Chapter 247: Chapter 163: Seeing Shuya Again

"She actually dared to delete me! Her father!"

Li Tianqi instantly hurled his phone, his face a mask of fury.

He never imagined that his daughter, who was always as timid as a lamb, would do this. The same daughter who was too scared to speak if he so much as glared at her. And yet, she had dared to delete him.

CRASH!

The teacup shattered.

After a while, Li Tianqi finally calmed down.

He got up and picked the phone off the floor. Fortunately, the carpet had cushioned the fall, and the phone wasn’t damaged.

He found Li Mengqing’s number and dialed.

Thankfully, Li Mengqing hadn’t blocked his number. If she had, Li Tianqi, who had just managed to calm himself, would have likely exploded again.

In the moments of quiet that followed, he had time to think things through.

His daughter was a grown woman now, and they truly had forced that last marriage on her for their own benefit, without any regard for her feelings.

It was what the Li Family owed Li Mengqing.

He was making this call partly out of a sense of guilt towards Li Mengqing, but mostly because of Yuanfang Company.

If it were just about their father-daughter relationship, he would never have made this call under any circumstances.

But profit was a powerful motivator, enough to make him swallow all his anger. No matter how furious he felt, he would never turn his back on a financial opportunity.

Besides, nobody understood the state of the Li Group better than he did.

It was just as Lin Hongnian had said: the Li Group was on a dead-end path. It had numerous fatal flaws, and if the authorities ever decided to investigate, it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny.

That was why the Li Group had already begun restructuring after his eldest son returned from his studies abroad.

He had started divesting all the clean assets—the parts of the business that could withstand an investigation.

However,

Li Tianqi felt that wasn’t enough of a safeguard, so he was also looking for other avenues.

He came from humble beginnings and wasn’t highly educated, but he’d learned one crucial lesson from a young age: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

The call connected, but his daughter wasn’t answering.

「At No.1 Courtyard.」

Li Mengqing stared at the constantly ringing phone in her hand, unsure if she should answer.

She didn’t know why her father was suddenly calling.

Growing up, the only thing she had ever felt from Li Tianqi was severity, even tyranny.

In her memory, her father rarely spoke to her; their communication consisted entirely of his looks.

That included her marriage. Her father hadn’t said a single word. Back then, she had desperately hoped he would speak up. Just one word from him, and her mother would have surely stopped pressuring her.

But that time, her father hadn’t said a word, nor did he even look at her.

Later, she came to understand. The marriage had been her father’s idea; her mother was merely the one carrying it out.

With a sigh, Li Mengqing quietly walked into the bedroom and answered the phone.

"Dad."

Li Mengqing said softly.

"Mm."

"What happened in the past, let it stay in the past."

"From now on, no one from the family will pressure you again."

"I’m getting old. Come home and see me when you have time."

"That’s all."

On the other end of the line, Li Tianqi spoke a few sentences in a low, even tone. He didn’t bother to check if Li Mengqing had heard, hanging up as soon as he was done.

After hanging up, Li Tianqi’s mind was anything but calm.

He had originally called to ask about Li Mengqing and Gao Yuan, but when she said, "Dad," he couldn’t bring himself to ask right away.

Even the most vicious tiger won’t eat its own cubs.

It was true that he prioritized profit above all else, but Li Mengqing was his own flesh and blood. To say he felt nothing for her would be a lie.

Especially now that he was getting on in years—something dyeing his hair couldn’t hide.

He was a full ten years older than Lin Hongnian, already over sixty.

On top of that, he had spent his youth focused solely on building his career. Now that he was older, various aches and pains had begun to set in one after another.

People grow more sentimental with age.

In the bedroom, Li Mengqing gripped her phone so tightly that the blood drained from her knuckles.

In the next moment, tears began to stream down her face. There was no sound, just a silent, unstoppable flow.

’After all these years, I finally heard him say it.’

At the same time, a profound sense of relief washed over her. She was finally free from the fear of her family making trouble for her.

But in her happiness, even her normally perceptive mind didn’t question why her father would say such things at this particular moment.

CLICK!

The bedroom door opened.

Seeing that they were in low spirits, Gao Yuan had decided to cook them a nice dinner. He went to ask what they’d like to eat, but found that Li Mengqing wasn’t in the living room.

So he went to check the bedroom.

He opened the door and was surprised to find Li Mengqing sitting alone on the edge of the bed in tears.

"What’s wrong?"

Gao Yuan walked to the bed and wrapped his arms around her. Li Mengqing had seen him enter and wiped at her tears, but before she could stand, he was already holding her.

Li Mengqing wrapped her arms around his waist and quietly told him about her father’s phone call.

"That’s a good thing."

"Why are you crying? You should be happy."

Gao Yuan comforted her, stroking her hair.

However,

’This can’t be a coincidence,’ he thought.

The three of them had just visited the Li Group’s Technology City in Xiaoshan that morning, and now, around noon, her father calls. There was no way that was a coincidence.

’Is the Li Group making a gesture of goodwill?’

Gao Yuan considered it. The only asset he had that people like them would covet was Yuanfang Company.

’Wang Sichao is after it, and now the Li Group is after it too?’

Gao Yuan kept these thoughts to himself. There was no need to voice them. Saying too much might upset Li Mengqing, and there was no telling how she would take it.

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