BANG! The door was flung open with such violence it slammed against the wall. Wen Jie stormed in, his face trembling with a toxic blend of envy and rage. His eyes blazed with a vengeful fire that threatened to incinerate the tranquility of the Chairman's office in an instant.
"Father!" Wen Jie bellowed, losing all semblance of self-control.
Li Ming, still bent over a stack of vital documents, slowly lifted his head. He looked at his son through his lenses with a gaze as calm and unruffled as a still lake. "What is it... that warrants such a disgraceful lack of manners?"
"Do you even know, Father? That Gawin is a mole! A traitor in our midst!"
"Wen Jie!..." The Chairman glared at his son with sharp reprimand before shaking his head in weary disappointment. "Have I not taught you? To accuse someone without ironclad evidence is the height of stupidity. Do not act so thoughtlessly again. I despise it."
"I refuse to believe a man like you doesn't know why he embedded himself here!" Wen Jie shot back without breaking stride, his body shaking with fury. Li Ming set his pen down slowly and locked eyes with his son.
"Up until this moment, I have seen Gawin make no mistakes. In fact, he has brought immense value to this company... far more than you, who does nothing but shout and fail to produce a single tangible result!"
"That's just a facade!" Wen Jie stepped up to the desk, encroaching on his father's space. "He's using his position as Director of the Hydrogen Project to spread his influence through CK Group. I am certain Away Logistics is the puppet master that sent him here!"
Li Ming listened to his son with unfathomable eyes. He removed his glasses and began to wipe the lenses with a cloth—slow, deliberate motions that seemed designed to drive his son to the brink of madness while Wen Jie's internal fire roared.
"You don't believe me?" Wen Jie asked, his voice cracking with suppressed agony. "You think my warnings are nothing but fanciful nonsense?"
Li Ming replaced his glasses calmly, picked up a gold fountain pen, and stared so deep into his son's eyes that Wen Jie felt a chill reach the very marrow of his bones. "What I am hearing... is not a report to protect the company's interests. It is Envy—an emotion a grown man should never allow to override his intellect. It would be best if you learned to be still."
"Father!"
"Silence! Find your senses!" Li Ming roared in a low baritone that made Wen Jie flinch. "You have no right to hurl accusations without proof. Reflect on your behavior; you are acting like a child jealous of another's toy."
"But will you just let him infiltrate our company without doing a thing?"
"Do you think a man like me... is so incompetent that I cannot see what is right in front of me?" The Old Dragon rose slowly, his gaze so powerful and heavy that Wen Jie instinctively took a step back. "Is this hot-headed, reckless temperament... what I am supposed to trust with the future of CK Group? If you cannot distinguish between professional duty and petty jealousy, you are unworthy of this seat!"
The cutting critique of his maturity left Wen Jie stunned. Resentment surged through him, momentarily eclipsing his fear of his father. "So you're taking his side? You really don't see that he's planning to tear down the empire you built with your own hands?"
"And should I leave it in the hands of a volatile, envious man like you? Which of you will destroy my company first!" Li Ming fired back with the harshest words he had ever leveled at his son. Wen Jie felt as though he had been punched out of the air; he stood frozen, his shoulders heaving with ragged breath.
"Oh... I see now," Wen Jie let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "You want to hand him the Chairmanship, don't you? The position you guard so fiercely, yet you're ready to serve it up to an outsider from Thailand... instead of your own blood. Mark my words: in the end, you'll have nothing left. You'll be the fool who lost it all to a man like him."
"Stop this madness!" Li Ming thundered, the force of his voice vibrating the pen stand on his desk. "Go and act like a CSO for once. If you applied your brain to strategy as much as you do to finding fault in others, CK Group would have soared ten times further by now!"
Wen Jie stood still, his dignity shredded. His rage was a physical weight, making it hard to breathe. "In this room, there is no father or son... only business. And currently, Gawin is the one who has proven to me that his vision is far sharper than yours," Li Ming concluded icily.
"Even when you know what they're doing... you let them step on our necks like this? What are you thinking!"
"Because this is a gamble on the future of CK Group!" Li Ming stared him down, crushing his own anger beneath his feet. "When a rival moves a piece, you must prove you have the skill to retain the power in your hands."
Wen Jie faltered, his eyes trembling. "And if I can't... you'll really let Gawin replace me?" he asked in a faint, wavering voice.
"What do you think?" Li Ming asked mercilessly. "Do you think I should leave my life's work in the hands of the incompetent?"
Wen Jie stood in silence, his fists clenched so tight his nails bit into his palms. He turned and strode toward the door without a word of parting. But just as his hand gripped the knob, his father's voice trailed behind him...
"But no matter how disappointing you are..." Li Ming exhaled a long, weary sigh. "Ultimately, you will still succeed me as Chairman... Try to act like a worthy heir."
That sentence drove home a painful truth: he held his position not because of a talent his father took pride in, but as a mere puppet of bloodline. Wen Jie looked back at his father one last time, his gaze a volatile mix of relief that his title was secure, and a deep-seated hatred for being branded as lesser than an outsider.
SLAM! He closed the door behind him, leaving a hollow silence. The war for power was no longer just against Gawin; it was now a cold war between father and son that would change the destiny of CK Group forever.