Who's going to be the female lead's simp? Aren't the supporting female characters mor

Abandoned docks in the western suburbs of Haicheng.

This is the glamorous, hidden side of the city, where the air reeks of engine oil, rust, and rotting seaweed. Waves crash against barnacle-covered concrete pillars, producing a dull thud, like the panting of a dying beast.

Warehouse No. 3 was as dark as a tomb.

The only light came from a portable projector, its beam piercing through the dust-laden air and projecting onto the mottled, peeling wall.

Chu Xuan sat in his wheelchair, his hands gripping the armrests tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force. His leg was still in a cast, throbbing slightly, but compared to the content playing on the screen, this pain was nothing.

It was an old video with low resolution and shaky footage, clearly taken secretly.

In the scene, a young Bai's father is sitting at a negotiating table, opposite a haggard-looking middle-aged man. Bai's father pushes a document towards the man, who signs it with trembling hands, then covers his face in despair and weeps bitterly.

"Do you recognize who he is?"

In the darkness, the man wearing the white mask spoke. His voice, processed by a voice changer, had a synthetic metallic quality, harsh and cold, like two rusty iron rails rubbing against each other.

Chu Xuan stared at the weeping middle-aged man, his pupils shrinking slightly: "Lin... Lin Ruyu's father?"

He had seen this face in Lin Ruyu's photo album. Although the person in the photo looked spirited, the person in the video looked like a lost dog.

"Bingo." The masked man snapped his fingers, his tone revealing a sense of triumphant control. "Twelve years ago, the largest real estate project in Haicheng, 'Jinxiu Bay,' was originally the Lin family's property. But the Bai family used some underhanded methods and political resources you can't even imagine to cut off the Lin family's funding and force Lin's father to transfer all his shares at a low price."

The scene shifts to a black and white photograph. Lin's father lies in a pool of blood, with the tallest unfinished building in Haicheng in the background.

"This is the end." The masked man walked behind Chu Xuan, placed his hands on the back of his wheelchair, leaned down, and whispered in his ear, "Bai Jingyou is now getting close to Lin Ruyu, giving you the illusion that he is pursuing Lin Ruyu, but it's nothing but crocodile tears. He's enjoying the thrill of manipulating his enemy's daughter."

Chu Xuan's breathing became rapid, and his chest heaved violently.

Hatred, like a dry tinderbox, was instantly ignited by this video.

"Why are you telling me this?" Chu Xuan gritted his teeth, his voice forced from deep in his throat. "What do you want me to do?"

"It's not about what I want you to do, but what you can do." The masked man chuckled and shoved a USB drive into Chu Xuan's hand. "Give this to Lin Ruyu. She's an orphan of the Lin family, the sharpest blade in this revenge. Once she sees this, Bai Jingyou will transform from a suitor into the son of her father's killer in her heart."

"Using someone else to do the dirty work?" Chu Xuan sneered.

"No, it's a win-win situation." The masked man patted Chu Xuan on the shoulder. "After it's done, I'll arrange for the best doctor to heal your leg and give you a sum of money to help you make a comeback overseas. You're a smart man; you know what to choose."

After saying that, the masked man turned and disappeared into the darkness, his footsteps gradually fading into the howling sea breeze.

The warehouse returned to deathly silence.

Chu Xuan looked down at the USB drive in his hand; its black plastic casing was cold and hard. His eyes shifted unpredictably, filled with anger, humiliation, and greed, before finally settling into a chillingly somber expression.

He slowly reached into his pocket and pressed the "Stop Recording" button on his phone screen.

"I'm a smart man..." Chu Xuan looked at the empty warehouse, a twisted smile curving his lips. "So, I won't just listen to your side of the story. You want to use me as a pawn? You'll have to pay a price."

If it were the old Chu Xuan, he would have already grabbed the USB drive and rushed to find Lin Ruyu. But the pain of his broken leg taught him to be as cunning as a venomous snake.

He encrypted the recording file and uploaded it to the cloud, then gripped the USB drive tightly.

Whether it's Bai Jingyou or this cowardly fellow, they're all going to die.

……

At the same time, in the study of the Bai family manor.

The air here is at a constant temperature of 24 degrees Celsius and filled with the aroma of expensive agarwood.

A huge electronic screen occupied the entire wall, its surface covered with a dense network of lines forming a complex web of relationships. Red lines represented the flow of funds, while green lines represented the penetration of shareholdings.

Bai Jingyou stood in front of the screen, swirling a half-empty glass of red wine in his hand, looking as languid as if he were admiring an abstract painting.

"Young Master, we've tracked them down."

Chen Mo's fingers flew across the keyboard, the lines on the screen eventually converging on a single point. "That mysterious fund targeting the Su family, after being laundered through eighteen layers of offshore companies, ultimately points to a trust fund in the Cayman Islands. The fund's holders are highly confidential, but I found their law firm in Hong Kong."

"Hong Kong?" Bai Jingyou took a sip of wine, the scarlet liquid wetting his thin lips. "That makes it even more interesting."

"Furthermore, after profiting from shorting the Su Group, this fund did not withdraw but instead began quietly accumulating shares in the peripheral subsidiaries of the Bai Group." Chen Mo pushed up his glasses, a cold glint flashing behind the lenses. "They have a huge appetite; it seems they want to surround the core from the outside and create panic."

Bai Jingyou looked at the spiderweb-like financial chart on the screen and suddenly laughed.

That smile held no warmth, only a mocking look that seemed to see through the trickery.

"Chen Mo, stop checking the funds."

"Young Master?" Chen Mo was taken aback. "But this is clearly..."

"This is a target." Bai Jingyou interrupted him, pointing his slender fingers at the complex money laundering point in the air. "They're drawing diagrams for us. Such a complicated money laundering path would take even a top hacker three days and three nights to investigate. He deliberately left the clues so messy just to delay us and make us waste our energy on this dead end."

He turned around, his back to the screen, and his gaze fell on an old newspaper on the desk.

"In this world, there is no hatred without a cause, nor is there money without a reason. Since the flow of funds is a cover, then investigate the people involved."

"Looking up someone?"

"Yes." Bai Jingyou put down his wine glass, his eyes gleaming with wisdom. "Investigate Lin Ruyu. No, to be precise, investigate who else was a key figure in the Lin family's bankruptcy case twelve years ago, besides Lin's father, and who 'vanished' after that."

In the original story, although Lin Ruyu had many admirers, the person who could mobilize hundreds of millions of yuan at this stage and had such a deep hatred for the Bai family was definitely not an ordinary character.

Chu Xuan, that good-for-nothing, doesn't have that ability.

People in southern Jiangsu are already using sewing machines.

Therefore, there is only one remaining possibility.

Ten minutes later.

Chen Mo's expression turned serious as he projected a newly retrieved file onto the screen.

"Young Master, you're amazing." Chen Mo's voice carried a hint of disbelief. "Back then, there was a vice president of the Lin Group named Chen Qiming. He was Lin's father's sworn brother and also the company's CFO. After the Lin family went bankrupt, Lin's father jumped off a building, but Chen Qiming fled with his family overnight. Later, they encountered a storm on a ship bound for overseas, and it is said that all three of them died."

"I heard?" Bai Jingyou raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, no body was found." Chen Mo pulled up another photo, which showed a middle-aged couple and a boy of about ten years old. "But I just compared it with the recent business elites in Haicheng and found something interesting."

The screen image split in two.

On the left is a photo of the ten-year-old boy, and on the right is a young man in a suit and wearing gold-rimmed glasses.

Although more than a decade has passed and his temperament has changed drastically, his long, narrow, gloomy eyes and bone structure still bear a striking resemblance.

The young man was none other than Chen Hao, who had been constantly by Lin Ruyu's side recently, and who called himself her "sworn brother."

"Chen Hao..." Bai Jingyou chewed on the name, his smile deepening. "He was adopted by a childless overseas tycoon, changed his name, and came back with a huge amount of money. On one hand, he played the role of a devoted and loyal dog in front of Lin Ruyu, while on the other hand, he was secretly manipulating Chu Xuan as a weapon, and he also wanted to besiege the Bai family in the capital market."

Snapped.

Bai Jingyou snapped his fingers.

"Brilliant. This is a 'Hamlet' story!"

All the clues have come together.

Chen Hao didn't act directly because he wanted to enjoy the cat-and-mouse game. He wanted to use Chu Xuan to provoke Lin Ruyu, making her the cannon fodder on the front lines, while he would stay behind the scenes and reap the benefits.

Even when the Lin family went bankrupt, was Chen Qiming, who was the financial director, really clean?

"Young Master, what do we do now?" Chen Mo asked. "Now that we've locked onto him, should we...?" He made a throat-slitting gesture.

"No rush." ​​Bai Jingyou waved his hand and picked up his wine glass again. "Since he likes acting so much, then we'll play along. It's no fun just exposing him directly. I'm going to dismantle his stage the moment he thinks he's about to win."

Just then, the cell phone on the table suddenly vibrated, breaking the tranquility of the study.

Caller ID: Wife.

Bai Jingyou raised an eyebrow slightly, answered the phone, and his voice instantly switched from cold to gentle: "Mengyao, what's wrong? Didn't you say you were working overtime at the company? Shall I come pick you up?"

"Jingyou..."

On the other end of the phone, Jiang Mengyao's voice trembled slightly. The background noise was chaotic, and the sounds of breaking glass and a woman's screams could be faintly heard.

"Something's happened. Lin Ruyu...she's gone mad."

Jiang Mengyao lowered her voice, her tone urgent, "She stormed into the company lobby with a document, smashed the reception desk, and is being held back by security. She...she's yelling and shouting that you're the son of a murderer, that the Bai family made their fortune by profiting from human suffering. Many media outlets have rushed here and are broadcasting live..."

Bai Jingyou's smile froze instantly, replaced by an absolute coldness.

They arrived so quickly?

It seems that the masked man—or rather, Chen Hao—was acting more hastily than he had imagined. He had just given the "evidence" to Chu Xuan, and now the fire had been turned against Lin Ruyu.

This shows that Chu Xuan handed over the knife very quickly.

"Don't be afraid," Bai Jingyou said softly into the phone. "Let her make a scene. Remove the security guards and let her in."

"What?" Jiang Mengyao was taken aback. "But a reporter..."

"It's precisely because there are reporters that we're letting her in." Bai Jingyou walked to the French windows, looking at the dark night outside, as if he could see a series of ferocious mouths waiting to devour the Bai family.

"Since they want to see a show, I'll give them a big one."

After hanging up the phone, Bai Jingyou turned to look at Chen Mo, his eyes sharp as knives.

"Get the car ready, let's go to the company."

He straightened his tie and gave himself a perfect smile in the mirror.

"Whether it's that idiot Lin Ruyu or Chen Hao hiding in the sewers, I'll take them all tonight."