Shen Yanzhou · Conversa

Forty-eight hours ago. Shen Group Headquarters, top-floor CEO office. The blinds filtered the harsh 3:00 PM afternoon sunlight, leaving only the faint hum of the central air conditioning in the room. It was originally a highly ordinary Thursday afternoon. I sat behind the spacious mahogany desk. Beside my hand was a cup of black coffee that had long gone cold, and a Ru ware white porcelain teacup left behind by the old man. There was no tea in the cup; I kept it only as a constant reminder of how I had ousted that self-righteous old bastard from this position step by step, putting him under house arrest in a nursing home. Three full years had passed since that farce in our senior year of high school where we were forcibly torn apart. For these three years, I tore through the board of directors like a mad dog, climbing up by any means necessary, merging, purging, and seizing power. I forced myself to become an emotionless working machine. Only by grasping all the power of the Shen family firmly in my hands would I be qualified to go to London and bring you back from right under your mother's nose. I checked your travel records. A fixed allowance was transferred into the overseas account under your name every month. Every few months, the informant Jiang Bai stationed in London would even send back a couple of blurry, distant photos—a back profile wearing a trench coat walking along the Thames, or sitting in the corner of some café. I thought you were just blaming me, blaming me for not having enough power to protect you back then, which was why you kept hiding and refusing to show your face. Until the double walnut doors of the office were suddenly slammed open without any prior announcement. The door slammed against the damper on the wall with a dull, heavy thud. Outside, the secretary-general frantically tried to stop them, only to be shoved aside by the intruder. It was Jiang Bai. Usually, he had the typical carefree, "if the sky falls, use it as a blanket" attitude of a rich second-generation heir. But at this moment, his chest was heaving violently, his tie was pulled completely askew, and his usually smiling peach-blossom eyes were bloodshot with a terrifying redness. He gasped for air, staring intently at me, tightly clutching a crumpled manila envelope in his hand. I waved my hand, signaling the trembling secretary at the door to close it, then leaned back in my chair, looking at him coldly. "If you banged down my door today because of your deficit in that south city project, Jiang Bai, you can get the hell out right now." Ignoring my warning, he strode over to the desk, propping his arms on the surface as he looked down at me. I rarely saw that kind of expression on his face—a mixture of extreme anger, disbelief, and a reluctance to speak that made me instinctively uneasy. He slammed the manila envelope heavily in front of me. The thick papers hit the desk, even jarring the Ru teacup half an inch toward the edge. "The last time I told you, the guy I got to watch that London account noticed a gap in the transaction history, so he dug a layer deeper." Jiang Bai's voice was as hoarse as if he had swallowed a handful of gravel. Every word seemed to be forced through his teeth. "Shen Yanzhou, you've been played for three whole years by your dear father and his seemingly fragile mother." My fingers typing on the keyboard froze. My gaze moved away from the screen, landing on the manila envelope. An invisible string in the air seemed to tighten inch by inch, squeezing my chest and making my breathing heavy. I didn't say a word, only reaching out to tear open the string of the envelope. The contents slid out. There were no landscapes of London, no distant views of the Thames—only a stack of glaring documents with the header "Sunshine Behavior Correction Center," and dozens of dim, blurry photos that were enough to make one's heart stop beating. My gaze landed on an admission registration form. The ID photo on it showed how you looked three years ago, with a pale face and slightly panicked eyes. At the bottom, in the guardian signature block, was your mother's signature. The date was the exact week we were forced apart. Jiang Bai clutched his hair with both hands, pacing irritably in front of the desk like a trapped beast. His voice carried an uncontrollable choke: "He never went to London at all... For the past three years, he hasn't stepped across the national border even for a single day! That monthly transaction history, those photos of some hired body doubles from behind—it was all a fucking smokescreen made to fool you and keep you calm! They sent that precious younger brother of yours to an illegal gay conversion camp on the outskirts of the city!" When the words "gay conversion camp" slammed into my ears, my brain went completely blank for a brief moment. A sharp, high-frequency ringing flared deep in my eardrums, as if all my blood had rushed back to my heart in that single instant, only to be violently compressed and burst. All surrounding sounds were sucked dry, leaving only the faint friction of my fingertips brushing against those rough papers. Stiffly, I turned to the next page. It was a treatment record sheet. Rows of cold words were densely written on it: [Behavior Correction Cycle: Week 32] [Treatment Method: Aversion Therapy] [Patient Reaction: Dilated pupils] [Evaluation Conclusion: Preliminary physiological rejection has been established toward the target subject's facial features. Continued reinforcement is recommended.] Flipping further down, there were printed screenshots of the internal surveillance. The edges of the paper were crushed to dust beneath my fingertips. I thought the dirty tricks I had seen in the business world over the past three years were already plenty. I thought my heart had long since frozen into iron. But when I saw you looking utterly hopeless, your eyes bloodshot with pain, staring deathly at my face in a photo while being electrocuted—at that moment, all the rationality, breeding, and composure in my world crumbled into a pile of foul-smelling dust. *Crack.* An extremely dull, sharp sound exploded in the office. I hadn't even realized when I had picked up that Ru teacup. It was only when the hard white porcelain was crushed to pieces in my palm, the sharp shards slicing effortlessly through flesh and driving deep into the lines of my hand, that I noticed. Warm blood gushed out, dripping down my wrist onto the cuff of my black suit, and then onto the treatment sheet detailing your misery, staining the word "Sunshine" a bloody red. Jiang Bai suddenly rushed over, grabbing my wrist, his voice laced with panic: "Shen Yanzhou! Are you crazy! Let go!" I didn't look at him, nor did I look at my bloody hand. I only stared deathly at your eyes in the photo, which had lost all their luster. A terrifying, hoarse wheeze—one that didn't even sound human—escaped from my throat. Slowly, I unclenched my fingers, and the blood-stained porcelain shards clattered onto the desk. I pressed the intercom button on my desk. Because my fingers were covered in blood, they slipped once before pressing it all the way down. I heard my own voice, calm and devoid of any fluctuation, yet carrying a deathly chill that could freeze the entire building: "Zhou Mingchuan." The deep, forceful voice of the security chief immediately came from the other side of the intercom: [President Shen.] "Call up all the men who can fight. Get those five anti-riot SUVs out of the garage." My gaze remained nailed to the file, the muscles in my jaw tightening bit by bit, "Bring weapons. Jiang Bai will send you the address." [Understood. Should we contact the police in advance?] "No." I stood up abruptly. Because the motion was too violent, my expensive office chair crashed heavily backward against the shatterproof glass of the floor-to-ceiling window. I grabbed the manila envelope from the desk, casually wiping my bleeding right hand on my suit trousers. "Today, nobody is going through legal channels. I am personally going to crush that place, brick by brick, person by person, into the dirt." Forty minutes later. Outskirts of the city, the conversion camp converted from an abandoned machinery factory. The rain was pouring, and the windshield wipers made an irritating, frantic scraping noise against the glass. No slowing down, no negotiations. The modified black Ford Raptor in the very front, like an utterly out-of-control steel beast, carried a low engine roar as it crashed directly into the rusted iron gate bearing the sign "Sunshine Behavior Correction." *BOOM—!* A massive screech of twisting metal tore through the dead silence of the suburbs amid the heavy downpour. The iron gate was violently knocked off its hinges, slamming onto the muddy concrete ground. The four SUVs behind drove straight in, their tires carving violent tracks through the standing water before screeching to an incredibly arrogant halt right in front of the main building's steps. Before the car had even come to a complete stop, I kicked open the door and leapt down. The torrential rain instantly soaked my bespoke suit. Cold rainwater ran down my bangs into my eyes, but I didn't even blink. Dozens of bodyguards in black raincoats poured out from the vehicles behind. Zhou Mingchuan, carrying a steel pipe, walked at the very front and kicked open the main building's cheap glass door. Terrified screams, the clattering of overturned tables and chairs, and the shouting of a few men in lab coats or security uniforms trying to stop us immediately echoed from inside. But in the face of absolute, crushing force, their resistance couldn't even last five seconds. *Bam!* Zhou Mingchuan struck the guard trying to call the police on his walkie-talkie. The man shrieked, clutching his head as he collapsed to the floor. I stepped inside over the shattered glass, the soles of my combat boots leaving muddy, bloody footprints on the tiles. The corridor reeked of pungent disinfectant, which barely masked a musty smell from years without sunlight and an indescribable odor of excrement. Faint weeping came from the rooms on both sides, along with the terrified eyes of the so-called "students" peering out from behind the iron-barred doors. My gaze swept over every door plaque like radar, my heart beating so fast it felt like it would shatter my ribs. The wound in my palm, soaked in rainwater, throbbed with a piercing ache, but the pain only tightened my nerves to their absolute limit of alertness. Jiang Bai pointed to a reinforced security door at the very end of the corridor and roared, "They're in Treatment Room 4! The surveillance line is fed from there!" I dashed over almost instantly. The door was locked from the inside. Without waiting for Zhou Mingchuan to catch up, I took half a step back, raised my leg, and kicked the lock with all my might. *Crash!* The lock made an overwhelmed sound of snapping metal. I followed up with another kick. The heavy security door was violently forced open, slamming hard against the inner wall. At that moment, I saw the scene inside the room clearly. In the middle of the room stood an iron chair fitted with restraint straps. You were tied tightly to it, wearing a yellowed hospital gown. The straps around your wrists and ankles had rubbed your skin raw, leaving bloody marks from your violent struggles. Your hair was soaked with sweat, plastered to your paper-pale cheeks. There was no focus in your eyes, only an instinctual panic. Right in front of you, a glaring screen was on, looping a half-length portrait of me from a financial magazine cover. An instructor in a blue uniform stood slightly behind you, holding a device with a metal electrode at the tip, preparing to press it against your bare nape. Seeing the door kicked open, he froze, instinctively turning his head. But before he could see my face clearly, Zhou Mingchuan lunged past me like a leopard. Without wasting any words, he delivered a flying kick straight to the instructor's side. The massive force sent the man and the device flying, crashing heavily into a medical cart in the corner, scattering equipment everywhere. "You motherfucker!" Jiang Bai rushed in right behind him, throwing himself forward with bloodshot eyes. He rained punch after punch onto the instructor's face. The dull thuds of flesh hitting bone and the instructor's agonized screams echoed through the cramped space. But I could no longer hear any of the noise around me. My gaze was locked deathly onto you. After just three years apart, you had grown so thin that your jawline stood out in sharp contours. Your skin, which used to be so full of life under the sun, now had a sickly, pale hue from being deprived of daylight for years. I felt as if a fistful of broken glass had been shoved down my throat; even breathing tore at me with bloody pain. I walked forward stiffly, as if walking on the edge of a blade with every step. All those scenes of reunion I had imagined on countless sleepless nights, all the words of mild resentment and deep longing I had prepared—the moment I saw you in this tragic state, they shattered completely, leaving nothing behind. I walked to the iron chair, reaching out with trembling hands, wanting to unbuckle the leather strap that was choking your bruised wrists. You heard the footsteps. Or rather, you felt someone approaching. Your movement of keeping your head hung low from the violent commotion just now froze in that instant. Like a puppet caught in rusted gears, you raised your head, bit by bit, stiffly, with absolute terror. Your gaze slowly shifted upward. First, it landed on my blood-stained suit cuff, then my tie, and finally, it froze on my face. The fluorescent light in the room hummed and flickered with static from the aging wiring. The exact moment you saw my features clearly and confirmed that the person standing in front of you was the face on the screen—the one that had served as the constant trigger for your nightmares— I saw with absolute clarity that your hollow pupils instantly shrank to the size of pinpricks. An extreme fear that transcended all logic, carved deep into your muscle memory by three years of inhumane torture, exploded in your eyes like a nuclear blast. In less than half a second, your body tensed like a fully drawn bow, and immediately after, began to spasm violently and uncontrollably. "Uh..." An out-of-tune, bellows-like gasp escaped from your throat. You shrunk back against the iron chair's backrest as hard as you could, trying to distance yourself from me. Your wrists rubbed and struggled frantically against the leather straps. Even though the skin had been scraped raw and blood was trickling down along the rust, you didn't stop. You looked at my face as if you were looking at the most terrifying monster in the world.