My sister, whom I raised, has turned evil after faking her death for three years.

The black sedan drove smoothly on the main road of Ancheng. Gu Lei, in the back seat, leaned back and tapped the documents on her lap with her fingertips.

As the street scene outside the car window gradually transitioned from the bustling commercial district to the quiet inner city, she turned her gaze from the window and focused on the memorandum of understanding she had just signed in front of her.

The negotiations went much more smoothly than she had expected. Although the other party was initially tough, they eventually relented in the face of the conditions she offered.

She rubbed her temples, closed the file, and thought to herself that these past few days hadn't been a waste of time.

"Mr. Gu," Assistant Xiao He, sitting in the passenger seat, turned around, holding a tablet computer and quickly glancing at the schedule, "The Cheng Group has sent another invitation. Young Master Cheng said he's hosting a dinner at the Anyang Club tonight and would like to invite you to join us. What do you think, should you decline as before, or...?"

"No." Gu Lei put the documents aside, her tone as indifferent as if she were saying the weather was nice today. "I don't have time to play house with that young master from the Cheng family right now."

Xiao He responded and then looked down at the tablet and operated it a couple of times.

Gu Lei turned her head to look out the window, and the image of the man surnamed Cheng floated into her mind. She had met him once before at a business dinner. He had taken the initiative to talk to her, and his eyes kept drifting away while he spoke, and his ears were slightly red.

She knew the other party probably just wanted to make friends. The Cheng family had always had a good reputation in Beicheng, and this young master Cheng didn't have any bad rumors in the industry.

But she always felt that the other person's gaze was a little strange, that hesitant feeling that made her subconsciously not want to go on the date alone.

She pulled herself together and reopened the memo, preparing to go over a few key terms again before returning to the hotel.

Xiao He had already finished processing Cheng Shao's invitation and was now checking Gu Lei's schedule for the next few days. He flipped through the dense meeting minutes of the past few days and couldn't help but remark, "This project went really fast. Several partners were finalized in less than a week. It seems these companies are quite satisfied with President Gu's proposal. Even the most difficult ones didn't haggle much. But it's strange... these companies usually get quite close to the Jiang family, so why did they side with us so readily this time?"

Gu Lei's fingers, which were flipping through the documents, suddenly stopped.

She looked up, her tone still calm and unwavering, and asked him what he had just said.

Xiao He was taken aback by her reaction, thinking that he had said something wrong, and quickly repeated what he had just said.

He was just making a casual remark and didn't think there was anything worth delving into. In business, the highest bidder wins, it's only natural.

  

But Gu Lei's reaction clearly showed that she didn't think so.

She placed the memo on her lap, leaned forward slightly, and asked Xiao He to read the list of partners again, along with their respective roles in the project.

Although Xiao He didn't understand why, he had been working with Gu Lei for so long that he was used to his boss's style of never overlooking any details, so he immediately pulled up the documents and began to report one by one.

As the names of one company after another were read out, Gu Lei's brows furrowed more and more tightly.

She reached out to interrupt Xiao Zhou's report, took the tablet, and personally looked through the list. Her gaze swept from the first line to the last, then she closed her eyes, leaned back in her chair, and pieced together all the fragmented memories of the past few days in her mind.

Those compromises that went exceptionally smoothly at the negotiating table, those seemingly unintentional but actually deliberate leaks of internal information, and those partners who, despite being within the Jiang family's sphere of influence, suddenly showed her goodwill.

She re-examined these fragments according to the timeline and the chain of interests, and then suddenly opened her eyes.

wrong.

She didn't win this project competition at all; Jiang Ran deliberately let her win.

The reason why those partners so readily sided with the Gu family was not because her proposal was better or her conditions were more attractive, but because they were pawns that Jiang Ran had originally released.

Jiang Ran pushed them in front of Gu Lei, making her swallow these seemingly tempting resources one by one. When Gu Lei had integrated all these chips and was ready to make a big splash, Jiang Ran only needed to tighten the external supply chain, and her entire project would be firmly restrained.

This is not a concession or a mistake at all, but a trap that was carefully set up from the very beginning.

She broke out in a cold sweat.

If her guess is true, then Jiang Ran is far more terrifying than she previously assessed. This isn't business competition; this is a trap.

She was the prey that was driven into the trap step by step, yet still smugly believed that she had won every battle.

All those years of painstaking effort... the power she had fought so hard to gain within the Gu family, the trust she had earned vote by vote at the board meetings... if Jiang Ran were to completely seize control of this scheme, the consequences would be unimaginable.

She might lose everything.

But is that really the case...?

She leaned back in her seat, watching the street scenes rush by outside the window, her doubts growing stronger.

Would Jiang Ran really go to such lengths just to completely eliminate her as an opponent?

Although the competition between them was fierce, the Gu family and the Jiang family never clashed head-on to the point of being irreconcilable.

What if this is just her overinterpretation?

What if those partners switched sides simply because her proposal was more attractive?

She gripped the document in her hand tightly, her knuckles turning slightly white.

Regardless of the truth, she cannot take the risk.

She needed more information, needed to confirm Jiang Ran's true intentions, and needed to find a way to break through in this confrontation.

The invitation from the Cheng family… She suddenly remembered that wherever Young Master Cheng appeared, his inseparable brother Jiang Ren was usually there too.

Jiang Ren is Jiang Ran's older brother. Although there are rumors that the siblings have a cold relationship, he is, after all, a member of the core circle of the Jiang family.

If she could get anything out of him, even just a few words, it would be much better than her current aimless guessing.

She spoke, her voice still cool and indifferent, but her pace was slightly faster than usual: "Accept that invitation from Young Master Cheng for me."

Xiao He turned around from the passenger seat, his face showing undisguised surprise.

He was about to ask if he had just said he would refuse, but when he saw his boss's slightly furrowed brows and unfathomable eyes in the rearview mirror, he immediately swallowed all his questions. He quickly modified the schedule on his tablet and then turned back to continue processing the documents.

Although he didn't understand why President Gu suddenly changed his mind, the first survival rule he learned after working by Gu Lei's side for so long was: when President Gu makes a decision in this tone, don't ask too many questions.

Meanwhile, outside the arrival hall of Anseong International Airport, a dark-colored sedan had just come to a stop.

Jiang Yi opened the back door and got in, tossing her backpack aside and crossing her arms in front of her chest, radiating a low-pressure aura that kept strangers at bay.

Jiang Ren turned around from the passenger seat and looked at her, asking her what was wrong.

Jiang Yi's answer was crisp and straightforward, with a hint of defiance. She simply said that nothing was wrong, she just wanted to come and see him. What, she wasn't welcome?

Jiang Ren's lips twitched. In her heart, she silently lit a candle for the culprit who had somehow offended this little tyrant again, and wisely refrained from asking any further questions.

Anyway, this girl has always been like this since she was little. She comes to him when she's happy and she comes to him when she's unhappy. And his only role as her older brother is to act as her emotional dumping ground whenever she needs him.

"Sure, you can stay as long as you want," he said, unscrewing the cap of a bottle of mineral water and handing it to the back row. Then, in an extremely casual tone, he added, "By the way, there's a good show tonight, want to go see it?"

Jiang Yi took the water and was about to drink it when she heard this and looked up at him.

At this moment, she was preoccupied with figuring out how to find Xiao Ran and Sister Su. Ancheng was so big, Xiao Ran must have hidden Sister Su very well. Searching for her by herself would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But if Jiang Ren helps, it might be faster.

So she put on an expression that said, "Since you've put it that way, I'll reluctantly agree," and casually said, "Okay."

Then she turned her face to the car window, continuing to plan her search for Xiao Ran and Sister Su.