Chapter 165: An Undeserved Calamity

"Very well, truly arrogant. What do they do for a living? Does anyone know?" Liang Zhanpeng said the word "good" three times in his anger, then swept his gaze across the Chen family guests standing around him.

The guests of the Chen family all lowered their heads, but a few clever ones among them lit up with realization the moment Liang Zhanpeng spoke.

Had it been the past, none of them would have dared to offend a wealthy man like Dai Yanqiu, but things were different now.

Because of the offense given to Hong Yu, Liang Zhanpeng did not even intend to spare the Chen family, let alone allow a mere grasshopper like Dai Yanqiu to continue jumping around.

Two young men from among the Chen family's guests stepped forward.

Facing Liang Zhanpeng, a top-tier tycoon of Huaizhou, these two youths bowed without the slightest hesitation.

"Please rise. I admire your courage in stepping out. Be sure to leave a business card with my secretary later." Liang Zhanpeng was very polite. As a business tycoon who had navigated the corporate world for many years, he naturally understood that these young men were doing this in hopes of a reward.

The two youths were overjoyed. They had only been willing to take a gamble, never expecting their wish to be fulfilled right from the start.

As long as they could become familiar faces to Liang Zhanpeng, their future prospects would truly be boundless.

"Damn it, those two treacherous dogs!" Chen Shufen raised her head slightly and discovered that the two youths who had stepped out were actually her former classmates, immediately filling her with gnashing hatred.

Dai Yanqiu asked anxiously, "Who are those two idiots? Do you know them?"

Chen Shufen said bitterly, "They're my classmates. Damn it, if I had known, I wouldn't have invited these two beasts!"

"You... Chen Shufen, those were the people you invited! This time you're going to get me killed!" Dai Yanqiu's breathing grew heavy with fury. Had Liang Zhanpeng and the others not been present, he surely would have struck Chen Shufen right then and there.

Chen Shufen did not dare to utter a word, knowing those were indeed her classmates.

Those two youths held nothing back. Eager to please Liang Zhanpeng, they spilled everything they knew, detail by detail.

The more Lin Shuyu and Dai Yanqiu listened, the paler their faces became.

The two youths knew a great deal—likely because Chen Shufen had frequently boasted about them in her social media circles—and even revealed their branch offices located in neighboring cities. At this point, their very base camp had been completely uprooted.

"Thank you both. You will be handsomely rewarded afterward!" Liang Zhanpeng nodded, then turned his gaze to Dai Yanqiu and Chen Shufen.

"Well, well, soon to be the CEO of a listed company, no wonder you dared to be so arrogant," Liang Zhanpeng sneered.

Dai Yanqiu knew that if he didn't speak now, he would never get another chance.

He hurriedly stepped forward and dropped straight to his knees on the floor without a second word.

"Director Liang, all of this is entirely my fault. I shouldn't have had eyes like a dog and looked down on others, and I shouldn't have spoken that way to Mr. Hong. Please forgive me this once!"

Liang Zhanpeng continued to sneer, offering no reply.

*Slap—*

Seeing this, Dai Yanqiu immediately began to viciously slap his own face.

Seeing Dai Yanqiu in this state, some of the Chen family's relatives and guests felt schadenfreude, while others sighed with emotion.

"Heh, serves him right. That's what he gets for humiliating others like that."

"I've only ever heard of the saying that the river flows east for thirty years and west for thirty years, but I never expected the tides to turn completely in less than a day."

"Mr. Hong was just playing with him. No wonder I didn't think Mr. Hong looked very angry earlier—it turns out he simply didn't take Dai Yanqiu and the Chen family seriously at all!"

"I must say, the Chen family are absolute idiots, aren't they? A true dragon of a son-in-law, and they treated him like a mudfish! They deserve to be treated this way!"

"Just watch, however they humiliated Mr. Hong earlier, Liang Zhanpeng and the others will surely pay them back a hundredfold. We probably won't even see the Chen family in Huaizhou anymore."

"Today is Old Master Chen's birthday, but it is also the end of the Chen family. How poignant."

Watching Dai Yanqiu slap his own face and listening to the murmurs of the guests, the faces of the Chen family members turned even uglier.

"Go ahead, keep slapping yourself, but it won't make me pity you," Liang Zhanpeng said from his high perch.

"Scum like you actually dared to humiliate Mr. Hong; dying wouldn't be punishment enough. Just wait, you won't be spared a single fraction of the punishment coming to you."

With a mournful expression, Chen Shufen mustered her courage and suddenly collapsed to her knees before Liang Zhanpeng.

She wailed pitifully, "Everyone, please spare our family and my husband. For the sake of Shuyu being a member of the Chen family, please let us off just this once."

Liang Zhanpeng exchanged glances with the surrounding wealthy magnates from Hannan.

If Chen Shufen had tried to pressure them by bringing up anyone else at that moment, they would have likely taken action on the spot.

However, bringing up Lin Shuyu made the situation rather tricky.

No matter what, these people were still Lin Shuyu's relatives. If they went too far, it would be troublesome if Lin Shuyu became angry.

These Hannan tycoons had all witnessed just how deeply Hong Yu cherished his wife.

Previously, that disciple of Huang Tian had merely kicked away Hong Yu's gift and had been instantly blasted to death with a single punch from Hong Yu. They certainly did not want to follow in the footsteps of Huang Tian's disciple.

Nevertheless, after conferring among themselves, these Hannan tycoons concluded that the punishment must still proceed; at most, they wouldn't go to extremes, and would stop the moment Lin Shuyu told them to.

To win Hong Yu's favor, they had to ensure the Chen family faced retribution.

"Hmph! There is no need for you to invoke Madam Hong to plead your case."

"I heard that you even humiliated Madam Hong together with the rest earlier. What? Now that things have gone south, you want to use Madam Hong to pressure us?"

"Let me tell you, unless Mr. Hong personally tells us to stop, all of you can just prepare to die here in Huaizhou!"

Liang Zhanpeng rebuked angrily, then turned his gaze to the bodyguards. "Pass down my orders: starting today, no member of the Chen family—including this so-called CEO of a quasi-listed enterprise—is permitted to leave Huaizhou."

"If any of them attempt to flee, break their legs on the spot and haul them right back here. Understood?"

"Understood!" the bodyguards shouted in unison.

"This... Director Liang, we aren't even members of the Chen family!" some distant relatives of the Chen family cried out in alarm.

Liang Zhanpeng sneered, "Do you share the surname Chen? Or are you related by blood to the Chen family? In short, anyone tied to the Chen family by kinship—I won't let a single one of you slip away."

The guests who had merely come to share the banquet breathed a sigh of relief. Since they were only colleagues, friends, or classmates, the crackdown wouldn't reach them.

However, the distant relatives of the Chen family panicked completely.

They shouted hurriedly, "Director Liang, although we have some distant family ties to the Chen family, we don't even visit them once a year! Besides, when they were humiliating Hong Yu earlier, we didn't utter a single word!"

"Didn't utter a single word?" Liang Zhanpeng laughed mockingly. "Then I haven't punished the wrong people!"

"Damn it, you stood by and watched Mr. Hong being humiliated without saying a peep? You deserve this!"

The distant relatives of the Chen family were left dumbfounded.

Who would have thought that even staying silent would make them targets? This... this was truly an unmerited disaster falling upon their heads.