Chapter Three: Do I Owe You an Explanation?

None of the students present could keep from covering their mouths as they chuckled, all watching with keen interest as events unfolded.

Among them, a few hot-headed idealists, overcome with anger, slammed the table and confronted Liu Jun directly.

“Secretary Liu!”

“This is a class reunion—how could you invite a traitor to our organization?”

Liu Jun only laughed in return. “When I booked the private room, I asked the general manager if dogs were allowed in. He said yes.”

“Never mind his other identities; right now, he’s just a loyal dog to Ye Nation. So why can’t Feng Xu be here?”

His words, dripping with sarcasm, set off a wave of laughter throughout the room.

The man who’d spoken up nodded and clapped in agreement.

“He’s right, that makes sense.”

“Tonight is charity for a dog, after all. We’re not that cruel.”

The laughter grew louder. “Exactly!”

Qi Jie sneered. “No matter if you’re an official in Ye Nation or just a dog, now that you’re back in my Dragon Country, in this city, if I say east, you dare not go west.”

He slammed his foot heavily on the table.

“Lick it clean.”

At once, every eye turned to Feng Xu.

Qi Jie’s smug smile, the memory of his father’s hard-won business being so brutally seized—all of it churned in Feng Xu’s chest, a bitterness he could not swallow.

Turning, Feng Xu asked Pang Shuyi, “Are you sure you want to follow him?”

Qi Jie himself was nothing to him. What mattered was why Pang Shuyi—his own wife—would stand with his enemy.

After all, they weren’t even divorced yet; they were still married!

The accusation in his words made Pang Shuyi spring to her feet, her eyes locking on Feng Xu with fury.

“You think I could ever be with a traitor to our organization?”

“You, who has betrayed your ancestors and your nation, are not worthy of me!”

So, a traitor. Someone who turned his back on his country. The words were almost laughable to Feng Xu, but he could not reveal the truth to her.

Pang Shuyi let out a cold snort, her gaze filled with disdain. “Feng Xu! Never mind betraying the organization!”

“From the first year I married you, I never enjoyed the life of a wealthy daughter-in-law!”

“If it weren’t for Uncle Feng’s persuasion, you wouldn’t even have ranked among my suitors!”

Feng Xu stood stunned, a hundred emotions warring in him: pain, bitterness, disappointment.

He furrowed his brow. Today, he saw Pang Shuyi’s true colors at last.

Utter disappointment.

From this moment on, their connection was severed. Only his daughter remained in his heart.

“Where is Xiaoxiao?”

Feng Xu’s voice was calm, his eyes devoid of any ripple.

Seeing his composure, Pang Shuyi—for reasons she could not name—felt a pang of pain in her chest.

Was he truly so indifferent to where she would go?

But she didn’t realize that, the moment she leaned against Qi Jie, Feng Xu’s heart had already died.

Seeing Feng Xu unmoved, Pang Shuyi finally lost all restraint. “I will never let you take Xiaoxiao!”

“You’re not fit to be her father!”

“Even if you try to fight me for her, the court would never give Xiaoxiao to a wretch like you!”

After her furious outburst, Qi Jie pulled Pang Shuyi to his side, draped an arm over her shoulder, and looked up with a chilling gaze.

“I’ve met your daughter. She’s quite a beauty.”

“In the future, she’ll surely take her place among the noblewomen of my family.”

Beast!

A family noblewoman—nothing but a tool, forced to sell her dignity for the family’s gain.

Feng Xu’s eyes turned icy. He glanced at Qi Jie’s leg, stretched out on the table—and stomped it down with all his might.

Crack!

Everyone heard the sharp snap of breaking bone.

They stared at Feng Xu in disbelief.

He really dared to attack Qi Jie!

“Aaahhh!”

Caught off guard, Qi Jie’s left leg bent backward from the knee, broken clean through.

The agony drenched him in cold sweat.

“You! You Ye Nation scum dare lay a hand on me?”

“I’ll put you online, just like your mutt of a father—force you to your death!”

Feng Xu had meant to let the matter end there, but Qi Jie had dared to touch his deepest wound.

Without hesitation, Feng Xu hauled Qi Jie up and drove a fist into his face.

Qi Jie’s nose broke with a splatter of blood.

The screams were gut-wrenching, sending chills down every spine.

Feng Xu’s efficiency was that of an executioner—clean, ruthless—striking terror into everyone present.

He cast a cold glance at Liu Jun.

“If this is your idea of a welcome banquet, I don’t mind crippling you as well.”

His eyes, like those of a demon, radiated death. Liu Jun trembled violently, collapsing to his knees with a thud.

He and Qi Jie had both been raised in comfort, accustomed to arrogance, but had never seen such brutality.

“Brother! Feng—please! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

Liu Jun crawled to the table, grabbed a beer, chugged it, then smashed the empty bottle against his head.

“Please, spare me, let me go…”

Pang Shuyi was dumbstruck, then rounded on Feng Xu, cursing, “Feng Xu, do you have any humanity left?!”

“Can’t you stand to see me happy? Must you destroy my happiness?”

“How heartless you are!”

“A traitor, a piece of trash, a waste of a man—those words suit you perfectly!”

“Divorce!”

“I will never let Xiaoxiao go back to Ye Nation with someone like you!”

Qi Jie collapsed into a chair, clutching his useless leg and howling in pain.

“Feng Xu!!!”

“If you have any guts, don’t you dare leave!”

“Let my uncle come!”

“My uncle is a high official in Ye Nation—I’ll have him report you to their superiors and see you punished!”

“I’ll see your family sleeping on the street, see you all wiped out!”

His shrill howls sent a chill through everyone present. Now, they all realized that Feng Xu was not someone to be mocked or insulted at will.

But his identity was complicated, and almost everyone quickly chose sides, following Qi Jie’s orders to call his uncle.

Soon, a white-haired foreign gentleman with a cane entered, accompanied by a bespectacled man in his forties.

“Uncle!”

“It’s him! That’s Feng Xu! Have Dragon Country’s diplomatic envoy Phil report him to Ye Nation—have them punish him!”

“I want his whole family on the streets, to die with nowhere to be buried!”

With his uncle present, Qi Jie’s confidence surged; his sinister laughter sent a chill through the crowd.

“I want him dead!”

Feng Xu studied the two arrivals.

The white-haired foreigner was Ye Nation’s representative at the Dragon Country consulate; the other was the man whose card bore the name Shi Muhai.

Shi Muhai was Qi Jie’s brother-in-law—of course he would stand up for him.

He glanced from Qi Jie to Pang Shuyi beside him, and then to Feng Xu standing alone, and immediately understood.

He drew a heavy breath.

Though Feng Xu was the target, Qi Jie was his brother-in-law. Striking him was an open declaration of disdain.

A sense of hostility toward Feng Xu welled up in Shi Muhai.

He questioned Feng Xu sternly, “Director Feng, Qi Jie is my brother-in-law. You attacked him without cause. How do you explain yourself?”

Feng Xu raised an eyebrow, glancing at Shi Muhai with a faint, mocking smile.

Though both were officials of Ye Nation, the difference in their ranks was vast.

In six years, Feng Xu had delivered more than a dozen research advancements to Ye Nation, making him a top-level director in their research bureau.

Secretly, though, he had also passed more than thirty even more advanced technologies to his own mentor.

Only Director Li knew the truth: Feng Xu was loyal to his homeland, but threats to his family’s lives had forced him to gain Ye Nation’s trust by providing them with research outcomes as well.

Shi Muhai, on the other hand, had done little more than publish a handful of speculative papers and some trivial studies, barely qualifying as a second-tier director—and he truly had betrayed the organization.

In background, research, and vision, Feng Xu looked down on him.

To this traitor, Feng Xu replied coldly,

“Do I owe you an explanation?”