WBSGVS Chapter 253 Part 2

He probably wouldn’t have died so soon, but he had become a lonely man—his favorite grandson gone, his eldest son disgraced and afraid to return home, his second son ignoring him, and his granddaughter following suit. Repeated blows had left him depressed for years, worsening his condition until he passed within days.

By the time Qing Li was twenty-one, the once-stable company began showing signs of trouble.

Jiang Group was publicly traded, with countless shareholders.

A company doesn’t collapse overnight. When warning signs first appear, the sharp ones pull out early, while the less alert decide to wait.

But as red flags multiplied and rumors spread, more and more shareholders sold off their stock.

Of course, some refused to let go—because despite the decline and widespread pessimism, the shares were still selling. They reasoned that if they could sell, someone must be buying. In stock market slang, they weren’t “trapped.”

They assumed someone was buying the dip.

If they insisted on thinking that way, Qing Li wouldn’t stop them. She simply kept sending out signals. When even the board of directors sensed something was wrong, she stepped in to buy their shares at a low price.

The money for the buyout came from everything she’d earned over the years, plus the proceeds from selling her entertainment company.

She’d already made them plenty over the years. Now, she was even willing to put up the money to buy them out, making sure their shares didn’t turn into worthless scraps of paper. That was already more than generous. The shareholders, after some gritted teeth and hesitation, all agreed.

As Qingli approached her twenty-second birthday, even the slow-to-catch-on Jiang Xi finally sensed something was wrong. He called her immediately.
“Ali, is something going on with the company?”

Everything was already in place—no need to hide it anymore. Qingli nodded briskly.
“Yep. Several major projects have run into trouble. The cash flow is about to collapse, and we could be bankrupt any day now.”

“What the hell did you do?!” Jiang Xi barked without thinking, shooting up from his chair and pacing around the house.
“You told me everything was fine! And those projects—you oversaw them! How could anything have gone wrong? Where did it go wrong?!”

“It was wrong from the start,” Qingli said calmly.

Jiang Xi thought he’d misheard. Wiping the cold sweat from his palm, he switched the phone to his other ear.
“…What did you say?”

“I said, those projects were doomed from the very beginning.”

She had deliberately chosen the exact projects that, in the original owner’s past life, she remembered would fail. On the surface, they seemed perfectly fine, and with her taking the lead, the company—already full of trust in her—approved them without question.

Big companies rarely keep much cash on hand; their capital chains are tightly interlinked. One break, and the rest quickly unravel.

If it had been just one or two failing projects, the Jiang Group could have weathered it. But this wasn’t just one or two.

It takes only moments for a skyscraper to collapse.

This had been her plan from the very beginning.

Some things had to be done. Jiang Xi’s most valued treasure was the Jiang Group. The only reason he valued Qingli now was because he thought she could lead it to new heights. If Jiang Zheng could do the same, Jiang Xi would have treated him just as well.

He had fathered the original owner but never taught her a thing, yet still expected her to grow into an invincible powerhouse. A dream. And because of that dream, he destroyed her life. So now, she would destroy the thing he valued most.

To avoid dragging anyone else down, Qingli had spent years investing—using her earnings, the Jiang Group’s profits, scriptwriting, funding TV dramas and films.

She lived on six hours of sleep a night, had no personal life whatsoever, and in the end, poured everything she had into this one moment.

And now—finally—it had come.

“These projects were doomed from the start!”

When the girl’s pleasant voice rang through the phone, Jiang Xi’s mind went blank.

A migraine he hadn’t suffered in years returned, draining the color from his face. He gritted his teeth.
“You knew all along!”

“Mm-hm,” Qingli nodded lightly.

Jiang Xi’s expression darkened. “Very good.”

He didn’t need her to say more—he already knew what his daughter was thinking. In that instant, every ounce of fatherly affection he’d ever felt vanished into smoke.

So the daughter he’d doted on for years had only ever been a comforting illusion for himself.

How laughable.

His composure cracked; bitterness rose on his tongue and seeped into his chest.

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “Then stop the losses now—immediately!”

“I won’t,” Qingli said.

“Don’t forget,” Jiang Xi snarled, “I’m still the majority shareholder in this company!”

Qingli smiled. “Sorry. Just before you called, I bought out the last small shareholder. I’m the majority shareholder now.”

“…What?”

“Where did you get that kind of money?!” he demanded.

“Earned it, of course,” Qingli replied sweetly. “Daddy, watch closely—watch as your precious Jiang Group crumbles, piece by piece…”

Her gentle voice now sounded like a specter’s curse. Before Jiang Xi could respond, the line went dead.

For the first time in years, the usually unshakable man’s eyes turned bloodshot. His voice was cold and venomous as he hissed each syllable:
“Jiang. Qing. Li.”

But it was no use.

Jiang Xi rushed back to the company that very day, but as Qingli now held the largest stake, his words no longer carried weight.

Worse still, she had prepared everything meticulously. The shareholders had already made their money. Sure, it was disappointing that the investment wouldn’t keep paying out, but they had the credentials and the cash to move on easily.

The executives stayed on, reassured by Qingli’s promise that their compensation would be paid in full—and even increased by half.

What was there to complain about?

Jiang Xi could only watch, helplessly, as the Jiang Group fell apart piece by piece, until Qingli filed for bankruptcy protection.

The miracle comeback he’d been hoping for never happened. The empire he’d built with his own two hands was gone.

On the day the company filed for bankruptcy protection, the shock hit him so hard that pain shot through the back of his head—and he fainted.

When he woke again, he was in the hospital. He’d been here plenty of times over the past few years, and it had never bothered him before.

But this time, the room was empty. No assistant. No daughter. No company.

Once, Jiang Xi wouldn’t have cared. Family ties had never meant anything to him—his heart was always cold.

But now, after years of having a daughter to fuss over him, to care for him in every detail, he’d grown used to that warmth. Having it ripped away left him with nothing but a crushing emptiness in his chest—like lying alone in the snow in the dead of winter.

How…

…had it come to this?

Where had that clever, sweet, dutiful daughter everyone envied gone?

And where had his mighty business empire gone?