Chapter 1097: Chapter 1097: The Reason Behind Li Shengxiao’s Personality Formation

Rong Yan climbed up the ladder, “Of course not. Even if you were angry, you’d still be a magnanimous man. If you weren’t open-minded and generous, I wouldn’t be sitting here comfortably, with the chance to invite you for coffee.”

She smiled faintly, “Moreover, you must also believe that the value of a gift doesn’t lie in its price.”

“Hahaha!” Lin Teng’s laughter boomed, hearty and cheerful to the extreme.

He didn’t hide his fondness for Rong Yan in his eyes and said with a smile, “I finally understand why Zhiya likes you so much. You really are a girl who’s hard not to like, with a cheerful personality that suits Shengxiao.”

Speaking of Li Shengxiao, his expression gradually became somber, “Shengxiao had a tough journey to get to where he is today. He didn’t succeed as effortlessly as people outside think. Initially, his father died in a car crash, and in the last moments on the surgical table, he grabbed my hand, begging me to take good care of his mother and him. It’s embarrassing to say, but I, as his uncle, explicitly promised my brother-in-law but failed to fulfill it properly.”

Rong Yan had never heard Li Shengxiao mention these things before; she stayed silent, not interrupting, sitting up straight with a respectful heart, quietly being a listener.

Lin Teng might have been bottling it up for a while, and now that the topic had come up, he unexpectedly opened his heart and continued, “The biggest regret of my life is not taking care of him and his mother well enough, letting them suffer too much pain. When Shengxiao was 16, it coincided with my assignment abroad. That year, some irreconcilable conflicts broke out at home, and Shengxiao and Zhiya moved out of the Lin Family. By the time I learned about it, they had been gone for a year. That year, Li Group was unstable. Zhiya, who had grown up in the Lin Family, had the ability but lacked experience. Moreover, being overly protected by us before her marriage, and then by Shengxiao’s father afterward, she inevitably fell into traps in the treacherous business world. I remember that the Li Group was nearly acquired in a trap set by others. Not wanting to see her husband’s efforts destroyed by her own hands, Zhiya ran back to her family for help but was refused. Despondent, she called me; that was how I found out they had left home.”

“But I was overseas, you know the nature of my job; I couldn’t just return to the country. I submitted a request; the fastest approval would take three months. At that time, it was Shengxiao, who had just entered university, who stepped forward. As a shareholder, he entered the Li Group and within three months, decisively dealt with the rebellious seniors in the company, expanded the business territories, unearthed internal spies, and thoroughly resolved the crisis. It was from that time that he truly became the head of Li Group.”

Lin Teng’s eyes swirled with regret, not boasting about Li Shengxiao’s excellence, but deeply blaming himself, “At that time, Shengxiao was only 16, inexperienced in everything. People from outside all thought he relied on the Lin family’s background to climb to where he is today, but only I know that ever since Zhiya and the family broke ties, the Lin Family hadn’t helped him at all. Everything he has today is all by himself. It’s because he had to be so strong and independent throughout his journey, taking on everything alone, that his personality has become what it is now.”