ITVCFITB CHAPTER 131

Chapter 131 — Extra: If This Were a Modern AU · 5

Luo Shuyu could read a bit of lips but that wasn’t the point. He mainly wanted a pretext to tell Li Mingjin about Li Mingchun’s dealings with the Yan family… and wring a little “benefit” out of it for himself.

In their last life, perhaps because they’d met through a blind date, the marriage functioned on paper, compatible in many ways, yet always felt a shade too restrained. They knew each other, but a thin film still lay between them; they didn’t understand one another quite enough.

This time, Shuyu took the initiative. Bit by bit, he eased Mingjin’s guard down and got him to voice his feelings. With that, no old barriers remained; they could face the outside world together. No more messy misunderstandings waiting to split them apart.

Mingjin wasn’t slow. One sentence from Shuyu and he understood exactly what he meant.

Over the next few days, he buried himself in investigating Li Mingchun, quietly gathering proof that Mingchun had colluded with competitors to harm the Li Group.

As the person on his pillow, Shuyu nudged him, intentionally or not: don’t expose yourself. Better to guide suspicion toward a certain senior executive who worked with Mingchun, someone on good terms with Li Tiansheng and, crucially, a man who had a murky, hard-to-define history with Mingchun’s mother.

Before that woman fully entwined herself with Li Tiansheng years ago, she had accepted help from this executive; they’d maintained close contact. If news broke that Mingchun partnered with him, then given Li Tiansheng’s suspicious nature, he’d never trust that mother and son again.

And once that happened, Mingchun would lose his greatest support within the Li family.

Shuyu had only learned after Mingjin’s ouster in their last life that Mingchun had backing beyond Li Tiansheng: a higher-up, surname Lin. Reborn, he traced it immediately and discovered this “President Lin” had a very deep relationship with Mingchun, privately addressed as “godfather.”

That form of address spoke volumes.

Shuyu steered Mingjin to uncover the same trail. Since Mingjin had been tied up at the company these days, he must, by now, have a fuller picture of Mingchun and President Lin.

Mingjin wasn’t naïve. Others were plotting his ruin; he wouldn’t hand them the knife. His stepmother hadn’t tried to kill him, but that “refined and gentle” little brother certainly might.

There was only one successor to the Lis.

A few days later, Mingjin brought Shuyu home for the weekend family gathering.

Li Tiansheng liked company and often summoned his siblings and their children.

As soon as the couple stepped inside, a woman in her early forties greeted them with a smiling face.

“Ah, Mingjin and Shuyu, you’re here at last. We were waiting for you. Just a tad late, traffic?”

In the center seat, Li Tiansheng’s expression sharpened. “You knew there’d be traffic and still didn’t leave earlier?” A note of reproach.

Shuyu had seen this woman at the engagement banquet, Liu Wanwan, Li Mingchun’s birth mother.

Her words sounded harmless, domestic even; but under the surface she planted the suggestion that Mingjin was tardy and disrespectful.

Shuyu smiled. “Uncle, I nearly forgot the gift I brought you and ran back for it. That’s why we’re late.”

Li Tiansheng was fond of Luo and let the punctuality scolding drop. “Oh? What did you bring?”

He smoothly shifted the topic to tea, placing a box on the table. “I heard you like Dahongpao. I picked some up on a trip, please try it later and see if it suits you.”

Li Tiansheng laughed. “Good, good. You’re more thoughtful than Mingjin.”

Mingjin sat beside Shuyu, smug.

As for Liu Wanwan, her attempt to smear failed; she went to “help with lunch” and sent someone to fetch Mingchun downstairs.

Several uncles and their families had also come.
It was a big villa, but today the rooms felt full.

Before the meal, Mingjin tugged Luo to wash up and not-so-incidentally to tangle a little behind closed doors. Just before opening the door, he murmured, “You treated me to a show last time. Tonight it’s my turn.”

Shuyu’s eyes gleamed. “Ge, not bad at all.”

Watching a spectacle? The more the merrier.

That one “Ge” made Mingjin’s whole body go weak; he wanted to run home and make Shuyu say it all night between kisses. He restrained himself. Show first, then do the things lovers do.

The curtain rose with a classic opening.

The Li Group was a family enterprise. Recently it had come out that Mingchun and President Lin had leaked the bottom line of a Li project to rivals. If not for Mingjin catching wind of a mole on the team, the company would have lost billions from the initial investment alone.

At a family gathering like this, the uncles would never let Mingchun off.

Mingchun and Shen Mingyun had been staying at the house for days; after the scandal, he hadn’t dared show his face at the office.

Li Tiansheng wanted to protect him, if he didn’t know about that “godfather” business.

They’d barely had a cup of wine when Uncle Li, who never minced words, shot straight: “Mingchun, when did you start calling Lin Dayong ‘godfather’?”

“What godfather?” Li Tiansheng blurted.

Mingchun’s hand shook. He clutched his chopsticks. “Uncle, what are you talking about?”

Uncle Li snorted. “Don’t deny it. I saw you and Lin Dayong at a restaurant days ago, you called him godfather. We Lis don’t know what that man is?”

“Lin Dayong” was, in fact, President Lin.

Generations ago, the Li patriarch and the Lin patriarch had co-founded the group. The Lis held a larger share and control; the Lins had contributed technology and kept thirty percent.

The families had cooperated for years, accumulating grudges along the way, but no one expected Lin Dayong and Mingchun to collude to bring the Li Group down.

Conspiring with outsiders to hurt one’s own? The uncles wouldn’t stand for it.

They were here in force to demand one thing: remove Mingchun from the company. No negotiation.

Li Tiansheng had intended the gathering to shield his younger son, who, yes, had suffered as a child. But hearing “godfather,” and hearing of collusion to sabotage the company, was this the son he knew?

He shot a glare at Liu Wanwan. He and Lin Dayong had met her at the same time back then; she’d chosen him. Why was his son secretly calling the other man “godfather,” and how had he never known?

Right then and there, he agreed to the uncles’ demand and transferred all of Mingchun’s projects to Mingjin.

From start to finish, Mingjin said nothing; his hand simply traced idle patterns on Shuyu’s thigh. Shuyu slapped it away when no one was looking. Moments later, that hand drifted higher.

When a serious man turns teasing, the rest of the world can step aside.

Of everyone present, they were likely the only two who ate with any real appetite.

Mingchun wanted to argue, but Uncle Li had both witnesses and evidence. There was no room to refute. After the feast, Li Tiansheng slapped Mingchun across the face. Mingjin watched impassively, then took Shuyu away from that muck.

Mingchun wasn’t decent. Liu Wanwan even less so.

Within two weeks, Li Tiansheng kicked both of them out and divorced Liu Wanwan.

She had signed a prenup on entry; she walked away with only a few million in compensation. Nothing else.

As for Mingchun, the very next day after the banquet, he was taken for a paternity test.

The divorce’s aftermath confirmed what had to be proven: he wasn’t of Li blood at all. As for the “family resemblance”? Years of quiet cosmetic surgery. No relation.

After the matter has been settled, Li Tiansheng landed in the hospital from the shock.

Mingjin brought fruit to visit. Seeing his father aged ten years overnight, he felt… nothing but cold judgment. He’d asked for it.

Rumors about the Li family roared across the city. The biggest beneficiary was, of course, Mingjin but he kept a low profile; the media couldn’t get to him, so they tried Shuyu, who was even less interested. Both declined interviews and shut the door on gossip, living their own little life.

Meanwhile, with his biggest backer gone, Shen Mingyun stared at a no-longer-gentle, no-longer-elegant Li Mingchun who now did nothing but sleep and play games, unable to shield him from the flood of exposés online. Shen’s temper finally snapped.

They fought.

The next day, reporters caught Mingchun leaving Shen’s place, bruises on his forehead and cheek.

Perfect. Fresh juice for the tabloids.

Shocking! Former socialite heir Li Mingchun beaten by boyfriend Shen Mingyun!

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