Redemption from the Abyss: The School Beauty Insists on Pulling Me Out of the Mire

After Gu Nan finished saying the name, he carefully observed Xie Wang's reaction, trying to find the loss of control or anger on Xie Wang's face caused by mentioning the pain.

However, Xie Wang simply sat there quietly, maintaining a cold and defensive demeanor except for the moment when he tightened his fingers.

Su Qinghe reached out from under the table and accurately located Xie Wang's left hand, which was resting on the edge of the armrest. She then covered the back of his hand with her palm.

Xie Wang knew that Su Qinghe was telling him to stay clear-headed and not fall into the other person's emotional trap.

Seeing that Xie Wang did not respond, Gu Nan could only continue speaking. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes becoming sincere, even with a feigned look of deep sorrow.

"I know that the car accident twelve years ago was arranged by my father."

Gu Nan's voice lowered, tinged with self-reproach.

"I was studying in high school abroad at that time, and my family didn't let me get involved in many things."

"I will not defend him."

"Ms. Xie Wan is innocent."

"As an excellent finance professional, she simply did what she thought was right, and she shouldn't have died on that riverside road at all."

These words were beautifully spoken, both absolving himself of his past sins and expressing belated sympathy for the victims from a moral high ground.

Gu Nan looked into Xie Wang's eyes, trying to use this empathy to bridge the psychological distance between them.

"Xie, I really understand your anger."

Gu Nan sighed, his tone sounding very sincere.

"The pain of losing a mother is something that no amount of money or power in the world can make up for."

"I've looked into all the hardships and grievances you've suffered in this city over the years."

"It's perfectly normal for you to harbor resentment towards Tianlong Group."

Xie Wang finally reacted upon hearing this.

He slowly straightened up from the back of the chair, released Su Qinghe's hand, and placed his hands crossed on his lap.

"understand?"

Xie Wang repeated the word.

He looked at Gu Nan's well-maintained face, which exuded an air of sophistication, and continued speaking.

"Gu Nan, you're sitting here drinking cinnamon tea that costs tens of thousands of yuan per kilogram, and you tell me you understand my pain? What do you understand?"

"Can you imagine a seven-year-old waking up in the middle of the night on a hard bed to find only his drunken, gambling-addicted father smashing things in the house?"

"Or do you understand the feeling of a child who can only stand on tiptoe, peering through the cold glass window of a funeral home, trying to catch a last glimpse of their mother through a layer of frost?"

Xie Wang was merely stating an objective scene, but every word carried a weight that could not be concealed by hypocrisy.

A barely perceptible crack appeared on Gu Nan's mask of sincerity.

He found that the emotional appeal he had prepared seemed pale and laughable in front of Xie Wang, who had experienced life at the bottom of society.

But Gu Nan was a seasoned businessman, and he was not angered by Xie Wang's words. Instead, he nodded, indicating that he agreed with Xie Wang's accusation.

"You're right, I can't fully empathize with that kind of excruciating pain."

Gu Nan changed the subject and got to the second purpose of the day.

"That's why I've come to see you today, to sincerely tell you..."

"That's a grudge from the previous generation, a mistake made by the Tianlong Group in the past."

"But there is no direct hatred between you and me."

As Gu Nan spoke, he pulled a document out of his pocket, unfolded it, and pushed it in front of Xie Wang.

"I know you recently became the CTO of Spark Networks. Your hacking skills and logic building abilities are even better than those of our highly paid overseas team."

"But the platform that the Lu Group can offer you is too small."

"That little bit of start-up capital isn't even enough to buy a ticket in this game of capital."

Gu Nan pointed to the document, his tone enticing.

"These are the contracts for the highest-level technical advisors of three subsidiaries under the Tianlong Group. You can fill in any annual salary figure on them."

"It also comes with 5% of the shares in these three companies. All you need to do is sign a document, and your technology can be realized at its maximum value."

Gu Nan threw out his trump card.

He first used sympathy to appeal to the fire department, and then bribed them with an unreasonable amount of money.

This is a common tactic used by capital.

He believes that no high school student of that age could resist the temptation of such financial freedom.

Xie Wang glanced down at the contract but didn't reach for it.

Su Qinghe, who had been silent all along, suddenly moved. She reached out and took the contract.

She turned to the first page, her eyes quickly scanning the business terms and company names.

Gu Nan picked up his teacup, confidently waiting for Su Qinghe to be shocked by the generous terms in the contract.

Su Qinghe looked at it for two minutes, then closed the contract and put it back on the table.

"Mr. Gu Nan, this contract is indeed very attractive."

"To someone unfamiliar with the structure of the Tianlong Group, this would seem like a gift from heaven."

Gu Nan put down his teacup and smiled as he waited for her to continue.

"The first of these three so-called subsidiaries is called Hengyuan Technology."

"If I remember correctly, this is a shell company that Tianlong Group registered in the development zone three months ago in order to transfer project risks."

"There isn't even a million in working capital on the books."

Su Qinghe leaned back in his chair, his voice clear and firm.

Gu Nan's smile froze.

Su Qinghe continued speaking.

"The second company is called Jiahe Information. Its legal representative was changed in the middle of last month."

"The current legal representative is a distant relative of a long-time employee of your group's engineering department. This is usually a means of taking on debts or for bankruptcy liquidation."

"As for the third company, Shengheng Data, it sounds like it has high technological content, but I have checked the publicly available information in the business registration system."

"Its registered office address shares the same fire inspection number as your Tianlong Group's abandoned warehouse on Beihuan Road."

Su Qinghe placed his hands on the table and looked directly into Gu Nan's eyes.

"You're trying to show sincerity by offering contracts from three worthless shell companies that are about to go bankrupt, and you even let us fill in our annual salaries arbitrarily."

"Mr. Gu Nan, do you think we only know how to write code and take tests, and have no idea how to conduct basic due diligence on companies?"

Su Qinghe stripped Gu Nan bare, leaving him with nothing but his underwear.

Xie Wang sat beside him, watching Su Qinghe's focused and powerful demeanor, and felt a great sense of pleasure.

That feeling of pleasure comes from the release of dopamine. He doesn't have to fight alone; the person he loves can not only help him heal his wounds, but also use rational methods to slap the other person in the face.

The smile on Gu Nan's face vanished completely.

He looked at Su Qinghe, his eyes no longer showing any feigned gentleness.

"Miss Su truly lives up to her reputation."

Gu Nan put down his teacup, his tone becoming calm.

"Okay, we can discuss the contract further."

"Using shell companies is just a common practice for risk aversion. If you are willing, I can transfer my shares in a profitable pharmaceutical company under Tianlong Group."

"But the point I want to make today is not about money."

Gu Nan turned his gaze back to Xie Wang.

His voice was very low, carrying a sense of oppression as he tried to psychologically crush the other person.

"Xie, you are very smart and your skills are top-notch."

"But don't forget, your mother, Ms. Xie Wan, has been gone for twelve years."

Gu Nan spoke each word carefully.

"You took on jobs on the dark web to investigate what happened back then, and stayed up all night in a house in the old town where the power could go out at any time."

"You've investigated for so long and you have indeed obtained some things, and you've also made my father suffer a lot using Apocalypse's network."

"But have you thought about this?"

Gu Nan tapped the table with his finger.

"Even if you investigate this matter thoroughly and obtain irrefutable evidence, what tangible reward will you receive?"

"Your mother won't come back to life just because you sent Gu Tianlong to prison."

"The dead have no feelings; they cannot feel your filial piety or the pleasure of revenge."

"You're wasting your youth and talent on things whose outcomes you can't change. In terms of return on investment, that's a bad deal."

This is Gu Nan's trump card today.

He stopped talking about interests and directly denied Xie Wang's core beliefs that he had upheld for many years.

He tried to use rational business logic to prove to Xie Wang that revenge was a meaningless and costly thing.

As Xie Wang listened to these words, the dopamine in his body surged rapidly due to a strong desire to fight back.

He slowly stood up.

He was already tall, and with the broad shoulders and back he had developed from years of fighting, the atmosphere in the entire private room instantly reversed when he stood up straight and looked down at Gu Nan.

Xie Wang picked up the empty contract from the corner of the table and threw it directly in front of Gu Nan. The contract landed on the wooden table with a dull thud.

"Gu Nan, you just kept saying that you wouldn't defend what your father did."

Xie Wang braced his hands on the edge of the tea table, coldly watching Gu Nan sitting in the armchair.

"But you've gone to all this trouble to sit here today, with a pile of scrap paper and a few fake tears to persuade me to let go."

"This isn't called not defending yourself; this is just using a more sophisticated and hypocritical method to clean up the mess for him."

Xie Wang's voice echoed in the private room, carrying a sharp aura as if he had fought his way out of a quagmire.

"You're talking to me about return on investment?"

"You're right, no matter how much I investigate, she really won't be coming back."

Xie Wang's jawline is very taut.

"But you overlooked one crucial thing from beginning to end."

"I investigated these messy accounts, I built the Spark Network, I joined Apocalypse, never to bring her back from the urn."

"I want to make those who killed her pay the price they deserve."

Xie Wang stared into Gu Nan's eyes.

"If you commit a crime, you should spend the rest of your life in prison."

"If you owe a blood debt, you should repay it with your Tianlong Group's vast and filthy business empire."

"That's my logic."

Xie Wang's words shattered the business reconciliation logic that Gu Nan had constructed.

Looking at this unpredictable young man in front of him, Gu Nan felt for the first time that the situation was slipping out of his control.

At this moment, Su Qinghe also stood up.

She gently pushed the armchair back into place.

She didn't look at Gu Nan, but instead lowered her head to straighten the collar of her coat.

Her voice was calm.

"Mr. Gu Nan, you have been emphasizing that you can understand the pain of losing someone's mother, but this is just a rhetorical model used in negotiations."

Su Qinghe straightened her collar and looked up at him.

"According to my investigation, you were sent overseas by Gu Tianlong to receive elite education when you were fourteen years old."

"You only returned to China three times in the past twelve years, and each time you stayed for no more than seventy-two hours."

"You've been living in your family foundation abroad for years, and you've probably almost forgotten what your mother looks like now and what color clothes she likes to wear."

Su Qinghe ruthlessly exposed Gu Nan's last layer of pretense.

"How can you empathize with and understand the feelings of someone who has lost a loved one, when you're a machine that lacks emotional connection with family and treats everyone as an asset?"

"You don't even believe what you said to Xie Wang."