Chapter 173
Leland’s voice got a little choked up as he recalled those days.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
The expression was nevertheless full of resentment.
Chen Dong frowned and did not urge.
After a long time, Li Lan took a deep breath, calmed down and continued, “Back then, I met your father at a top dinner party and fell in love at first sight.”
“And at that time, your father already possessed the Heir Apparent qualification and was preparing to go out on an adventure to compete for the family headship.”
In the light, her gaze deepened as she kept the memory floodgates open.
The look, however, was one of gradual ferocity and resentment.
“Your father and I arrived in this city and soon established ourselves and built a business of our own, and your father’s talent and boldness soon made him stand out from the crowd of Chen family heirs.”
“But at that time, when I was pregnant with you, your father could not bear to leave us, mother and son, so he tried to refuse the position of head of the Chen family, only to be met with displeasure and persecution by the previous head of the family.”
“There is still persecution in this?”
Chen Dong was somewhat puzzled, “Father was willing to give up the position of family head, isn’t this a great joy for those who failed to succeed?”
“The Chen family rules have always followed the rule of superiority and the winner is king!”
Li Lan smiled bitterly, “When after the elimination of the winners, the last one to become king has actually lost the chance to choose, the family head can only be your father, the family rules cannot be broken.”
Chen Dong frowned Avray, this might be considered the secret of the Chen family’s ability to remain glorious, right?
The so-called survival of the fittest is actually very much like raising a compulsion, when a compulsion king is raised, it is the time for the new head of the family to succeed to the throne.
The king, who can become the king among a group of outstanding successors, is definitely top-notch in all aspects!
Li Lan continued, “At that time, the Chen family head and that old lady joined forces to force your father to have to return home to inherit the family head position, and the price was the lives of both us, mother and son!”
Chen Dong’s pupils tightened, and depressed Qi rose in his chest.
Both hands, too, could not help but secretly clench their fists.
Forcing directly with their lives, the Chen family was so domineering!
“As you can see, the Chen family really doesn’t spare human lives, your father could only take on the reputation of abandoning his family back then to protect us, mother and son, to return to the Chen family and inherit the position of family head.”
Li Lan’s eyes were a little red, holding tears: “In fact, even if your father left, but the foundation that he and I created together at the beginning was enough for us, mother and son, to live out our lives in peace, but ……”
Here it comes!
Chen Dong’s spirit was lifted and he listened intently.
“But …… I hate it so much! I hate why I was born in the Li family? The Li family is the beast that eats people!”
Li Lan pounded her chest, the tears suppressed in her eyes finally couldn’t be restrained from flowing out, her voice trembled: “After your father left, the Li family people came to my door, they coveted the foundation your father had created, hardened the name of me as a Li family member and directly snatched it!”
As she said these words, Li Lan’s face was almost hideously twisted.
Resentment, anger and all sorts of emotions were written on his face.
Chen Dong’s face was gloomy to the extreme, and the depressed anger in his chest turned into a huge rage, violently churning.
“I wanted to reject the Li family and seek a stable future for us, mother and son, but at that time, the Li family was greedy and rude, and it was your grandfather who personally threatened and bullied us, orphans and widows, and used the Li family’s power to oppress others, so that I had to hand over the business.”
“And because of my fierce resistance, your grandfather has since expelled me from the Li family tree, which is how you remember us living in poverty, mother and son.”
Ka!
Chen Dong’s knuckles on both hands rattled.
A cold aura flashed in his eyes as he looked at his mother, who had long since burst into tears, and almost wailed, “But you are a member of the Li family, and you are even his own daughter, so he could do something so cruel?”
“Oh …… daughter?”
Li Lan laughed sadly and wiped a handful of tears from the corner of her eyes, “Dong’er, remember, in the Li family, men are preferred over women, the men are the masters of the family, while women are just dispensable companions, even if I am the first line of the family, not only am I not qualified to compete for the head of the family, but I cannot even seek resources!”
At the end of her speech, Li Lan was almost wailing.
The utter injustice, as if it was a scar that had scabbed over, was uncovered again with the memories.
Patriarchy?
Chen Dong’s eyes narrowed into slits, and a bitter chill emanated from his body.
The corners of his mouth, unconsciously curving up, smiled coldly.
What age is this?
The Li family actually still had such dregs of the old society?
Men on top, women dispensable?
What a B*****d!
“Isn’t that surprising? Mum was just as surprised back then, and resented being born into the Li family despite being a daughter.”
But your grandfather was even more ruthless than I expected. Not only did he threaten to take away the foundation your father left behind, he also used all sorts of tactics to suppress me in the city, not giving me a chance to turn over a new leaf!”
The wailing voice became more and more miserable.
Li Lan’s body trembled, her face flushed red and tears raining down.
Scars uncovered, sharp pain like that, if the window hadn’t been poked through now and she could only tell Chen Dong, otherwise she would never have been willing to endure it.
“Mom ……”
Chen Dong’s face changed greatly and he hastily hugged his mother, “It’s alright, I’m here, with me, everything will be fine.”
He was worried about his mother’s anger.
Such a nightmare, remembered in detail, was in no way what his mother’s physical state could endure.
Full of injustice, undisguised bullying.
The Li family was nothing but bullying them as orphans and widows, not even thinking of their bloodline kinship!
“I’m sorry, Dong’er, it’s mother who has wronged you, if mother had been tougher back then, your childhood would not have been full of darkness.”
Li Lan cried bitterly, full of self-blame.
“It’s alright, I don’t care.”
Chen Dong shook his head while patting his mother’s back soothingly, “We have come out of this, my son has been able to hold up a piece of heaven for my mother, from now on, neither the Chen family nor the Li family will ever be able to oppress us again!”
Li Lan nodded her head, her teeth biting her lips.
Even though she was forcing herself not to cry out, she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
The resentment in her eyes was incomparably strong.
Chen Dong patiently soothed her for a full hour before Li Lan’s emotions gradually calmed down, pulling away from that tragic memory back then.
“Mom, so what is the Li family coming for now?”
Chen Dong’s voice was cold, as his mother cried bitterly, he also regarded the so-called grandfather as an outsider, nothing more than a member of the Li family.
Li Lan’s voice was still a little sobbing.
She smiled condescendingly, “Because, they know that my Li Lan’s son has made his mark!”
“Trying to repeat the same old trick again, what happened back then?” Chen Dong raised his eyebrows.
To be able to disregard his kinship, to disregard his flesh and blood daughter, to personally go down and rob the foundation that his father had left for him and his mother, the face of that grandfather, to reenact the drama again, Chen Dong would not be the least bit surprised.
Leland shook his head, the condescension on his face grew thicker and his smile grew wider.
“He, is trying to ask you to return to the Li family and inherit the position of family head!”
Chapter 174
Chen Dong was frozen.
His mother’s words were like thunderbolts.
“Ask me to return to the Li family and inherit the position of family head?”
In a flash, Chen Dong was filled with doubts.
How could the Li family’s eaters, since they dared to disregard their bloodline kinship back then and were so greedy as to plunder the foundation left behind by their father, invite him back to be the head of the family at this time?
What is this?
Letting an enemy sit on the head of the family, holding a butcher’s knife in his hand, and slaughtering them?
“Oh, because he sees that his precious sons are all trash!”
Li Lan laughed disdainfully, “My good brothers, one is more wasteful than the other, they only eat, drink and play, would they not truly bring the Li family to glory? Even with my abilities, the achievements I made back then when I wasn’t borrowing the Li family’s resources were a hundred times prettier than what they could achieve with the Li family on their backs!”
“Unfortunately, I hate that I am in a daughter’s body! Just this daughter body has stripped me of everything, and has even brought about the Li family’s cruel and cold-blooded plague.”
Li Lan’s fists were clenched and hatred surged in his eyes, “The Li family nowadays has long since become a golden jade, and he sees it clearly, so he is barely holding on, not even daring to die, because he knows that once he falls, the Li family, the richest at the feet of the Son of Heaven, will also collapse in an instant.”
“And the preference for sons that he believes in has made it impossible for the Li family today to find anyone qualified to succeed the family headship!”
“So, with no choice and wanting to preserve the Li family, he shamelessly came to us?”
Chen Dong laughed, thick with disdain and contempt, “How thick a skin does that have to be?”
“Does he care about cheek?” Li Lan snorted, “If he cared, he wouldn’t have been so ruthless back then!”
Li Lan was in a much better mood and looked at Chen Dong with eyes full of light.
“Dong’er, you are excellent, you are the pride of your mother! Do you know that when he found me and said that he would ask you to come home to inherit the family headship, mum felt a sense of relief to vomit all the bad anger she had back then.”
Saying this, Li Lan took Chen Dong’s hand.
“All this evil anger has been pent up in my heart for more than twenty years, I was angry, I hated, but I was powerless to resist, it was you, Dong’er, who made him slap himself and took out this evil anger for mum!”
Chen Dong’s gaze was deep, forcing down the coldness in his heart towards the Li family.
He spoke calmly, “And what does mother mean?”
Li Lan froze for a moment.
Gradually, her expression became softer.
She was no longer as fierce as she had been a moment ago, nor was she as smug as she had been a moment ago.
There was just calmness.
“Mom was trying to help you reject it, that cold-blooded, cannibalistic home, I never want to go back in my life.”
Li Lan said quietly, “But since you already know about this matter, mum respects your decision.”
The voice was incomparably serious.
Because Li Lan knew very well.
Although the Li family was not as good as the Chen family, in the end it was still the richest in Kyoto today.
Even though it was in ruins, a thin, dead camel was bigger than a horse.
As long as Chen Dong nodded his head, he would be the head of the Li family when he returned.
If the target was the Chen family, Chen Dong would still have to compete with great difficulty and defeat all the successors before he could sit as the head of the Chen family.
With Chen Dong’s ability, if he chooses the Li family, he is bound to rocket up to the ninth heaven and can lead the Li family to glory.
This was easier than choosing the Chen family.
If the Chen family was a tH**ny and bumpy path to the heavens, then the Li family was a path to the heavens!
Even Li Lan, who regarded himself as knowing his own son, could not help but feel nervous and apprehensive at this moment.
Two very different paths, yet both could lead Chen Dong to the clouds.
With such a choice, Li Lan did not dare to guess how Chen Dong would choose.
In the car, the lights were dim.
It was quiet enough to listen to a needle.
Suddenly, a laugh from Chen Dong rang out.
Chen Dong rubbed his nose: “Mum, in these twenty years, when we were in pain and hardship, did we ever get down on our knees?”
Li Lan silently shook her head.
Chen Dong raised his eyebrows, “Then that’s right, and there’s no need to choose, the most difficult situation has come through standing, why should I go on my knees and eat the cold-blooded rice of the Li family nowadays?”
Said Chen Dong, opened the car door.
“What I, Chen Dong, want, I will stand and take it myself, even if the Chen family is a thousand times more dangerous, I will still stand and walk up, let me kneel on the Li family’s headship, my bones are a bit hard, I can’t kneel down!”
The voice was cold, but resounding.
The essence in Li Lan’s eyes flashed, finally revealing a smile.
Looking at Chen Dong, she gradually calmed down as her thoughts turned.
Li Lan said in a deep voice, “If we choose this way, the Li family might not spare us, mother and son.”
“I am not even afraid of the Chen family, why should I be afraid of a mere Li family?”
Chen Dong smiled spontaneously and turned back to Li Lan, “Mom, get some rest early, don’t worry about such things in the future, if they come, let Kunlun go out and beat them up.”
After knowing the original story of what happened back then, Chen Dong had some secret hatred.
He secretly hated that the slap was too light when he was at Ju Shui Pond’s other house!
He was eating human blood, yet he still had the face to come and beg him and his mother to go home.
He even slapped his mother in the face for holding himself up.
How could a slap ever be enough to quell the grievances his mother had suffered for over twenty years?
How could a slap erase the suffering of their mother and son for more than twenty years?
After helping his mother back to the house.
Chen Dong returned to his room with a cold and stern look on his face and lay down on his bed, but he had no intention of sleeping.
Looking at the ceiling, a cold light flashed in his eyes.
Knowing what had happened back then, Chen Dong felt as if there was a volcano in his chest that had no place to erupt.
Should orphans and widows be bullied?
Can he be bullied because he has money and power?
He is not a cowardly character, and he is not capable of saying thank you with a smile when someone stabs him.
If the Li family is still shameless, he doesn’t mind stabbing them back!
……
The following days.
Everything was calm and quiet.
The pre-sale of the four properties of Dingtai Company opened quietly.
There was no momentum, no opening ribbon-cutting ceremony, and no media scramble to cover the event.
But it still caused a huge stir throughout the city.
The property prices in the west of the city had risen to the point of surpassing those in the east of the city, and all home buyers had long been anxious.
But the fact that Din Tai has been restricted to purchase is making all home buyers pound their chests.
On the morning of the opening of the four properties, there were indeed many people at the door.
But when the news of no more purchase restrictions spread out, the doors of the sales centres of the four properties were knocked down by the buyers who had been waiting for their turn for a long time!
The frenzied dumping of sales was rewarded with a huge return of funds.
These few days were a frenzy for Din Tai.
More so, it was the moment when Chen Dong took a big step towards his goal.
Chen Dong, however, did not participate in the company’s revelry.
Even when Xiao Ma and the others graciously invited him, he just generously waved his hand and allocated a large sum of money for Xiao Ma to take everyone on a binge.
He, on the other hand, continued to work at two o’clock every day.
For he knew that this was just one step towards the Chen family, and that it was not yet time for him to really party.
He still had a long way to go, and it was still unknown what the road ahead would be, so he did not dare to slacken off in the slightest.
It was early this morning.
Chen Dong had just returned home after training with Kunlun Devil.
A text message was sent to his phone.
“12 noon, four seals clubhouse a catch up, good grandson must come, grandfather word.”