Chapter 361: You are coming down with me
Her voice trembled with hysteria, but beneath it was something razor sharp.
"I will hold a press conference from wherever I am! I will send anonymous tips! I will leak the evidence myself! I will tell them how you manipulated the brake inspection report! How you pushed for schedule changes that day! How you ensured she was alone in that car!!!"
"Enough!!!" Mao Li barked, panic finally seeping into his tone.
His mind was racing.
If even a fraction of that resurfaced, he would be finished. The accident had been buried carefully. The evidence cleaned. The connections paid. But scandals had a way of digging up corpses.
And now Hua Ling was threatening to exhume one.
For several long seconds, neither of them spoke.
Mao Li realized he was trapped.
If he cut ties with her completely, she would drag him into the abyss.
If he helped her, he risked further exposure.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, with no retreat and no safe path forward.
Finally, his voice came out low and strained. "What are you planning?"
Hua Ling’s smile widened.
"Don’t worry," she said sweetly. "I’ll send you the details in a few days. For now, stabilize the company. Redirect the media narrative. And wait for my instructions."
Her tone hardened instantly. "If you dare cross me... if you dare betray me... don’t blame me for being ruthless!!!"
Mao Li remained silent for a long moment.
He understood the implication.
At last, he forced out a single word. "Okay."
The moment it left his mouth, the call ended.
Hua Ling lowered the phone slowly.
Then she began to laugh.
The laughter echoed through the dilapidated house, bouncing off the cracked walls, sounding almost inhuman.
"Hua Jing..." she whispered, her eyes burning with unrestrained hatred. "Oh, Hua Jing..."
She stepped toward the broken window and looked out into the darkness beyond.
"This trap I’m setting for you... I want to see how you escape it."
Her fingers tightened around the phone until her nails dug into her skin.
"If I am going down..."
Her lips curved into a chilling smile.
"You are coming down with me!!!"
Back at Blue Entertainment, the air in Mao Li’s office was so heavy it felt as though it might suffocate a person alive.
The call had ended, but Hualing’s final words still echoed in his ears like a curse.
If I go down, you’re coming down with me!!!
He slammed the phone onto the desk so hard the screen cracked.
His glasses had been flung somewhere across the room during the call, and without them his vision blurred—but the redness in his eyes was unmistakable. Anger. Panic. Fear.
"Damn it!!!" he roared.
He swept his arm across the desk.
Files scattered.
A porcelain cup shattered against the wall.
A framed photo of Blue Entertainment’s early days crashed to the floor, the glass splintering into sharp fragments that glittered like mockery.
"Crazy woman!!! Completely insane!!!"
His chest rose and fell violently. For years he had been the calm strategist, the calculating mind behind the company’s rapid rise. Investors respected him. Artists feared him. Competitors envied him.
Now?
Now he was being threatened by someone he had once considered a pawn.
A sharp knock came at the door.
Mao Li’s jaw tightened.
"Get in!!!"
The door opened slowly.
Several people entered, each holding a thin stack of white papers.
For a split second, Mao Li stared at them blankly.
Then he let out a short, humorless laugh.
"You’re resigning too?" he asked, voice hoarse. "Right now? At this time?"
At the front stood Zhang Ruo.
Zhang Ruo.
Her back was straight. Her face calm. Too calm.
She stepped forward and placed the resignation letter neatly on his desk, ignoring the broken glass at her feet.
"This is a decision I should have made long ago," she said quietly. "I shouldn’t have stayed after what happened."
Behind her were two artists she managed.
A young girl—barely twenty—clutched her own paper nervously.
"My contract ended two days ago," she said, voice trembling but resolute. "I... I won’t be renewing it."
Beside her, a young male artist nodded.
"My contract ends in a few weeks. I’m just giving notice early. I won’t renew either."
For a moment, Mao Li genuinely wondered if he was hallucinating.
His lips parted.
Then something inside him snapped.
"You want to leave?!" he exploded. "Fine!!! Go!!! All of you, go!!!"
He pointed toward the door violently.
"Once you step out of this building, don’t even dream of stepping into the entertainment industry again! I will blacklist you!!! You think it’s that easy to walk away from me?!"
The young artists flinched.
But they did not retreat.
Zhang Ruo looked at Mao Li—not with anger.
With pity.
She turned slightly and gestured for the two artists to leave first.
They bowed slightly and walked out without another word.
The door clicked shut.
Silence fell.
Zhang Ruo remained standing for a few seconds before pulling out a chair and sitting down across from Mao Li.
There was broken glass between them.
Once upon a time, the three of them—Mao Li, Zhang Ruo, and Hua Jing—had sat around a dining table laughing about future award ceremonies.
They had dreamed of dominating the industry.
They had toasted to loyalty.
They had believed in each other.
Now, only fragments remained.
"You know this is your fault, right?" Zhang Ruo said calmly.
Mao Li let out a cold scoff.
"Oh? Now you’re here to rub salt in my wounds? Zhang Ruo, you of all people—"
"If you hadn’t been enticed by Hualing," she cut in, voice firm, "none of this would have happened."
He froze.
Her words were sharp.
Precise.
Back then, when Hualing had first entered the company, Zhang Ruo had warned him repeatedly.
She’s ambitious.
She’s manipulative.
She’s not loyal.
But Mao Li had been captivated—by Hualing’s promise of rapid expansion, by the powerful investors she brought, by the illusion of explosive profit.
And when Hua Jing’s accident happened...
He had shifted everything.
All resources.
All promotion.
All media focus.
Onto Hualing.
Hua Jing had been abandoned.
Zhang Ruo had begged to investigate the accident more thoroughly.
Mao Li had forbidden it.
"Focus on the future," he had said coldly back then.
Zhang Ruo’s eyes hardened.
"When you did that to Hua Jing, did you ever think you’d stay at the top forever?"
