Chapter 589: Zhang Yaqian's Beautiful Eyes Sparkle with Curiosity!
"This young man, I wonder which wealthy family's scion he is from Jinxiu Mountain Villa. He's so… unreliable."
Director Zhang looked at Shen Anyu's departing figure, feeling a bit amused, and offered his assessment. He didn't take it too seriously; there was no loss, just a joke.
Perhaps it was a unique way to flirt, wanting to impress his precious daughter, Zhang Yaqian.
Director Zhang felt a little proud, knowing how many Young Masters from Hangzhou's upper society admired his precious daughter.
However, Director Zhang had an excellent relationship with Zhao Chenguang, another of Hangzhou's top ten wealthiest individuals. Their families were well-matched, and a marriage alliance had been set long ago.
"Yaqian, your Uncle Zhao's son has returned from studying abroad. You two are close in age. Let's pick an auspicious day for you to get married," Director Zhang said, his gaze settling warmly on his daughter, Zhang Yaqian.
Hearing this, Zhang Yaqian's perfectly sculpted brows knitted together in a delicate frown. A flicker of reluctance crossed her expressive eyes before she deftly concealed it, her voice taking on a sweet, coquettish tone.
"Daddy, I'm still young. I want to spend a few more years with you. I don't want to get married just yet."
"Oh, you," Director Zhang chuckled, his face a mask of doting affection. The truth was, he was also loath to part with his daughter so soon. "Then we can wait a little longer."
Zhang Yaqian let out a quiet sigh of relief, the tension in her shoulders easing. Her starry eyes turned to the window of the extended Bentley. As the luxury vehicle glided silently through the streets, the neon-streaked trees and lampposts of Hangzhou slid by in a mesmerizing blur. A ripple of defiance disturbed the calm surface of her thoughts.
'Zhao Tao wants to marry me? Hmph, he can dream on. That idiot.' Her internal voice was laced with a cold disdain that would have shocked anyone who only knew her as the gentle, refined heiress. 'He puts on a good show, pretending to be a gentleman, but he's nothing more than a good-for-nothing playboy. Others might be fooled by his family's money and his rehearsed smiles, but me? I know exactly who he is.'
She had long since grown tired of his empty posturing. While he was "studying" abroad, she had leveraged her own connections, asking friends to keep an eye on him. The reports that came back were exactly as she'd expected. Zhao Tao, who claimed to be a music major at a prestigious conservatory, couldn't tell a C-sharp from a B-flat. He spent his days and nights squandering his family's money on cars, parties, and a rotating cast of women, not in practice rooms or lecture halls.
'He even had the audacity to post on his social media yesterday, declaring his ambition to become a god in the Summer music scene. A god? More like a court jester. The only thing he's mastered is the art of delusion.'
Outwardly, she maintained the serene, graceful demeanor of a virtuous young lady from a distinguished family. Inwardly, however, a storm of contempt was brewing. Her disdain for her so-called fiancé, Zhao Tao, was a bottomless well. Their families might be a perfect match on paper, a union of two corporate dynasties, and he might have been fawning over her like a puppy since they were children, but none of it mattered. Zhang Yaqian disliked him with every fiber of her being.
She wasn't some damsel in distress in need of a financial savior. As the sole heir to the Yunhai Group, a corporate titan in Hangzhou, a family fortune measured in the hundreds of billions was her birthright. What would an alliance with the Zhao family bring her? Another string of zeroes in a bank account she already struggled to comprehend. It was just a number, meaningless and cold.
What she craved was substance. She admired men of true talent, men with capability forged in fire, not handed to them on a silver platter.
'Speaking of talent… the Summer music scene has been incredible lately,' her thoughts drifted, a genuine spark of interest lighting her eyes. '"Blue and White Porcelain," "East Wind Breaks," "Jiangnan," "Myriad Borders"… all those masterpieces, and they were all composed and released by a single person? They call him the "God of Chinese Music." The nickname is a bit over the top, but his talent… his talent is obvious.'
She found herself lost in the soaring melodies and profound lyrics of his songs, a world away from the shallow noise that Zhao Tao and his ilk considered music.
'If Zhao Tao had even half… no, even one-tenth of the talent that man possesses, I might be willing to give him a second look.'
A wistful sigh escaped her lips. She gently bit her lower lip, her beautiful eyes downcast. Her long, thick eyelashes, like delicate fans, cast soft shadows on her flawless skin. Her thoughts took a sudden, melancholic turn.
'Twenty years. It's been twenty years since the Hangzhou Zhang Family was annihilated. Zhang Zhiyun… my brother… are you still alive?'
The name was a phantom pain in her heart. A flood of fragmented memories washed over her: a warm hand holding hers, a cheerful laugh, the feeling of being lifted high into the air. Though she was only a small child when the tragedy struck, she had been precocious, and the image of her older brother was seared into her mind. She knew the official reports said everyone had perished, but Zhang Zhiyun's body was never found. That single fact had been the seed of a desperate hope she had nurtured for two decades. But twenty years was a long time. She had dispatched private investigators, spent a fortune chasing down whispers and rumors, but every lead had turned into a dead end. Slowly, painfully, that hope had begun to wither.
Her thoughts returning to the present, Zhang Yaqian's gaze fell to her hands. In one, she held the light gold business card; in the other, the napkin with the so-called peace talisman scrawled on it. A faint, amused smile touched her lips again. 'He's quite an interesting person. And very handsome, much more so than Zhao Tao. But I'm not some naive, sheltered girl who falls for a pretty face. This bizarre method of flirting… is he trying to pique my curiosity? Hmph, what a big swindler. As if I'd believe a single word of his nonsense~'
Just as she was lost in her cynical musings, the smooth ride was violently interrupted.
Ahead of them, a red Mazda suddenly swerved, its tires screaming in protest. It lost all control, careening directly into the concrete curb with a sickening crunch. The force of the impact sent the car airborne for a split second before it slammed down onto its side, metal grinding against asphalt. A black Mercedes following too closely had no time to brake. It plowed into the overturned Mazda, the collision echoing like a thunderclap, and it too flipped violently.
"Oh no!" The driver, Old Jiang, shouted, his face instantly draining of color. His hands, seasoned by decades behind the wheel, were a blur of motion. He wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left, trying to swerve around the unfolding catastrophe.
But it was too late.
From the left lane, a massive Land Rover that had been in the middle of overtaking them became an unstoppable projectile. There was no time to react, no space to maneuver.
Time seemed to stretch and warp.
The Land Rover slammed into the side of the Bentley.
Boom!
A cataclysmic impact. The world erupted in a deafening roar of tearing metal and shattering glass. The extended Bentley, a fortress of steel and luxury, was tossed aside like a child's toy. It shook violently, a brutal force transferring through its frame, and began a horrifying, uncontrolled slide sideways, aimed directly at the steel guardrail on the edge of the road.
"Ah…!"
Through the window, Zhang Yaqian saw the railing rushing toward her. The world dissolved into a terrifying, slow-motion blur of impending doom. A scream caught in her throat as she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the agony she knew was coming.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds…
An eternity passed. But the expected impact, the searing pain, never came. There was only the ringing in her ears and the acrid smell of smoke.
Zhang Yaqian cautiously, slowly, opened her starry eyes. The sight that greeted her stole her breath. The car door next to her was twisted into a grotesque sculpture of ruined metal. The safety glass of her window was a spiderweb of a million fractures. Outside, the steel guardrail was bent and broken where her door should have been. Yet, she was completely, impossibly, unharmed. The chaos was inches from her skin, but it hadn't touched her. She felt a profound sense of relief wash over her, so potent it left her weak and trembling.
"Yaqian! Yaqian, are you alright?" Her father, Zhang Yunhai, his voice tight with panic, was frantically unbuckling his seatbelt.
"I… I'm fine, Daddy. Are you alright?" Zhang Yaqian's voice was a shaky whisper. Her pure and beautiful face was ashen, a stark proof of the terror she had just endured.
"I'm fine. That's great, that's great." Zhang Yunhai sagged back into his seat, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. His heart was still hammering against his ribs. The thought of what could have happened to his precious daughter was a horror he couldn't bear to contemplate.
From the driver's seat, Old Jiang also let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Such a tragic accident… I stuck my head out… the Mazda driver… unrecognizable. People up ahead are saying you could smell the alcohol on him from meters away. Drunk driving is truly a menace…" he stammered, his own shock evident.
"It's a miracle Director Zhang and Miss are both safe. You truly have great fortune… blessed by the heavens…"
Zhang Yaqian and her father, Zhang Yunhai, exchanged a look, managing weak, shaky smiles.
"Eh?" It was then that Zhang Yaqian, her gaze falling to her trembling hands, let out a soft gasp. The peace talisman drawn on the simple napkin, which she had been clutching tightly, was gone. In its place, a small pile of fine, gray ash rested in her palm, dissolving into nothingness in the faint breeze from the shattered window.
Zhang Yunhai saw it too. His eyes widened, his jaw going slack. He stared at the ash, utterly shocked and dumbfounded by the scene.
The driver, Old Jiang, turned his head to see what had caused their silence. His eyes landed on the disappearing ash in Zhang Yaqian's hand, and he was rendered speechless. A moment later, his voice emerged, filled with a deep, reverent awe.
"A master… That young man… he's a master!"
Such an incredible, impossible event couldn't be explained by science. It was beyond miraculous.
He had said there would be a disaster, and a disaster had occurred. The body of the Bentley right next to Zhang Yaqian was a mangled wreck, the window was pulverized, the roadside railing was snapped, yet her delicate body was completely untouched.
And the only thing that had changed was this simple peace talisman, which had sacrificed itself, turning to ash. It was too divine!
Zhang Yunhai's mind finally caught up. The shock hit him like a physical blow, and he exclaimed with a voice full of reverence:
"He's truly a Great Master!"
Given his wealth and status, he had encountered individuals from the so-called Artificer world before. Most of them, however, were charlatans and swindlers, peddling cheap tricks for exorbitant fees. A while ago, he had spent five million on a "money tree" from a supposed master to improve his office's feng shui. While it did seem to make the atmosphere more comfortable, he had considered that man, a self-proclaimed Artificer True Person, to be genuinely capable.
But that was nothing. Compared to this, it was like comparing a firefly to the sun.
A mere napkin, a simple pen, a casually drawn talisman—and it had possessed the power to defy a catastrophic, life-threatening car crash!
His earlier impression of Shen Anyu as an "unreliable" young man vanished like smoke. This wasn't unreliability; this was the bearing of a true master—uninhibited, unbound by mortal conventions, completely free-spirited!
Suddenly, the image of Shen Anyu in Zhang Yunhai's mind transformed. He was no longer just some profligate Young Master from a wealthy family, nor was he some obnoxious kid with a clumsy flirting technique. He was a true, hidden master!
His greatness was like a towering mountain; his conduct like a grand road!
Such incomprehensible ability filled Zhang Yunhai with an immense and profound admiration.
Zhang Yaqian, beside him, also had sparkling eyes, filled with relief and surprise:
'He… he wasn't lying? He really saved my life…' The image of Shen Anyu's handsome, confident face filled her mind, now shrouded in a captivating and impenetrable mystery. The dismissive label of "swindler" shattered, replaced by an electrifying curiosity. Who in the world was he?
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