At dawn the next day, before Ruan Jiaojiao was fully awake, she was abruptly woken up by her fifth uncle, Ruan Yanwei.
The once suave and calculating director was now a pale, disheveled figure, his eyes shadowed and hollow, yet smiling in a way that nearly frightened Ruan Jiaojiao to death.
She let out a scream, then realized the man before her was indeed her Fifth Uncle.
“Uncle Wu?!”
Ruan Jiaojiao was both shocked and outraged, her face paling with anger.
How could Fifth Uncle suddenly barge into her room like this? It was completely disrespectful!
Did he not understand that, aside from her eldest uncle, she contributed the most to the entire Ruan family?
“Uncle Wu, what are you doing? How could you just barge into my room? Get out—”
“Jiaojiao, something terrible has happened! Something has happened!”
Ruan Yanwei didn’t budge. He anxiously held up his phone, shoving it in front of her face. “Look, what’s going on between Marceau and Wright? Tell them to stop targeting each other!”
After all, the original balance between Wright and Marceau was most beneficial to the Ruan family, and this conflict would be of no help to them.
Ruan Jiaojiao, too, was stunned by the news.
What happened…
What was going on with the Wright Group and the Marceau Group? Why were they suddenly targeting each other?
And since they’d disliked each other for so long and had been dealing with each other indirectly, why abandon the calm and suddenly “break up”?
Didn’t Brother Wright and Brother Marceau realize this wasn’t what she wanted?
A bad feeling crept over Ruan Jiaojiao. She grabbed her phone to make a call, but before she could connect, another bombshell dropped.
The Wright Group had released evidence of Marceau Group’s harm toward them, along with proof that Marceau had once framed Wright.
The public reaction: Oh wow!!!
The previously one-sided narrative suddenly shifted to utter chaos.
The Wright Group wasn’t a pushover.
How could the Marceau Group possibly get off easy?
…As the days passed, this battle without weapons entangled more and more people. Assets from both the Marceau Group and the Wright Group were seized, and top executives were arrested.
The two groups soon realized that the hacker supplying them with evidence was double-crossing them from the start, feeding information to both sides. Furious, they vowed to hunt down the hacker and eliminate him!
Meanwhile, the real heads of the two groups, Old Wright and Old Marceau, met with strained smiles, agreeing to temporarily cooperate to quell the turmoil and rescue their crumbling empires.
Though both still longed to eliminate the other—even as they agreed to cooperate, they remained vigilant, watching closely for any slip-up that would allow them to land the fatal blow, wishing to force an end to this “cooperation.”
But on the surface…
Yes, they appeared to cease targeting each other.
However, as they waited for the storm to subside, both groups suffered heavily. Xie Youzhou seized the opportunity, releasing all the undisclosed evidence of the Ruan family’s crimes, dealing a devastating blow to the Ruan Group, which had been hoping to profit from the two groups’ resources!
The entire internet erupted in shock.
It turned out that the daily revelations of the Ruan Group’s illegal activities over the past two months weren’t even the full story???
Cries for severe punishment against the Ruan Group intensified!
Wright and Marceau, already barely holding up, were stunned. Even when Ruan Jiaojiao approached them for help, they had no choice but to refuse. They simply didn’t have the resources to support the Ruan Group, nor could they use their political and military influence to protect the Ruan family—they were barely keeping their affairs intact.
If they went against protocol, Old Wright and Old Marceau could strip them of their inheritance rights immediately.
Ruan Jiaojiao hadn’t expected to be rejected by the very two people she had counted on so heavily.
She cried until she had no more tears left and grew resentful toward them both.
The Ruan family, too, was left in shock and disbelief.
This was supposed to be a battle between the Wright Group and the Marceau Group, so why had they ended up worse off?!?
This was more than just a decoy tactic.
The Ruan Group was finished.
The Ruan Group had already been teetering on the edge, and now, after such a severe blow with no one to shield them, their fall was imminent.
Ten days later…
Ruan Yanshun, with gray hair and bloodshot eyes, could hardly believe what he was seeing. In a fit of rage, he swept all the documents on his desk onto the floor.
He screamed in despair!
But even if he coughed up blood, it wouldn’t change the reality of the Ruan Group’s bankruptcy.
Soon, the Ruan Group’s capital chain broke entirely, and most of their assets were frozen. Even by selling the remaining assets, they couldn’t gather enough funds to repair the capital chain.
In addition, evidence of illegal activities implicated Ruan Yanshun, and he, too, was arrested.
The collapse of the Ruan Group was unstoppable.
December 31st.
The Ruan Group, once a giant in global capital, arrogant and dismissive of the lives of ordinary people…
Was officially declared bankrupt.
