Chapter 95: The Dashing Young Gentleman

At the very last moment, Lu Ye caught Bai Wen by the wrist. “Sister Bai, don’t be foolish. Why spill your life for scum like him? That’d be a terrible loss.”

Su Qianqian drew Bai Wen away from Chen Liang and soothed her. “Xiao Bai, calm down.”

Bai Wen finally broke. She collapsed against Su Qianqian’s shoulder and wailed, “Qianqian, I’m under so much pressure.”

“They’ve been sabotaging this project from the inside, and now it’s become almost impossible to keep going. I really can’t hold on much longer.”

Their partner had fled, the company’s capital chain had snapped, and the clients were pushing hard from every side.

Bai Wen had already weathered a string of brutal blows, and only after much struggle had she managed to invite this savior, Su Qianqian, here.

Yet less than a day after work had begun, Chen Liang had been tripping her up without pause.

But Bai Wen’s tears did nothing to rein in Chen Liang. On the contrary, he took them as a sign of fear and pressed his advantage more shamelessly. “Bai Wen, I’ll give you one more night to think it over. Will you marry me or not?”

“If I don’t get a satisfactory answer tomorrow, you can forget ever breaking ground on this development.”

“And when that happens, you won’t have money to refund the deposits to those owners. You can just wait to go to prison!”

Su Qianqian was grinding her teeth in fury too.

She glanced at Lu Ye, only to find that he seemed utterly unmoved, wearing instead a faint, amused smile as he watched Chen Liang.

Her temper flared even more. “You little bastard, we’ve been bullied this badly and you still won’t say a word?”

Lu Ye: “Squeak!”

Su Qianqian: “...”

Chen Liang struggled to his feet, then pointed at Lu Ye and laughed wildly. “Didn’t you think you were so impressive? What, and now you’ve got nothing on me?”

Lu Ye smiled lightly. “About time.”

Chen Liang froze. “What do you mean?”

The words had barely left his mouth when a clamor of engines rose outside.

More than a dozen heavy trucks, piled high with building materials, drove into the construction site. From the front passenger seat of the lead truck climbed a middle-aged man, carrying a delivery note as he came to have someone sign for the goods.

“Which one of you is General Manager Bai? Please sign here.”

Chen Liang was dumbfounded. So were Bai Wen and Su Qianqian...

Where had this batch of materials come from?

Chen Liang grabbed the worker by the collar and roared, “Didn’t I say no deliveries were to come to this site? Who told you to come here?”

At that moment, a Maserati pulled up outside the site gate.

Out of the driver’s seat stepped a handsome young man. He looked at Chen Liang without expression and said, “I did.”

Chen Liang was so shocked he could hardly breathe. “Young Master Ye?”

The worker, clearly hot-tempered, would not tolerate being grabbed by the collar. With one shove he knocked Chen Liang to the ground. “Get lost. Who the hell do you think you are?”

Ye Qiu walked over to Lu Ye in a few steps and smiled. “Brother, I’m not late, am I?”

Lu Ye laughed heartily and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Not late. Let me introduce you—this is your sister-in-law, Su Qianqian. And this beside her is her best friend, Bai Wen. This development belongs to her.”

In front of the two stunning women, Ye Qiu showed a trace of the bashful, innocent shyness unique to a young man.

“Sister-in-law, Sister Bai, hello. I’m Ye Qiu.”

Su Qianqian had never heard of him before, so besides thinking the younger boy was very cute, she felt little else.

Bai Wen, however, was so shocked she covered her mouth. “My God, you’re Young Master Ye?”

Ye Qiu smiled and nodded. “Sister Bai, you can just call me Xiao Qiu.”

Su Qianqian leaned close to Lu Ye and nudged him with her elbow. “You little bastard, who is he?”

Lu Ye bent toward her and whispered back, “Do you know Ye Liancheng?”

“The head of the Ye family, one of the top-tier clans?”

Lu Ye nodded. “Mm. Xiao Qiu is his son.”

Only then did Su Qianqian recoil in shock. “Damn!”

What stunned her was not merely Ye Qiu’s background, but the fact that he actually called Lu Ye brother.

Still, this was no time to dig deeper; she could interrogate the little bastard properly tonight when they got home.

Bai Wen had long been developing in the imperial capital, so she knew much more about Ye Qiu.

Strategist, youngest stock prodigy, genius of business...

There were countless labels attached to Ye Qiu.

She had imagined a cold, domineering corporate prince. Yet seeing him today, she found instead a gentle, approachable, slightly shy young man, looking not much different from a boy who had only recently stepped into society.

Ye Qiu quietly took out a tissue and wiped away Bai Wen’s tears.

The moment he touched her, Bai Wen felt a jolt as though she had been electrocuted.

Oh, he’s so warm.

At once her gaze turned dreamy and starstruck.

Ye Qiu smiled shyly. “Sister Bai, you’d better sign the delivery note first, so the workers can unload without worrying.”

“Oh, right, right!”

Bai Wen came to herself at once, smiling apologetically as she took the delivery note from the worker.

While signing her name, she asked with curiosity, “Xiao Qiu, where did these materials come from?”

As far as she knew, in the imperial capital, apart from the Xu family, no other scattered supplier could possibly provide such a huge quantity.

Ye Qiu said, “My brother told me about the situation here, so I contacted a few factories that work with the Xu family and bought up their stock ahead of them at a slightly higher purchase price. From now on, I’ll have them prioritize supplying materials to you.”

To keep Bai Wen from misunderstanding, Ye Qiu added, “When I say a slightly higher price, I mean only relative to the factory price. In practice, it’s still far cheaper than buying from the Xu family’s material center.”

Of course Bai Wen understood that. She had originally wanted to buy directly from the factories.

But nearly all the material plants in and around the imperial capital took their cues from the Xu family, and none of them would sell to her directly.

This time, they clearly had no choice but to yield because they feared the force standing behind Ye Qiu.

Thinking of that, Bai Wen was moved to tears. “Xiao Qiu, thank you so much!”

Ye Qiu smiled faintly. “You’re welcome.”

The worker took back the note, checked it, and called out, “All right then, boys, let’s get to work!”

Su Qianqian immediately called over the workers she had brought, telling them to join in and unload the cargo as fast as possible before getting back to work.

At this point Chen Liang was thoroughly bewildered. He glared at Ye Qiu and said, “Young Master Ye, what kind of act is this?”

“We agreed that the outer ring belongs to the second-tier families and the inner ring to the first-tier ones. What you’re doing is breaking the rules we all set!”

Although Ye Qiu was famous among the younger generation of the aristocratic circles, he was still far too young.

And without the overbearing, intimidating aura of a true powerbroker, it was hard for him to command the scene. Chen Liang unconsciously looked down on him, and his tone carried a faint air of bossiness.

Yet when Ye Qiu faced him, the shy smile on his face vanished at once.

He said lightly, “Since when did I ever agree to obey your rules?”

His voice was gentle, but his attitude left no room for doubt.

Chen Liang thought back. When the group of young heirs had gathered to set that tyrannical rule, Ye Qiu indeed had not been present.

The Ye family’s business had nothing to do with real estate, so no one had thought much of it then...

Chen Liang gritted his teeth. “Young Master Ye, this is between me and my fiancée. Please do not interfere!”

Ye Qiu paused, then turned back to Bai Wen. “Sister Bai, are you engaged to him?”

Bai Wen cursed in disgust. “Engaged to him? Hell no. He’s just trying to take advantage of my predicament and force me to marry him!”

Ye Qiu’s gaze cooled as he looked at Chen Liang. “You hide behind the banner of the family alliance to bully women and prey on the weak. Do the other young masters of the first-tier families know about this?”

Mind the emphasis: first-tier families.

As for your Zhang family, or your Xu family, those second-tier nobodies can step aside.

Chen Liang froze.

Everything he had done was to force Bai Wen into marrying him. He certainly could not let the young masters of the first-tier families hear about it, since once word got out, it would be an ugly stain on his name.

You, Chen Liang, are the one bullying others here. Why should the young masters of the first-tier families take the blame for you?

His expression darkened. “Young Master Ye, are you threatening me?”

Ye Qiu had intended to say that he was merely offering a friendly warning, hoping Chen Liang would know better.

But he found speaking to this idiot utterly exhausting.

With a helpless sigh, he called his secretary and said calmly, “Immediately terminate all business cooperation with the Chen family.”

Only then did Chen Liang suddenly realize it.

This young man in front of him was not nearly as easy to bully as he looked.

He was the heir to the Ye family, and the acknowledged rising star of the imperial capital’s business world.

The Chen family’s main industry was digital and electronic products, and it had many collaborative projects with the Ye family.

Though they were nominally partners, the core technology behind the products was all in the Ye family’s hands.

The Ye family provided technical support and new product development; the Chen family handled mass production on the assembly line.

In plain terms, the Chen family was simply clinging to a powerful patron and working for the Ye family.

Halting these collaborations would cost the Ye family almost nothing, since there were plenty of capable manufacturers outside eager to work with them, and finding a replacement for the Chen family would be effortless.

But once the Chen family lost the Ye family’s technical support, it would collapse in an instant, perhaps even falling straight out of the ranks of second-tier families.

Thud.

Chen Liang’s knees went weak, and he dropped straight to the ground. “Young Master Ye, please don’t! Give me one chance!”

Ye Qiu looked toward Lu Ye. “Brother, what do you think?”

Lu Ye looked toward Su Qianqian. “Old woman, what do you think?”

Su Qianqian turned to Bai Wen. “Xiao Bai, what do you think?”

Bai Wen felt an overwhelming sense of catharsis.

Having Ye Qiu stand up for her was simply too satisfying.

She let out a long breath and glared at Chen Liang. “When you drove me to the brink, did you ever give me a chance?”

“Xiao Qiu, I think you absolutely must never cooperate with trash like this again in the future!”

“All right. I’ll listen to you.”