​The transformation had been brutal, precise, and utterly necessary. The Li Liu who wept into silk pillows and burned old photographs was dead. In her place stood a new entity: sharp, tailored, and cold as diamond dust. Her porcelain complexion, usually radiating warmth, now appeared flawless and severe, her features sharp beneath the perfect, unforgiving cut of a custom midnight-blue suit. Xu Lee had humiliated her, not just by ending their engagement, but by turning their shared circle—the very people she considered family—into a laughing stock for his cruel departure. He had taught her a valuable lesson: sentiment was weakness, and the only true currency was power.

​Her resolve was absolute: Xu Lee would pay for every drop of humiliation he had inflicted. The only path forward was destruction, starting tonight. This brutal act would be the foundation of her vengeance.

​

​The humiliation, freshly delivered, was a white-hot ember in her chest. It wasn’t just the breakup; it was the betrayal by every single person in that room.

​The laughter crescendoed, and that was when the final trigger pulled. Through the peephole, Li saw Xu, lounging on a suede ottoman. He leaned back, pulling a random cocktail server—a pretty girl with an eager smile and eyes fixed only on Xu’s attention—onto his lap. She leaned in conspiratorially, giggling at Xu’s joke about “Li Liu’s dramatic tears.” Then, in a moment of brazen public mockery, Xu kissed the girl, and she eagerly responded, making the kiss last too long for a simple cheap thrill. She was a willing participant in the circus.

​Snap.

​It wasn't fury that broke her; it was calculation. That careless, mutual display of disrespect—not just for her, but for the very establishment the Liu family owned—cemented his fate and sealed theirs.

​Li Liu didn't bother with the handle. She kicked the private room door open with a force that rattled the bronze hinges, the loud, sickening THWACK instantly killing the room's celebratory noise.

​The change was instantaneous. The air dropped ten degrees. The group froze: Xu, his arm draped possessively over the server’s waist; the friends, mid-sip of expensive champagne or mid-gesture. They all swiveled their heads, their faces draining of color until they were pale, ghostly blots against the opulent, dark wood paneling. The laughing, careless light in their eyes was replaced by raw, paralyzing fear.

​Li Liu stepped into the room, her presence swallowing the space. She walked with a predator's deliberate slowness, her eyes—dark, intelligent, and utterly devoid of mercy—sweeping over each face.

​“Oh, don't stop now,” Li Liu’s voice was low, rich, and perfectly modulated, carrying the effortless authority of someone who knew exactly what they were worth. It was no longer the voice of the gentle, emotional woman they had known. “Y’all were just getting to the good part of mocking me, weren’t you?”

​Before she could take another step, a head waiter, having materialized from the shadows of the main hallway, hurried to pull out the club’s most comfortable, high-backed velvet armchair, positioning it perfectly in the center of the room. Li Liu didn't acknowledge the staff member; she simply sat, her posture impeccable, crossing one long, perfectly tailored leg over the other.

​“Well, go on. Continue,” she commanded, a slight tilt to her head, an expression of boredom fixed on her face.

​Their pale faces looked down, unable to meet her gaze. The silence stretched, thick and painful, broken only by the frantic thumping of their collective hearts.

​“Oh, not speaking? Okay,” Li Liu sighed, running a finger along the cuff of her jacket. She then pointed, a single, sharp gesture, at the server who, despite the sudden chill, looked confused rather than remorseful as she sat on Xu Lee's lap.

​Xu Lee, perhaps driven by panic or a reflexive urge to appear decent, instantly moved to protect his latest fling. “Li Liu, this is nothing to do with her. She’s just a—a club employee.”

​Li Liu’s eyes narrowed, and a chilling smirk touched her lips. “Are you done, Xu?”

​He immediately shut up. Li Liu then looked directly into the server's startled eyes. “Hey, girl. You're fired.”

​The server, realizing the magnitude of the statement, cried out once and flopped onto her knees, a small, defeated sound escaping her lips, clutching at Xu’s expensive trousers as if he could save her from the Liu family’s reach.

​Immediately, two large, imposing male staff members entered the room and silently closed the heavy door, locking it with a decisive click. This action terrified the group further. Lin Chen found her voice, shaky and accusatory.

​“Li! You can’t just—who do you think you are?”

​“Silence,” Li Liu said, the command cutting through Lin Chen’s panic like a razor.

​Li held out her hand, palm up, and the head waiter instantly placed her personal phone—a sleek, custom model—into her grasp. She didn't look at the screen as she swiftly entered a private number. She put the phone to her ear, the action focused and efficient.

​“Yes, it’s Li. I need the legal team to issue immediate termination notices. Cross-reference the guest list for 'Eternity' tonight. I want every single contract, collaboration, or personal tie with the Lee, Zhao, Lin, Wang, and Zhou families terminated from Liu Ventures immediately. All business ties cease immediately. Effective now.” She paused for a beat, letting the weight of the financial devastation settle over the room.

​Then, she singled out the four individuals responsible for the most profound betrayal. “Specifically, I want all key personnel associated with the Zhao, Lin, Wang, and Zhou surnames—the ones present in this room tonight—terminated from their own family companies immediately. Make sure any company that dares to hire a Zhao, Lin, Wang, or Zhou heir, even for a junior role, understands the terms: the Liu Family will pull all funds, sever all ties, and demand they pay back all losses incurred due to the contract termination.”

​She hung up, the small click sounding like the hammer fall on a judgment.

​It was only a few minutes later that the room descended into frantic chaos. One by one, their phones started ringing—the ringtones of their grandfathers, fathers, mothers, or important uncles. The ringing started slowly, then became a desperate, overlapping symphony of dread.

​They answered, their hands shaking. “Grandfather, what’s going on?” “Dad, I don’t understand, what contracts?” “Uncle, please, it was just a joke!”

​The responses on the other end were panicked, loud, and full of despair. The end of their phones was yelling. Their families, caught in the devastating financial crosshairs of the Liu machine, were ruined.

​Li Liu watched the spectacle with clinical detachment. Her mouth held the same cold smirk. She didn't need to speak. The begging started instantly, the former friends and careless ex-lover scrambling toward her, desperate to touch her, to apologize, to promise loyalty.

​Li Liu rose to her full height, towering over them, and raised a hand to stop the begging tide.

​“Throw them all out,” she told the head waiter. “And don't ever let them enter this club, or any company or property owned by the Liu family, again.” Her eyes found the club server who was still kneeling. “And that girl I just fired? Make sure no one who collaborates with us hires her, either. We don’t tolerate disrespect or the active participation in the humiliation of a Liu heir on our premises.”

​The male staff, large and silent, moved with instant, trained precision. “Ma’am,” they replied in unison. The defeated group was dragged out—the powerful and privileged suddenly reduced to crying, stumbling figures whose lives had been erased by a single phone call.

​Li Liu stood alone in the luxurious, silent room. Her transformation was complete; the mask was forged. The appetizer was served. Now, the planning could begin for the main course. She smiled, a flash of pure, cold intent. Xu Lee, your suffering has just begun.

​Xu Lee arrived at his family’s main villa in his imported sedan, still flushed with the adrenaline of the evening. Despite the strange, hushed exit from the Iron Vault, he was convinced it was just a temporary tantrum, a typical Liu Family drama. He was going to laugh about it with his grandfather, Lee Jinhai, who would smooth over whatever contracts Li Liu had hastily tried to cancel.

​He threw his keys onto the inlaid mahogany table in the grand foyer, expecting silence, or at worst, a stern, private reprimand. Instead, the air in the receiving room was a physical block of ice, far colder than the club had been.

​His grandfather, the formidable Lee Jinhai, was seated on the imperial silk sofa, flanked by Xu’s father, Lee Daewon, and his mother. Standing behind them, arranged like vultures on a fence line, were his younger brother, two sisters, and three cousins, including his oldest cousin, Lee Kang.

​Xu swaggered in, a careless smile on his face. “Grandfather, what’s with the drama? Li Liu had a fit, nothing we can’t fix—”

​Before he could finish the sentence, two enormous, unsmiling Lee family bodyguards moved with terrifying speed. They were not the usual security; these were the muscle used for clean up. They grabbed Xu, one twisting his arm sharply behind his back, the other yanking his expensive suit jacket, forcing him down.

​The bodyguard slammed Xu’s left hand down onto the polished marble floor. Xu gasped, his wrist protesting the impact. The bodyguard then seized Xu’s head, slamming his forehead against the ground with a sickening thud. A sharp pain immediately bloomed across his skull, and a bead of dark blood dripped onto the white marble floor, a startling crimson stain.

​Xu groaned, the triumphant energy draining out of him, replaced by a terrifying, hollow dread. He had forgotten, in his years of comfort and privilege, that he was merely a disposable piece of family leverage.

​The bodyguard yanked his head back up by gripping his hair, forcing his neck into a painfully unnatural angle. Xu's eyes, wide with shock, met his grandfather's gaze. Lee Jinhai's eyes were utterly murderous, cold, and assessing, like a butcher appraising meat.

​“You ungrateful bastard,” Lee Jinhai’s voice was dangerously low, a deep rumble that vibrated through the silent room. “If I would’ve known you’ll forget your place, I would’ve let your cousin Kang step in years ago. But you had to fuck it up.”

​Xu tried to speak, tried to stammer an explanation about Li Liu’s dramatics, but the bodyguard slammed his head back down against the marble, silencing him with a muffled cry of pain.

​Behind his grandfather, Xu's siblings and cousins exchanged knowing, vicious smirks. His brother, Lee Jun, quietly chuckled.

​Lee Jinhai continued, his voice rising, venomous. “The only reason why you were in this position in the first place, Xu, is because Li Liu only wanted you. If we didn’t do exactly what they asked, the Liu family would not collaborate with us. That relationship was the foundation of our stability. Now it comes to this: they terminated their contracts with us. Now I have to pay them hundreds of millions in losses.”

​The bodyguard slammed Xu’s head again, the ringing in his ears turning into a deafening shriek. He struggled to focus, the scent of his own blood sharp in his nostrils.

​“Now,” Lee Jinhai concluded, leaning forward, his face a mask of furious disappointment. “You find a way to pay me back for the losses. You will compensate this family for the destruction you caused.”

​Lee Jinhai looked at the bodyguards with a finality that brooked no argument. “Get him out of here. Make sure he doesn’t step back in until he pays back all the losses.”

​The bodyguards dragged Xu, semi-conscious and bleeding, through the foyer. They roughly tossed him onto the manicured gravel driveway and walked away, not sparing him a backward glance.

​As Xu struggled to sit up, holding his throbbing head, a voice cut through the ringing in his ears—sharp, amused, and cruel.

​“Well, look who’s crawling back to the gravel,” Lee Kang, his oldest cousin, stood framed in the massive doorway, a smirk plastered on his face. Behind him stood Xu’s sister, Lee Soyeon, and his brother, Lee Jun, all of them laughing.

​“Oh, Xu,” Soyeon spoke, adjusting a bracelet on her wrist. “You should've known you're nothing. You’re nothing like Kang.”

​They laughed again, a harsh, cold sound. Then, the youngest female cousin, Lee Nari, stepped into the light, her face betraying a surprising hint of contempt. She looked down at the disgraced heir.

​“Honestly, I feel bad for ex-sister-in-law, Li Liu. I really hope she teaches this bastard child a lesson.”

​Lee Nari then turned and walked back inside with the others, the heavy doors of the villa closing with a soft, decisive thump that sealed Xu Lee out of his own life.

​Left alone on the cold gravel, abandoned and ruined, Xu Lee screamed—a raw, strangled sound of pure, helpless rage.

After a discreet visit to the hospital for the wounds on his head and wrist—wounds he dared not explain to the attending physician—Xu Lee went back to the only place he felt truly his own: his condo. It was a modest place, by his family’s standards, but he had purchased it with the first major bonus he had ever earned. It was a tangible piece of pride, one the Lee family could not yet strip away.

​The next few days were a blur of humiliating phone calls and desperate job applications. The blacklisting was immediate and absolute. Li Liu’s network had closed every door in the city's high-finance sector. Desperate, Xu took the only work available: a graveyard shift as a dishwasher at a local upscale restaurant. He had to pay his grandfather back. The sheer scale of the Liu family's losses meant this debt would take a lifetime to clear, but the threat of absolute financial ruin for his parents hung over him, a threat only he could theoretically fix.

​He collapsed onto his bed after his first long day, his expensive clothes long since replaced by a damp, greasy uniform. His hands, once soft from never having touched a tool, were blistered. His phone rang—an old burner he had dug up.

​“Hello?” he answered, his voice rough with exhaustion.

​It was Wang Wei, his voice sounding hollowed out. “Xu? You free this Saturday? I found a small local bar outside the usual districts. We need to talk.”

​Xu pulled the grimy schedule out of his pocket, checking the handwritten shift times. “Yeah, I’m off. Count me in. Tell the others.”

​The next morning, Xu ate a quick, tasteless breakfast and headed out for a run. He jogged through the local park, sweat quickly soaking his old t-shirt. He couldn't stop running the numbers in his head, reliving the moment on the marble floor. He still couldn't believe his entire life had crumbled after that single, cold phone call Li Liu made. It felt like a nightmare he couldn't wake from.

​He returned home, showered, ate his simple lunch, and tried to rest. Later that afternoon, he put on the least stained and wrinkled clothes he owned from before he had climbed the social ladder.

​As he grabbed his keys, a notification chime rang from his phone. He looked down and clicked on the live news broadcast icon. The screen filled with the gilded entryway of the Lee family's corporate headquarters. The headline flashed: Lee Corporation Announces New Unanimous Heir.

​Lee Jinhai, his grandfather, stood at the podium, looking regal and relieved. “Today, I declare Lee Kang as the only true hierarchy of the Lee family. He has the vision and dedication necessary for the future of our empire.”

​The audience cheered, cameras flashed, and reporters flooded Kang with questions. Kang answered with practiced ease and perfection, wearing a confident smile that Xu had always envied and now fiercely hated.

​Xu remembered the echo of his cousin, Lee Soyeon's, voice: “Oh Xu, you should've known you're nothing. You’re nothing like Kang.”

​Then he remembered the bitter truth: his family had never truly made a public announcement of his heir status. He was merely the placeholder, the one chosen by the Lius for their collaboration. He cringed, shoving the phone into his pocket.

​He drove the simple car he had kept to the local bar location his friend had given him.

​When he arrived, the small, dimly lit corner booth was packed. Zhao Mina, Lin Chen, Wang Wei, and Zhou Feng—all wearing clothes that looked slightly too worn, slightly too desperate—all waved him over. They shared a strained silence before they began to drink heavily, sharing the personal hell they had been through.

​“My grandfather cut me off completely,” Wang Wei mumbled, staring into his beer.

​“My uncle disowned me and took away my trust fund and my car,” Zhou Feng added, gesturing wildly.

​Lin Chen spoke next, her eyes red-rimmed. “I’m forced to get married to a man old enough to be my father to pay back the losses. The merger is the only way my family can survive the contracts Li Liu tore up.”

​Zhao Mina nodded, tears falling silently. “We messed with the wrong person. Li Liu is a monster. I regret everything.”

​Xu took a long sip of whiskey. “I have to work low-class work now, washing dishes in a kitchen. To pay off my grandfather’s losses. And I lost my heir title to my cousin Kang. Yet again, it wasn't mine to begin with.”

​“Damn, man,” Wang Wei said simply, shaking his head.

​Just then, the front door opened, letting in a flash of street light. A beautiful girl walked in with her friends. Her friends called out her name, Mu Gao. Xu noticed her immediately—bright, expressive eyes and a radiant smile as she chatted. A loud thump emerged from his heart, a terrifyingly unfamiliar sensation. He ignored it, tearing his gaze away and forcing himself to look back at his friends' conversation, but he couldn't get the image of Mu Gao out of his head.

​He shook his head, standing up. “I think I’ll head back home early. I still gotta drive. Don’t want to get too drunk.”

​His friends nodded in quiet agreement, their drunken stupor not yet enough to dull the pain. They all went home, leaving the shadows of their old lives in the empty bar booth.

​Mu Gao stood outside the interview room door, her typically bright expression dimmed by nerves. Her fingers, which she twisted anxiously, left faint indentations on the smooth, black fabric of her blazer. This was it. This internship was the last critical step to securing her graduation and, more importantly, her independence.

​The door clicked open. A professional, stern-looking woman with perfectly coiffed hair and a sharp suit stood in the doorway. "Mu Gao?"

​"Yes, that's me," Mu Gao replied, and the moment the HR woman called her name, the nervousness vanished, replaced by a straight-backed, fighting spirit.

​The HR professional, Mei Qian, shut the door behind them. She immediately held out her hand, a firm, welcoming gesture. "Welcome. I'm Mei Qian, Senior HR Manager."

​Mu Gao shook her hand, matching her firm grip, and greeted her politely. Mei Qian gestured toward the room. "Please sit down, Mu Gao. Let's begin."

​The initial questioning was flawless. Mu Gao answered every technical query and behavioral question with intelligence and precision. Indeed, her academic background was highly impressive, clearly demonstrating a mind capable of complex analysis.

​Mei Qian leaned back, linking her fingers thoughtfully. "I must admit, I'm confused. With your educational background, you should have applied for a junior analyst position, or even project management. Yet, you applied for a mere assistant role. Why?"

​Mu Gao maintained eye contact, her response delivered with sincere self-awareness. "I realized with surprise that my family letting me come to the university shows I understood they held a very tight control over my life, and that they always expected me to be dependent. But that surprise is the first step toward me appreciating my own agency. Now, the challenge ahead is real: having always been spoiled means I have a large skill gap to fill—specifically in budgeting, self-discipline, time management, and facing rejection or difficulty without a safety net. This is where the real learning happens for me."

​Mei Qian’s expression shifted, intrigued and subtly amused by the honesty. She stood up, pulling her chair away from the imposing mahogany desk. "Well, then, let's prove it to yourself."

​Mu Gao looked confused. "Prove what?"

​"Come, sit," Mei Qian instructed, indicating her vacated seat.

​Mu Gao moved quickly to the chair, sitting down in front of the large monitor. Mei Qian turned on the computer. "In this file is a budget and contract draft for a non-profit acquisition. There are exactly five mistakes in the data and seven grammatical errors in the drafting. Find them and fix them. The clock is running."

​Meanwhile, somewhere high above them in a secured viewing room, the CEO, Li Liu, watched the feed. Her appearance remained unrevealed, but a slight, cold smirk played on her lips as she leaned toward the screen, observing Mu Gao's focused intensity. This was the girl who had caught Xu Lee's eye, the very girl Li Liu had subtly ensured would appear on her radar. The ultimate chess piece.

​Mu Gao immediately began scanning the page. She instinctively started scratching at her arms and hands, a nervous habit she’d never broken. Then, her fingers flew across the keyboard. She didn't pause to deliberate; she typed, deleted, and corrected with relentless speed. Fifteen minutes later, Mu Gao finished, gave one final scratch to her wrist, and announced, "I'm done."

​Mei Qian, who was monitoring the time, was genuinely shocked. This test normally took candidates two hours. She looked up directly at the camera in the corner of the room. She knew the CEO was watching.

​Through the security feed, Li Liu whistled, a low, impressed sound. "Damn. She's good."

​Li Liu immediately shut off the camera feed, causing the small red light in the corner of the interview room to blink off. That was Mei Qian’s signal.

​Mei Qian looked back at the stunned Mu Gao. "Congratulations, Mu Gao. You've got the internship."

​Mu Gao’s bright eyes widened in disbelief. "Wait—you didn't check it? You don't even know if I did it right?"

​Mei Qian laughed, amused by Mu Gao's genuine honesty and innocence. "While you were performing your test, I was watching, Mu Gao. You didn't just fix it, you optimized the structure. We will see you tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp to get you started."

​Mu Gao jumped up, shaking Mei Qian's hand with both of her own. "Thank you so much! I won't let you down!"

​"I look forward to it," Mei Qian replied, smiling gently as Mu Gao departed.

​The door closed, leaving Mei Qian alone. She looked back at the desk. The red light was off, and the silence of the room was heavy. She knew Li Liu hadn't hired Mu Gao for her skills alone; the girl was now a strategic pawn in the complex, brutal game Li Liu was playing.