“President Zhuo?” Yang Jing said, almost convinced that he had been talking to a lunatic.
“I want Yang Lina,” Lily said after a few seconds. “Tell your grandfather not to intervene.”
“Yes, that’s what we’ve already agreed upon. However, my father and mother are a different matter. My father is in the military while my mother used to be a military nurse, but I’m sure you are already aware of that,” Yang Jing said.
“I am,” Lily answered. “I am not a very forgiving person, Mr. Yang. That is something that I can assure you.”
“Are you saying that you will still touch the Yang Family?”
“No. I will not ruin the lives of your family. I am not that evil,” Lily said as she drummed her fingers on the table. “However, that does not mean that my husband is as… kind-hearted as I am.”
Yang Jing immediately squinted at Lily, wondering what type of scheme she was cooking up now. “President Zhuo…”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let him touch your precious family.” Lily rose from her seat and turned her back on Yang Jing. “But this will mean that you will owe me something.” Lily crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze still on the floor to ceiling windows in front of her. “From now on, the Yang Family will owe me something.”
Instantly, Yang Jing’s expression changed. “We don’t owe you anything!”
“Zhuo Jingren can frame your uncle and grandfather for crimes that they did not commit,” Lily said. “Without them and Yang Sen… the Yang Family will slowly crumble.”
“My husband tends to overreact when it comes to me, Mr. Yang… Who knows what he will do to get back at your family. After all, it was your father who helped cover up my mother’s murder,” Lily reminded him. “I’ll give you five minutes to think about it.”
“You…” Yang Jing was speechless. While he had been cautious after realising that he’d accidentally revealed details of the murder of Lily’s mother, he still did not expect this move from her. Owe her? Wouldn’t this mean that the Yang Family would be under her command?
Now that he thought about it, his grandfather had been warning him not to engage in any deals with Lily as she was extremely cunning. Last night, Yang Jing wasn’t able to stop himself from talking back to his grandfather. For him, it’s not that Lily is smart, it’s simply that they made the wrong assumptions because of Yang Lina’s lies. Her tactics were simple, and any military tactician would eventually notice them as long as they knew every aspect of the story.
However, his grandfather still warned him about Lily’s unpredictability. Dismissively, he just laughed at the old man’s words. How could a woman beat a military officer when it comes to strategy? All night, he had been thinking about Lily’s ways and concluded that she just got lucky as Yang Lina and Xuan Zengmo panicked when she attacked them. This wouldn’t work if she had been in front of military men who had been dealing with cunning individuals all of their lives.
“Mr. Yang, all my life I have been underestimated by almost everyone I’ve ever encountered,” Lily’s sudden words woke him up from his stupor. “Be it when I was a child or when I became a businesswoman. This is a man’s world, they say,” Lily slowly turned around and walked towards her table. “In the business world, women tend to work harder than men just to prove that we are capable.”
“Your point?” he asked.
“Simple. Stop trying to analyze me. You will fail.” Seeing Yang Jing narrowing his eyes at her, Lily continued, “I can read you like a book, Mr. Yang. From the moment you walked into my office, I knew that you underestimate women. I know how you underestimate me.”
“I am not…”
“I have met men like you, Mr. Yang. Too many to count,” Lily interrupted him. “And every time I’ve met someone like you, I’ve never failed to put these people in their places.” Lily’s blunt words surprised Yang Jing. Although most of his life has been spent in the military, he has been exposed to people who love to talk in riddles and hide insults behind sweet words.
“Not that I blame you,” Lily added. She understood that the man in front of her has been around different types of women while working in a special division of the military that deals with intelligence and information gathering. The man has been doing his very best to decode her actions. Too bad that he will only meet with failure today. “Now… let’s talk about what I want, shall we?”
“President Zhuo, I cannot…”
“Before you decline, I want you to know that I don’t owe you and your family anything – but your father owes me the truth about his exact role in my mother’s murder while your mother and your aunt arranged the murder of my mother. Now… think about it carefully, Mr. Yang.”
Once again, Yang Jing was speechless. The woman in front of him was a master manipulator, he was sure of it. To a normal person there is nothing wrong with having a strictly factual conversation, however Yang Jing knew that Lily had been playing with his emotions for a while now. She kept on interrupting him, disrupting his ability to analyze her words, then shoving threats down his throat as if it was nothing. Moreover, Lily also didn’t forget to make him feel guilty and let him know over and over again that they had wronged her.
“We, the Yang Family, will not tolerate evil deeds President Zhuo. On behalf of my grandfather, I am willing to accept your offer, however it should not involve something that would breach our morals,” he answered. Yang Jing felt that he was left with no choice but to agree to Lily’s demands. Her words about her powerful husband were actually true as Zhuo Capital is one of the biggest banks in Mainland China. With this level of influence, he would not be surprised if Zhuo Jingren had connections to the criminal group that has been running the Black Market. Yang Jing was almost one hundred percent sure that Zhuo Jingren did indeed have the means to destroy them.
Though he doesn’t like the idea, Yang Jing knew that this was the only way to keep the family safe.
“Look at you,” Lily scoffed after she heard Yang Jing agreeing to her demands. “You scream of righteousness like it was running in your blood, and yet you work, kill and bury the truth for murderers and liars. What a hypocrite.”
