal assistant.
The assistant reported in great detail on the phone, with a professionally trained calm, explaining the whole story of Su Qinghan’s recent misfortune from beginning to end.
Actually, this matter wasn’t entirely Su Qinghan’s fault.
The reason Su Qinghan ended up so badly was because Bai Yan’er had spent a month studying Su Qinghan’s weaknesses.
Su Qinghan’s greatest weakness was trust.
She trusted her team and the process.
For the Binjiang New City project, Su Qinghan outsourced the negotiation to a consulting firm.
Bai Yan’er bribed a project manager at that company to hide a clause extremely unfavorable to the Su Group in the contract, while showing Su Qinghan a clean version.
Su Qinghan did not check the contract herself.
She was too busy and too used to delegating tasks.
On the legal department side, Bai Yan’er had found out that a deputy director was going through a divorce and short on money.
She didn’t directly bribe him, but just made sure he “coincidentally” overlooked that hidden clause during the initial review.
No need for malicious error, just for him to be not careful enough.
The contract was signed, the clause activated, and the Su Group lost 150 million.
Su Qinghan’s father was furious, suspended her cards, and froze her accounts.
Throughout the entire process, not a single thread could be traced back to Bai Yan’er.
Everything was proceeding according to Bai Yan’er’s plan.
She stretched out her right hand and gently skimmed the back of her hand over the foam on the water’s surface.
The milky white foam was pushed aside by her movement, revealing the clear water underneath, but then it surged back from all directions, covering the water’s surface again.
Bai Yan’er let out a long breath, which condensed into a puff of white mist in the steam, rose into the air, and dissipated into the shadows of the ceiling.
“You’re even easier to handle than I imagined, Miss Su.” She said softly.
Bai Yan’er shook her head lightly.
‘What kind of expression will Su Qinghan make?
Will she be panicked?
Or will she feign calm?
Will she cry and call her father to beg for mercy?
Or will she grit her teeth and maintain that aloof facade?’
Bai Yan’er really wanted to know.
But regardless of how Su Qinghan reacts, one thing is certain.
That woman’s most important support has already been destroyed.
‘So now, that woman has no means left to attract Sister…’
She raised her hand and watched the water droplets fall from her fingertips one by one back into the bathtub.
‘About time you come to my side, Sister.’
She smiled.
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