Five years after their breakup, a prominent lawyer is desperately seeking reconciliation.

A high-end tea room in the eastern suburbs.

Jiang Wan pulled her baseball cap down low, adjusted her sunglasses, and took a piece of paper out of her bag, handing it to the man opposite her.

"This is the address. Go to Yongzhou and help me find someone."

The man fiddled with the camera in his hand, glancing at it casually.

"What are you investigating? Infidelity or debt collection?"

"No, we need to find out when this family left Yongzhou, where they went, and where they stayed."

Jiang Wan took an envelope out of her bag and pushed it over.

"How's it going? Can you find it?"

The man patted his chest and confidently raised his chin.

"Dude, I used to be a paparazzi in the Chinese entertainment industry. Just imagine how much I can dig up. Just wait for the news."

The man took the money and left, but Jiang Wan still felt uneasy.

Back then, that family had already moved away after receiving the compensation.

Logically speaking, given the deep-seated blood feud, the two families should never have anything to do with each other again in this lifetime.

Why would she suddenly go to Haicheng Prison to visit someone in prison?

She was worried and felt she had to get to the bottom of this.

Xiao Wu's phone vibrated; he had sent her a WeChat message.

Jiang Wan clicked on it casually, then couldn't help but curse inwardly.

Lu Jingshi is such a shrew!

She clearly submitted a leave application on the system according to the institute's regulations, so why is she being marked as absent without leave?

Remembering the work she had only half-finished, she angrily finished the remaining half pot of tea in one gulp.

He then grabbed his bag, got up, and left.

While waiting for the elevator, she casually made a phone call to Gu Yang.

The day after we last met was the day we were supposed to go see Summer.

But Gu Yang was suddenly sent away on a short mission by his older brother.

He posted on his WeChat Moments that he's coming back today.

Jiang Wan tried calling twice, but Gu Yang's line was busy, so she had to give up.

The eastern suburbs are close to the coastline, nestled against the mountains and beside the water, boasting beautiful scenery.

The Lu Group then bought the land and developed a resort there.

With the Lu family's backing, many high-end teahouses and private clubs have chosen to locate here.

There are even horse farms and golf courses.

Over time, this place became a leisure area for the wealthy in Haicheng.

A prestigious Hongqi car slowly drove into the resort and stopped in front of a clubhouse.

A man who looked like a manager hurried out, all smiles, and opened the car door warmly.

"Young Master, Mr. Lu and his wife are inside."

Lu Jingshi remained calm, his face devoid of any emotion.

Fang Tian's parents returned from South Africa and insisted on organizing a dinner party, which they set at the Lu family's upscale clubhouse.

He didn't want to come, but Fang Tian begged him for a long time on the phone.

Considering the relationship between the two families and Fang Tian's help to him over the years, he reluctantly agreed.

Lu Jingshi lifted his leg and stepped onto the stairs, his peripheral vision inadvertently sweeping to one side before he suddenly stopped.

He turned around and saw only a figure disappear around the corner of the path.

She looks a lot like Jiang Wan.

He pointed in the direction the figure had emerged from: "What place is that?"

"Oh, it's a teahouse. The environment is nice, and it's very private. I heard the owner is from the Gu family."

"The Gu family of Gu's Catering?"

The manager nodded: "Yes, if you're interested, I happen to know their tea master..."

"Not interested."

Lu Jingshi interrupted him coldly and stepped into the club.

The gate closed automatically behind me, as if shutting out the hustle and bustle of the world.

The antique-style Chinese hall gives people a sense of time travel.

A faint scent of pine lingered in the air.

A huge piece of calligraphy by a famous artist hangs on the wall in the very center.

The four characters "淡泊名利" (indifferent to fame and fortune) are written with vigorous strokes and full of power.

Lu Jingshi curled his lips, his disdain barely concealed in his eyes.

In the VIP private room on the third floor, Fang Tian was coaxing Yu Qing and her mother into chatting and laughing.

The custom-made red halter dress, with its perfect cut, made her look radiant like a rose, absolutely stunning.

Upon seeing Lu Jingshi at the door, Fang Tian immediately stood up, walked over, and took his arm.

Lu Jingshi did not refuse and let her pull him in.

"Dad, Mom, Shi came here especially to welcome you."

Mrs. Fang looked at the two people standing hand in hand with satisfaction, and exchanged a glance with Mr. Fang.

At the dinner table, Fang Tian was very charming and made Lu Guokun and Yu Qing laugh heartily.

Lu Jingshi was absent-minded, only touched his chopsticks a few times, and then got up to go to the terrace for some fresh air.

He skillfully lit a cigarette, took out his phone, opened WeChat, and swiped to Jiang Wan's blank status update page.

I still can't see it.

"Ah Shi, the doctor told you to smoke less."

Fang Tian walked over and stood beside him.

Lu Jingshi turned off the screen.

"Fang Tian, ​​I have something to do, I have to go now."

Fang Tian hurriedly grabbed his hand.

"Ah Shi, my parents rarely come back. Could you please not leave for my sake? I want them to see that I'm doing well in Haicheng, so they can rest assured. Is that alright?"

Seeing the expectation in her eyes, Lu Jingshi couldn't bear to refuse, so he followed her back to her seat.

The more Fang's mother looked at Lu Jingshi, the more she liked him.

"Sister Yu, Ah Shi is so successful and handsome now, you must be spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing a daughter-in-law, right?"

Yu Qing scoffed.

"Giving up a billion-dollar fortune to become a poor lawyer, forcing himself to endure hardship—what girl would want to be with him?"

Lu Guokun also expressed his dissatisfaction.

"Even Lao Gu, who runs a restaurant business, whose net worth is less than a third of our Lu family's, has called his youngest son back from abroad to help. I'm an old man like me, still fighting alone."

Mr. Fang smiled, picked up two glasses of wine and clinked them together, handing one to Lu Guokun.

"It's the same everywhere. Parents always worry about their children. We live abroad most of the year, and Tian Tian is getting on in years without a good partner."

Fang's mother then took over the conversation.

"Actually, families like ours need to find someone we know well. There are no Cinderellas or Prince Charmings in this world."

"All this talk of love and affection is just the scheming of poor, lowly families. There's no such thing as true love."

Lu Jingshi's brows twitched violently, then he forced them to smooth them down.

Fang Tian immediately said, "Mom, you must be thirsty after talking so much. Have some tea."

Lu Jingshi pushed back his chair and stood up.

"I need to use the restroom, excuse me."

Fang's mother belatedly realized, "Did I say something wrong and upset A-Shi?"

Yu Qing glanced at the doorway and said sarcastically, "Poor people really think they can buy anything with money. You're not wrong, so ignore them."

Fang Tian awkwardly picked up her water glass when she suddenly heard her phone vibrate.

She turned her head and saw Lu Jingshi's phone.

The caller was a number without any name noted on the contact.

But for some reason, a name suddenly flashed through her mind.

Fang Tian lowered her eyes and, while the others were talking, reached out and lightly swiped to reject the call.

A short while later, the screen lit up again.

It was the same number again. Fang Tian hung up and immediately added the number to her blacklist.

Meanwhile, Jiang Wan was anxiously looking at her phone.

She worked overtime to finish the new plan, intending to print it out and hand it over to Lu Jingshi for review the next day.

But to everyone's surprise, after printing, the door to the printing room suddenly became impossible to open.

She tried fingerprint and facial recognition many times, but both showed recognition errors.

After all ten fingers failed to verify, she suddenly remembered that Lu Jingshi had ultimate authority and could shut down all access control systems with a single click.

But he refused to answer three or four calls.

Inside the small printing room, the temperature began to rise, and the air became humid and sticky.

Jiang Wan leaned against the wall, her panic rising, her heart pounding faster and faster as if it were about to jump out of her mouth.

She was panting heavily, her whole body trembling uncontrollably, her body growing heavier and heavier, as if she were being dragged down.

She knew that her claustrophobia was acting up.

Suppressing her last shred of clarity, she picked up her phone again and dialed the numbers that were already etched into her memory.

The call finally went through.

"Feed?"

A pleasant female voice came from the receiver.

"I'm looking for... Lu Jingshi."

There was a pause of a few seconds before the person on the other end spoke again: "He's taking a shower and it's inconvenient for him to answer the phone."

As the call was disconnected, Jiang Wan's vision went black, and she collapsed.

In a hazy dream, she seemed to have returned to the year she was ten years old.

She spent ten days in that cramped space, in a dark and dreary cellar with smelly bedding.

Just when she thought she was going to die, her grandmother finally found her with the police.

She was too young to understand what the police officers meant by "revenge of a lover" and "illegal detention."

But she could see the disdain and schadenfreude in the villagers' eyes.

Since then, she feels suffocated if she is alone in a small, enclosed space from which she cannot escape.

Is this really the time to die...?