Rich CEO Poses As Beggar To Test Hearts, But A Girl Pays Millions To Hire Him As Contract Husband

Lu Miaomiao’s face turned the exact shade of her scarlet dress.

"You—!" She stood up so fast her high heels clicked like pistol shots against the marble. "Who do you think you are? Do you know where you are standing?"

"She is standing beside my grandson," a voice cut through the air.

It wasn't loud, but it had the dry, heavy authority of iron that had been forged in a furnace sixty years ago.

The old man—Lu Zhengyi—lifted his head. His eyes were small, milky with cataracts at the edges, but deep inside the iris, there was a sharp, piercing intelligence that hadn't dulled with age. He leaned both hands on his silver-headed cane, studying Lin Chen from her wet canvas shoes to the top of her dark, messy ponytail.

"Grandfather," Lu Guowei—the middle-aged uncle—said quickly, standing up with a panicked smile. "Don't listen to this nonsense. Zongheng has lost his mind! He skipped the quarterly strategy meeting with the State Bank to bring this... this street girl into the family home! This is an insult to the Lu family name!"

"Shut up, Guowei," the old man said without looking at his son.

He gestured with his chin toward Lin Chen. "Girl. Come here."

Lin Chen felt Lu Zongheng's fingers touch her back—a brief, reassuring pressure—before she stepped forward alone. She walked across the vast expanse of black marble until she was standing three feet from the old man's chair.

"What is your name?" Lu Zhengyi asked.

"Lin Chen."

"Who is your father?"

"Lin Shan," she said clearly. "He was a lathe operator at the Second Machine Tool Factory before it went bankrupt. He died seven years ago."

Lu Guowei snorted behind his hand. "A lathe operator's daughter. Zongheng, is this your grand idea of a joke? You marry a peasant to spite the board?"

Old Man Lu lifted his cane and struck the marble floor—BANG. The noise echoed off the high rafters, making Lu Guowei jump back half a foot.

"Lin Shan," the old man murmured, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Lin Chen's face. "The Second Factory. Sixty-two millimeter drive shafts. He was the only worker in the province who could turn a shaft by hand with a tolerance under two microns."

Lin Chen blinked, surprised. "You knew my father?"

"I bought my first three lathes from his workshop," Old Man Lu said, his expression softening by a fraction of a degree. "He was a stubborn man. Never accepted a bribe from the German auditors. Died poor because he wouldn't sign off on cheap steel."

The old man turned his head slowly to look at his grandson.

"You have better taste than your uncle, Zongheng," the old man said flatly. "Your uncle married a woman whose father went to prison for real estate fraud three years later."

"Grandfather!" Lu Guowei protested, his face turning gray.

"Show me the red books," Old Man Lu commanded.

Lu Zongheng stepped forward, pulled the two marriage certificates from his inner breast pocket, and laid them on the small tea table beside the old man's elbow.

Lu Zhengyi picked one up, opened it, and ran his thumb over the official red seal of the Civil Affairs Bureau. He held it up to the light, checking the watermark with the practiced habit of a man who had spent forty years detecting forged bills.

"It's real," the old man said, setting the book back down. He looked up at Lin Chen. "He paid you, didn't he?"