Chapter 23: The Shame of Mu Rong family
"Do something!" Na Lan Ye Ran, the wife of Mu Rong Zhu, was shouting. "Our beloved son is in jail right now, convicted of murder! Hurry up and pay off the judges! Get him out this instant!"
Mu Rong Zhu glared at his wife, looking stressed. He was usually a handsome man, with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, his appearance majestic and imposing despite being in his fifties. The only sign of his advanced age was the sliver of silver across his hair, but his aura was no less potent than a twenty-year-old man in his prime.
Na Lan Ye Ran was also beautiful, which was to be expected of someone Mu Rong Zhu chose and allowed to marry into the Mu Rong family, but her personality was…lacking. Not that Mu Rong Zhu cared. He only ever saw her as a tool for one thing – to bear him an heir.
An heir who had almost ruined the Mu Rong family's name, unfortunately.
"Look at what good thing your son did!" He stormed back furiously, unable to control his temper. The servants in the hall flinched. "Going behind our backs and hiring an assassin from the Dark Shadow Guild! Engaging in blackmailing and trying to shortchange property owners by offering them 30% below the market price! And now committing murder in front of the whole world! You think I can do anything about this? Even if I can, I won't! Shao has gone too far this time!"
"He's your son!" Na Lan Ye Ran wailed.
"Not anymore, he's not! I'm disowning him!" Mu Rong Zhu scowled and slammed a fist against the table. "This is all because you keep spoiling him! I told you to educate him better, to stop pampering him and to teach him properly! But what did you do? Bribe teachers and cops to look the other way whenever he bullies other people. And now he thinks he's some prince who's above the law! You're responsible for the way he turned out!"
"Disown…?!" Na Lan Ye Ran gasped. "No! You can't…! He's our son! You must help him!"
"Help him?" Mu Rong Zhu snorted. "I can't even help myself now, how am I supposed to help him?"
As if on cue, one of the butlers shuffled forward, holding his smartphone and gesticulating frantically. Holographic windows were projected out of the device, depicting a building on fire and a shouting and rampaging crowd.
"Master, there's yet another report of rioting at our Shen Jing branch. A group of people have broken into our warehouse and are looting the place."
"This makes it the seventeenth warehouse or shop that we've lost to rioting and looting." Mu Rong Zhu gritted his teeth and massaged his forehead. Another staff member swallowed, his smartphone clutched tightly in his hands. This time, he wasn't a butler but a man in a business suit – one of Mu Rong Zhu's subordinates who ran one of the Mu Rong family's subsidiaries.
"It gets worse, sir. The workers at Nan Zhou have gone on strike. They have all handed in their resignations. Operations have stalled." He then consulted his smartphone. "And our business partners are all pulling out. Zhan Long Jie has torn up the contract his company had with us. He, uh, said that a lowly commoner like him isn't worthy of working with the Mu Rong family. Other companies have expressed similar sentiments."
Mu Rong Zhu clenched his fists. "All because that spoilt brat went and rambled on about trash and whatnot. What have you been feeding his head with, Ye Ran?"
"I…" Na Lan Ye Ran was taken aback. She looked down, ashamed. "But it's…true…"
"What true?! Even if you truly believe that, why would you go around spouting it to other people?! You do realize that most of our company's operations are being carried out by these so-called lowly masses? Who's going to work for us after being insulted and told that their lives are worthless…that we have no qualms killing them over the stupidest things ever?"
He threw up his hands.
"Over a girl! A bloody foreigner not from any major family! Granted, her family's wealthy and have some influence, especially with the ministry of foreign affairs and the embassy, but do you think I'll allow Shao to marry her? Of course not! I was already arranging his marriage with the daughter of the Nan Gong family, but because of this debacle, Nan Gong old man has called me to call the engagement off! No girl is going to want to touch him after this scandal!"
"It…it was just a fling," Na Lan Ye Ran stammered. "A passing fling. You know how Shao is. He'll just play with her for a while and then dump her after he gets tired of her."
She flinched when Mu Rong Zhu slammed his fist against the table again, cracking the wood.
"Do you think Nan Gong old man will accept that explanation and willingly give his daughter to a playboy?! Prior to this, I was assuring him that Shao wouldn't do anything to break her heart and make her sad! Now, thanks to your good son, I look like a fool!"
While Na Lan Ye Ran stepped back, a female secretary stepped into the room hesitantly. Mu Rong Zhu sighed wearily and gestured for her to speak. She swallowed and turned her laptop about to show him the screen.
"Sir, the shares of our company have plunged by 40%. Most of the shareholders are selling their stakes at absurdly low prices or giving them up…"
"They don't want anything to do with us." Mu Rong Zhu seethed, but he shook his head. "Run damage control. I'm going to hold a press conference immediately."
"Yes, sir. What do you want me to tell the press?"
"Tell them we're distancing ourselves from my idiot son…no, he's no longer my son. The Mu Rong family will be disowning him."
"You can't!" Na Lan Ye Ran shouted, but Mu Rong Zhu ignored his wife. He adjusted his jacket and followed his secretary and suited subordinates out of the hall. She tried to follow, but her knees softened and she fell to her knees.
Mu Rong Zhu stopped at the doorway, but didn't turn to her.
"I'll see what I can do," he finally said. "I've an acquaintance at the Bai Zeng research facility who is in need of…assistants. I'll contact him and arrange for them to transfer Shao to the facility, so he won't have to rot in jail. But that's all I'll do for him. From today onward, he's no longer my son."
Na Lan Ye Ran trembled, but she nodded.
*
"Mom! Where is Dad?" Mu Rong Shao pounded his handcuffed wrists against the table impatiently. "Get me out of here!"
"Shao…listen to me." Na Lan Ye Ran swallowed, watching her son from across the reinforced plastic screen that was transparent. "You…you are no longer a child of the Mu Rong family."
"What?!" Mu Rong Shao sank into his seat, unable to believe what he had just heard. Even though he was spoilt, he wasn't stupid. He understood what that meant. "I'm being…abandoned?"
"No. Your father has arranged for you to be transferred to the Bai Zeng research facility instead. There's a program…Bai Zeng has been looking for volunteers. In exchange for being spared from being sentenced to life imprisonment, you'll be working as an assistant in the research facility."
At least the contact had claimed the role was "assistant" but his first choice of words, "volunteer" stayed in her mind. She felt disturbed, but she preferred that her son have at least some modicum of freedom in a research facility than suffer in jail for murder. Or even get executed.
"What?! How am I supposed to…?"
"Just shut up!" Na Lan Ye Ran snapped. "Even after all this, you still haven't reflected on what you did?"
"What did I do? I was simply exercising my right as the young master of the Mu Rong family! Wasn't that what you taught me? Those trash's lives are worth nothing next to ours!"
"Listen, Shao. You're no longer the young master of the Mu Rong family. You've to adapt to this new reality."
"No! That can't be! Where's Dad!? He can't just leave me like this! He'll do something about this!"
"Your dad can't even save himself right now. Thanks to you, the Mu Rong family is in a decline. Workers are going on strike and resigning en masse from his company. The public is rioting and looting our company's warehouses and stores. Shares have declined steeply. The Mu Rong family might go bankrupt at this rate. He's trying to put out the fires that you ignited. We might not survive this."
"No way…" Shao slumped down, his jaw dropping. "That's…that's…we can't…"
"It's all my fault. Your father is right. I should have taught you properly. I shouldn't have spoilt you, shouldn't have…"
"Mom…" Mu Rong Shao said slowly, his eyes blazing in hatred. "What about that bastard? That trash…his name was Feng Zhi Ming? Is he dead?"
"He survived your shots," Na Lan Ye Ran replied. Then her gaze hardened. "Don't be a fool. I'm not taking revenge for you. You were stupid enough to mess with him. Over a foreign girl, no less! And when he came to you and simply asked for you to stop harassing her and to leave him alone, what did you do? You shot him and tried to murder him in cold blood. Even though he was being reasonable! Are you an idiot? Destroying your future over such a petty grudge?! Was it worth it?!"
Mu Rong Shao sulked sullenly, but didn't reply.
"And if something were to happen to him now, don't you think everyone will know it was the Mu Rong family? We're already in deep trouble as it is. Don't give us even more problems. I will not help you take revenge, and I advise you to stop obsessing over such things. This whole thing was your fault, not that Feng boy's. Leave him alone, don't involve yourself in his affairs from now on. Understand?"
"Fine," Mu Rong Shao said reluctantly. Then he gritted his teeth. "What about Darla Yoo?"
"What about her?"
"She's the reason why I'm in this mess in the first place!" Mu Rong Shao slammed his fists against the white, plastic table. Na Lan Ye Ran winced at the display of temper. Like father, like son. They really liked to hit the table. "If she didn't blabber to Feng Zhi Ming about me hiring an assassin to kill him, he wouldn't have come to find me to begin with!"
"Ah, the Yoo family." Na Lan Ye Ran's expression darkened. She recalled that they had something to do with the fall of the Mu Rong family. Mr. Yoo had already been brought in for questioning, charged for his links to gangster activity and blackmailing. She couldn't believe that Mu Rong Shao was involved with such people. It was because of such toxic company that he was in this mess. Hanging out with the wrong people.
And this Darla Yoo too. She had watched the video that was streamed throughout all social media platforms and heard the Feng boy mention her name. That snitching bitch.
"Don't worry about her," Na Lan Ye Ran promised, a cold smile forming over her pretty face. Even though she was already in her forties, she was still an attractive woman. "I'll make sure to send this Darla Yoo into the Bai Zeng research facility with you. There, you can do whatever you want with her."
The boy from the Feng family was one thing – too many eyes were on him right now, so the Mu Rong family couldn't possibly do anything to him. Not that she planned to – quite clearly her son was in the wrong this time, and there was no benefit in trying to provoke the victim further. The Mu Rong family was in deep enough shit as it was.
But this Darla Yoo…she was the daughter of the fat bastard who indulged in blackmail, extortion and other illicit activities. Nobody was going to care if she disappeared. And she was sure her husband's acquaintance would be more than happy to accept another volunteer.
"Excellent." Mu Rong Shao was beginning to become hard just from imagining the sort of sensual torture he planned to inflict on that bitch. Even if he was forced to suffer this indignity, he could at least derive some small pleasure out of this mess. "Thank you, Mom. I look forward to seeing her soon."
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