None of You Know Who You've Messed With

Tianyun Century.

These four words were like a basin of liquid nitrogen poured directly over his head, instantly freezing Zhou Chutian's boiling anger into extreme caution.

"Jiang Chengshan! It's him! Find me his private number!"

One minute.

To Zhou Chutian, this single minute felt longer than his decades of navigating the turbulent seas of business.

Then, his secretary handed him the connected phone.

The call went through.

There were no pleasantries on the other end, only a very faint breath, followed by Jiang Chengshan's entirely emotionless voice.

"What is it?"

His tone was absolutely freezing.

Zhou Chutian could even picture the scene: Jiang Chengshan holding a cup of tea, casually watching the Zhou Group being slowly devoured.

"Brother Jiang, Chairman Jiang!"

Zhou Chutian's voice went dry, his posture instantly humbled to the dust. "Our Zhou family and your Tianyun Century Group have always minded our own business. How have we offended Tianyun Century?"

"You haven't."

Jiang Chengshan's voice remained steady, as if discussing the weather. "But you raised a fine son. He's bold, plays dirty, and actually dared to target my daughter."

Zhou Chutian's mind buzzed.

"Not only did he go after my daughter, but he also tried to drag an innocent person in to take the fall."

Jiang Chengshan paused, a chilling undertone of threat finally bleeding into his voice.

"No one schemes against my daughter. Not even the King of Heaven himself!"

There was too much information in those words.

Zhou Chutian shot a glance at his secretary. The latter reacted quickly, fingers flying across the keyboard. A few seconds later, a report on the Zhou family young master's recent whereabouts appeared on the screen.

It included buying out a factory and investigating certain people.

All records had been backed up by dedicated personnel.

Normally, pursuing the Jiang family's heiress wouldn't be a huge issue. Romance between young men and women was perfectly normal.

The problem was that Zhou Nianqian didn't take the normal route; he just had to resort to a mess of dirty schemes.

The veins on the back of Zhou Chutian's hand bulged as he gripped the phone. He wished he could rush home right now and shove that rebellious son back into his mother's womb to be remade.

"I wonder if Brother Jiang could be magnanimous and let this go? This was my failure in disciplining him. I promise I will keep my dog of a son in check."

Favors were important in the business world, and Zhou Chutian was someone willing to cut off his own flesh to make amends.

Now facing a pincer attack, just dealing with the government inspections was enough to run him ragged. If Jiang Chengshan's pressure was added to the mix, the Zhou Group would likely suffer a devastating blow this time.

However, Jiang Chengshan on the other end simply sneered.

"It seems you still don't know who you've truly offended. We're done here."

With that, Jiang Chengshan hung up.

Leaving a completely dumbfounded Zhou Chutian behind.

"President Zhou... what should we do now?"

Zhou Chutian took a deep breath, put down the phone, and stood up.

"Let's go. We're going home to interrogate that unfilial son!"

A similar situation was unfolding in the Ye family.

The Ye Group was also facing inspections and hostile takeovers.

Only, it wasn't Jiang Chengshan's company leading the charge, but the Situ family's enterprises.

Situ Yunshu was now the owner of all the Situ family's properties.

Her daughter had been wronged; how could a mother let the Ye family off the hook?

If they went by the Situ family's usual style, the Ye family would probably be utterly wiped out by the end of the day.

After all, the rule set by Yanhuang Awakening for the hidden sects was that they couldn't initiate provocations, but if provoked first, they could rightfully strike back.

Three hours later.

Bare-chested and covered in cane welts, Zhou Nianqian knelt on the floor.

Only he and Zhou Chutian were in the massive hall.

Zhou Chutian threw down the cane in his hand.

"Next, I will give you a sum of money. Get as far away as possible. You are no longer the heir to the Zhou family."

Zhou Chutian had more than one son. Without Zhou Nianqian, he had others who could inherit the family business.

As for the troublemaker Zhou Nianqian, he could just live out his days as a useless rich kid.

Moreover, driving Zhou Nianqian away might just appease a certain someone's anger.

The same thing was happening in the Ye family.

However, the Ye family only had two children: Ye Minghui and Ye Qiaolin.

Ye Minghui was also packing his bags, preparing to take a sum of money and leave Yangcheng.

Ye Qiaolin frowned and said, "We still don't know who exactly you provoked, but leaving here is the best way to handle this. If the Ye Group can't survive this crisis, at least you can leave with some money!"

Ye Minghui still hadn't fully processed what was happening.

"Sis... what is going on? Everything was perfectly fine this morning."

"Forget about fine. This Jiang Chengshan is much more formidable than we imagined."

Ye Qiaolin clearly understood much more than her younger brother.

"He already had people buying up the stock of both the Zhou and Ye Groups this morning. Given his strength, he shouldn't have been able to acquire our shares, but he did it anyway. That means there is someone else backing him."

For some reason, a figure surfaced in Ye Qiaolin's mind.

But she remembered that person's background file being completely ordinary.

All of this.

To the students at the school, it didn't seem particularly special.

Two transfer students came and went, all in such a short span of time.

Mai Zirong was still holding the class funds that Ye Minghui had given earlier.

But now, there was no way to return these funds.

Before afternoon classes began, the school had already announced their expulsion over the broadcasting system.

Fang Jun and the others hadn't expected the school to act so swiftly.

Upon hearing the news, Wang Qin couldn't help but hug Jiang Yunlu and cry bitterly.

For her, everything had finally settled.

With Jiang Yunlu backing her up, she no longer had to worry about retaliation from Zhou Nianqian and his gang.

Leaning against the corridor wall, Cai Junhuang felt a lingering fear.

"To be honest, if rich people like Ye Minghui and Zhou Nianqian really wanted to target us, it would actually be quite hard to fight back."

"True. If we were faced with a situation like Wang Qin's, we might also find it hard to make a choice."

Fang Jun suddenly felt somewhat fortunate.

Fortunate that he had suddenly decided to pick up Cai Junhuang after class that night.

And fortunate that Cai Junhuang had no interest in paying attention to someone like Ye Minghui.

"Still, it's best to stay as far away from scumbags like them as possible, because you never know when you might end up tightly under their control."

Fang Jun couldn't help but add.

"Yeah. At my dance studio, quite a few people left with rich guys and never came back. But I think they probably can never return to the path they originally wanted to walk," Cai Junhuang replied.

At this moment, Xie Yuling was spinning her pen. She hadn't expected those two to be swept out of the school in just a single morning.

She didn't know if it was because Jiang Yunlu was that powerful, or if there was another reason.

For some reason, as if possessed, she sent a message to Lin Mo.

"Was it you?"

Lin Mo replied quickly.

"Take a guess."

Alright then, it was definitely this guy.

"So what happens next?"

"I don't know. Things should probably move in a good direction."

"I hope so."