Chapter 177: CEO’s Veto Power: I Do Not Allow You to Die!

The world fell into darkness and deathly silence.

Chu Feng stood quietly, holding in his arms a body that was rapidly growing cold.

Murong Xue’s chest had been pierced through by dozens of magical treasures, her vitality draining away like a receding tide.

Those eyes of hers, always as cold and clear as autumn water, were now looking at him with great difficulty. The light within them was dimming bit by bit.

At the corner of her lips hung a bleak yet beautiful smile of relief.

“President…… it seems…… this time, that ‘risk assessment’…… I…… made a mistake……”

“The Group’s…… greatest risk…… was not…… not the enemy……”

“It was…… ‘human hearts’……”

She used the last of her strength to raise her hand, as if wanting to touch Chu Feng’s face. But that hand drooped powerlessly in midair.

The light in her eyes was completely extinguished.

She was dead.

That woman who always followed behind him, using a crooked set of logic he himself had taught her to argue against him.

That woman who would pour a basin of cold water on him whenever he became carried away with success.

That woman who would retain the last shred of clarity when everyone else was fanatical.

That woman…… who, at the most dangerous moment, would step in front of him without the slightest hesitation.

She was dead.

“Hahaha…… hahahahaha!”

True Lord Xuantian’s rampant laughter echoed throughout the grand hall.

“Chu Feng! Do you see it now? This is the end of being betrayed by all!”

“You thought you calculated everything, but you never calculated human hearts!”

“Now, it’s your turn!”

Cold sword edges pointed at Chu Feng’s vital points from all directions.

Despair, rage, regret, pain……

Countless negative emotions surged like a tide, trying to drown Chu Feng’s rationality.

This was precisely the method at which the heart demon illusion excelled.

It sought to crush one’s Dao heart, plunging them into endless pain and despair until they completely sank.

However……

Faced with all this, Chu Feng’s reaction exceeded the illusion’s “expectations”.

He did not roar. He did not rage. He did not even shed a single tear.

He merely lowered his head, looking at the pale and peaceful face in his arms, remaining silent.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

……

Just as True Lord Xuantian and the others believed he had completely collapsed and were preparing to make their move and finish him off—

Chu Feng slowly raised his head.

On his face, there was no sorrow, no anger.

There was only a kind of…… bone-chilling, absolute calm.

His gaze did not resemble that of a man looking at a departed lover. Instead, it was like that of a seasoned chief engineer inspecting an extremely precise instrument that had malfunctioned.

“Chief Risk Control Officer, Murong Xue.”

He spoke, his voice so calm that not a ripple stirred, as if he were presiding over an ordinary board meeting.

“Regarding the ‘resignation report’ you just submitted, I have several objections.”

The entire grand hall instantly fell silent.

Everyone was stunned, unable to understand what kind of madness Chu Feng was spouting at a time like this.

Chu Feng ignored them, speaking to the “corpse” in his arms as he continued:

“First, your sacrifice was not included in the Group’s ‘risk contingency plans’ and constitutes a serious case of ‘unplanned asset impairment’.”

“Second, as one of the Group’s ‘core management assets’ and ‘brand image spokespersons’, your ‘abnormal exit’ will cause immeasurable and permanent negative impact on the Group’s ‘market reputation’ and ‘investor confidence’.”

“Third, and most importantly.”

Chu Feng extended one finger and lightly tapped Murong Xue’s icy forehead.

“Your actions did not receive my approval.”

He paused, enunciating each word like a judge pronouncing a final verdict.

“According to Article One, Clause One of the Ascension Group Supreme Charter: the CEO possesses veto power over the ‘final disposition’ of all Group ‘assets’.”

“Now, I formally announce—”

“You, Murong Xue’s ‘death proposal’……”

“……I reject it!”

Boom—!

The instant the word “reject” was spoken!

The entire world let out a wail as if it could no longer bear the strain!

Crack! Crack crack crack!

Centered on Chu Feng, savage fissures spread wildly in all directions like a spiderweb!

True Lord Xuantian’s stunned face cracked.

Zhao Wuji’s grief-stricken face cracked.

The magnificent Ascension Grand Hall cracked.

The entire world…… was falling apart!

The underlying logic of the heart demon illusion was “emotion”.

By amplifying the target’s inner fear, rage, and sorrow, it crushed their Dao heart.

It had pre-enacted a thousand possible reactions from Chu Feng, yet it had never anticipated this one!

Using absolute, cold, unreasonable “business rules” to deny “death”, the most fundamental “law of nature”!

This was no longer resisting the illusion.

This was…… defining the illusion!

Everything of yours—joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, birth, aging, sickness, and death—must operate within my “rules” framework!

If I want you to live, you cannot die!

This extreme, overbearing “only me” Dao heart, this domineering logic that regarded the entire world as one’s “private property”, instantly crushed the very foundation upon which the heart demon illusion survived!

“No—! That’s impossible!!”

From the void came a frantic, genderless screech.

The next second, the entire false world shattered with a deafening crash!

……

After the blinding white light faded, Chu Feng discovered that he was still within that chaotic spatial turbulence.

And in his arms, Murong Xue lay quietly, her eyes closed, her face pale, but her breathing steady. It was obvious she had merely exhausted her mind and fallen unconscious.

Everything had been an illusion.

Chu Feng let out a breath of relief and was just about to help her up—

when he noticed a drop of warm liquid sliding down from the corner of Murong Xue’s tightly shut eyes, falling onto the back of his hand.

She…… heard it?

In the illusion, she had heard that utterly outrageous “rejection declaration” of his?

Chu Feng’s heart skipped a beat for no apparent reason. For the first time in his life, he felt a trace of…… embarrassment.

What he did not know was that, at this very moment, a violent storm was unfolding deep within Murong Xue’s sea of consciousness.

Her Dao heart, cultivated through the Heavenheart Immaculate Art and meant to be as calm and undisturbed as a cold pond, was now churning with towering waves.

Scene after scene from the illusion was etched into her soul like the deepest brand.

Especially at the end, when Chu Feng held her “dead” body and spoke those words in a tone so calm it bordered on cruelty.

“Your ‘death proposal’…… I reject it!”

Those words were like a thunderbolt, splitting a deep fissure in her frozen Dao heart.

Absurd, overbearing, utterly unreasonable……

Yet for some reason, when those cold words overlapped with the overwhelming fury that had been barely contained beneath his calm gaze at the time—

they transformed in her heart into an unprecedented…… warm current that made her whole body tremble.

So it turned out……

So it turned out that on his “balance sheet”.

I was such an important…… “core asset”?

Important enough that…… even “death”, he would not agree to.

That bastard……

Deep within Murong Xue’s consciousness, there came a helpless and complicated sigh.

She felt that her Dao heart, once as firm as bedrock, seemed to have…… completely fallen into chaos.

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