GOD MODE FRESHMAN: Trillionaire Simulator

Chapter 31 - 32: The Unmasking

Wei Ruiyuan's finger hovered over the call button, his throat dry as desert sand. Across the table, Ye Chen's phone buzzed insistently. For a heartbeat, time froze—the hum of the restaurant's chandeliers, the clink of silverware, even Bai Hanyan's faint perfume seemed to hang suspended in air.

"Hang up," Wei hissed, his voice cracking. "Can't you see I'm—"

Ye Chen raised the phone to his ear.

" Wei."

Simultaneously, Wei's trembling hand pressed send. A tinny "Hello?" echoed from both devices.

Wei's blood turned to ice. His gaze darted between Ye Chen's calm expression and the glowing screen in his palm. The truth detonated in his skull like a silent grenade.

No. Impossible.

He staggered to his feet, chair screeching against marble. "Y-You... you're—"

Bai Hanyan's chopsticks clattered onto her plate. Her wide eyes traced Wei's ashen face to Ye Chen's impassive posture—a CEO casually dismantling a house of lies.

"Mr. Wei," Ye Chen said, locking eyes with the trembling man. "You wanted eight stores at Xintai Mall?" @@novelbin@@

The words hung like a guillotine blade.

Wei's knees buckled. He gripped the table's edge, knuckles bleaching white. "N-No! I mean... it was just... a joke!" His laughter came shrill, hysterical. "Ha! Right, Hanyan? Just banter between old classmates!"

Bai Hanyan recoiled. The stench of desperation rolled off Wei in waves—sour sweat, cheap cologne, and the metallic tang of humiliation.

Ye Chen leaned back, a panther savoring its prey's squirm. "Your friend," he stressed the word like a scalpel, "might've mentioned vacancies. But eight stores?"

"I—I—"

"Rent for one averages ¥80,000 monthly." Ye Chen tapped his phone. "Eight would cost..."

"Six hundred forty thousand!" Wei blurted, math betraying his earlier claims of wealth.

A beat of silence.

Bai Hanyan's gasp was barely audible. Even the waitstaff paused, sensing the carnage.

Ye Chen's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Precisely. Shall I reserve them under your name?"

Wei's phone slipped from nerveless fingers, cracking against the floor. "N-No need! I... forgot! My aunt's in the hospital! Gotta go!" He fled, trailing shattered pride and the wail of exit chimes.

Epilogue

"Why help my friend?" Bai Hanyan asked later, her voice small as they stepped into the night.

Ye Chen watched Wei's silhouette vanish down the neon-lit street. "Business isn't about crushing fools," he said, handing her a black business card embossed with Xintai Holdings. "It's about turning their greed into your leverage."

The card gleamed under streetlights—a key to doors Wei had pretended to own.

Author's Note:

Pride cometh before the fall—but in Wei's case, it came with a side of seismic humiliation. As Ye Chen's empire expands, who'll be the next to underestimate the wolf in CEO's clothing?