HDRDTH -Chapter 32 The Lawyer’s Letter from Xingmang Entertainment

The main lights in the Jinshui Bay villa living room weren’t turned on.

Dim yellow streetlights filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the wrinkled A4 papers lying on the coffee table.

Black words on white paper.

At the top was a glaring red official seal.

Yu Xian sat on the sofa like a warlord holding court, casually wearing flip-flops.

The pair of polished old walnuts in his hands stopped turning.

The two walnuts knocked together with a dull thud.

“Why’re you crying?” Yu Xian grabbed two tissues and roughly slapped them onto Su Wanyi’s tear-streaked face. “I spent five damn hours guarding that broken garden lake today. Two thousand fish swam past my hook without even blowing a bubble, and I didn’t cry.”

The grievance Su Wanyi had been holding in all day finally burst out.

She threw herself into Yu Xian’s arms, clutching his gaudy beach shorts tightly as she sobbed loudly.

“Hey, hey, hey! Why’re you pulling my waistband? The kid’s right there watching!”

Yu Xian hurriedly tried prying her fingers loose.

“Xiao Yu… they bullied us! They’re a bunch of animals!” Su Wanyi couldn’t even catch her breath properly between sobs. “Qianqian’s competition… they canceled it.”

Yu Xian froze mid-motion.

Su Qian’s competition?

He turned his head in confusion.

Wasn’t the little girl following him around every day?

When did she even go participate in a competition?

Using tissues to cover her face, Su Wanyi slowly explained everything through broken sobs.

The song Su Qian had sung earlier, Invisible Wings, had skyrocketed in popularity and directly entered the Top 20 of the 7th Global Chinese Music Rankings.

It was supposed to be a classic underdog fairy tale.

As long as she went to Beijing for the finals and won the championship, she would naturally receive a generous prize.

Su Qian had consistently held first place in the voting rankings and was considered the favorite to win.

But this afternoon, the organizers suddenly posted an official notice online, directly revoking Su Qian’s qualification to compete.

“Uncle Yu…”

Su Qian, who had been curled up in the corner of the carpet, finally raised her head.

The little girl’s usually neat twin braids were half undone. She hugged her worn old doll tightly.

The doll’s floral dress had been torn apart, exposing the stuffing inside.

On Su Qian’s fair left cheek was a very obvious red mark—something scratched by fingernails or a hard object.

“They said… Qianqian is a thief. They said the song Qianqian sang was stolen from someone else’s house…”

The little girl’s nose was red as tears streamed down her face.

“Today at school, my deskmate threw my pencil case into the trash can. He said his mom wouldn’t let him sit with a thief who steals things…”

“I didn’t steal… Uncle Yu taught me that song…”

The perpetually sleepy expression on Yu Xian’s face slowly darkened.

He reached over and grabbed the wrinkled A4 papers from the coffee table.

Sender: Xingmang Entertainment Media Co., Ltd.

The entire document was filled with cold legal terminology and arrogance dripping from every line.

The other party claimed that the full lyrics and composition copyright of Invisible Wings had long ago been registered under a gold-medal songwriter employed by Xingmang Entertainment.

Su Qian’s public performance without authorization constituted an extremely severe act of commercial theft.

They demanded the immediate removal of all related videos from the internet.

The guardian was required, within three days, to publish a signed public apology on the front pages of the nation’s three major newspapers.

In addition, they demanded compensation for reputational damage and copyright infringement totaling five million yuan.

Failure to pay on time would result in immediate court enforcement and criminal prosecution.

“Five million?”

Yu Xian laughed from anger.

That pirate boss in the Pacific driving a miniature nuclear submarine only had a bounty worth ten million U.S. dollars.

And some trashy shell company packaging celebrities and running shady deals dared demand five million from him with a single piece of paper?

Dream on.

“Xingmang Entertainment?”

Yu Xian searched through his memories for the name.

After over fifty years navigating the business world in his previous life, he knew companies like this all too well.

Capital manipulation.

Yin-yang contracts.

And all kinds of shady criminal methods hidden beneath the surface.

This company’s favorite trick was exploiting information asymmetry during the early internet era.

They hired people to monitor grassroots trends online every day.

The moment something became popular, they’d immediately rush to register the copyright under the company’s name.

Then they’d slap the real creator with a lawyer’s letter.

Either pay until bankrupt, or obediently sign a ten-year slave contract with a ninety-one revenue split, get squeezed dry, then kicked aside.

Classic copyright thugs.

“Xiao Yu, I spent the whole day running around today. I went to the copyright bureau and even hired the most expensive lawyer.”

Su Wanyi desperately grabbed at her hair.

“The copyright system really shows Xingmang Entertainment registered the song three days ago! The lawyer looked at everything and said that unless we can provide earlier physical drafts proving authorship, there’s no way to win this lawsuit. We’d definitely lose!”

“They’re not only demanding five million—they also hired massive numbers of paid internet trolls to spread rumors on forums and message boards. The whole internet is calling Qianqian a plagiarist and a fraud now! Even the school parents’ group is demanding the school expel her!”

For a single mother, her daughter was her entire life.

She could live on scraps herself.

She could tolerate cold stares and hardship.

But now a group of adults, hiding behind capital and the internet, were trying to crush a little girl to death.

Wasn’t this basically gangster behavior?!

“Xiao Yu, this is Xingmang Entertainment—a major industry giant in Beijing. What do we even have to fight them with?”

“Stop.”

Yu Xian crumpled the lawyer’s letter into a ball and tossed it into the trash can two meters away.

“Did water get into your brain or something?”

“This isn’t about money. I can pull out five million anytime. What I can’t tolerate is them throwing shit at Qianqian’s name. If we actually pay them, that would confirm we infringed!”

Su Wanyi anxiously pounded the sofa.

“Then what do we do?! If we don’t pay, they’ll send me to prison! Qianqian’s whole future will be ruined!”

“Easy.”

Yu Xian stood up from the sofa and stretched lazily.

“The sky can collapse later. Eating comes first. What do you want for dinner? I picked up a live mandarin fish at the market on the way back. Tonight I’ll make squirrel-shaped mandarin fish to get rid of the bad luck.”

“Xiao Yu! At a time like this, you’re still thinking about food?!”

Su Wanyi was so angry she was sniffling uncontrollably.

“So if the sky falls, we stop eating?” Yu Xian curled his lip.

Wearing his flip-flops, he headed toward the kitchen.

As he passed Su Qian, his large hand rubbed her head heavily.

“Go wash your face and wipe away those tears. If something belongs to you, nobody can take it away. Don’t cry over every tiny thing.”

Bang—

The sliding kitchen door was pulled shut.

The sobbing from the living room was completely isolated.

Yu Xian stood before the stainless-steel counter, looking down at the fat mandarin fish still swimming in the sink basin.

His original life plan had truly been perfect.

With the knowledge accumulated from his previous life and this young body, he had intended to peacefully live as a kept man in this era full of pitfalls.

Sleep until noon every day.

Cook delicious meals for his wife and daughter.

Then carry a fishing rod to the water and sit there all day long.

No disturbances.

No schemes.

True laid-back freedom.

He hated trouble most of all.

But now, trouble had not only smashed his wife’s livelihood and ruined his daughter’s reputation—

The worst part was that they even wanted to steal the money he used to buy premium fishing gear.

Yu Xian opened the nearby drawer.

Inside lay a knife.

A boning knife.

The handle was wrapped in black tape, while the blade carried dark-red rust stains from years past.

He reached out and gripped the handle.

The final traces of his lazy salted-fish demeanor vanished completely.

The ruthless tycoon from his previous life—the one who had slaughtered his way through the brutal business world without mercy—instantly awakened.

He casually smacked the back of the knife against the mandarin fish’s head.

Thump.

Water splashed everywhere.

The fish flipped belly-up immediately, not even getting the chance to struggle.

Scale scraping.

Gill removal.

Gut slicing.

All completed in one smooth motion.

Yu Xian laid the fish flat on the cutting board.

His wrist turned.

The boning knife slid straight down along the spine, blade grinding against bone with sharp crack crack sounds.

An entire intact fish skeleton was removed and tossed into the nearby trash bin.

Next came the scoring cuts.

Horizontal.

Vertical.

The blade danced lightly across the fish meat. Every cut reached the skin without damaging it in the slightest.

Information about Xingmang Entertainment from his previous life flashed rapidly through his mind.

Zhang Xingmang, founder of Xingmang Entertainment.

Why exactly did this bastard go to prison at the end of 2003 again?

Ah right.

Money laundering.

Using fake film crews and inflated actor salaries to launder dirty money through accounting books.

That dirty ledger was hidden inside their upcoming New Year blockbuster film, Peerless Elegance.

And that so-called “gold-medal songwriter” of theirs?

In reality, he was a habitual scammer who tricked university students into handing over their original songs.

Their underwear was filthy from top to bottom.

Yu Xian pinched the knife tip and flipped the fish meat over.

The tender white flesh spread beautifully across the cutting board like ears of wheat.

Death by a thousand cuts was nothing more than this.

He turned on the faucet and carefully washed away the fish blood and slime from his hands.

After drying them with tissues, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed a number.