Heart-Slaying

This kiss was completely different from the fierce anger before, which had been eager for release. It was full of pure tenderness and love, like a mutual comfort, carrying a lazy and unhurried ease. The two were entangled lip and tongue, kissing inseparably, only reluctantly pulling away when their tongues grew numb.

Xie Guan almost regretted his earlier hesitation; he had simply been wasting precious time.

His unyielding, god-slaying toughness from the fire scene had been melted by love into pliant tenderness. He now lay limply on Huo Mingjun's chest, like a disabled but determined koala. After resting for a moment, Xie Guan remembered the important matter and leaned close to Huo Mingjun's ear, asking, "Explain it to me. What exactly happened today?"

Huo Mingjun somewhat unnaturally tore his gaze away from his face, lest he lose control of the player in his mind the moment he saw Xie Guan. It was as if a zoo had opened in his heart, with countless restless apes and galloping horses of desire roaring past in a line.

If he had been born in ancient times, he might really have been a foolish ruler who let beauty ruin his kingdom.

“There was a problem with that factory, I did know about it for a while,” Huo Mingjun began by apologizing to him. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you beforehand. It's my fault for making you worried, frightened, and even injured.”

“Let's put that aside for now, we'll talk about it later,” Xie Guan said with great effort. “You continue.”

Seeing that it was truly difficult for him to speak, Huo Mingjun took out his phone, opened the notepad app, and had him type instead of talk.

“The explosion part is still under investigation, but I have a good guess as to who's behind it. It's a long story,” Huo Mingjun said. “It's also somewhat related to the kidnapping case from ten years ago.”

“Hengrui is the Huo family's most important business. According to the Huo family's line of succession, the group is to be passed down to the eldest son of the eldest son. My grandfather married two wives and had four sons. The eldest is Huo Zhongchen, who is my father; the second is Huo Zhongting, who was the main person in charge of the aftermath of the incident back then; the third is Huo Zhongbo, the father of Huo Zhikuan and Huo Zhirong; the fourth is Huo Zhonghan, who hasn't amounted to much. A few years ago, he was just a yes-man following the eldest, but he's settled down a lot after getting married and having children.”

“Nominally, I am the eldest grandson of the first branch of the Huo family, but in reality, I have an ‘older brother’ above me,” a sharp, cold glint flashed through his eyes and vanished. “He's an illegitimate son, raised outside until he was five before being acknowledged by the Huo family. He originally took his mother's surname, Kong Fei, but after being officially accepted into the family, he was given the generation name 'Ming' and called Huo Mingfei.”

“Huo Zhongchen is the eldest son of the Huo family. Having an illegitimate child is something that should have been avoided, but he was careless and let another woman get pregnant with his child before my mother did. However, Huo Mingfei's mother, Kong Ni, was also a resourceful woman. The moment she knew she was pregnant, she just up and left, hiding away for five years. It wasn't until my mother fell gravely ill that she brought the child to our door to be recognized.”

Xie Guan, shocked, typed "Fuck" followed by a string of exclamation marks.

“My mother's death wasn't directly related to the illegitimate son. She had congenital heart disease, and her health collapsed after giving birth to me.” Huo Mingjun patted the back of his hand. “Of course, you can't say it's completely unrelated… After my mom passed away, Huo Zhongchen begged the Old Master for a long time before my grandfather finally relented and allowed that child into the family. The condition was that Kong Ni couldn't enter the family as well, for fear that she was too ambitious and would get improper ideas.”

“I was raised by the Old Master, while Huo Mingfei always stayed by Huo Zhongchen's side. Huo Zhongchen is an extremely arrogant person, easily swayed, and prides himself on being loyal and righteous. Kong Ni, kept by him on the outside, could whisper some pillow talk and have him completely wrapped around her finger. Having grown up under the ‘influence’ of these two for twenty-odd years, it's natural that Huo Mingfei didn't turn out well.”

“After I graduated from university, I joined the group to work and was groomed by the Old Master as his successor. By then, Huo Mingfei's ambitions had grown wild, so he colluded with my second uncle's son, Huo Dexi, and together they planned the kidnapping ten years ago.”

Huo Mingjun said, “If I had died…” Before he could finish, Xie Guan lunged forward and clamped a hand over his mouth, absolutely unable to bear hearing him say that word.

“Alright, I won't say it,” Huo Mingjun good-naturedly pulled his hand down and held it in his own, rephrasing more tactfully, “Without me, Huo Mingfei would be the only son of the first branch. Or, if the Old Master didn't recognize him, Huo Dexi would be the heir of this generation. That's why neither of them planned to let me live.”

“Kong Ni kept Huo Zhongchen occupied, and a few people kept the Old Master in the dark. It wasn't until my bodyguards discovered I was missing that the Huo family began the rescue. You know what happened after that. I survived the ordeal, and Huo Mingfei and Huo Dexi's plan was completely foiled.”

Xie Guan typed: What happened to those two scumbags afterward?

“The Old Master was furious, of course,” Huo Mingjun's voice carried an unconscious note of sarcasm. “Huo Mingfei is a bastard, so he could be ruthless in dealing with him. But Huo Dexi, after all, is his own grandson, and my second uncle's only son. The Old Master wanted to protect him.”

Huo Mingjun didn't say it so bluntly, but Xie Guan only had to think for a moment to understand the situation back then: a twenty-something Huo Mingjun, having just returned from the brink of death, his wounds yet to heal, his hatred yet to fade, wishing for nothing more than to kill the culprit to sate his anger, only to learn from his hospital bed that his grandfather—the only person he could trust, the one who could stand up for him—had suddenly become mindful of familial bonds and wanted to protect his own grandson.

“Huo Dexi is your brother.”

“He was deluded by Huo Mingfei and made a huge mistake in a moment of confusion. Give him a chance to turn over a new leaf.”

Then what did that make Huo Mingjun? And what about Cheng Sheng, who died for him? A joke?

Xie Guan's expression was complicated. “That's disgusting…”

“The more disgusting part is yet to come,” Huo Mingjun let out a cold laugh. “Not long after, Huo Zhongchen actually came to see me too—to plead for Huo Mingfei.”

Xie Guan nearly smashed his phone, his short temper flaring up in an instant. “What the hell is wrong with him? He dares call himself a father?!”

“It was just the same old spiel over and over, telling me to spare him for the sake of brotherly affection,” Huo Mingjun said. “I never saw any of this brotherly love and respect on a normal day, but the moment something happens, they all remember to call each other brothers.”

“Huo Zhongchen has Kong Ni by his side, and he's easily influenced. Maybe he truly doesn't see me as his son. In any case, by the time I recovered and was discharged from the hospital, Huo Mingfei and Huo Dexi were still eating and drinking well, alive and kicking. Not a single person was punished for what happened.”

—The family was so peaceful it was as if he had just gone on vacation. All the bloody wounds, the bone-deep hatred, the escape in the rainy night, and the person who fell from the cliff—all of it was covered up under a superficially prosperous and peaceful atmosphere, left to slowly rot, or to be slowly forgotten.

From that moment on, he was like an eagle thrown from a cliff that finally spread its wings. In the bone-deep pain of completely severing blood ties, he opened his eyes and understood that in this world, aside from himself, no one would stand by his side forever, sheltering him from the wind and rain for a lifetime.

He no longer blindly relied on kinship, even though the Old Master, to compensate him, shifted his anger onto Huo Zhongchen for the incident and placed him directly into the core of power at Hengrui Group.

“And then,” Xie Guan asked, “you just let it go like that?”

Huo Mingjun lifted the corners of his lips and gave a very faint smile.

That smile was grim and gloomy, overflowing with killing intent, as if a blood-soaked sword had been suddenly unsheathed, its sharp edge glinting, ready to make heads roll at any moment.

The legendary, ruthless, and iron-fisted head of the Huo family would, of course, not let things go so easily.

On his path to the top, the first stepping stones he laid were these two “dear brothers.”

He skipped over the bloody, life-and-death struggles of the past, only telling Xie Guan the final result: “I gained complete control of Hengrui about five years ago. Under the family's arrangement, Huo Dexi went abroad, and Huo Mingfei contracted a ‘serious illness’ and was admitted to a sanatorium.”

The speaker was nonchalant, but the listener was bewildered.

Xie Guan was just an ordinary person, unfamiliar with the “advanced” games played by these wealthy families. In a society governed by law, it wasn't easy to make someone die legally and justifiably, but there were many ways to make a person's life worse than death, such as exile or confinement.

Huo Dexi was an accomplice. Back then, Huo Zhongting and his wife knelt before Cheng Sheng's grave, kowtowing in apology, before Huo Mingjun barely relented and spared his younger cousin's life. Huo Dexi was sent abroad, far across the ocean, but Huo Mingjun detained his parents in the country, ensuring he would never dare set foot on his native soil again for the rest of his life.

Huo Mingfei had single-handedly planned the kidnapping and had long been in a life-or-death struggle with Huo Mingjun. Correspondingly, his “treatment” was on a whole other level than Huo Dexi's.

Huo Mingfei inherited Huo Zhongchen's philandering and lecherous nature; he wasn't picky, taking both men and women. Huo Mingjun found a young boy he had slept with, gave him some money, assigned two people to protect him, and the boy brazenly went to the Huo family, claiming that Huo Mingfei had raped him and demanded he take responsibility.

The scene was a direct reenactment of when Kong Ni had shown up at their door all those years ago.

Kong Ni didn't pay any mind to her son's private life, assuming he was just playing around and would sooner or later find a woman to marry and settle down with. Who knew that the young boy would bypass her and Huo Zhongchen and bring the matter directly before the Old Master Huo.

Old Master Huo was a figure from the founding generation of the last century, and the Huo family's conservative and traditional style came from him. No matter how disgraceful Huo Mingfei was, he still carried the Huo surname. Creating such a scandal would ultimately bring shame upon the entire Huo family. Coupled with the fact that the Old Master already disliked him, he flew into a rage upon hearing the news. He immediately summoned Huo Zhongchen, gave him a furious scolding, and told him to take Huo Mingfei back and discipline him properly.

Who would have thought that not long after, the “grounded at home” Huo Mingfei was rolling around with that young boy again. It started when a few rich kids threw a “Seafood Feast,” and internal photos were leaked, hitting the front-page headlines of entertainment news. Among them were high-definition, full-frontal, uncensored bed photos of Huo Mingfei.

The Old Master was so angry he nearly had a heart attack. Hengrui had always been known for its “press firewall,” yet during the years Huo Zhongchen was in charge, it had become full of leaks. And of all times, Huo Mingfei had to pick this moment to be exposed in a scandal, which even attracted a police investigation.

Just then, another man who had slept with Huo Mingfei showed up at the Huo family home, and he brought news reporters with him. Old Master Huo and Huo Zhongchen could finally sit still no longer.