CHAPTER 28: CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: UPCOMING REVELATION

The ballroom glittered on, but beneath the surface, something had begun to shift.

Laughter filled the air, glasses clinked, and the orchestra continued to play; a signal for the chatter to continue. This was applicable to other guests, having no idea of the undercurrent running through the party.

An Ning was being introduced to everyone by her parents; she smiled and nodded, giving no sense of uneasiness, as though she belonged here perfectly.

Every movement of hers seemed composed, measured—an effortless extension of grace that made people forget she had ever been anything less than part of the A family.

Compliments followed where she went.

"Such poise."

"She resembles Madam Gu in her youth."

"Truly, the A family’s jewel."

An Ning accepted the praises, giving a nod here and a smile there while her thoughts were elsewhere. She could feel a faint tug, as though something stirring—a thread tightening, a warning forming at the edge of awareness. Somewhere in this room, something was breaking loose.

*****

An Yancheng touched his glass with Shen Bojun. "Didn’t expect you to come to such a gathering."

"I could make an exception," Shen Bojun said, his mood evidently was pretty good tonight. His eyes flickered once toward the red figure across the hall. "Plus it wasn’t as boring as I thought."

An Yancheng narrowed his eyes slightly. He had known Shen Bojun long enough to understand what those words meant—or rather, what they didn’t

. Shen Bojun never found things ’interesting’; for him to say so tonight meant that something, or someone, had genuinely caught his attention.

An Yancheng followed his line of sight, his expression unreadable when it landed on An Ning—laughing lightly at something their mother said, her smile bright.

In that moment, framed beneath the chandeliers, she looked every inch the princess of the An family.

The scarlet dress burned against the pale glow of the lights, her black hair a soft curtain that shimmered with the faint sheen of midnight. There was a spark in her eyes too—alive, confident and bright.

His sister, An Yancheng thought, had always been beautiful. But tonight, she was alive. She was entirely at ease in her own skin—unguarded, bright-eyed, and lit from within by something that felt wholly disarmingly real.

An Yancheng cleared his throat when he noticed that Shen Bojun had been stared a little too long for his liking. "Hey, hey—don’t get any ideas, okay? You’re older than her by six years."

Shen Bojun’s brow arched, the corner of his mouth tipping up into a faint, amused smile. "Six years isn’t that much," he said mildly, swirling his drink. "Besides, I was admiring. Pure admiration."

"Yeah, you better not have any other intentions." An Yancheng muttered. "Don’t forget—wolves only look at sheep...at first."

That earned him a quiet laugh, low and unhurried—the kind that made people doubt whether Shen Bojun had ever truly laughed before.

Before An Yancheng could warn him again, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He frowned, fishing it out discreetly under the pretense of checking a message. He tapped the message open.

It wasn’t just a report—it was hard, cold evidence.

A chain of emails, internal correspondence, and data logs—each stamped with digital time signatures that couldn’t be faked. At first glance, it looked routine, but that one line of routing metadata stood out, highlighted in red.

The confidential proposal document for the Phoenix Project had been forwarded—first to a private inbox, then to an unlisted corporate domain.

The sender: Song Qingwan.

The recipient: a subsidiary that, on paper, had no connection to the bidding process.

But when traced, the registry told a different story. Behind the shell company’s layers of proxy names and offshore filings, the controlling shareholder appeared.

An Yanming

For a long moment, An Yancheng didn’t move. The world around him blurred—the music, the laughter, the glitter of chandeliers all receding into background noise.

He should have known.

He should have detected.

Yet he brushed it off because he thought his second uncle had stakes in A Group—they wouldn’t do anything to harm it.

But he was wrong, he was extremely wrong. He had underestimated their ambition, he had underestimated their determination to win at all cost, no matter the cost.

An Yancheng slid the phone back into his pocket and excused himself from Shen Bojun.

He moved through the crowd with the ease of someone used to being watched, his expression neutral, composed—just as his usual polite rounds.

He stopped near one of the servers stationed by the corridor and spoke in a low tone. "Check the estate, I want to know where is Song Qingwan and An Yanming—now."

The waiter blinked once, startled, before realizing who he was dealing with. He nodded quickly and disappeared through the side hallway.

By the time An Yancheng turned back toward the main hall, his mother was still speaking with a few old acquaintances, An Ning at her side, her posture relaxed.

*****

He remembered the night before when he spoke to Gu Yuehua and An Hongsheng that he wasn’t going through with the wedding.

They weren’t surprised, merely quiet for a moment.

Gu Yuehua had set down her teacup first. "It is fine," she’d said, a slight relief in her tone. "I am glad you decided to follow what you wanted to do."

An Hongsheng hadn’t asked why. He only nodded once, expression unchanged, before replying. "Do what you think is right."

It was the kind of answer that carried weight—not permission, but trust.

And it had been enough.

He knew the weight of his answer, he knew that the union between the Songs and Ans once broken could result in a loss of profit but he couldn’t go through it after the betrayal.

He hadn’t told his parents of what Song Qingwan had done, for the sake of giving her some face. But it turned out, she probably didn’t need him to cover for her—she was busy digging her own grave.

The waiter returned just then, breathless but discreet. "Mr An," he said softly, "Miss Song and Mr An Yanming were seen near the back of the terrace."

He paused, looking unsure if he should say the following before deciding to go ahead with it. "They seemed to be in a disagreement...quite an intense one."

He dismissed the waiter with a nod and started toward where they both were at. The noise of the ballroom faded behind him—music thinning into distance, laughter dissolving into murmurs.

******

An Ning saw her brother heading out and she knew the main course of today’s gathering was going to be served.

She excused herself and hurried towards the direction her brother headed. There were worries on her face as she lifted her dress, chasing after her brother.

Her heels clicked sharply against marble, echoing in the sudden hush. Each step drew eyes, curiosity tightening like a net.

Everyone’s attention was on her, their curiosity heightened because it looked as though something urgent had happened. Whispers stirred, rising like smoke in her wake.

The atmosphere shifted. One by one, guests exchanged glances, curiosity gleaming in their eyes. Then, as if drawn by invisible thread, they began to follow—soft murmurs, rustling gowns, a quiet tide of intrigue moving toward the terrace, as if scenting scandal in the air.

The night had started with celebration—but every story, An Ning knew, needed a climax.