Chapter 031: A Scheme for Money and Murder

Chapter 031: A Scheme for Money and Murder

Wu Chen’s opinion of Lu Guangnian had always been a good one—generous, loyal, unbothered by small things, the sort of man who’d take a blade for a friend without hesitation. Whatever unlawful methods he’d used building his fortune, Wu Chen never held that against him.

There had been a long stretch, once, when Wu Chen took real pleasure in helping people—he’d even donated every last yuan of his savings to an orphanage, since each day reset anyway. Whatever he gave away “yesterday” simply returned to him the next day. It cost him nothing.

And across that thousand-year loop, he’d helped Lu Guangnian more than once, altering the course of his fate.

He’d never once seen how it played out—there was no “afterward” in a world that reset endlessly—but it had been a way to pass the time, and he’d found real enjoyment in it.

Lu Guangnian’s problem ran deep.

Not a business problem. A problem rooted in himself, and in his family.

He’d built his fortune in demolition work, tangling with plenty of people along the way in his younger years, and in his twenties had taken a blade meant for a friend.

That single act of loyalty had planted the seed of everything that followed.

He’d been twenty-six that year, stabbed five times, rushed to the hospital, barely pulled back from death. Three months in recovery, and when he was finally discharged, the doctors told him plainly: fathering children going forward would likely be impossible.

They’d been right.

From then on, Lu Guangnian truly couldn’t conceive. He’d tried everything—even traveled abroad for IVF—without success. It was, in the end, why his first marriage had ended.

As his business flourished, the absence of a child gradually became a wound that never quite closed.

His career had turned out brilliantly. His connections, his reputation—all excellent. The friend for whom he’d taken that blade remained his closest ally to this day, his right hand in everything.

Everything, it seemed, had come together perfectly.

Which only made that one wound sting all the sharper by contrast.

He’d been with many women, tried every remedy available, and none of it had worked.

Until he met Liu Caixiu.

She’d been just one among his many mistresses at the time—until, three months into knowing him, she’d fallen pregnant. The child was born safely: a boy. Lu Guangnian had gone so far as to order a paternity test, and the results confirmed it—the boy was truly his.

From that day forward, his life had felt whole at last.

It was exactly why he doted on his wife so completely. Liu Caixiu’s arrogance, her willingness to provoke anyone without fear, had grown directly out of that indulgence—years of Lu Guangnian giving her whatever she wanted.

But—

According to what Wu Chen had uncovered during the thousand-year loop—

He knew, with total certainty, that Lu Guangnian’s son was not his own flesh and blood.

The whole thing had been a scheme from the start.

A scheme to seize a billionaire’s fortune. A scheme for money and murder.

Lu Guangnian’s inability to father children had been common knowledge across Donghai’s business circles long before his marriage to Liu Caixiu—a wealthy tycoon with no heir to inherit his empire was, inevitably, a subject of gossip.

So Liu Caixiu and her “cousin” had built this scheme together.

Her cousin’s name was Liu Ligang, also from Liujia Village, Sishui Town, Erma County. In truth, he wasn’t her cousin at all—no blood relation whatsoever, simply another native of the same village who happened to share her surname.

Liu Ligang was five years older than Liu Caixiu.

It was Liu Ligang who had first pulled her out of the village and placed her in a bathhouse to work as a prostitute. Once her cosmetic surgery had transformed her, he’d shifted her into higher-end arrangements, positioning her as a mistress for several wealthy men under his direction.

Eventually, Liu Ligang had cultivated a connection with someone close to Lu…