In the middle of the night, Jennie Yang was awakened by a noise downstairs. She had always been a light sleeper, and even the slightest disturbance could wake her. Everyone around her knew this quirk of hers, and neither Liu Tianshi nor Liu Er ever dared make any noise late at night.
She suspected a burglar had broken in, but the sound was too bold to be a thief sneaking around.
With a dark expression, she got out of bed, tiptoed out of her room, and quietly approached the staircase, only to let out a startled scream at the sight before her.
A man, covered in blood, stood at the bottom of the stairs, seemingly about to come up. Two dim ceiling lights illuminated him, and behind him was darkness, with the vague outlines of furniture casting eerie shadows.
When she realized who the man was, she was even more shocked, unable to speak. She knew something terrible had happened.
Liu Er confessed his actions to her. He had accidentally killed his assistant.
Two years ago, the assistant had taken the blame for Liu Er’s crime. Guo Tiandi had relentlessly hunted down the assistant, forcing him to confess Liu Er’s involvement. Furious and humiliated, Liu Er had gotten into an argument with the assistant, which led to a tragic mistake.
Now, Liu Er had no choice but to turn to his mother for help.
After calming down, Jennie Yang advised Liu Er to turn himself in. Two years ago, when Liu Er had hit someone with his car and killed them, she had already helped him cover it up. At that time, she had warned him that she wouldn’t help him again.
She was firm and uncompromising.
To Liu Er, however, this firmness seemed cold-blooded and heartless.
The two of them argued all night, but Jennie Yang’s stance didn’t change. She couldn’t continue to indulge a spoiled son.
Liu Er even threatened to kill himself, but Jennie Yang didn’t waver.
Unexpectedly, Liu Er pulled out his trump card: he slammed a portable hard drive onto the table, claiming it contained vital secrets about Fang Zheng Group. If the media got hold of it, Fang Zheng Group’s empire would collapse overnight.
The group had been dominant in the business world for decades, involved in numerous industries, and naturally, there were some hidden secrets, shady dealings, and under-the-table transactions. Any one of these being exposed would be like cutting the throat of the company, bringing it down in an instant.
Although Fang Zheng Group didn’t bear the Yang family name, it was Jennie Yang’s lifelong masterpiece, her proudest achievement, and the very meaning of her life. She couldn’t just stand by and watch it fall, and she couldn’t allow anyone to threaten it.
She had no choice but to compromise and save her son one more time.
However, this time, there would be no one left to take the fall for him. The evidence was irrefutable, and he would have to face the law.
He had to die.
If she wanted him to live, someone else had to die in his place.
There was only one answer to this dilemma: Guo Tiandi. He was the only one with a blood relationship to her, and they might be able to get away with it.
She demanded that Liu Er agree to hand over the hard drive after everything was settled and not to make any backups. Liu Er readily agreed.
So she confessed to him that Guo Tiandi was her biological son, and that they were half-brothers, sharing the same mother but different fathers. She laid out the entire story for him.
Liu Er was shocked but also ecstatic. Last time, when he had killed someone in the car accident, Guo Tiandi had taken the blame and gone to prison. Now, Guo Tiandi would be the one to go meet death for him. This unfortunate brother of his truly had a miserable life. But then again, he thought, Guo Tiandi deserved it. If it weren’t for him, Liu Er wouldn’t have been pushed to this desperate point.
An eye for an eye—he thought fate was quite fair.
Mother and son meticulously planned everything: how to lure Guo Tiandi and Guo Yingying, where to imprison them, how long to keep them, how to deal with Guo Yingying, how to report it to the police, who would assist in the plan, how Liu Er would disguise himself as Guo Tiandi, and how to kill him.
Step by step, it was like a spider weaving its web—tight and strong. Once the prey fell in, escape would be impossible.
Guo Tiandi was a kind-hearted person, so kind that it made him easy to manipulate.
Jennie Yang could barely remember the first time she had met Guo Tiandi. She only recalled a strange sense of familiarity. Later, upon closer thought, she realized that his eyes resembled hers.
She began to suspect that Guo Tiandi was the child she had lost—no, more accurately, the child she had abandoned, a realization that came by chance.
That day, she had planned to go on a business trip, but her flight was suddenly rescheduled, so she decided to stop by a nearby factory instead.
The factory director brought along a young man, Guo Tiandi. Jennie Yang remembered him from a previous incident when he had caught a mistake in production data, and she had casually praised him. The director had promoted him because of her comment.
It was a hot day, and Guo Tiandi was wearing short sleeves. She happened to glance at his upper right arm and saw a perfectly round burn scar. The location and shape were identical to something she remembered.
She clearly recalled how that scar had appeared. At the time, the boy had only been five years old, and Lin Kun’s mother had dumped him on Jennie Yang before disappearing.
Jennie, feeling helpless and on the brink of collapse, had quit her job and gone into hiding, rarely going out. She didn’t want anyone to know she had a child, because she had abandoned him from the moment he was born.
Once you make a decision like that, there’s no turning back.
If people found out she had a child, it would expose her as a fraud. She had built a public image of being single and unmarried for years, and if that image were shattered, it would mean her social death.
Unable to work or socialize, struggling financially, and under immense mental pressure, she was close to breaking.
One night, a five-cent coin fell into the fire. She used tongs to retrieve it, and just at that moment, the child began crying from hunger. In a fit of rage, she threw the tongs. Luckily, they didn’t hit the boy, but the scalding hot coin landed on his arm.
She froze for a moment, not feeling guilt, but rather a twisted sense of satisfaction.
In that moment, she realized she didn’t love the child. He wouldn’t find happiness with her, and she wouldn’t treat him well.
She found out where a local child trafficker lived and abandoned the boy nearby. Everything went smoothly—the trafficker spotted the unattended child. The boy sensed danger and ran, accidentally falling into the river, nearly being swept away by the current. The trafficker fished him out, and the boy was left shivering in terror.
After that, she never thought she’d see the child again. But that coin-shaped scar—she would never forget it.
Of course, she wasn’t foolish enough to acknowledge Guo Tiandi as her son. She already had Liu Er; she didn’t need another child. To her, Guo Tiandi was just a shameful part of her past.
Yet somehow, as if by some mysterious force, Guo Tiandi kept being pushed into her life.
Guo Tiandi had a good reputation—practical, trustworthy, and honest. The workshop supervisor noticed that Jennie Yang appreciated him, so to curry favor, he recommended Guo Tiandi as her driver. She decided to test how much he remembered about his childhood and agreed.
The results were satisfactory. His memories were vague, and he had no clear recollection of her.
With the threat eliminated, there was no reason to keep him around.
When Liu Er returned from the U.S., she assigned Guo Tiandi to be his driver.
But for some reason, at some point, Guo Tiandi began to show special concern for Jennie Yang, looking for various opportunities to interact with her and occasionally asking questions about her younger years.
Jennie Yang, ever perceptive, realized something was wrong. She remained calm and pretended not to notice, while secretly monitoring his every move. Whatever his intentions, she wouldn’t allow him to expose her secrets.
Guo Tiandi contacted a genetic testing agency and stole a sample of Jennie Yang’s hair. Anticipating this darkest moment, Jennie Yang had secretly switched the samples without anyone knowing. The result Guo Tiandi received showed no biological relation.
But Guo Tiandi had crossed her line of safety.
She no longer wanted to see him.
It was at this moment that Liu Er committed a huge blunder, hitting and killing a ten-year-old girl.
Jennie Yang devised a plan to kill two birds with one stone: she would lure Guo Tiandi into taking the blame for Liu Er’s crime by offering to pay for Guo Yingying’s heart surgery.
Guo Tiandi’s greatest concern was for Guo Yingying, and as expected, he agreed almost without hesitation.
Jennie Yang was secretly pleased—manipulating such a kind and simple young man was all too easy.
Did she feel guilty? Did her conscience hurt?
Not in the slightest.
The debt of giving life was greater than the sky itself. She had given him life, and he owed her. Two years in prison to repay that debt—he wasn’t losing out.
From then on, they would be even. No more owing each other, living their separate lives.
As she looked at the son she had raised, the son she had spoiled all his life, she felt an urge to strangle him with her own hands.
If it had been Guo Tiandi, he never would have used her weakness to threaten her. He would never have pushed her to this desperate point.
This was karma. She had abandoned a good, loyal child and raised a heartless and ungrateful wolf.
Whatever cards fate dealt you, you had to accept them. Even if you played them wrong, there was no undoing it—you just had to keep playing.
She had no choice but to go all the way.
Suddenly, she thought of Lin Kun.
Though she hadn’t killed him with her own hands, she was responsible for his death.
Lin Kun had been such a good person—how could he have given birth to someone as despicable as Liu Er?
Yes, that was it. Somehow, Liu Er must have been sent by Lin Kun to exact revenge.
In any case, she never thought it was her fault. She didn’t believe she was responsible for Liu Er’s upbringing, and she didn’t think his twisted nature was a result of her influence.
If a tree grew crooked, the simplest solution was to chop it down.
Jennie Yang and Liu Er set their trap, weaving a net so tight that Guo Tiandi and Guo Yingying were like helpless prey, slowly being ensnared in the spider’s web.
She thought Guo Tiandi had fallen for her deception, that he didn’t know about their blood relationship, and that her scheme was flawless.
Until Guo Tiandi, with teary eyes, called out “Mom” to her back, and she realized he had uncovered everything—all her lies, all her darkness.
She asked him how he hadn’t been fooled by the paternity test, where she had slipped up.
Guo Tiandi laughed heartily, unable to stop.
Jennie Yang asked him what was so funny.
Through his laughter, with tears streaming down his face, Guo Tiandi said, “You finally admitted it. I have a mom now. I’m also a child with a mother.”
He laughed like a madman, alternating between laughing and crying, sobbing as he collapsed to the ground, then laughing in a strange, eerie way.
“I will never acknowledge you,” she said coldly.
Guo Tiandi wiped his tears and stopped his strange laugh. “I know your plan. You want me to die in Liu Er’s place, don’t you?”
