Chapter 118: You Have a Choice

Gu Jingchen looked at her with a dark, heavy gaze. “Chacha, what are you panicking about?”

“I—I’m not...”

Gu Chacha’s eyes trembled several times before she finally managed to steady herself.

She tried to pretend she didn’t understand. “Big Brother, what were you talking about just now? Why can’t I understand?”

Gu Jingchen tapped the desk again. “You know Han Xuan has confessed everything?”

Her heart jolted, and Gu Chacha nearly lost control of her expression. “Really? He finally agreed to talk? That’s good. If he confesses properly, perhaps his sentence will be shorter...”

She repeated to herself over and over that Chen Jiarong had spent a great deal of money bribing the right people. There was no way Big Brother could know what Han Xuan had confessed.

He truly hadn’t known before.

But with Liang Zheng stepping in, everything had become much simpler.

It had taken Liang Zheng only two phone calls for Han Xuan to be brought in for another interrogation. His statement had then been submitted through a special-review procedure and delivered to people whom Chen Jiarong’s money could never reach.

So Chen Jiarong didn’t know.

And Gu Chacha knew even less.

Her mind had dissolved into chaos. All the words she had prepared vanished without a trace, leaving her able to say only, “Big Brother, why are you bringing up Han Xuan all of a sudden? Whatever happened between us is already over...”

Gu Jingchen’s scrutinizing gaze fixed on her. “Chacha, you knew he was laundering money for an overseas telecommunications-fraud operation, didn’t you?”

Gu Chacha was so guilty that she couldn’t answer his question at all. “Big Brother, can we not talk about him?”

But Gu Jingchen had no intention of indulging her. “Do you know who his contact is? Chacha?”

Gu Chacha instinctively shook her head. “How would I know? He didn’t tell me everything...”

“Chacha, are you sure he didn’t tell me anything?”

Gu Jingchen’s voice was filled with helplessness. “You still have a choice.”

Once Chen Jiarong was arrested, she would have no choice at all.

Her actions were enough to make her an accomplice to money laundering.

Gu Chacha’s eyes reddened despite herself. “Big Brother, do you really think I have a choice?”

She had already helped Chen Jiarong launder a great deal of money. She and Chen Jiarong were now tied to the same sinking ship.

What else could she do?

Betray Chen Jiarong and become a tainted witness for the prosecution?

She glanced at Gu Jingchen. Would Big Brother find a way to get her out of it?

But what then?

With this case hanging over her, how could she continue pursuing her dreams?

All the effort and sacrifices she had made before would become meaningless.

No. That wouldn’t do.

Just thinking about that possibility made her feel chilled to the bone.

It was too terrifying.

She had no choice. She truly had no choice.

She had already boarded the ship, and now she could only follow that path to the very end.

She had to trust Chen Jiarong—trust his abilities, his methods, and his money.

She could feel Gu Jingchen’s gaze fixed on her, waiting for her decision.

Little by little, her heart settled.

He didn’t actually know, did he?

He was only testing her.

Hoping she would stand up and report Chen Jiarong?

For whose sake? Han Mo and He Huanhuan’s?

Had the family already accepted the two of them so completely?

A faint hatred began to rise in her heart. Even Big Brother, who had always loved her most, had completely taken He Huanhuan’s side?

Her eyes instantly grew even redder as she stared at Gu Jingchen. “Big Brother, am I still your sister?”

A flicker of astonishment trembled in Gu Jingchen’s pupils. “Why would you ask that?”

She stubbornly pressed him. “Am I?”

Gu Jingchen nodded without hesitation. “Yes.”

Though they were no longer bound by blood, she was still the younger sister he had watched grow up with his own eyes. That was an unchangeable fact.

“What about He Huanhuan?”

“She is too.”

Gu Jingchen frowned slightly as he looked at Gu Chacha. “Chacha, you shouldn’t compare yourself with Huanhuan like this. There’s one thing you have to admit: she suffered for many years out there, and those hardships were never meant for her to endure.”

She was the Gu family’s true daughter. The wealth and comfort Chacha had enjoyed during the first twenty years of her life should have belonged to Huanhuan.

That was an indisputable fact.

He looked at Gu Chacha seriously. “I know this is hard for you to accept, but it couldn’t be avoided. Huanhuan has a good nature, so she doesn’t hold this mistake against anyone. But that doesn’t mean the suffering she endured never happened.”

“Chacha, you should help us make it up to Huanhuan, not take her side as an enemy.”

These words had been weighing on his heart for a long time. He had always wanted to say them to Gu Chacha, but he had never found the right opportunity.

Gu Chacha was sensitive by nature. If he brought it up too abruptly, she would only think he was lecturing her and become upset.

But if he didn’t say it today, there might truly never be another chance.

It had been his negligence. He had been so busy with work that he had failed to realize Gu Chacha had caused such a serious disaster.

A disaster too great for him to cover up.

But Gu Chacha couldn’t understand his feelings at all.

Make it up to He Huanhuan?

Was Big Brother insane?

Why should she make anything up to He Huanhuan?

She was a victim of this whole affair too!

She had been the youngest daughter of the Gu family for twenty years, only to suddenly become the fake one. Wasn’t she suffering as well?

She was suffering terribly!

Her hands clenched tightly beneath the desk. “Big Brother, I suddenly don’t feel hungry anymore. Let’s have dinner another time.”

She stood up and was about to leave, countless emotions churning violently in her heart.

Anger. Resentment. And the ruthless determination of someone staking everything on one final gamble.

Make it up to her?

Then He Huanhuan would have to be alive to receive that compensation!

Tonight would be her death sentence.

She could go below and collect her compensation there!

“Chacha.”

Gu Jingchen’s voice came from behind her, carrying what sounded like restrained helplessness.

She turned around. “Big Brother, what is it?”

Gu Jingchen looked at her steadily for a moment, then sat back down. “I want you to understand that people have to pay for the choices they make.”

Once she walked out that door today, if what came next happened, he would no longer help her clean up the mess.

Doing so would mean hurting Huanhuan. He couldn’t take advantage of Huanhuan’s straightforward nature and hurt her without limit.

She was his sister—his true sister.

Gu Chacha, however, failed to understand what he meant. Without the slightest hesitation, she turned around. “I know. I’ll pay for my own choices.”

The same went for He Huanhuan. She had hurt her, so she would have to pay for the harm she had caused as well.

Gu Chacha decisively pushed open the door and left, shutting away the last person who might have protected her.

Gu Jingchen sat quietly behind his desk, motionless for a long while.

It wasn’t until the phone on the desk began vibrating incessantly that his gaze darkened. He immediately answered.

A soft chuckle came from the other end. “What, were you sitting there waiting for my call?”

Gu Jingchen gave a helpless laugh. “Do you think I’m in the mood to do anything else?”

Liang Zheng glanced at the computer screen. He Huanhuan and Qi Meili were strolling hand in hand through a shopping mall, wandering into one store after another and leaving each one without buying anything.

The camera was positioned about five meters away from them. The footage was somewhat unsteady because the person filming was walking.

Liang Zheng clicked the mouse, and the image quickly zoomed in.

Qi Meili’s voice came through indistinctly. “Labubu can even do collaborations with Hello Kitty? They’re pretty cute. Oh my gosh! More than seven hundred? That’s robbery!”

In the display case beside them, a cold-faced, powerfully built man nearly six and a quarter feet tall stood in front of an entire row of Labubu dolls.

A voice sounded in his earpiece.

“Buy one for her.”