Hard work after winning the lottery

Zhou Yanjin closed her eyes, suppressing the inexplicable irritation.

He picked up his phone again, but instead of calling anyone, he issued a short command.

"Come to the study."

Three minutes later.

The study door was pushed open silently, and a man in a black suit, with a capable demeanor and ordinary appearance, walked in and bowed deeply to Zhou Yanjin.

He was one of Chen Xu and Zhou Yanjin's personal assistants, specifically responsible for handling more private investigations that were inconvenient for Chief Secretary Ying Zhiyao to handle.

"President."

Zhou Yanjin shifted her gaze from the darkened phone screen to him, her voice devoid of any emotion.

"Is the information on Baixi Village ready?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

Chen Xu stepped forward and respectfully presented a thick report bound in a blue folder onto the desk with both hands.

"All the publicly available information about Baikai Village, its economic model, and... the backgrounds of the people who have been in frequent contact with the old man recently, are here."

Zhou Yanjin did not immediately look it up.

His fingertips tapped lightly on the smooth rosewood table, the subtle sounds of which were exceptionally clear in the excessively quiet space.

Get to the point.

"Yes."

Chen Xu dared not be negligent in the slightest and reported to his superior in a steady tone: "Baixi Village is located in a remote area and used to be a provincial-level poverty-stricken village. The turning point happened three years ago when a woman named Hua Yun returned to her hometown to start a business."

"She opened a sheep farm, integrated the sheep farming resources in the village, and registered a brand called Xishan Muyun, which focuses on online sales of high-quality mutton and related agricultural products."

"The operating model is very innovative and accurately captures the needs of high-net-worth clients."

Chen Xu paused for a moment, then added, "Currently, Xishan Muyun's annual revenue has exceeded eight figures, and it boasts an extremely high customer repurchase rate, indicating huge brand potential."

Zhou Yanjin raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.

It's truly remarkable that a woman from a remote mountain village, who returned to her hometown, could achieve this much.

But that's clearly not what he's more concerned about.

His fingers stopped tapping, his gaze sharp as a knife.

"This is Huayun."

Chen Xu immediately understood and opened the spare documents in his hand.

"Hua Yun, female, 26 years old. A local, she worked for the Zhou Group six years ago before returning to Baixi Village. She is unmarried and has three children."

Unmarried.

She has three sons.

These words, like tiny pebbles, were thrown into Zhou Yanjin's calm and still heart, stirring up a barely perceptible ripple.

His gaze finally fell on the report.

His long, slender fingers opened the folder.

The homepage displays Hua Yun's personal profile, along with a one-inch ID photo.

The woman in the photo has no makeup on, her black hair is simply tied back, revealing her smooth and full forehead.

Her features weren't particularly striking, but they were pleasing to the eye, especially her eyes, which were clear and bright, revealing a stubbornness and tenacity that refused to give up.

Zhou Yanjin's pupils suddenly contracted.

This face...

Deep within his mind, a fragment of memory that had been deliberately sealed away suddenly exploded without warning.

six years ago.

A night of absurdity, and at dawn everyone dispersed.

For him, it was nothing more than an insignificant, unexpected episode in his long life.

He had almost forgotten her name.

But now, this face, these eyes, and the memory of that night have overlapped with it in an irresistible way.

Zhou Yanjin's knuckles, gripping the paper tightly, turned slightly white from the force.

A surge of anger, a feeling of being deceived and fooled, rose from the depths of my heart.

After she fled, she actually hid back in that poor, remote place, and...

His gaze was fixed on the next line of the document.

[Children Information: Eldest son Hua Si'an, second son Hua Si'tao, and third son Hua Sile (triplets), born in...]

A clear string of dates, like a thunderbolt, struck Zhou Yanjin's mind.

This date!

His brain started working at a speed far exceeding what he usually did when handling contracts worth billions.

He remembered the date of that night clearly.

Counting backwards from that date...

Ten months of pregnancy...

The timing was perfectly aligned with the birth dates of the three children, down to the last second!

An absurd idea, so ridiculous that even he found it laughable, instantly entangled his heart like a wildly growing vine.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

My steady, powerful heartbeat completely lost its rhythm at this moment.

The blows pounded violently against his chest, making his eardrums ring.

It was a mixture of shock, disbelief, and a strange tremor that even he himself couldn't explain.

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes so sharp they seemed to pierce through Chen Xu.

"The photos sent by the old man."

His voice, due to the intense fluctuations in his emotions, became slightly hoarse.

Chen Xu didn't dare to delay and immediately projected the photos from his phone onto the giant screen on the study wall.

Those were several high-resolution photos of everyday life.

The photo shows a sunny day with lush greenery.

Three identical little boys were surrounding their grandfather, Zhou Yinchuan, their smiles radiant.

He had only caught a glimpse of them during a previous video call and thought they were three cute and lively children.

But now, Zhou Yanjin's state of mind is completely different.

He stood up and walked step by step to the giant screen, as if he were examining a top-secret document concerning the life and death of the group.

He kept zooming in on one of the photos, and then zooming in again.

Until one of the children's faces clearly filled the entire screen.

The child named Si'an was looking down, intently assembling a complex model in his hands.

He pursed his lips, his brows furrowed slightly, and his dark, grape-like eyes shone with a calmness and focus beyond his years.

That expression...

Zhou Yanjin's breath hitched.

That vague sense of familiarity that I had felt since the first time I saw them finally had a clear direction!

He turned around, walked quickly back to his desk, and opened the locked bottom drawer.

Inside, a thick leather photo album lay quietly.

He flipped through the photo album, his fingers flying across the yellowed old photos, finally stopping at a solo picture of himself when he was five years old.

In the photo, a little boy wearing a suit and a bow tie is sitting at a piano, his brows slightly furrowed, looking at the sheet music with a serious expression.

Zhou Yanjin placed the old photograph side by side with Hua Si'an's face on the giant screen.

Despite the fact that more than 20 years have passed, and one is film and the other is digital.

But those almost identical eyebrow and eye contours, that almost identical habit of unconsciously pursing their lips when deep in thought...

Blood ties are such a domineering and unreasonable thing.

It is etched into my bones and imprinted on my face; no matter how time flows, it cannot be erased in the slightest.

A conclusion that was almost certain, yet utterly absurd to him, overwhelmed his rock-solid reason.

These three children...

The three clever and adorable "little guys" that Grandpa talked about...

The woman named Hua Yun gave birth to triplets six years ago...

They are his flesh and blood.

It's his...son.

"boom--"

The immense impact left Zhou Yanjin's mind blank for a moment.

Before him were only two strikingly similar faces that seemed to transcend time and space.

All he could hear was his own heartbeat, growing louder and more chaotic with each beat.

He, Zhou Yanjin, at the age of twenty-seven, had been a father for more than five years without his knowledge.

Moreover, he is the father of three sons.

This is more shocking and disruptive than any of his multi-billion dollar acquisition deals.

He needs time.

He needed absolute silence to process this fact that was enough to completely overturn the past thirty-one years of his life...

"go out."

He heard his own voice, dry and hoarse, as if it weren't his own.

Chen Xu looked at the president's face, which had instantly lost all color, and his eyes, which were filled with a storm, and felt a chill run down his spine. He dared not ask a single question.

"Yes, President."

He quietly slipped out and considerately closed the heavy solid wood door behind him.

The study fell silent once more, as if dead.

Zhou Yanjin slowly slumped back into the large leather chair, leaned back, tilted her head back, and covered her eyes with her arm.

It blocked out the bright light in the room, but it couldn't illuminate even a sliver of the light in his heart at that moment.