Chapter 535: On the Verge of Collapse

Chapter 535: On the Verge of Collapse

“Young man, you have surprised me,” An Huaiguo said, looking at Wu Chen, though not a trace of surprise showed on his face. “All of this, every last scrap…” He swept a hand toward the scattered dossiers, the laptop, the photographs, and the clutter across the coffee table.

“You orchestrated every bit of it!”

“The young men in my own clan who are your age are still studying abroad… Or so they claim. Aside from a handful of exceptional talents, the rest are utterly hopeless. If they aren’t playing with cars, they’re chasing women or flaunting their wealth across social media. I used to reprimand them, but over recent years I couldn’t be bothered anymore. Youth brings vitality and reckless energy; they’ll understand once they mature.”

An Huaiguo was not merely a ruthless patriarch; he carried the distinct, heavy aura of an old-school tycoon. As he spoke, his manner evoked the unmistakable weight of a formidable patriarch in an old Hong Kong television drama delivering a stern lecture.

“Yet you are different from them.”

An Huaiguo pointed a finger at Wu Chen. “You do not resemble the young men of today. You remind me of Xiangjiang thirty or forty years ago, in the 1980s and 1990s—an era when gold practically paved the streets! Whatever you set your hand to, as long as you were willing to do it, you had a chance to rise above the masses—even if you became a hustler!”

“You carry the spirit of the youth from that bygone age: daring, ruthless, and filled with wild ambitions! Your mind is consumed by dreams of striking it rich overnight! Even if it costs you broken limbs and leaves you bleeding dry, as long as there is immense wealth to be seized, there is nothing you wouldn’t dare attempt!”

“Rising to the very pinnacle by any means necessary!”

“You certainly don’t lack audacity. What a pity you were born into the wrong era!”

This was the very first time An Menglan had ever heard her father launch into such an elaborate tirade… solely to mock someone! There was no mistaking it. Everyone present could hear the biting derision dripping from his tone.

“In today’s society, whether on the mainland or across the globe, the rules are identical. Once an enterprise reaches the scale mine has achieved, success no longer hinges on mere business acumen! It depends on background! It depends on connections! Those are paramount! At times, they are the most important things!”

An Huaiguo gestured again at the materials strewn across the coffee table, his voice swelling with forceful conviction. He was clearly determined to teach Wu Chen a lesson in reality.

“To gather all this intelligence—to pull off what you have achieved at your age, with your background—you are remarkable! You are a genius!” An Huaiguo gave Wu Chen an emphatic thumbs-up. “Yet that is the absolute limit of what you can do!”

“You dream of leaping straight to the heavens in a single bound?”

“Do you genuinely believe a handful of dossiers can topple a corporate behemoth worth a hundred billion yuan, along with the untouchable power brokers entrenched behind it? What an absurd joke! It isn’t just that you lack the power; even if you handed every scrap of this evidence to me, I wouldn’t possess the strength to pull it off either! Use your head and consider what those prominent mainland clans truly represent, even if your worldview is too narrow to comprehend it!”

“If your mind cannot grasp it, go ask Li Ruobing! She can explain it to you in vivid detail! If you lack the courage to ask her, I can help you!”

“Some grand betrothal gift of a hundred billion, ha!” An Huaiguo let out a cold, theatrical laugh. “Your entire scheme is merely to drag me into open warfare against the forces backing Hezhong Media! You think unearthing these files makes you my savior? That you’ve accomplished some monumental feat? That Huaxing can now simply swallow Hezhong whole?”

Wu Chen had listened with an easy smile throughout, granting An Huaiguo the space to vent his spleen. After all, he was demanding that An Huaiguo allow his daughter to become his third woman; letting the man say his piece was only reasonable. They would, after all, be family eventually.

However, there was one detail Wu Chen felt obligated to clarify.

“My apologies for the interruption.” Wu Chen raised a hand slightly. “It is not Huaxing that will swallow Hezhong. Huaxing’s muscle will be required to cripple Hezhong, but the one who will ultimately absorb Hezhong and become its new head is your daughter, An Menglan.”

“Of course, you are free to interpret it as Huaxing absorbing Hezhong. At the end of the day, you are all on the same side, and outsiders already lump you together under the Huaxing banner…”

Wu Chen leaned back into his seat and gestured casually. “Please, Boss An. Continue.”

He smiled.

An Huaiguo was left completely speechless!

A profoundly suffocating irritation welled up in his chest. It wasn’t over the question of whose hands the equity would ultimately land in; that was impossible in the first place. Even if it were feasible, once Huaxing shattered Hezhong, the parent company would never absorb it directly. Hezhong would have to be carved up, structured through an intricate web of indirect shareholdings, and likely require outside capital to absorb the acquisition costs and expand their broader resource network… The true crux was that a direct consolidation risked triggering an antitrust investigation.

Attracting the attention of the authorities would spell disaster.

So there was nothing inherently flawed in Wu Chen’s reasoning.

The true offense lay in Wu Chen’s insufferable attitude: sitting there through An Huaiguo’s passionate lecture, casually raising a hand to correct a minor point, and then flashing a pleasant smile while bidding him to continue…

It was monstrous!

Wu Chen had clearly not absorbed a single syllable! He was merely indulging him with hollow patronization: Mm-hmm, sure, whatever you say, absolutely right!

Boundlessly arrogant! Crazed and fanatical! Utterly incorrigible!

An Huaiguo summarized Wu Chen in nine sharp characters, arriving at a definitive verdict: this man is beyond salvation! Ambition was not a crime, nor was exceptional capability. What was truly terrifying was an individual blessed with immense ability paired with a monstrous, unbounded ambition! It was an elevated, lethal strain of reaching far beyond one’s grasp!

Such a creature would inevitably bring about an apocalyptic catastrophe!

An Huaiguo rose slowly to his feet, tugged his suit cuffs straight, and adjusted his tie. Keeping his eyes locked on Wu Chen’s face, he spoke in a tone of chilled detachment: “There is nothing left to discuss. I will grant you… No!” His gaze flickered toward his daughter, An Menglan, and he corrected himself: “I will grant you both one day. Part on good terms.”

With that, An Huaiguo turned and strode toward the office doors.

There were no thunderous shouts of rage, no heavy-handed threats. Yet it was precisely this chilling finality that gave his ultimatum devastating weight! His demeanor laid it bare: he no longer cared whether his daughter and Wu Chen complied willingly. Once the twenty-four hours expired, he would deploy his own ruthless methods to ensure they parted ways!

“Dad! Dad! Dad, don’t go! Daddy!”

Terrified by her father’s tone, An Menglan scrambled to her feet, clicking frantically across the room in her high heels to chase after him. Whether she twisted her ankle in her panic or fell intentionally, she dropped to her knees with a heavy thud. Though a plush carpet lined the area by the doors, the impact clearly brought sharp pain.

“Dad, I beg of you! Please, let’s talk this through! Just talk to him!”

An Menglan reached out in a desperate bid to hold An Huaiguo back. She had been consumed by dread that Wu Chen and her father would reach an impasse, and now that the nightmare had materialized, she suffered a complete emotional collapse. Even with outsiders in the room, she could no longer rein in her feelings.

Peng Wei and Shang Yunlu kept their heads bowed so low they seemed to be searching for a fissure in the floorboards to crawl into. They desperately wished they could vanish into thin air. The sheer melodrama of the scene was so agonizingly awkward that both men felt they had committed a crime simply by existing in the room, let alone witnessing it firsthand!

Wu Chen remained motionless on the sofa, glancing casually at his watch.

An Huaiguo’s departure had come a few minutes later than Wu Chen had calculated, largely because the older man was prone to long-winded pontification. Yet it hardly mattered. Virtually every detail was unfolding in exact accordance with Wu Chen’s design.

Including the dramatic spectacle of An Menglan chasing after her father.

Her temperament made it an absolute certainty that she would react this way once Wu Chen and her father reached an apparent rupture.

In truth, this piece was vital!

Her dropping to her knees had been an unexpected detail, yet it served as the perfect finishing touch.

The essential component was that An Menglan needed to weep. Only if she wept now would An Huaiguo offer his apologies later! Deep down, An Huaiguo still adored his daughter. After inflicting such emotional trauma upon her, he would seek to make amends… even if it meant yielding and allowing his daughter to be another man’s third woman.