Chapter 3

New Los Central Cathedral.

This cyberpunk Gothic building stands in the center of the city-state, its spires piercing the night sky with laser beams that form a massive emblem of the Gu family conglomerate. Every beam of light proclaims to the entire city: tonight is the grand wedding of the Gu family's female governor.

However, the "bride" standing on the altar is not me.

I stand on the rooftop bar terrace opposite the cathedral, a glass of synthetic whiskey in hand, looking down through the one-way bulletproof glass at the holographic live stream below.

Lucas, dressed in a custom-made pure white haute couture suit from the Gu family, stands beside Grace with a beaming smile. The greed and fanaticism he tries so hard to conceal in his eyes resemble a vicious dog that has finally caught a bone, fawningly swearing to the camera.

"Are you just going to watch Lin Jia's adopted son take your place?" Viktor sat on the leather sofa behind him, wiping the barrel of a heavy hand cannon with a mechanical velvet cloth. "Don't you feel disgusted?"

"What's there to feel disgusted about?" I took a sip of my drink, my voice completely flat. "He's not good enough for me, he's perfect for that piece of trash."

Victor chuckled, about to say something, when a subtle commotion arose on the holographic screen below.

Grace had been distracted during the ring-wearing ceremony.

When the priest asked her if she was willing to accept Lucas Lin as her lawful partner, she froze in mid-air. Her gaze swept past Lucas's shoulder, impatiently scanning the chapel audience—clearly, she was looking for me.

Only when Lucas coughed awkwardly did she snap back to reality, roughly slipping the ring onto Lucas's finger and coldly uttering, "Continue."

"Tsk tsk tsk." Viktor laughed gruffly. "A female governor, looking for her ex at her wedding? She's in a panic."

“She’s not in a hurry, she’s out of control.” I put down my glass, my eyes cold and sharp. “She’s used to everyone fawning over her, used to me wagging my tail like a dog. Now the ‘dog’ has not only run away, but has also shoved another collar into her head. This feeling of being out of control is worse than killing her.”

“Let’s go.” I turned and left the terrace. “The appetizers are done. It’s time to get down to business tonight.”

“What business?”

“To dig up the ancestral graves of Gu’s Heavy Industry.”

On their wedding night, Grace didn't return to their bridal chamber.

Instead, she used her highest-level authority (equivalent to that of a consul) to locate me and, accompanied by a squad of heavily armed bodyguards, kicked open the door to this rooftop bar.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows stretched the dazzling neon lights of New Los Angeles. I sat by the window, a glass of whiskey on the rocks in front of me.

Grace strode in. She hadn't even changed out of her wedding dress; finding the hem cumbersome, she simply used a high-frequency dagger to sever the hem, revealing a black and gold military-grade bulletproof lining. Her meticulously made-up bridal face was icy cold, her eyes blazing with a violent fury.

“Ryan Lynn.” She walked up to me, placed her hands heavily on the table, and stared down at me. “I’m giving you one last chance.”

I didn’t even lift my eyelids, just swirled the ice in my glass.

“That Lucas is a disgrace, he’s disgusting to look at.” Grace gritted her teeth, her tone full of condescension. “You come downstairs with me now and apologize to me in front of the whole city’s media. I’ll cripple Lucas immediately, and the position of Gu’s son-in-law will still be yours.”

I finally looked up and stared at her like she was an idiot.

"The Lin family's meager assets won't survive this quarter's polar winter. You need the Gu family's cash flow, you need me."

Grace leaned forward, attempting to intimidate me with her power. "I can pretend the farce at the summit never happened. As long as you bow your head now—"

"Are you finished?"

I interrupted her.

She paused, startled.

I picked up the glass of whiskey, stood up, and walked over to her.

She tilted her head back, a determined expectation flashing in her eyes; she thought I was going to offer her a drink and soften my stance.

Then, with a flick of my wrist,

the icy whiskey mixed with ice, along with her arrogant handout, was poured directly onto her military boots. The water quickly seeped into the expensive material, making them look extremely disheveled.

"Since the trash has been sorted," I looked down at her condescendingly, "the Lin family will not accept it."

Grace's pupils contracted sharply, her face instantly turning ashen.

“Ryan! Are you crazy?!” She sat bolt upright, her nails digging almost into her palms. “You think you can last long without me? Do you believe I’ll cut off all of the Lin family’s new energy supply chains tomorrow and make you kneel in front of the Gu Group building begging me?”

“Then let’s see.” I sat down again, my eyes as cold as frost. “Let’s see who goes bankrupt tomorrow.”

“You—!” Grace laughed angrily, instinctively reaching for her gun, but instead touched the lace hem of her wedding dress. This made her even more furious.

“Ryan, what are you pretending to be so high and mighty for? You’re just playing this self-destruct game with me because you’re jealous of Karl!” Grace stared intently at me, trying to find a flaw in my expression. “You think you can force me to give him up this way? Dream on! Let me tell you, I will make Karl the best gene donor for the Gu Group, and you’re not even worthy of carrying his shoes!”

Hearing this, I wasn’t angry at all; instead, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Fine.” I looked at her, my eyes filled with pity. “Then I wish Grand Consul Gu a speedy birth of a son.”

Grace was stung by my schadenfreude. She felt like she’d punched cotton; the panic of utterly losing control spread through her for the first time.

She whirled around, her high heels clicking on the glass floor. As she reached the door, she turned back and coldly tossed out, “Ryan Lin, you’ll regret this!”

“My biggest regret is not throwing you a couple more drinks today.”

The door slammed shut.

Victor emerged from the shadows and whistled. “Tsk, if this woman knew her prized uterus was long gone, her expression would be priceless.”

“Soon.” I opened my smart device and smiled coldly. “Her ‘good male concubine’ is already preparing the coffin nails for her.”

Lower City, Gu’s Medical Affiliated Black Clinic.

Karl lay on the hospital bed, staring at his newly reattached, inferior alloy right leg, wincing in pain.

On their wedding night, Grace not only didn't come to see him, but she didn't even send a holographic message. This made Carl feel an unprecedented sense of crisis.

The humiliation at the summit today made him realize that in Grace's eyes, he was nothing more than a plaything that could be discarded at any time. Once that adopted son named Lucas gained a foothold, he could be kicked out at any moment and thrown back to the lower city to wait to die.

No. He had to get an absolute trump card.

Carl gritted his teeth, opened the dark web interface in his smart device, and skillfully logged into a wasteland black market forum called "Gene Furnace".

He found the high-level underground hacker doctor codenamed "Nurturer" and sent an encrypted message:

[I need a viable embryo to conceive. The genetic sequence must be disguised to perfectly fool the highest level of medical AI at Gu's Heavy Industry. Money is not a problem.]

The other party quickly replied: [Three million credits. It must be a live egg from a lower city prostitute for fertilization; only in this way can the survival rate of the embryo be guaranteed.]

Three million! This was almost all the savings that Carl had swindled from Grace over the past two years.

But for the sake of his position as the "Emperor Emeritus of the Gu Family," he didn't hesitate and clicked "Confirm Transfer."

Grace had always dreamed of giving birth to a perfect pure-blooded heir, but she didn't know that she had already been sterilized by radiation. As long as he could "provide" this child, everything in the Gu family would ultimately fall into Karl's hands!

Karl looked at the successful transfer notification, a greedy and ferocious smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

But he didn't know that

at the highest point of this cyber city-state, I was swirling a glass of red wine, using the highest-level holographic monitoring network to capture every single word of his encrypted record of purchasing "prostitute eggs" and burn it into a top-secret data disk.