Chu Chendong remained silent for a long time. The events of that year were something he had always refused to think about, a nightmare that had accompanied him for many years.

He looked at the three people in the photo, and to this day, he still didn’t understand how things had come to such an end. At the beginning, the three of them had gotten along so well. But when exactly did things start to change? Perhaps it was when Wen Zhengyang married Ruan Shu’s sister, Ruan Yu. Wen Zhengyang was a son-in-law, and Ruan’s father didn’t think highly of him. To gain his father-in-law’s favor, Wen Zhengyang worked hard, running businesses, and the opportunities for the three of them to spend time together grew fewer and fewer. More often, it was just he and Ruan Shu drinking and chatting together.

Then, when Mr. Ruan passed away, all of the family’s assets went to Ruan Shu, and Wen Zhengyang didn’t get a penny. At that moment, the relationship between Wen Zhengyang and Ruan Shu became even more distant.

That year, when the Ruan family encountered a crisis, Wen Zhengyang suddenly approached him, saying there was an investment opportunity in a real estate project. The property prices in Beijing were rising every year, and he wanted to partner with him and Ruan Shu. At the time, he also thought it was a good project, and more importantly, it might help reconcile Ruan Shu and Wen Zhengyang, so he actively helped Wen Zhengyang promote the idea. After seeing the project, Ruan Shu also thought it had good prospects and agreed to invest.

However, on the day of signing the contract, Chu’s seafood market was shut down because some seafood was found to be unfit for sale, and the market was sealed. He urgently needed money at the time, so he couldn’t focus on the real estate investment. In the end, only Ruan Shu invested in the project.

By the end of the year, the developer Ruan Shu had signed the contract with turned out to be a fraud. He ran off with the money, leaving many migrant workers who had come to Beijing waiting for their wages to go home for the New Year. It was a significant amount of money—material suppliers, workers who hadn’t been paid for a year, all came to Ruan Shu for help.

The Ruan family was in the jewelry business, and that year they were hit hard by the financial crisis, particularly the high-end jewelry sector, which was in a slump. Ruan Shu, being soft-hearted, couldn’t ignore the workers lying in front of his door, poorly dressed. Despite the fact that all the blame lay with the fugitive developer, seeing the migrant workers in need, he felt pity and took out all his savings to pay their wages.

In fact, if he had sold just one of the antiques in his shop, he wouldn’t have needed to empty his savings. But the antiques were of great significance to the Ruan family, passed down through generations. He would rather swallow his pride than part with them.

During this time, Chu Chendong was also worried about the sudden market closure, and after many efforts, the market was finally reopened. When he learned the real estate developer was a fraud, Ruan Shu called him and Wen Zhengyang to dinner. He immediately accepted, hoping to figure out what was going on. But Ruan Shu didn’t need his help.

The dinner was at Ruan Shu’s house, and after several rounds of drinking, the three of them were all drunk. As they tried to console Ruan Shu, assuring him that he could recover the money from the fraudulent developer, Ruan Shu suddenly changed his expression. He flipped the table and shouted, “Stop pretending! Wen Zhengyang, Chu Chendong, you two teamed up to harm me. If I ever make a comeback, I won’t spare you!”

The events that followed spiraled out of control. Ruan Shu lunged at Wen Zhengyang, and they began fighting. He rushed over to intervene, but during the struggle, he was pushed by someone, and after that, he lost all memory of what happened.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself in what would become the nightmare of his life. He was lying in the living room, engulfed in flames, holding an expensive antique candlestick. Wen Zhengyang was lying beside him, bleeding from his forehead, but Ruan Shu was nowhere to be seen. In a panic, he threw the candlestick away and tried to wake Wen Zhengyang. The fire inside was growing fiercer. At that moment, he thought Ruan Shu must have already escaped, so he carried Wen Zhengyang out of the house. As the fire trucks approached, Wen Zhengyang grabbed him and they hid, telling him that the fire at the Ruan family’s house had been set by him. During their fight, Chu Chendong had picked up the candlestick and struck Ruan Shu with it, and the candle flame had set the curtains on fire. But he had no memory of any of this.

The fire burned for a long time, and his heart remained in suspense for just as long. In the end, the firefighters were able to rescue only two children, and Ruan Shu perished in the fire. At that moment, it felt as though his world had collapsed. Despite years of experience in business and overcoming countless challenges, he couldn’t bear the loss of a life—especially the life of his best friend. His mind was in chaos, not knowing what to do. Wen Zhengyang, however, promised to keep this secret, but they had to stick to the same story—that they had never been to the Ruan family home. At that moment, he was so overwhelmed that he lost all ability to think, and Wen Zhengyang seemed like a lifeline. He agreed to Wen Zhengyang’s proposal.

After Wen Zhengyang left, he remained in a daze for a long time, and as he was weakly heading home, he found a jade pendant on the ground. He recognized the pendant—it was often worn by Ruan Shu’s eldest son. He thought that the next day, he would find the two children, return the pendant to them, and adopt them. But the next day, the children had vanished from the hospital.

The fire at the Ruan family’s house was later officially ruled by the police as a suicide arson by Ruan Shu due to financial bankruptcy. Ruan Shu’s sister, Wen Zhengyang’s wife, went mad after hearing this. Wen Zhengyang then rightfully inherited the Ruan family’s jade business and started a new family. Meanwhile, he had possession of three of Ruan Shu’s antique shops. These were shops that Ruan Shu had once planned to split from Mr. Ruan, fearing that his father might take his beloved antique shops, so he transferred them to his name temporarily. After the split, the shops were meant to be transferred back. Over time, they had simply forgotten about it.

At the time, he had no intention of returning the shops to Wen Zhengyang. But looking back, he felt something was off about the fire. His gut instinct told him to be wary of Wen Zhengyang, because the real beneficiary of this disaster was Wen Zhengyang. But at the same time, he was afraid that his suspicions were wrong—that the fire had indeed started because of him, and that he had caused Ruan Shu’s death. If that was the case, he would be a lifelong criminal. He thought about confessing, but at that time, Chu’s company was in the middle of a crucial development phase. He couldn’t abandon his family. From then on, he and his wife lived with the burden of guilt, praying and living a life of austerity, keeping the secret locked inside forever.

Chu Chendong sighed deeply, placing the photo down, and looked at his wife, who was repeatedly calling their youngest son. He truly didn’t know what to say. What father could confess to his son that he was a murderer?

On the other side, Meng Qing tried calling multiple times without success. She finally put the phone down and sat in front of Chu Chendong, her eyes red. “If you don’t tell the truth, Xiao Luo won’t let this go. Ever since the fire, Wen Zhengyang’s ambition has only grown. As our family’s development continues, he sees us as a threat. He harmed Yue’er and has been plotting against Chu’s. I may not want to admit it, but he holds the evidence against you. He’s no longer the poor boy from that small village. He now holds power, and if he sends you to prison and harms Xiao Luo, what will we do? All these years, I’ve been praying, not asking for anything else, but I just want all of you to be safe.”

Meng Qing wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and held Chu Chendong’s hand, advising, “Tell Xiao Luo the truth. The fire back then was just an accident. You never meant to harm Ruan Shu. If Xiao Luo knows that Wen Zhengyang has evidence against you, he will probably give up on opposing the Wen family…”

She paused for a moment, then spoke again, “I know it’s unfair to Xiao Luo, but I just want all of you to be okay.”

Chu Chendong’s expression softened. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, and after many years of not smoking, he immediately started coughing.

—

After having dinner, Chu Shangluo’s phone finally stopped ringing. There was still a lot of food left in the lunchbox on the table, but Chu Shangluo didn’t eat much due to a stomach ache. Lu Wen, watching him sitting there lost in thought, sighed quietly before picking up the leftover lunchbox and throwing it into the trash.

Chu Shangluo had just been upset by Ren Jiaoming, and his mind was in a mess. What troubled him most was the image of Ren Jiaoming’s face when he spoke those words. He quickly shook his head to stop thinking about Ren Jiaoming and reached for the bank card on the table. His phone buzzed, and a message from Ren Jiaoming popped up. It only contained a short line: “The password is your birthday.”

Chu Shangluo took a deep breath. The bond they had was truly terrifying. After months of interacting, Ren Jiaoming had come to understand him well, and they had developed a tacit understanding. Sometimes, with just a glance, Ren Jiaoming would know exactly what he intended to do. It felt like Ren Jiaoming had predicted that he would pick up the bank card at that very moment.

Chu Shangluo felt a little uneasy. This number used to be an important contact for him, with a ringtone that was different from anyone else’s. In their chat history, it was always him talking—sometimes teasing, sometimes seriously asking Ren Jiaoming what he was doing—but Ren Jiaoming had never responded.

As he scrolled through the messages, Chu Shangluo came across the first message he had sent to Ren Jiaoming. He had asked, “Is your cold getting better?” He recalled the time he went over to deliver medicine to Ren Jiaoming. It was the dead of winter, but Ren Jiaoming refused to open the door and threw the medicine into the trash.

Then, memories of all the little moments with Ren Jiaoming flooded back. Chu Shangluo couldn’t deny the fact that Ren Jiaoming had never cared about him and had only caused him pain. Throughout their relationship, Ren Jiaoming had never given him even the slightest emotional investment. All of his unreserved efforts now seemed foolish.

Chu Shangluo thought again about the time he played Mahjong with Su Ran, when the ceiling collapsed, and Ren Jiaoming saved Wen Yan. Later, he asked Ren Jiaoming why he didn’t save him, to which Ren Jiaoming replied that he could have avoided it and didn’t need saving. He had heard similar words many times before. When he was a child in kindergarten, when there was only one piece of candy left, the teacher would say to him, “Shangluo, you have everything. Let this last piece of candy go to the other crying child.” Later, when Chu Shangyue got into trouble and his parents took him abroad for treatment, they never came back. They would call during the New Year, but always with the same words. Since he didn’t cry or throw a tantrum, more of their attention was given to the more “needy” Chu Shangyue. Everyone thought that he, as Chu Shangluo, didn’t need anything, so he grew up according to what they imagined him to be. He wasn’t unaware that the crying child got the candy, but in everyone’s mind, the mischievous child didn’t need candy.

Chu Shangluo snapped back to reality. He looked at the only message Ren Jiaoming had ever sent him, his chest tightening. He took a deep breath and blocked Ren Jiaoming. He would settle the score—just not until he had reclaimed everything that was owed to him.

Chu Shangluo entered the password to check the transaction records of the antique store over the past few months. It was just enough to fill the gap for the villa, but even if he was no longer in debt, for someone like Chu Shangluo, who wanted to make a comeback, this amount of money was far from enough. The day after tomorrow was the annual business newcomer funding event hosted by the Yu family, and Chu Shangluo planned to go and try his luck.

That night, not only was Chu Shangluo tossing and turning, planning how to make a comeback, but so was Ren Jiaoming, who had just beaten someone but still felt unsatisfied. The world was silent, with moonlight pouring down. Ren Jiaoming held his phone, staring at the unread message. He didn’t know what he was hoping for. The screen suddenly lit up, and Ren Jiaoming immediately looked at it, but soon his expression returned to silence. He put down his phone and closed his eyes. Everything was according to plan, and he should have been happy, but in that moment, he felt no joy at all.