"Twenty-four hours! Don't try anything funny, we know where you are!" The man said viciously, then hung up the phone.
"Beep…beep…beep…"
The dial tone echoed in Lin Chen's ears like the death knell. He gripped the phone, standing frozen in the cold center of the apartment, as if he had lost the strength to even breathe.
They actually…they actually harmed his family!
Using his father's safety to threaten him! Forcing him to admit to those fabricated crimes, to sign that debt agreement that would condemn him to eternal damnation!
Anger, fear, helplessness, overwhelming hatred…all sorts of emotions erupted in his chest like a volcano, scorching his internal organs. He wanted nothing more than to rush to Xingyao Entertainment and take Lu Tianyu and his gang down with him!
But he couldn't. He didn't even know where his father was being held.
He suddenly remembered what his father had mentioned on the phone: Mr. Zhang's shop in town had been vandalized, and Uncle Li's agritainment business had been raided… That wasn't a warning; it was preparation! Lu Tianyu was showing him that they had the capability and means to extend their reach into every corner of his hometown!
Twenty-four hours.
What should he do?
Publicly confessing would mean completely ruining his future, solidifying his stigma, and becoming a permanent laughingstock and negative example in the entertainment industry. Signing the debt agreement would mean personally offering every ounce of his future flesh and blood to Xingyao, becoming a slave for eternity.
But if he didn't do it… what would happen to his father? He couldn't imagine. Lu Tianyu could even harm a brother of over twenty years; what wouldn't he do to a powerless old man from the mountains?
Family ties had become the sharpest knife in the enemy's hand, precisely piercing his last line of defense.
He slumped to the ground, leaning against the cold wall, tears silently streaming down his face. It wasn't resentment, it was hatred, an overwhelming hatred! He hated Lu Tianyu's ruthlessness, hated Xingyao's lawlessness, and hated his own incompetence, which had implicated his elderly father.
He picked up his old phone, the screen flashing red due to low battery. He found Su Yuqing's number, his finger hovering over the dial button, but he hesitated to press it. What good would telling her do? Could she rescue his father overnight? If he alerted them, wouldn't his father's situation become even more dangerous?
He couldn't take that risk.
It seemed… only submission remained.
Confess, sign the agreement, protect his father's safety. And then? Then his life would be utterly dark, he would become a walking corpse controlled by Xingyao Entertainment, or, after losing his usefulness, be discarded like trash, burdened with enormous debt and stigma, barely clinging to life.
Despair, like a cold tide, engulfed him again, deeper and more suffocating than the mire of debt.
The sky outside the window gradually brightened, the faint light of dawn filtering through the gaps in the curtains, yet unable to illuminate even a trace of the darkness in his heart.
The twenty-four-hour countdown hung like a Damocles' sword over his head, each second slowly torturing his nerves.
The price of family ties was so cruel.