A move played cannot be retracted; a bet made must be honoured. (The Climax: The Standoff at Lancheng)

When the call finally went through, the man answered, "Hello."

Mo Zhicheng's voice was very calm and low, devoid of any emotion. The more so it was, the more Linglan felt as though her heart was stuck in her throat, unable to move, and even the air instantly froze into ice.

Linglan felt lost, tentatively probing with her voice, "Where are you? You haven't come back for days, and I couldn't reach you."

"Mhm, dealing with some matters!" Mo Zhicheng murmured.

Linglan's heart tightened, her willow-leaf eyebrows furrowed, and she asked softly, "Zhicheng, where are you right now? I want to see you!"

"Alright, I want to see you too." Mo Zhicheng paused, "I'm at the office..."

"I haven't seen you return to 'Sky City' for days, why did you go there at this hour?" She glanced at the clock on the wall; the minute hand pointed to eleven o'clock at night.

"I finished what I needed to do, so I came back."

Ye Linglan stood frozen, vaguely sensing what he was referring to. "Then I'll come find you." At this, a wave of bitterness welled up in Linglan's eyes. She paused, "I have something to tell you, wait for me!"

Mo Zhicheng murmured softly, "Alright, I'll wait for you!"

After hanging up the phone, Ye Linglan hurriedly put on her coat. While rummaging through her handbag for the room key, she was surprised to find that the Zippo lighter given to her by Ye Shenghan had vanished. She emptied her entire bag, but the lighter was truly lost.

Linglan could no longer care about that. Before leaving, she looked back at the entire room, turned off the wall lamp, and with a swift *swish*, the surroundings instantly plunged into a terrifying darkness.

It was a night of thunder and lightning, with fierce winds howling outside. She rushed out to the mouth of the alley just as a loud crack of thunder split down like a sharp sword tearing through the vast sky. She shuddered violently as that brilliant arc of light raced down from the clouds all the way to the edge of the sky.

She hurriedly hailed a taxi, where the car radio was tuned to a late-night music station, playing a song called "Departing Person" in the sparse night.

The man's fragmented voice drifted across:

"The little silver boat rocks, bends, and sways,
Suspended in the hazy sky.
Your worries, twos and threes, tinged with blue,
Suspended in the hazy sky.
You say when affection reaches its depths, how can one not feel lonely?
When love is intense, it tugs at the heart and brings anxiety.
My luggage, lonely and scattered, evokes sorrow!
……
The departing person squanders tears,
Evading the parting still right before their eyes.
You dare not think of tomorrow,
I refuse to say goodbye,
Someone says every farewell
Extinguishes another star in the heavens..."

Understanding the bewilderment in the lyrics, hearing the sorrow in the melody, that faint voice echoing through the thunder-interwoven night carried a sense of boundless nothingness and loneliness, chanting a lingering, bitter sorrow. Yet those rumbling claps of thunder were fiercer than wild beasts, splitting the sky into pieces and whipping against her heart, shaking it to its core.

Then, a torrential downpour poured down, slamming *pat-pat* against the ink-black car windows.

When she arrived at "Sky City," the long corridors of the corporate headquarters were also gloomy, dark, and utterly deserted. Reaching his office, the hallway outside was empty, and the office door was ajar, casting a dim, yellowish pool of light slantwise across the floor.

Linglan gently pushed the door open and entered. Mo Zhicheng was nowhere to be seen. His desk remained neatly organized, and his laptop was left powered on upon the desk, its screen light glaringly bright. She merely glanced at it, withdrawing her gaze without much thought, when lightning suddenly flashed across her mind. She paused—what had she just seen?

She hurriedly looked back at the webpage on the computer screen, her jaw dropping in shock: "Billion-Enterprise Bai Group Collapses Overnight; Founder Bai Yuanzhou Jumps to His Death."

Ye Linglan stared in disbelief, frantically scrolling the webpage down to the very bottom until she laid eyes upon Old Master Bai's photograph. Her heart shattered like a heavy stone crashing down, breaking into countless jagged pieces.

The news had been published an hour ago, which meant that when she called him earlier, the Bai family had already met with disaster. The fingers holding her mouse trembled uncontrollably...

However, that was not all. The drawer was also slightly ajar, and through the dim light, she could vaguely make out a stack of photographs hidden inside.

She frantically pulled the drawer open, her heart beating like a war drum, breathing heavily as she realized she was getting closer and closer to that cruel truth, and growing increasingly terrified.

Linglan snatched them up, looking through them one by one. Instantly, her face turned deathly pale, drained of all blood. She stared blankly at the photographs. The entire stack consisted entirely of pictures of herself and Ye Shenghan together—from when she first stepped into "Sky City," her repeated encounters and meetings with Ye Shenghan, to that night on the first day of the Lunar New Year when she met Bai Yucheng at "Adore" and Ye Shenghan shoved her into a car, and even... footage of Ye Shenghan forcefully kissing her. One picture after another was laid bare before her eyes with crystal clarity.

If so, he had known her identity all along—why had he never exposed her?!

The answer was self-evident!

Ye Linglan's hands trembled, and the photographs fluttered like snowflakes onto the carpet. She stood frozen like a statue, staring blankly at her own reflection scattered across the floor.

Until she noticed at the very bottom of the drawer lay an exquisite yet familiar brocade box. Having already guessed what was inside, she opened it nonetheless, unwilling to give up. The expensive "Star of Sierra Leone" was as noble and coldly brilliant as ever, radiating an icy and haughty glow that stung her eyes with pain. Her grip unsteady, the gemstone slipped from her fingers; despite its worth of a city, in her eyes, it had already become nothing more than a discarded stone.

Her legs went soft, and she leaned limply against the edge of the desk. At that moment, the phone in her pocket rang out with a piercing, jarring shrillness. Numbly, she answered it, and before she could utter a sound, a voice immediately blasted from the other end: "Ye Linglan, you are truly ruthless!"

"..." Moisture shimmered and trembled in her eyes, bitterness pervading her entire chest. Choked up, she couldn't utter a sound, only hearing Bai Yucheng roar furiously from the other end: "I never expected that for Mo Zhicheng's sake, you would betray us like this, Ye Linglan..." The man's voice tore apart; the agony of losing his father pushed him to the brink of losing control.

Just at that moment, a brilliant white light suddenly illuminated the office. Ye Linglan turned her head away, looking in disbelief at the tall, slender figure standing by the door. The man was dressed impeccably as always. The moment their eyes locked, he smiled faintly at her and walked to her side.

Bai Yucheng's furious shouts pierced through the silent, freezing air of the room.

She looked at him, visions flashing before her eyes like fast-forwarded film. He had brewed the sweetest, most lingering poison with honeyed sweet-nothings, trading profound affection and tenderness for this ruthlessness.

At that moment, the tears in her eyes could no longer be contained, suddenly spilling over like a breached river dam.

She remembered the breakfast he made for her;
She remembered the "crystal shoes" he gave her;
She remembered the rainy night in London when she held him and sang that song, "Every Breath You Take";
She remembered standing on the London Eye and seeing the rainbow after the rain behind him.

She remembered his kisses, his embraces, his child-like smile. With all these past memories, she could no longer tell which one was the real him.

Mo Zhicheng raised an eyebrow, a playful smile playing at the corners of his lips. Lighthearted and casual, as elegantly cultured as ever, only his eyes exuded a bone-chilling coldness that froze her entire body stiff. Yet he gently retrieved the phone from her hand and pressed the speakerphone button. Their gazes remained locked; she had never felt so utterly unable to see through him as she did now.

The loudspeaker blasted the man's unbridled roar. Mo Zhicheng glanced at it unconcernedly, scoffed lightly into the phone, and said, "Have you finished saying everything you wanted to say?"

The other end paused. "Mo Zhicheng?"

"If you're done, stop bothering me and her."

"Mo Zhicheng, you bastard! Where is Linglan? Where is Ye Linglan?!"

"Oh," Mo Zhicheng continued smiling. "I can understand how you feel right now. After all, I endured the exact same thing back then. Besides, Linglan and I just scammed the Bai family out of all their money. Overnight, you've gone bankrupt, been betrayed by everyone, and lost your family. How does that feel?"

Linglan stared at Mo Zhicheng in disbelief, watching his palm loosen. Amidst Bai Yucheng's curses, the phone slipped gently from his hand, fell to the floor with a *clatter*, and the entire world fell silent!

A moment of stillness.

"You lied to me!" she murmured, unable to control herself.

He smiled, looking at her gently, but his expression was chillingly devoid of emotion. "Which time?"

"Which time?" Ye Linglan laughed desolately. "You fed me false news!"

"Yes."

She nodded. "It turns out the cooperation between the Bai Group and the Liu Group had no issues at all. You deliberately fed me false information precisely to sabotage and drive a wedge between the Bai and Liu families, thereby forcing the Bai family to breach the contract first and placing them in an unjust, disreputable position. And the 'Lifeng' project was your true trap all along!" Ye Linglan gasped for air, her lips trembling uncontrollably.

"That's right," Mo Zhicheng said casually.

"What made you so sure I would leak the information to the Bai family?"

"No need for certainty; the outcome has already explained everything. Besides, I understand you. Because you are soft-hearted, you simply couldn't withstand the constant wearing-down from the Bai family."

"Mo Zhicheng!" With a sudden lunge, she rushed forward and gripped his arms tightly, her tear-soaked eyes blurring that exquisite face, filled with deep grievance and profound despair. "Just because you understood me, you lied to me like this!"

He used her to leak false intelligence; he used her to swallow up the Bai family; he used her to scam Ye Shenghan out of his final assets; he used her to drive Old Master Bai to jump to his death in atonement!

Mo Zhicheng cared not a whit about her frenzy, letting her do as she pleased until she had exhausted every ounce of her strength. Her body slid limply down, collapsing helplessly onto the carpet as she murmured in desperate despair, "Why... why treat me like this? Why?!"

She only felt the man's figure loom over her like heavy, oppressive leaden clouds. Mo Zhicheng bent down, reaching out to brush away the wet strands of hair clinging to her cheeks. He drew slowly closer, his fingers weaving through her locks to steady the back of her head, pressing her directly against his chest.

Mo Zhicheng cast his gaze downward, his thin lips lightly brushing against her ear as he whispered, "Because I am a villain. Because... I know how to use you better than Ye Shenghan does. Have you forgotten what I told you? To strike a snake, strike its seventh inch; if you want to catch him, grab his vital spot. Since he had the guts to push the woman he loved into my arms, I merely obliged him. Well? Knowing that you've fallen in love with me, isn't he dying of agony, wishing he were dead?!"

Linglan shuddered, her entire body trembling violently like chaff in the wind!