The wind outside was very strong, blowing the grass and shaking the trees. Zhu Li sat in the car, looked at his daughter, started the engine, but couldn't help turning the key back again, asking: "You just mentioned that girl in your class, were you talking about yourself?"

  Zhu Yi didn't think her lie would be exposed so easily, she was a bit flustered and couldn't help but want to cry, silently staring at the night outside the car window.

  Although Zhu Li is dark and fat, he's not a fool. From the day before when his daughter was crying in the corner to today when he found out that Shen Hui used to be her teacher at the Provincial Economics Academy, if he could deceive his daughter with lies, he wouldn't have to struggle in society.

  Sometimes sticking to one's principles is one thing, but it doesn't mean he can't see through things.

  "Has he been bullied by someone before?" Zhu Li asked.

  "No..." Zhu Yi's grievances poured out like a dam breaking, and she shook her head in denial, but ultimately couldn't help bursting into tears.

  "Never mind," Zhu Li said, seeing Zhu Yi collapse into uncontrollable sobs, as if she had endless grievances to pour out, and his heart ached. "You don't have to worry about me, even without help, your dad and I will definitely get through this."

  "No," Zhu Yi choked, her face covered in tears. She knew her family couldn't withstand another blow. Wiping away her tears, she spoke firmly, "I just can't understand why he wants to break up with me; I thought I understood a bit earlier, maybe it's because I was too capricious and not lovely enough before. He came looking for Dad, not because of me, but because he also thinks Dad is really great in Meixi Town... He doesn't even know I live in Meixi Town..."

  ... Hearing his daughter say so, Zhu Li found it easier to accept that Shen Huai and his daughter were just entangled in a normal relationship between men and women.

  Who didn't get hurt in love when they were young?

  Although Zhu Li was more emotionally supportive of his daughter, he was a grown man who knew that in love relationships, it's often unclear who is right or wrong and usually doesn't continue to ask questions. Instead, he comforted his daughter by saying: "Shen Huai has a good reputation in Meixi Town, so he shouldn't be a bad person..."

  Zhu Li spent most of his time outside for a living, and heard rumors about Shen Huai that were both good and bad. However, he had always despised officials from the bottom of his heart, and didn't pay much attention to the officials in Meixi Town.

  The night before last, Shen Hua visited at night and caused such a big thing. Zhu Li was extremely grateful to Shen Hua for taking the lead in solving the problem of arrears of engineering funds, but at the same time, he also paid attention to what Shen Hua did after arriving in Meixi Town.

  Perhaps because of the deep losses he had suffered before, Zhu Li had an extremely deep distrust of government officials. He always thought that Shen Hui's taking the initiative to take over the matter had other purposes.

  Shen Hua has been in Meixi Town for four months and has done several things that are obvious to everyone:

  The resurgence of Meixi Steel Plant, eliminated the two tumors of Lu Xiaoshan and his wife's brother. As soon as he became the party secretary of the town, he resolutely shut down the heavily polluting and deeply hated dyeing factory, and paid the overdue wages to all primary and secondary school teachers in the town for the past two years. He also handled the snow disaster decisively...

  Perhaps Shen Hua is an official with great ambition in his career, but Zhu Li also has to admit that in any aspect, Shen Hua is hundreds of times better than Du Jian before, and it's indeed a blessing and good fortune for the more than 50,000 people of Meixi Town to have him as their Party Secretary.

  Even if Chen Dan took over the reception station, the contract fee for the reception station suddenly increased from 800,000 to 2.4 million, and Shen Hua could also be at ease - Zhu Li was also a pragmatic person and would not cling to a small problem, and could even understand why Shen Hua let Chen Dan take over the reception station.

  Before that, the reception station was contracted by He Yuelian, who suddenly tripled the contract fee. At that time, there would probably be no one else to take over, and Shen Hua either let "his own people" do this thing or let the entire reform go bankrupt.

  Chu Yiliang's evaluation of Shen Huai is also very high. Among the many big and small bosses in Meixi Town, Zhu Li still believes in Chu Yiliang's vision: if Chu Yiliang misjudges people, Zhu Li thinks that even if he loses again, it won't be unjust.

  However, this was Zhu Li's view of Shen Huan before he knew that his daughter had emotional disputes with Shen Huan. Before that, he generally believed that Shen Huan would take the initiative to take over the arrears of engineering funds and would not have any special intentions. At this time, however, his thoughts were shaken again.

  "Dad, don't you think Shen Huai isn't a bad person?" Zhu Yi asked.

  Her emotions were in disarray, very perplexed, but people who are emotionally hurt always are.

  Even if you confirm a thousand times that the other person is an unfeeling and heartless person, you can't help but think for them: maybe there's another reason why they hurt me like this?

  The greatest pain of emotional hurt is to be obsessed with one question: why did he want to leave me?

  But at this moment, her father's affirmative answer was the greatest comfort she had received since her injury; it could also be the poison that made her continue to sink.

  "Hmm," Zhu Li thought for a moment about the rumors regarding Shen Huai after he went to Mei Creek Town. At least in general, it wasn't too bad, and things couldn't get any worse than that. He didn't think deeply about how much his daughter had suffered at Shen Huai's hands, and said, "However, you should still keep a distance from him..."

  "Why?" asked Zhu Yi.

  Zhu Li thought of the rumors between Shen Huan and the woman who ran the Zuxi Hotel. Even as a man, he understood that men having multiple relationships wasn't necessarily a flaw, but he still hoped his daughter would meet a man who was devoted to her. Zhu Li said: "I just said Shen Huan is a good official, but seeing how much pain he's caused you, I know he can't be a good man. Being a good official doesn't mean being a good person; usually, good people can't make good officials..."

  "Why?" Zhu Yi was perplexed, she had yet to enter society, how could she understand her father's words?

  Zhu Li smiled and said, "Some principles you will gradually understand later."

  ****************

  Shen Huai lay on the hospital bed, thinking about Zhu Yi alone, when his mobile phone suddenly rang again. He picked it up to see that it was Sun Ya Lin's call, and he answered with a bad temper: "Do you still have the nerve to call me?"

  "What's wrong, got angry and think I'm giving you trouble?" Sun Ya Lin on the other end of the phone was triumphant, "If this little trouble can defeat you, what qualifications do you have to discuss cooperation with me?"

  Shen Huai was at a loss for words with this "sister", and he knew that Sun Ya Lin wouldn't mind if a little girl got hurt, so he didn't want to tell her about his sympathy for Zhu Yi either. If he said it, she would just laugh at him, so he could only respond with gaming terminology: "You can't understand the heart of a prodigal son returning home!"

  "Hmph!" Sun Yalin snorted disdainfully, and then said, "But to be honest, aren't you afraid that her father will find out about your misdeeds towards his daughter and bear a grudge against you? Don't you worry that by supporting them so wholeheartedly now, they might turn around and become a threat to you in the future?"

  To be honest, sympathizing with Zhu Yi is one thing, but if Zhu Li knew that his daughter was hurt by him, it's possible that he would harbor resentment in his heart.

  Shen Huai let out a gentle sigh and asked, "I have my own plans. But, sister-in-law, are you asking this to formally confirm whether I'm qualified to cooperate with you?"

  "...Sun Yalin was silent on the other end of the phone for a while before saying, "I guess so..."

  Shen Huai thought that perhaps this was in line with "his" memory of Sun Ya Lin, the children of a large family, even if they had different personalities and quirks, but usually shared a commonality, which was to pay more attention to benefits and losses, while ignoring emotions.

  "What do you want to get?" Shen Huan asked.

  "Oh, want to probe my bottom line? My ambition is not something that can't be seen: your sister just can't stand those old stubborn people, thinking that one day it should be me who controls the Evergreen Group," Sun Yalin laughed happily on the phone, "How, do you think cooperating with you will bring me closer to this goal?"

  Shen Huai smiled and said, "Elder sister's ambition is really not ordinary, isn't it?"

  The Sun family has four generations of overseas branches. In the first generation, there were Shen Hua's great-grandfather Sun Yao Ting and his great-uncle Sun Yao Wen and Sun Yao Hua who moved abroad. Although Shen Hua's "great-grandfather" was the main core branch, he had married four wives in total and had eleven children. Except for those who died in war, there were nine people with inheritance rights, and his grandmother was only one of them. By the time of Shen Hua's mother and Sun Ya Lin's father's generation, there were fifty or sixty third-generation descendants with inheritance rights. By the fourth generation, including Shen Hua and Sun Ya Lin, excluding a few people who had been deprived of their inheritance rights, there were nearly a hundred people.

  If the inheritance must be divided, the entire Sun family business will be fragmented and the Evergreen Group cannot maintain its stable development for half a century.

  To avoid such situations, the inheritance rights of the second and third generations of the Sun family usually only mean that they can receive a generous living allowance from the family foundation on a regular basis without having to work, leading a carefree life, but cannot interfere with the operation of the entire family foundation, let alone interfere with the specific operations of the Evergreen Group.

  Chongqing Group has almost completed its transformation from a family business to a modern enterprise, with nearly all management personnel being professional managers, except for the board of directors, which is mainly composed of Sun family members. These people are also mostly managers of the family foundation, who are second-generation elders and a few excellent third-generation children.

  In theory, as long as Sun Ya-lin's ability, actual influence and control can be recognized by the majority of the Sun family, it is possible to represent the family in controlling the entire Evergreen Group, but apparently under the relatively conservative style of the Sun family, this possibility is smaller...

  "As I was saying," Shen Hua continued, "you might as well take a different route."

  "How can we take a different route?" Sun Yalin asked.