Gangster heir? Please call me a legitimate entrepreneur.

The morning sunlight streamed through the blinds, cutting out pale, bright lines.

The image was projected onto the disinfected floor tiles in the medical room.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of Lysol and alcohol.

The central air conditioning vents emitted a low humming sound.

Shen Qinghan sat on a round stool beside the hospital bed.

He rested his chin on his hand, with two dark circles under his eyes.

The white shirt, soaked with sweat from last night, now clung dryly to my back, giving off an uncomfortable chill.

She stared at the man on the hospital bed whose breathing was gradually stabilizing.

His eyes were as complicated as a tangled mess.

last night.

The moment the man took her hand.

She actually felt a genuine pang of heartache.

Feeling sorry for a triad prince?

Shen Qinghan felt her police badge burning in her chest, as if it were silently rebuking her for her betrayal.

But what lingered in his mind were the hideous scars on Su Ye's chest.

"water."

A hoarse, dry voice broke the deathly silence of the early morning.

Shen Qinghan suddenly came to her senses.

She pulled her hand back from Su Ye's palm as if she had been electrocuted.

My fingers were icy cold, and my fingertips trembled slightly uncontrollably.

"Okay... I'll go get it."

She stood up in a panic, her flat canvas shoes scraping against the floor tiles with a harsh screech.

I turned to grab the thermos on the table, my hands shaking so badly I almost knocked it over.

When she turned around with half a glass of warm water.

The movement froze again.

Su Ye, who was in the hospital bed, had already sat up.

He wasn't wearing a shirt.

His muscular chest was exposed to the air, and the old knife scars that ran through his muscles were particularly glaring in the morning light.

He calmly picked up the gold-rimmed glasses from the bedside table.

It was slowly placed on the bridge of the nose.

The lens reflected a cold, emotionless light.

The weak, even pleading Su Ye from last night seemed like just an illusion for Shen Qinghan.

Now, he has once again transformed into a capitalist machine that uses legal provisions to crush gangsters.

"What time is it?"

Su Ye's tone was as calm as a stagnant pool, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

He took the water glass that Shen Qinghan handed him and took a sip.

They didn't even say "thank you" or mention a single word about last night.

"Six...six thirty."

Shen Qinghan swallowed hard and subconsciously bit her lower lip.

The tip of my tongue tasted a sharp, rusty, bloody flavor.

Looking at the man's cold, hard facial features, she suddenly felt a surge of inexplicable grievance and anger.

She stayed by his side all night.

He woke up, didn't even glance at her, and immediately switched back to work.

"Has the Ministry of Justice completed the liquidation report for the money lending business?"

Su Ye put the water glass aside and reached for the suit jacket draped over the back of the chair.

"Inform Chen Suan that there will be a meeting at eight o'clock."

Shen Qinghan took a deep breath.

The chest heaved violently.

"Chairman, your fever has just subsided. The doctor said you need to rest."

She forced down the bitterness in her heart, and her voice turned cold.

"Even if Sihai Group wants to extract surplus value from its employees, you should still calculate your lost wages."

Su Ye paused for a moment as he put on his coat.

He pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and looked up at Shen Qinghan.

His gaze was calm, radiating an air of self-righteous indifference.

"My time is charged by the second."

He buttoned up his shirt with one hand, covering the glaring scars.

"Your overtime pay should be reimbursed by the finance department. It will be calculated at three times the normal rate for statutory holidays."

Triple overtime pay.

These five words were like a resounding slap across Shen Qinghan's face.

She felt like her feelings had been labeled with a cost-benefit expense report.

This man quantified everything into legal and compliant accounts!

"No."

Shen Qinghan pinched her palms so hard with her fingertips that deep red marks appeared.

"I don't need it."

She turned around, opened the door to the infirmary, and rushed out as if fleeing.

The corridor was deserted.

Shen Qinghan ran all the way into the women's restroom.

The door was locked with a "bang".

She turned on the tap, and icy cold tap water gushed out.

She cupped her hands in cold water and splashed it frantically on her face.

The icy water stimulated her nerves, sending a shiver down her spine.

Shen Qinghan raised her head and looked at the disheveled woman in the mirror.

Water droplets dripped down her cheeks, indistinguishable from tears.

Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Shen Qinghan. What exactly are you doing?"

She murmured to herself in front of the mirror, her voice trembling.

"You're a cop. He's a gangster. Even if he's wearing a suit and preaching law every day."

"He's also the cancer that led you into the abyss!"

She braced her hands on the marble countertop, her knuckles white.

Two voices were arguing fiercely in my head.

One voice was Li Jianguo's deafening roar: He's laundering money through legal means! He's seizing social resources!

Another voice came from Su Ye's hoarse "Don't go" in the dim light.

There were also comical scenes of those burly henchmen with menacing faces studying polite phrases with dictionaries in hand.

Could it be that I've really fallen in love with him?

Falling in love with this madman who uses the law as a weapon and treats the underworld like韭菜 (a metaphor for exploiting people)?

Shen Qinghan closed her eyes in pain.

She felt her faith was crumbling little by little, being corroded and riddled with holes by the bizarre "legitimate corporate culture" of the Sihai Group.

"Bang bang bang!"

There was a sudden, urgent knocking on the bathroom door.

The force was so great that even the door frame was shaking.

"Secretary Shen! Secretary Shen, are you inside?"

Zhou Ming's broken voice pierced through the wooden door, carrying obvious sobs and terror.

"Come out quickly! Something terrible has happened!"

Shen Qinghan suddenly opened her eyes.

He grabbed a tissue from the side and wiped his face haphazardly before quickly opening the door.

Zhou Ming lay sprawled outside the door like a lump of mud.

Clutching a yellowed, tattered rag, he trembled like a leaf.

His black-rimmed glasses were askew on his nose, and he was sweating profusely.

"What's wrong?" Shen Qinghan frowned, his hand instinctively reaching for the touchscreen phone in his trench coat pocket.

"Where is Chen Suan? Where is Lei Hu?"

Zhou Ming swallowed hard; his throat was so dry he couldn't make a sound.

He was breathing heavily, pointing towards the CEO's office at the end of the corridor.

"Kill...the assassin."

Zhou Ming's teeth chattered wildly, making a series of clicking sounds.

"Those two foreigners who were extorted for 300 yuan by Dafei at the airport yesterday."

"They...they've come all the way to our headquarters!"

Shen Qinghan's pupils suddenly contracted.

My heart jumped into my throat.

"Where's the security department?! What is Zhang Tiezhu doing?!"

She grabbed Zhou Ming by the collar and lifted him off the ground.

"Brother Tiezhu... Brother Tiezhu took the police dogs to the underground parking garage to check for illegally parked vehicles."

Zhou Ming was almost in tears.

"Those two foreigners have real weapons! With silencers!"

"Director Lei Hu just went up to reason with them using a riot fork... and got knocked unconscious by a rifle butt at the elevator entrance!"

Zhou Ming looked miserable, the rag in his hand twisted into a tangled mess.

"They said... if Su Ye isn't seen within five minutes..."

"They're about to blow up our legal department's archives!"