Chapter 53: Settling Scores

Lin Ting took a rather long time to wash up and freshen up in the morning.

Consequently, she came downstairs a bit late.

She assumed Shang Moting had already left.

To her surprise, he was still sitting on the sofa, casually flipping through a magazine.

Lin Ting walked around behind the sofa and covered his eyes with her hands. "What are you looking at? You're not allowed to see."

The corners of Shang Moting's lips curved upward as he grabbed her hands and said, "Acting like a tyrant on someone else's turf."

Lin Ting leaned down and whispered into his ear, "So what if I am? I just love reigning supreme on other people's territory."

Shang Moting gave a low chuckle and pulled her hands down.

Lin Ting leaned over the back of the sofa to peer at the magazine in his hands. "What are you reading?"

Shang Moting held it up for her to see.

It was a painting titled *The Return Journey*.

It had just been sold at an auction quite recently.

The winning bid was a nine-figure sum.

The artwork was created by a painter who went by the alias "Yuejian."

However, this artist was exceedingly mysterious.

Rejecting all interview requests.

Never showing their face.

Not even their gender or age was known.

"Do you know this painter?" Lin Ting asked.

"No," Shang Moting replied. "Jinglin wants to buy their artwork, but hasn't been able to make contact."

"Young Master Lu likes this artist's work?" Lin Ting was somewhat surprised.

"What's so surprising about that?" Shang Moting asked.

"It just seems like Young Master Lu is rather reserved and quiet, but this painting features such vibrant colors and intense visual conflict," Lin Ting remarked. "I wouldn't have thought it was his style."

"His wife likes it," Shang Moting said.

Lin Ting stared at him, freezing completely in place as if turned to stone. "What? Whose wife? Who has a wife?"

Lu Jinglin had a wife.

Not a girlfriend, nor any other sort of ambiguous relationship.

A wife.

The legally married kind of wife.

She had never heard a whisper of this.

Had the Lu family kept the news under wraps this tightly?

Shang Moting found her little expression of astonishment thoroughly endearing.

Recovering her wits, Lin Ting said, "Wait a minute. You're telling me something this secretive—don't tell me you're planning to silence me now?"

"You're only realizing that now?" Shang Moting chuckled softly. "It's already too late."

With that, he traced a finger lightly across her neck.

Lin Ting instantly slumped backward onto the sofa.

Her entire body hung limply over the back of the cushion.

Without making a sound.

Shang Moting chuckled and patted her back. "If you drew a corpse like this during your art academy entrance exams, the examiners at least wouldn't advise you to change careers."

"Shang Moting, you're going too far." Lin Ting gave him a light slap.

Shang Moting urged, "Get up, or your stomach will start hurting."

Her abdomen happened to be pressing right against the edge of the sofa back.

Lin Ting straightened up, looked back down at the magazine in his hands, and asked, "Is there some secret hidden in this painting? Does it conceal some contact information? The kind that requires code-breaking?"

"Why is your little head always running so wild with imagination?" Shang Moting asked.

"Then why are you looking at it? Can staring at it summon the painter?" Lin Ting countered.

Shang Moting gazed back at her.

Lin Ting bit her lower lip. "Am I wrong?"

"Then if I stare at you, can I contact the painter?" Shang Moting asked.

Lin Ting smiled slightly. "Wanting Wangyue to help track someone down?"

Shang Moting offered a silent tacit acknowledgment.

Lin Ting arched one eyebrow. "Well, that depends on what kind of terms President Shang is willing to offer."

"Name your price," Shang Moting said.

"Hmm..." Lin Ting pondered for a moment. "Let's put it on tab for now. I'll let you know when I think of something."

Shang Moting stroked her cheek. "Eat your breakfast."

"Okay." Lin Ting headed toward the dining room.

Sitting down at the table, she looked at the lavish spread of breakfast dishes.

Shang Moting scooped a bowl of chicken soup and placed it before her.

Lin Ting accepted it, then surveyed the table again. "Are we eating something this heavily nourishing today?"

"To make up for all the energy you expended over the past few days," Shang Moting replied.

"With this level of nourishment..." Lin Ting gestured broadly at the table, "won't I end up with nutritional overload?"

"Not at all. We have a nutritionist on staff at home," Shang Moting said.

"As expected of President Shang." Lin Ting gave him an approving thumbs-up before taking a sip of the chicken soup.

The flavor was exquisite.

She raised an eyebrow and took another couple of sips.

Shang Moting spoke up. "The person from last night has regained consciousness. Care to go see them?"

Lin Ting thought about it for a second. "No need. If you manage to get anything out of them, just fill me in later."

Shang Moting instructed, "Someone from the hospital is coming over this morning for your IV drip, so don't go wandering outside."

"More infusions?" Lin Ting complained. "Look at my hand, it's all bruised up like this."

Shang Moting glanced down at the purplish bruise on the back of her hand.

After the needle was removed yesterday afternoon, Lin Ting hadn't pressed down properly, resulting in quite a bit of bleeding and leaving a nasty bruise today.

"It's the last day," Shang Moting said.

"Fine, whatever." Lin Ting didn't argue further.

After finishing breakfast, Shang Moting left the house.

Lin Ting waited for the medical staff from the hospital to arrive for her IV treatment.

Once the infusion was finished, it was only a little past ten o'clock.

Lin Ting stood in the second-floor hallway, gazing up at the magnificent and expensive crystal chandelier.

After a moment, she headed upstairs.

Having visited this place several times, she was fairly familiar with the general layout.

Although security mechanisms were embedded everywhere, Shang Moting's study was by far the most intricate location.

It was packed with all sorts of trap mechanisms; even the drawers were rigged.

You had to open one mechanism, then another, track down a key, use the key to unlock a third, and manipulate things this way and that just to finally open the drawer you actually wanted.

It was exceedingly tedious and complex.

If any of these mechanisms had been connected to a network, she could have easily hacked and paralyzed them.

However, they were purely mechanical puzzles.

She was only familiar with a small fraction of them.

Trying to dismantle them by force would pose a personal hazard.

Therefore, trying to unearth anything hidden inside was bound to be a prolonged endeavor.

This was precisely the primary reason she had sought to get close to Shang Moting and insisted on staying here.

Shang Moting possessed absolute confidence in the security of this place, which was why he dared to leave her home alone.

Stepping into the study, Lin Ting pulled a pair of gloves from her pocket and put them on, relying on her memory from previous visits to begin working on cracking the security puzzle of his bookshelf.

...

Shang Moting drove out to a villa located in the suburbs.

The man who had ambushed Lin Ting at the hospital last night was being held in the villa's basement.

The doctors and nurses on duty in the VIP ward last night had all been rendered unconscious by a chemical agent.

They had all woken up by today, and preliminary physical examinations showed they were completely unharmed.

The white lab coat worn by the assassin had also been stripped off a doctor.

"President Shang, we meet again." The man flashed a smile the moment he caught sight of Shang Moting.

Shang Moting stared at him, his narrow eyes laced with murderous intent.

"Why is President Shang so furious?" the man chuckled. "Is that woman really that important to you?"

"I have no obligation to explain that to you," Shang Moting said.

"Allow me to offer President Shang a word of warning, though. That woman is no pushover. With skills like hers, she is definitely no ordinary person," the man stated. "Could she really have no ulterior motives by staying by your side?"

"Was it her who sent you?" Shang Moting demanded.

"What else do you think?" the man replied. "Who else could possibly command someone like me?"

"Why target Lin Ting?" Shang Moting asked.

"Don't you know?" The man smiled broadly. "You don't care for Qi Qingyuan, so she gets to live. But you fancy that little girl, and so she has to die."

"You people shouldn't have set your sights on her," Shang Moting warned.

"And so what if we did?" the man taunted. "Are you going to kill me? If you kill me, how will you answer to *her*? Are you planning to betray her? President Shang, just think about how you got everything you have today."