Chapter 41: You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

“Miss, we are preparing to leave shortly. Why are we still using Gu Yuxin to target Mu Yuchen?”

Stepping out of Gu Yuxin’s suite, Qingning voiced her confusion.

Murong Fanghua let out a soft chuckle. “She’s merely bait—a lure to draw the big fish to the hook. If the bait doesn’t thrash around, how will it ever attract attention?”

She didn’t elaborate further, but Qingning nodded as if catching her drift.

“Call Lisa over. I have a few specific instructions for her.”

“Understood, Miss!”

“It’s all your fault! You caused all of this, you complete curse!”

“Get out! Get the hell out of my house!”

Mu Yutong walked out of the study with a somber expression. Listening to the harsh verbal abuse echoing from inside, she shook her head in helpless resignation.

Over the past few days, she had desperately searched for a way to rescue Ye Feng, but her efforts yielded practically nothing. The minimal influence she possessed was far too weak to mobilize anyone for such a risky operation.

Worse still, her so-called political connections were merely seeking to exploit her rather than offer real assistance. Ultimately, those ties only existed because of her father. But now? Her father refused to even look at her.

In his eyes, she was the idiot who had ruined a golden opportunity to align with the elite Murong clan. He believed that if she hadn’t botched the negotiations with Murong Fanghua, his family would have secured a grand political alliance and enjoyed effortless ascension.

Her life was an absolute tragedy—let alone finding a way to save Ye Feng out of this mess.

All I can do now is pray that Sister finds a way to bring him back… she thought silently, gazing up at the gray, overcast sky as she left her father’s residence.

Time flew by in a blur, and before long, the setting sun painted the horizon in fiery hues. Ye Feng sat quietly by the window, unsure how many sunsets he had watched come and go. Time had completely lost all meaning in his isolation.

Tired of waiting aimlessly for the hours to slip away, he decided it was late enough. He took a warm shower, wrapped himself tightly in the comforter, and drifted off to sleep. Tonight, Murong Fanghua was nowhere to be seen, allowing him a rare, undisturbed night of rest.

At around three or four in the morning, the heavy wooden door to his suite slowly glided open. A few shadows slipped silently into the dimly lit room.

“Rest assured, Miss. I mixed a mild sedative into his dinner—he won’t be waking up anytime soon,” Lisa reported in a confident whisper, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses.

“Good. Begin.”

“Understood.”

Lisa nodded and stepped up to the edge of the bed. This time, she didn’t pull out her silver pocket watch. Instead, she retrieved her phone, tapped on a curated audio playlist, and let a soft, ethereal melody drift through the room.

“Miss, here are noise-filtering earplugs. You and Qingning should put them on. This specific soundscape induces a state of deep psychological vulnerability in the subconscious mind, and it might subtly affect you as well.”

Lisa handed four earplugs to Murong Fanghua and Qingning.

The two women nodded, inserting the earplugs before watching the process unfold in absolute silence.

Inside his slumber, Ye Feng felt a sudden wave of dizziness wash over his mind. Opening his eyes, he found himself standing in the courtyard of Mu Yuchen’s estate.

Just as confusion began to take root, a strange man strode over and landed a harsh kick squarely against his shin, sneering in disgust:

“What are you standing around for, you useless s*ave? Can’t even clean the floor properly—what an absolute piece of trash!”

Ye Feng knit his brows in rising anger. Who the hell is this guy?!

“Still dazed? You really are getting more disobedient by the day!”

With another brutal strike, the man’s boot slammed straight into Ye Feng’s stomach. Ye Feng’s body doubled over like a bent shrimp, skidding across the cold marble floor.

Curiously, Ye Feng felt no physical pain. A surge of rage boiled in his chest—he wanted to spring up and land two heavy blows right on the guy’s jaw. Growing up, he had never been shoved around like this. Being dominated by women in this world was one thing, but letting another man kick him around? That was where he drew the absolute line!

Before he could push himself off the ground, a familiar, imposing figure slowly approached.

Ye Feng raised his gaze in dazed silence, his eyes locking onto hers.

Yet Mu Yuchen’s eyes lingered on him for barely a fraction of a second before turning indifferently toward the other man.

“What’s going on here?” she asked softly.

“It’s this useless little pet,” the man scoffed, gesturing dismissively. “He can’t even handle basic chores without spacing out.”

“I see,” Mu Yuchen replied casually. “Throw him out tomorrow. Keeping him around just wastes food anyway—he’s utterly useless.”

Ye Feng froze in place, the cold words echoing endlessly in his ears like a terrifying loop.

In the physical world, Ye Feng’s brow furrowed tightly as an expression of profound emotional agony contorted his sleeping features.

“Miss, that’s as far as we can push the psychological conditioning for tonight.”

“It’s fine. As long as we plant the core psychological seed, that’s enough,” Murong Fanghua agreed with a subtle nod. All she needed was an implicit narrative—a hidden mental wedge—so that when the critical moment arrived tomorrow, the desired psychological collapse would trigger effortlessly.

“Alright, go get some rest.”

“Yes, Miss!”

Once the team departed, Murong Fanghua took a quick shower in the master bathroom before sliding under the covers on the opposite side of the king-sized bed.

“NO!”

Ye Feng let out a sudden, panicked shriek, bolting upright on the mattress. The pale, early morning light filtering through the sheer curtains gradually pulled his frantic mind back to reality.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his heart pounding violently against his ribs. The nightmares had been terrifyingly vivid—an endless cascade of nested dreams where every single scenario ended with Mu Yuchen coldly abandoning him like garbage. He almost felt like he was trapped inside an inescapable psychological thriller.

Rubbing his throbbing temples, Ye Feng tried to rationalize the experience. What you think about during the day, you dream about at night… right?

As he turned to slide back under the duvet, he froze—catching sight of Murong Fanghua sleeping soundly right beside him. Wondering when she had slipped into bed, he carefully shuffled toward the far edge, putting as much physical distance between them as possible.

Across the city, the busiest person in the metropolis was undoubtedly Mu Yuchen. She hadn’t anticipated her corporate rivals would move with such ruthless speed—within a single day, nearly seventy percent of her core corporate staff had resigned or defected.

The replacement personnel flooding into the vacant positions were almost certainly plant operatives sent by the syndicate. Meanwhile, Du Xiaowen, having lost her mind over Ye Feng’s disappearance, was in a completely unhinged, useless state—leaving Mu Yuchen to shoulder the entire weight of the corporate empire single-handedly. But no matter how capable she was, one person couldn’t manage a mega-corporation alone.

She was now backed into an impossible corner, forced to make a devastating choice:

Option one: Abandon Ye Feng entirely. She could then redirect her full focus and assets toward crushing her corporate enemies, saving her life’s work without wasting valuable strategic resources fighting Murong Fanghua.

Option two: Choose Ye Feng and let the company fall.

Abandoning her company was out of the question—it carried her entire life’s ambition. Yet abandoning Ye Feng made her chest ache with unbearable regret.

If only… if only someone could step up and share this crushing burden with her. But there was no one. She had to face the storm alone.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Everyone understood the principle, yet everyone desperately wished they could hold onto both. When one couldn’t fry the fish and the bear paw in a single pan, the logical choice was to use two pans.

Unfortunately, in the real world, finding a second pan was sometimes an impossible luxury.

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