Chapter 33: The God of Wealth Arrives in the Entertainment Industry (End)

“No less. This is my bottom line.” Jiang Niannian lowered her voice, carrying an air that brooked no refusal.

As if leaving for fifty million was doing Jiang Youyou some monumental favor.

“Whether you stay or leave has nothing to do with me,” Jiang Youyou set down her glass, gazing with idle curiosity at the woman before her, so self-righteous, wondering what else she might say.

“You don’t want to be with Fang Jinnian anymore? As long as you give me the money, I’ll leave and never appear in your lives again.” As she spoke, Jiang Niannian felt as though a knife was slashing her heart—dull, throbbing pain.

“Even if I don’t give you a cent, I can still make you disappear.” Jiang Youyou leaned back, utterly languid. “Without a trace.”

Jiang Niannian’s face turned pale.

To speak so ruthlessly, in such an indifferent tone—perhaps she had never truly understood this younger sister of hers.

Their conversation, in the end, broke up on a sour note.

Jiang Niannian was different from Fang Jinnian. Fang Jinnian, even if fallen from grace, still had sound limbs; he might not stir up storms, but he would not starve. Jiang Niannian, though, was another matter entirely. Without someone to give her money, she might truly starve to death.

Days slipped by. Jiang Youyou would occasionally take on acting jobs, always playing vile villains—her roles spewing venom in every line, the screen flooded with scathing comments. Yet, outside of the drama, Jiang Youyou’s fanbase only soared.

Everyone in the entertainment world knew that Little Fortune Jiang loved playing vicious antagonists. The more venomous the role, the more she shone, making audiences grit their teeth in hatred yet unable to look away.

Her fans adored her for it.

What could they do, if their beloved Little Fortune enjoyed it? Pamper her, of course!

Winter arrived, wind biting cold. Jiang Youyou watched the two people before her, their lips locked in verbal combat—a scene she’d grown utterly accustomed to.

Fang Ci and Nan Yan, now two of the three giants in Pingling, often quarreled heatedly over work.

“Youyou, you decide!”

“Sis, she’s bullying me!”

Jiang Youyou rolled her eyes at their pleas and retreated indoors.

Outside, the bickering flared again, each voice rising higher, as though competing for dominance.

Her gaze drifted aside, and the gloom that once hung so heavily in the air was now all but transparent.

But Jiang Niannian, these days, looked gaunt and sallow, her figure shriveled to a shadow of its former self.

She was often unkempt, clothed in thin rags, hobbling slowly along the street with a cane in search of leftover scraps to eat.

Her once fair hands were now cracked and swollen, frostbite splitting the skin so deep a cotton swab could fit within, raw flesh visible inside, cloudy white pus oozing slowly with each movement.

And yet she seemed oblivious, mechanically searching for anything to fill her belly.

She no longer knew why she’d become like this, nor why she clung to life.

She simply wanted to live.

“I really don’t know what Wang Yuyan is thinking, keeping that Fang fellow around now that he’s penniless—he’s dragging us down,” a muttering voice drifted through the cold wind, indistinct.

“Exactly. If Fang Jinnian were still the head of the Fang Group, I could see why Wang Yuyan would care. But now he’s just a pauper, disowned by his family. What’s she so obsessed with?” the second speaker’s tone was tinged with dissatisfaction.

“What are you saying?” The dry rasp of Jiang Niannian’s voice was almost unbearable, as if she hadn’t spoken in ages.

“What did you just say?” Jiang Niannian hobbled toward them on her cane, one step at a time, her face twisted, sending the pair shrieking in terror.

The next day.

Police sirens wailed, the vast square packed tight with onlookers.

Jiang Niannian leaned against a wall, one hand clutching Fang Jinnian’s hair, the other pressing a knife to his throat. Blood streamed from his neck, where the blade had worn the skin raw.

“Drop your weapon!” The police shouted through a megaphone, as if hoping to pull this lost woman back from the edge.

Jiang Youyou glanced at the ashen-faced Wang Yuyan, then at Jiang Niannian, now wild-eyed and deranged, and at Fang Jinnian, limp as a rag doll in his captor’s grip. She stepped forward.

Jiang Niannian’s gaze flickered. When her eyes met Jiang Youyou’s, tears seemed to glimmer for a moment—then madness seized her. She drove the knife again and again into Fang Jinnian’s chest, blood spraying, splattering her face until she looked a fiend from hell.

A gunshot rang out, ending the farce and Jiang Niannian’s wretched life.

Resentment dissipated. A fresh breeze swept through the blood-soaked air.

“Host, we agreed you wouldn’t kill the male and female leads.” Naiqi looked at the pair lying lifeless in their own blood, utterly at a loss.

“I didn’t lay a finger on them, did I?”

Naiqi: …

The world is going to collapse.

“It won’t. A new child of fate has already been born.” Jiang Youyou glanced toward the Nan family’s direction and fell silent.