Chapter 1830 — An Explanation
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 4
Gu Mengyao turned and walked back toward the living room, while Shen Yushu studied An Liwen with an odd, appraising look that sent a chill crawling over his skin. What scheme was this little minx cooking up now? He had already fallen for her tricks more than once.
In truth, Shen Yushu had no intention of setting a trap for him—she was simply wondering privately whether this whole business was as clean as it appeared, or whether the innocence was all a performance.
"All right. Whatever you have to say, say it now," Gu Mengyao told An Liwen.
"Yaoyao, you may believe in your heart that Uncle Chu's bankruptcy—and his suicide by car when he had nowhere left to turn—was our family's doing. But how unjustly have the Ans been treated? My father lent Uncle Chu money, and for that my grandfather gave him a thorough dressing-down!" An Liwen smiled bitterly. "If Grandfather weren't so fond of me, I expect even this villa of yours wouldn't be safe—it would surely have been taken back!"
"The businesses have all ended up under your family's name. What more could you possibly want?" Gu Mengyao countered.
"Uncle Chu's businesses and the Gu Group shares did indeed come into our family's hands. But have you considered, Yaoyao, that what my father lent your father was three billion in cash? Reckon it up—the Gu Group shares and those properties, added together, do they come to three billion? Even if they exceed it, what our family put out was cash, and what we bought back were shares and property. Invisibly, that means a heavy loss!" An Liwen explained. "After all, property isn't money until it's sold, and shares won't return their value unless the company is run. But our family no longer has that three billion, and even our own company's operations have suffered for it. All told, we're victims too!"
"You're saying the three billion you lent my father was lost as well—it never went into your pockets?" Naturally Gu Mengyao did not believe him.
"Yaoyao, to be honest, it was indeed my father who pulled your Uncle Chu into this project in the beginning. Perhaps that is what made you misunderstand." An Liwen went on: "But in the later stages, my father kept urging Uncle Chu to pull out, and Uncle Chu was like a man possessed—nothing my father said would get through to him. Out of regard for an old friend of many years, my father couldn't refuse him, and so he took the risk of lending him the money..."
"Daddy is lying in the hospital, unconscious, and only now do you say all this. How am I supposed to believe you?" Gu Mengyao said, not the least bit moved.
"Ah, I knew you wouldn't believe me..." An Liwen shook his head helplessly. "But it doesn't matter, Yaoyao. Our company records all its phone calls. If you truly don't believe me, I'll have someone pull up the recordings from back then, and you can listen for yourself!"
"Recordings? Really?" Hearing this, Gu Mengyao grew uncertain again. Could it really be that her father had ignored all advice and clung stubbornly to his course? When she had called him back then, he had seemed so frenzied, and when Qing-bo tried to counsel him, he hadn't seemed to care at all...
"Our company is not like your father's. Three people have the final say—my grandfather, my uncle, and my father. So when a decision goes wrong, someone has to be held accountable for it, and one must know who made the call. To keep anyone from denying it later for lack of evidence, all calls are recorded..." An Liwen was plainly starting to talk nonsense now; in the An family business, at present only Old Master An and An Mingyue had the final say—and even An Liwen himself carried considerable weight.
"Then... bring it up and let me hear it..." Gu Mengyao hesitated. Asking to hear another company's recordings was a rather rude thing to do, but she didn't quite believe An Liwen really had them, and so she had to confirm it for herself.