The End of the Chess Piece and the Backlash (Large Chapter)

Another day passed.

As evening fell, Lu Chenyuan and Mo Qingli were enjoying some pastries together.

Just then, Lu Chenyuan's private phone rang abruptly, shattering the momentary peace.

The caller ID displayed a name he rarely initiated contact with—Lu Mingye.

A cold glint flashed in Lu Chenyuan's eyes. He knew the final piece was about to move.

He answered the call.

"Chenyuan! Something terrible has happened!"

From the other end came Lu Mingye's panicked voice, trembling with unmistakable fear.

"Liu Mei... Liu Mei and Tiaotiao have been kidnapped!"

Lu Chenyuan's expression remained utterly unchanged.

"Who did it?" he asked calmly.

"I don't know! The caller demanded... a ransom of ten million!" Lu Mingye's voice shook. "They insisted you come alone with the money to the abandoned steel factory on the outskirts of the city!"

"Chenyuan, you have to save them! Tiaotiao is my son, your little brother!"

Lu Chenyuan listened in silence as his nominal father pleaded incoherently over the phone.

Mo Qingli stood nearby, having overheard the conversation.

Her brows furrowed slightly.

She knew this was Li Xiujian's last desperate move.

"Chenyuan, think of something, quick!" Lu Mingye continued frantically. "They said if we involve the police, they'll... they'll kill them!"

"Understood."

With those two detached words, Lu Chenyuan ended the call.

He turned to Mo Qingli.

"It's Li Xiujian," he stated with certainty.

"He's backed into a corner," Mo Qingli's gaze turned icy. "Kidnapping women and children—how despicable."

She stepped closer to Lu Chenyuan, straightening his collar with her fingers.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

Her tone was steady, as if she would support him unconditionally no matter his decision.

"Nothing," Lu Chenyuan replied evenly. "Tonight, just watch the show."

"You're going alone?" Mo Qingli disapproved.

"Don't worry," Lu Chenyuan met her eyes. "I never act unprepared."

He pulled out another phone and dialed Zhang Qi's number.

"Close the net."

Just two words.

"Understood," came Zhang Qi's equally concise reply.

After making these arrangements, Lu Chenyuan said to Mo Qingli, "I'm leaving."

"Mm," Mo Qingli nodded.

As they stepped outside—

"Ah Yuan." She suddenly called him, her voice carrying a tenderness he'd never heard before.

Lu Chenyuan stiffened slightly.

This was the first time she had addressed him like this.

He turned to Mo Qingli, only to hear her whisper softly,

"I'll wait for you to come back."

Her eyes were calm yet burned with quiet intensity.

In that moment, Lu Chenyuan's heart felt utterly full.

He gave a firm nod.

"Alright."

...

Thirty minutes later.

Lu Family Manor.

Lu Chenyuan arrived alone in his car.

Instead of heading straight to the steel factory, he had come here first.

In the living room, Lu Mingye paced like a caged animal, his face twisted with terror.

Spotting Lu Chenyuan, he lunged forward as if grasping at salvation.

"Chenyuan! You're here! Did you bring the money?"

Lu Chenyuan ignored the question, simply staring at his father with detached calm.

"Do you love her?" Lu Chenyuan suddenly asked.

Lu Mingye froze, bewildered by the irrelevant question at such a critical moment.

But he quickly nodded with frantic desperation. "Yes! I love her! She's the woman I love most in this world!"

"Is that so?" The corner of Lu Chenyuan's mouth curled into a mocking smile.

"What about Mother? Lou Mengling—the woman who bore your children and stood by you for decades. Did you ever love her?"

Lu Mingye's face drained of color.

"I..." He stammered, unable to respond.

"Lu Ruoxi—your biological daughter, lost for eighteen years. Did you ever care for her after finding her?"

Lu Chenyuan advanced mercilessly.

"Lu Qianqian—the daughter you raised for eighteen years. Do you even know her?"

"And Tiaotiao, this so-called son of yours. Are you certain he's truly yours?"

Each question was a scalpel, laying bare Lu Mingye's selfishness and hypocrisy.

"You—you're talking nonsense!" Lu Mingye barked weakly. "Of course Tiaotiao is my son!"

"Father." Lu Chenyuan's voice remained devoid of emotion.

"Tell me—among these children, who matters most to you?"

"Or perhaps..."

Lu Chenyuan paused, his gaze sharpening into something that seemed to pierce through Lu Mingye's soul.

"You love none of them."

"You only love yourself. Even your 'love' for Liu Mei—you don't love the woman named Liu Mei. You love the fantasy she represents, the fulfillment of your desires. In the end, you only cherish yourself."

Lu Mingye collapsed onto the sofa, his face ashen, utterly defeated.

Lu Chenyuan felt no pity as he watched the broken man.

In the original timeline, this man's stupidity and selfishness had accelerated the Lu family's plunge into ruin.

"I'll save them," Lu Chenyuan finally said.

"Not for you."

"But because the child is innocent."

With that, he turned and left without hesitation.

Behind him, Lu Mingye sat alone in the cavernous living room, hollow and broken.

...

Outskirts of Jingzhou.

Abandoned Third Steel Factory.

The massive industrial complex loomed in the darkness like a slumbering beast.

Its rusted iron gates stood tightly shut.

Lu Chenyuan parked his car five hundred meters away.

As he stepped out, the night wind tugged at his clothes, briefly revealing the edge of a bulletproof vest beneath.

Alone, he walked toward the pitch-black structure.

Unseen in the darkness behind him, countless red dots flickered to life—the laser sights of snipers from the SWAT team already in position.

An invisible net had been cast over the area, leaving no room for escape.

Lu Chenyuan stopped before the towering gates.

"I'm here," he announced, his quiet voice carrying clearly into the building.

"Alone?" A hoarse, wary voice responded from inside.

"Alone."

"The money?"

"Right here." Lu Chenyuan tapped the case beside him.

"Open the gate yourself!"

Case in hand, Lu Chenyuan pushed through the heavy doors.

The interior was vast and derelict.

A single dim bulb illuminated the center of the space.

Beneath it stood Li Xiujian.

He looked far more haggard than before—hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot, like a beast driven to the brink.

In his hands was a hunting rifle.

Its barrel was trained on two figures beside him:

Liu Mei and her seven-year-old son, Lu Tiaotiao.

Liu Mei's mouth was sealed with tape, her face streaked with tears, eyes wide with terror.

The boy, Lu Tiaotiao, remained eerily composed, clinging tightly to his mother.

"Lu Chenyuan." Li Xiujian's voice dripped with venomous hatred as their eyes met.

"You finally came."

"My money?"

Lu Chenyuan's eyes darkened as he stared at the smoothbore shotgun in Li Xiujian's hand.

He had seen this type of hunting rifle in his past life—village hunters were permitted to use them, with an effective range of about forty meters.

Lu Chenyuan stopped at a distance of roughly fifty meters, then threw the suitcase in his hand forward.

The case tumbled several times across the ground before coming to rest between Li Xiujian and Lu Chenyuan.

At the same time, the impact forced it open, scattering the money inside.

"I'll take the money, and you'll die!" Li Xiujian burst into maniacal laughter, abruptly leveling the gun at Lu Chenyuan.

"Li Xiujian, you can't win against me." Lu Chenyuan's voice was eerily calm.

"Your overseas funds have been frozen."

"Your protector here, Wang Chen, was just taken in for investigation."

"Every move you've made is dead."

"You've already lost."

Each word from Lu Chenyuan struck like a hammer, crushing Li Xiujian's resolve.

"No! I haven't lost!" Li Xiujian roared, his voice ragged with desperation. "I still have hostages! I still have you!"

"If I kill you, I can turn this around! I can win everything back!"

"Is that so?" Lu Chenyuan smiled.

"Li Xiujian, you spent half your life scheming, thinking yourself the mastermind. But in truth, you were the most pitiful pawn of all."

"What do you mean?" Li Xiujian narrowed his eyes.

"Do you know whose daughter Lu Qianqian really is?" Lu Chenyuan dropped the first bombshell.

Li Xiujian froze.

He had no idea why Lu Chenyuan would suddenly bring up Lu Qianqian.

"Who cares about some fake heiress's origins? She was just a random child we picked!"

"No." Lu Chenyuan shook his head.

"She is your daughter, Li Xiujian."

The words exploded in Li Xiujian's mind like thunder.

His face twisted in disbelief as he whirled toward Liu Mei.

"Is this true?"

Liu Mei's body trembled violently.

Her eyes burned with venom—and a twisted satisfaction.

She neither nodded nor denied it.

Instead, she laughed, a shrill, unhinged sound that echoed through the empty factory.

"Ha... hahaha..."

She ripped the tape from her mouth, her voice hoarse and jagged.

"Brother... my dear, dear brother."

"Only now do you think to ask me?"

"You used me as a pawn, planted me beside Lu Mingye for over a decade!"

"You forced me to play the doting wife to a man I despised!"

"You ruined my life for your pathetic revenge!"

"And now, you ask me who Lu Qianqian's father is?"

Tears streamed down Liu Mei's face as she pointed at Li Xiujian.

"Lu Chenyuan is right!"

"That night you ordered me to swap the babies—did you think I grabbed some random child?"

"No!"

"I hated the Lu family... but I hated you more!"

"And Yang Honglian hated you too!"

Li Xiujian's mind went blank.

Yang Honglian...

A name he had long forgotten.

A woman from a fleeting affair years ago.

"She found me," Liu Mei hissed, her voice dripping with madness.

"She said she wanted revenge. She wanted your real daughter raised by your enemies—used, manipulated, just like you used us!"

"And I agreed!"

"I took her child—your child—and placed her in the Lu family!"

"The real Lu heiress, Lu Ruoxi? We sold her to some backwater village!"

Liu Mei's laughter turned hysterical.

"Brother, do you hear me?"

"You plotted for years, thinking you'd use the Lu family's 'fake' daughter to destroy them!"

"But the joke's on you! The pawn you used was your own flesh and blood!"

"You pushed your own daughter into hell!"

The truth, raw and brutal, lay bare before him.

Li Xiujian stood paralyzed, as if struck by lightning.

The gun slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground.

A lifetime of schemes, a lifetime of cunning—all undone by his sister and a scorned woman.

His greatest enemy was the Lu family.

Yet he had delivered his own child to them.

He sought to ruin the Lus, only to nearly ruin his own daughter.

The irony was cruel.

The tragedy, absolute.

With a guttural scream, Li Xiujian collapsed, his mind shattered.

Every ounce of pride, every shred of calculation, disintegrated into dust.

Then—

BANG!

The factory doors burst open.

A flood of armed SWAT officers stormed in, shields raised, guns trained.

"Freeze! Police!"

The cold command rang through the building.

Lu Chenyuan's meeting had been the final piece of their trap.

He was the perfect bait.

Officers swarmed Li Xiujian, pinning the broken man to the ground.

Handcuffs snapped shut around his wrists.

Liu Mei was restrained.

Lu Tiaotiao was gently carried away by a female officer.

A decades-long feud, an intricately woven conspiracy—it all ended tonight.

Lu Chenyuan watched impassively.

No triumph colored his expression, only an abyss of stillness.

He turned and walked out.

Behind him, Li Xiujian's mad laughter and Liu Mei's sobs faded into the night.

None of it concerned him anymore.

...

The storm had passed.

The next day, Jingzhou's financial news blazed with headlines:

"Li Xiujian, Chairman of Li Group, Arrested for Economic Crimes, Kidnapping, and Attempted Murder."

"Wang Chen, Deputy Director of Financial Regulation, Ousted."

The business world reeled.

The Li family, a decades-old empire, crumbled overnight.

Their affiliated stocks nosedived, evaporating billions in moments.

A ruthless reshuffling began.

Yet the architect of it all, Lu Chenyuan, seemed detached.

In his penthouse at Cloud Peak Residences, he stood before floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing at the city below.

Mo Qingli entered, placing a steaming cup of coffee beside him.

"It's over," she said.

"No." Lu Chenyuan shook his head. "It's only just begun."

Li Xiujian's downfall was merely the excision of a festering relic.

But the true protagonist of this story—the man destined to rise atop the Lu family's ruins—was only entering the stage.

Li Jinchuan.

Underestimating the protagonist was the fatal flaw that doomed every antagonist.

Lu Chenyuan would never make such a mistake.

"Where is Liu Mei?" Mo Qingli asked.

"She's been charged with corporate espionage and aiding in kidnapping. However, I had my lawyer apply for bail on her behalf," Lu Chenyuan replied calmly.

Mo Qingli was surprised.

"Why?"

"Though she is despicable, she’s also a victim. Besides, Tiaotiao needs his mother."

Lu Chenyuan recalled the unusually composed boy at the kidnapping scene.

Afterward, he had sent someone to ask Lu Tiaotiao if he was willing to return to the Lu family.

The boy shook his head.

He said he wouldn’t go anywhere—he would wait for his mother at home.

Truthfully, Lu Chenyuan’s decision to spare Liu Mei was partly because she had been forced to act as Li Xiujian’s pawn against the Lu family.

But another reason was that in the original storyline, Liu Mei’s son, Lu Tiaotiao, inherited her hatred for Li Xiujian.

As a result, the boy became an antagonist, an obstacle in Li Jinchuan’s path of growth.

With these considerations in mind, Lu Chenyuan ultimately chose to leave room for mercy in Liu Mei’s case.

As for Lu Mingye—

After learning the full truth, he completely collapsed.

The love he had believed in was nothing but a lie.

He locked himself in his room, refusing to see anyone, becoming a shell of his former self.

"And Qianqian..." Mo Qingli brought up the name with concern.

Li Xiujian was her biological father.

That truth must have devastated her.

"I’ve already told Qianqian everything," Lu Chenyuan said. "She took it calmly."

Under Lu Chenyuan’s deliberate guidance, Lu Qianqian was no longer the spoiled, jealous young woman from the original story.

Her footsteps had taken her to the poorest corners of the world.

Her perspective and mindset had long transcended the constraints of family and blood ties.

She simply told Lu Chenyuan that the past was behind her.

Whose daughter she was didn’t matter.

What mattered was who she was.

Lu Chenyuan was relieved.

His sister had finally become the best version of herself.