Reborn With A System: Your Bragging Lies; My Fortune

CHAPTER 7 - THE GOLDEN CRANE

LIN FENG'S POV

I slammed my palm against the elevator button three times before realizing it was already lit. My reflection stared back at me in the polished steel doors, jaw tight, eyes darker than I remembered them being that morning.

I had told myself the whole ride across the city that I would think this through carefully. I would weigh every risk before deciding whether to walk into a trap set by someone I could not name.

Instead, I had grabbed my jacket, shoved my cracked phone into my pocket, and left before caution could talk me out of it.

The elevator doors opened.

I stepped into a hallway lined with gold trim and soft lighting, the kind of hallway that made it obvious I did not belong in a place like this.

Not with these clothes, not with this face that still carried ten years of poverty in every hollow line. Nobody stopped me or looked twice.

The Golden Crane was busy enough with wedding guests and business travelers that one more tired-looking man moving through the lobby barely registered.

At the third floor, east wing, I found the corridor exactly where the stranger's message said it would be. It was quiet and empty compared to the noise below. A long stretch of closed doors lined both sides, brass numbers gleaming beneath recessed lights.

My phone buzzed once more in my pocket, I pulled it out. "At the end of the hall, the door's unlocked. Hurry, before he finishes."

My heart slammed against my ribs. Before he finishes? Who was the stranger talking about? Ryan? The collector? Or someone else?

I put the phone away and moved forward slowly, my footsteps nearly silent against the thick carpet. Every instinct screamed that this was exactly the kind of foolish, reckless decision that had gotten me killed the first time.

But I kept walking until I reached the door and pressed my palm flat against it. For one long breath, I hesitated, then I pushed it open just enough to see inside.

Ryan stood in the center of an empty banquet room that was still being prepared for that evening's event. Tables were stacked against the far wall, and chairs had not yet been arranged.

He wasn't alone.

A man in an expensive gray suit stood across from him with his arms crossed. Two other men stood behind him, silent and watchful.

They didn't look like guests. They looked like the kind of men you hired when you wanted a debt collected without leaving room for negotiation.

I stayed frozen in the doorway, my breath caught somewhere in my chest. Ryan looked nothing like the man from the group chat. His shoulders were hunched and his face was pale.

Sweat glistened along his forehead, and his hands twisted together nervously in front of him. For the first time since I had woken up, I saw something I had never expected to see.

Ryan Zhou was afraid.

"I told you that I need more time," Ryan said, his voice cracking. "The reunion is tonight. Everyone's going to see me as successful, and once they invest and the deals start coming in, I'll have your money within the month."

The man in the gray suit gave a low, humorless laugh. "You said the same thing last month, Zhou." Ryan swallowed hard as the man went on, "My patience has a price, and you're well past it."

"I have something better than money," Ryan said quickly. Desperation bled through every word. The man in the gray suit raised an eyebrow and Ryan saw it as his window of opportunity.

"There's someone coming tonight. An old friend. Poor as dirt his whole life, but something happened. He's been moving money around, buying up assets. I don't know how, but he's connected to something bigger than anyone realizes." My body went still.

Ryan continued. "Give me until tonight. Let me bring him to you instead. He can cover what I owe." My blood went cold, he was talking about me. I had known, thanks to Su Wan's warning, that Ryan intended to use me somehow.

But hearing him confirm it in his own desperate voice was different. He wasn't planning to embarrass me, he was offering me to men who looked capable of far worse than humiliation.

The man in the gray suit studied Ryan for a long moment, then he spoke. "You have until midnight." Ryan's shoulders loosened slightly in relief. "If this friend of yours doesn't cover what you owe, we take it out of you instead." The man's expression hardened. "And I promise you, Zhou, that conversation will be far less pleasant than this one."

Ryan's face drained of color, the man turned toward the door.

My entire body locked instantlyas his two men fell into step behind him. There was nowhere to run in the empty hallway.

No time to disappear. I pressed myself back against the wall beside the doorframe, holding my breath as the footsteps approached. The door swung open, the man in the gray suit stepped through.

He was close enough that I could smell his expensive cologne, if he turned his head even slightly, he would see me so I didn't move, neither could I breathe nor did I blink.

But he walked straight past me without a glance and his men followed. Their footsteps slowly faded down the corridor toward the elevator, I remained pressed against the wall for several seconds after they disappeared.

Only then did I release the breath trapped in my lungs and did my hands were shaking.

I looked through the open doorway, Ryan was alone now. He stood in the middle of the half-finished banquet room, shoulders slumped, one hand dragging slowly over his face.

For several seconds, he said nothing, then he lowered his hand and his entire expression changed. The fear disappeared, his shoulders straightened and his eyes hardened. It was as if the frightened man I had just watched begging for more time had never existed.

Then Ryan looked toward the far corner of the room, I followed his gaze. There was someone standing in the shadows, I hadn't noticed them before.

"He'll come tonight," Ryan said, his voice was steady now. "I know exactly how to bait him." He paused. "Lin Feng always did have a weakness for people pretending to care about him." My fingers curled against the wall in anger.

Then another voice answered from the darkness, it came off so familiar that ice shot straight down my spine. "Good.” I held my breath like if I should make the mistake of breathing again, I could get caught.

The voice continued. "Because if he doesn't pay what you owe tonight, I'll make certain everyone in that room learns exactly what really happened to him ten years ago." My heart seemed to stop, this person definitely knew more about me.

Ryan didn't respond, the figure stepped slightly forward, but remained mostly hidden in shadow. "And this time, Ryan," the voice continued, "there won't be a body to hide."

I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from making a sound.

My back pressed harder against the wall, my mind screamed one single, horrified realization.

I knew that voice.