“Don’t say that, Aili-jie. I should be thanking you for telling me.” Zhong Xintian remembered the moment she heard the news and rushed to the hospital without hesitation. Even now, she couldn’t forget the frantic beating of her heart—she instinctively pressed her hand to her chest. “If something had really happened to him and I hadn’t been there to say goodbye, I would have… been heartbroken.”

“You fool!” Luo Aili sighed helplessly, hearing the emotion in her voice.

Zhong Xintian giggled, then suddenly leaned close, hugging her arm and playfully acting spoiled. “I knew it! You care about me, after all. You’re the best big sister ever.”

“How did I end up with such a silly little sister?” Luo Aili pretended to scold her, though her face remained serious. “Looks like I’ll have to personally talk to that Lu fellow for your sake.”

Zhong Xintian straightened up suddenly. “What are you going to say to him?”

“Look at you, getting all worked up!” Luo Aili pinched her waist in frustration. “Do you think I’m going to eat him or something? Hmph!”

“Of course not! My big sister is the kindest and gentlest person in the world,” Zhong Xintian sweetly flattered her, making Luo Aili feel warm inside.

As the sun set and the sky filled with colorful clouds, the scene of the two women leaning on each other became like a beautiful painting.

Days later, back in Taipei, Lu Zongyue still couldn’t shake off the conversation he had with Luo Aili.

She was Yuanyuan’s close friend, someone he had met before. Yet, at that time, he had been indifferent, quickly forgetting her face. Now, with a change in mindset and seeing her again, this dignified man found himself as nervous as a schoolboy being tested by a teacher—restless and unsettled.

Worried that she wouldn’t like him, he awkwardly tried to leave a good impression, nodding like a foolish goose at everything she said.

When she scolded him, he obediently accepted it; when she mocked him, he pretended not to understand. When she warned him, he widened his eyes in feigned innocence, showing his sincerity.

Eventually, Luo Aili seemed to run out of patience with him, leaving him with a fierce warning:

“Just make sure you don’t hurt Yuanyuan again, or you’ll regret it!”

He nodded vigorously.

She glared at him in frustration for a long time before sighing deeply and revealing a secret he had never known.

“You’ve always thought it was Yuanyuan who drugged your drink that night, tricking you into sleeping with her, right? But it wasn’t her. It was her father.”

Her father? He raised his eyebrows in shock.

“Yuanyuan liked you from the moment she first met you, secretly falling for you. It wasn’t until later that she found out her father knew yours. You know what kind of person her father is—people call him good-natured, but to put it bluntly, he’s indecisive. After his business failed, he couldn’t handle the pressure and nearly committed suicide. When he learned that Yuanyuan liked you, for some reason, he came up with the crazy idea of setting you two up, hoping your family would help solve his debt problems. He thought he was doing it for Yuanyuan’s good, finding her a lifelong support. Sigh! That night, Yuanyuan was drugged just like you. But she never told you the truth and silently bore the burden, taking on all the blame for her father. She’s that kind of foolish girl. Do you understand?”

He did.

But he understood too late. If not for his deal with death, he would never have had the chance in this lifetime to repay the deep love she had for him.

He believed that if he had died without these ninety days, she would have been the one to collect his body. Even though their marriage was full of his neglect and left her covered in emotional scars, she would never have let him die alone, uncared for.

She was that kind of pure-hearted and foolish woman, and he had let her down…

Lu Zongyue pulled his thoughts back, leaned against the chair, closed his eyes, and exhaled a long breath, rubbing his tired eyes.

Ever since hearing Luo Aili’s words, his sense of urgency had grown stronger. He desperately wanted to do more for Yuanyuan while he still had time, but day after day passed, and he found himself trapped at the company, unable to move.

Through Yuanyuan’s testimony, he learned that the man conspiring with Ding Moli was his former senior from his days studying in the U.S.—Lin Dongliang.

With this clue, he had people continue the investigation and discovered that Lin Dongliang had recruited quite a few people within the company, including nearly half of the research and development department.

He couldn’t afford to openly fire Lin Dongliang now, so he had to slowly pull out the support, moving some people to other departments, secretly buying others off, and pretending to launch a major investment plan in Vietnam. He formed a special team from the R&D department to gather intelligence and prepare to develop a new product.

Last week, he even hired an expert hacker from outside to infiltrate the company’s database and back up all the confidential data from the R&D department. Then, he tampered with the system access points used by Lin Dongliang and his team, leading them to a virtual database filled with false data and charts.

If he had directly locked down the confidential information, Lin Dongliang might have become suspicious. It was better to give him some half-true, half-false data so that even if he stole it, it wouldn’t cause too much damage.

In the process of removing threats and laying traps, Lu Zongyue had been stuck in Taipei for several days. He missed Yuanyuan terribly, wanting to rush to Hualien without a second thought.

But he knew that if he wanted to leave her with a healthy company, he had to be patient, cutting down all the future dangers that could hurt her.

He couldn’t leave!

Rubbing his tired eyes again, Lu Zongyue forced himself to refocus, quickly typing his plans and thoughts into his personal laptop—everything he intended to leave for Yuanyuan. Even if she didn’t understand business management, she would be able to grasp the basics after reading his detailed notes and plans. Through her, his vision for the company’s future could be passed on to the next leader.

Now, the only person he trusted was her…