2024-09-27 22:31:55Benjamin sharply turned around, sure that he wasn't the one being referred to. But there was no one behind him.
The old man hurried to his side and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly as he inspected Benjamin's face. “You look just like him. God, you look just like my son.” The man whispered, entranced by Benjamin's presence. Benjamin felt a bit creeped out and tried to extricate his hand from the man's. “Excuse me… I don't understand what's going on here. If you don't mind explaining?” Benjamin kept trying to put some distance between them. The old man cleared his throat, regaining his composure as he saw Benjamin's uncomfortable state. He smiled at him and then turned to return to his seat. “You are my grandson, Benjamin. ” The man stated proudly to the whole room. Benjamin's eyebrows raised and he looked round the room at the other individuals present— Herbert and the guards — and how they didn't look entirely surprised by the statement. Ben couldn't help but give a mocking laugh,“Is this some sort of prank?
“Not at all, my boy.” “What do you mean I'm your grandson? You can't just pick a random stranger from the street and decide that he's your grandson. I know nothing about you and I'm a hundred percent sure I'm not in any way related to you.” The man chuckled.“Never say never, young man. Listen, I'm Hunter Whiteridge and I've got very reliable intel that you're my long lost grandson.”
"What?!"
Benjamin was in shock at the name he just heard. The Whiteridge family was well known as the most powerful family in the country. He couldn't believe he was in their presence. There was just no way. Hunter signalled to Herbert. “Show him the papers.” Herbert bowed. “Right away, Sir.” Benjamin watched the man who brought him here walk out of the room only to return less than a minute later, handing over a document to him. He cautiously read through this document and he was shocked to find that it was a DNA result, with him being one of the samples being matched. “Wait…I don't…..” Benjamin was rightfully lost for words. “Allow me to explain, my boy.” Hunter was expecting this reaction from his grandson. “Your identity has been known to me for a while, along with some other people around your age who we assumed could be my grandchild, so I had DNA samples secretly extracted from all of you.” He then pointed at William. “And out of everyone, yours was the undeniable match. So yes, Benjamin, you really are my grandson.” “But my parents! How….my grandma told me that my parents died in an accident, at a time where I was too young to even remember. She had to raise me all by myself, and I never got to meet them.” Hunter nodded with a slight frown. “That's true. Your parents did die in an unfortunate accident. Following that, we lost you, unable to find you no matter where we searched. It's been years since I've been searching for you, Benjamin. Your mother lost her life after giving birth to you. As for your father, my son, he was inflicted with a heart attack after hearing the news of his wife.” The sadness in his eyes was very evident. “He didn't make it.” Benjamin felt his whole body racing at this point, as he struggled to calm himself. “Sir, I don't…. How is this possible? None of this makes any sense.” The old man refused to leave him though. This is the sole person he had been looking for forever. “It's alright. I'll help you understand. Right now, you need to know your heritage. Who you truly are.” A few minutes later, the group found themselves in Hunter's private office. Benjamin is seated on the only two chairs facing Hunter across the wide office desk. Hunter Whiteridge seemed to now be glowing as he sat up straight with a radiant smile as he stared at his newfound grandson. “Benjamin, as the grandson of this family, you are not aware of how deep our wealth and influence runs, so I will fill you in.” He allowed a moment to pass as he nodded at Herbert, who then walked towards the old man. Herbert began typing away at the laptop on the office desk before turning the screen towards Benjamin. Benjamin was confused for a moment as he read through the information being displayed on the screen. Within seconds though, he realised what he was looking at and his eyes widened in shock. “This?! It says that the Whiteridge family owns two hundred of the top five hundred companies in the world. Each of these companies range in net worths between $300 billion to $1.9 trillion.” Benjamin gasped, placing a hand over his chest. He had always known this family was incredibly wealthy, but knowing the exact value provided an extra layer of clarity that understandably leaves the mind astounded. “That's not all though.” Hunter proudly brought Benjamin's attention back to the laptop. “Keep reading.” Benjamin did just this and he was still left in awe. “The Whiteridge also owns the major shares in other two hundred companies. This….this is absolutely insane!” He looked back up at his grandfather. “These assets span across many conglomerates in the country. This family basically controls the stock of the country!” Hunter's smile dwindled slightly at the dazed expression on his grandson's face. “Benjamin, I understand that this is all a bit much right now. But seeing as I don't have very much time left on this earth, I have yearned to have you back so you can take over this empire for me.”
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Hunter stretched his hands into one of the compartments beneath his desk top, retrieving something from it. He turned to the still shocked Benjamin across from him and handed it to him. It was a black card. “This is a tax free card to a private account. It's yours from now on. This should eliminate any financial issues you've had and may have in the future. It holds a maximum of $3 billion. It's my welcome gift to you.” Benjamin could hardly believe his ears. He stared at the sleek black card being handed to him, the amount he'd just heard swirling in his head. "$3 billion?” Benjamin seemed in a daze. “Sir, that… that's more money than I'll ever need." He was reeling from the surrealism of the situation. Hunter smiled, clearly amused by his reaction. "This is just the beginning, Benjamin. As the newfound heir of the Whiteridge family’s business empire, you’ll be taking over the entire consortium after your graduation. Herbert, my assistant, will guide you every step of the wa
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“Grandma, don't!” Everyone at the school's main gate, including Alexa and Andrew, were shocked at the voice, and they looked up to find Benjamin rushing over. “Benjy?” The old woman felt a wave of relief wash through her at the sight of her grandson. “Oh, my Benjy!” “Grandma, are you alright?!” Benjamin gently held up his grandmother's body. He then shifted an angry gaze up at Andrew. “You're a piece of trash, you know that? How dare you ask my grandmother to kneel before you?! Even if you hated me so much, you should at least give some respect for her age!” Andrew scoffed. “Her age? Why the heck should I show her any care? She's not my grandmother.” He then suddenly covered his nose. “Ugh! Now that both the boy and his grandmother are together, I can really smell the stench of wretchedness.” Alexa giggled as she lightly punched her nose. “Unfortunately, I can smell it as well.” Benjamin was furious as he gently moved his grandmother backwards, away from the two. “Grandma,
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“Benjamin, have you lost your mind?!” The director rushed over. “Are you really trying to kill Mr. Tyrone?!” Benjamin loosened his hand and turned around, looking at the director in the eye, finally giving Max the chance to escape. At this point, there was now a crowd watching the scene. The whole situation was unfolding at the main gate after all. There was no way it wouldn't attract a large audience. “Oh my goodness!” Alexa exclaimed as approached Andrew. She had actually called the director earlier in case this idiot Benjamin would do anything crazy. Turned out she was right.“Oh, baby, you look a mess.” She then glared at Benjamin before turning a pitiful expression in the director's way. “Sir, thank the great goodness that you came on time! You saw it yourself! This madman was about to start another fight!”“Sir” Andrew didn't waste time taking full advantage of this situation. “He suddenly came after me, assaulting me for no reason. "It must be because he had been suspend
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It was safe to say that the director, Andrew, Alexa, Max, and Benjamin's grandmother weren't the only ones shocked by Benjamin's claim.The crowd that had been watching the commotion ever since Benjamin had punched Andrew in the face. They burst into heavy bouts of laughter as soon as they heard those words as well.“Wait! Is he for real? I know that guy. He's so freaking poor, and now he's suddenly claiming that he can pay ten times the annual donation this school gets from the Tyrone family.”“Oh my goodness, this guy must have lost his mind. He's definitely gone crazy. The Tyrone family donates $1 million annually, which means that guy would have to be able to pay $10 million at once. Isn't that too pretentious?!”Another student quickly pulled out her phone. “Oh, I will be damned if I don't live stream this for my fans! They're gonna eat this up.”The crowd was bustling at this point, wanting to see how Benjamin would dig himself out of this ‘grave’ he created for himself.Benjami
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Benjamin was shocked when he saw this. How is this possible? His grandfather had personally handed this black card to him, promising that it held up to $3 billion, so what was going on? Why was the payment declined? Did Hunter Whiteridge lie to him? Benjamin immediately threw that thought out of his head. There was absolutely no way a man like that would lie to him about money of all things. First of all, the man is a Trillionaire, so it would be a very shameful act on his part to fool his newly found grandson, something that had been proven with a DNA test to confirm it. Also, the payment had been declined rather than the black details being incorrect. This means that the black card is indeed legit. There was also no mention of ‘insufficient balance’, so the issue had to be something else. Unfortunately, the audiences watching this weren't interested in thinking this through.As soon as the director saw the confusion on Benjamin's face, he snatched the phone from his hands to get a
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Director James Thorpe felt his heart racing furiously as he stared down at the content on his phone screen. He kept reading it over and over again, ignoring the surrounding noises. “Could it really be him?” He felt stupid for even asking this question, as Benjamin's name was evident on the generated receipt. None of this made any sense to him. This same young man had been called out for being extremely poor yesterday, so why does he suddenly have a black card under his name?Director Thorpe turned to find Benjamin staring at him with a victorious but annoying smirk, and he felt his blood boil. “Here! Give me that card. I want to see something.”Benjamin realised what must have happened, so he gladly gave the director his black card.Once Andrew, Alexa, Max, and Mrs. Knox saw this, they felt something had changed. It was even more obvious in the director's body language that something had happened.Director Thorpe compared the card details with the ones on the receipt. “They match.” He
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The crowd was silent for a moment as they kept their shocked gaze on the scene. Some of them couldn't believe they had actually seen this with their own two eyes, while some were even starting to doubt if they were in a dream or not. The wave of internal reaction this one exchange between the director and the principal had caused in everyone was contrary to the dead silence on the outside.“Holy shit, what did I just witness happen. Could this be real?”“Bro, I'm thinking the same thing. The principal really slapped the director right I'm the face. Lord! I really hope someone captured it, or else, I'll be really forced to believe it was all in my head.”“Look around you then.”The students in the crowd having this whispered exchange glanced around to find that there were quite a few other students who still had their cameras out, recording everything. Meanwhile, Benjamin was also surprised at the slap he had witnessed the principal give the director. Why did this much older man sud
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Isaac Shawl didn't know what to say. He had never expected that some kind of investigation, especially one that went this deep, was carried out. Back then, the influence of the Tyrone family had been utilized to bribe police stations in that vicinity from carrying out any investigation until they were ordered to do so by the Tyrone family.This was, of course, to make sure the public and, most importantly, the tenants who were being fooled to blame Benjamin for the explosion never found any evidence that would lead them away from the desired target.Isaac Shawl raised an eyebrow at Principal Dice.“What is this? Did you carry out an investigation behind my back or what?”Principal Dice feigned an innocent kind of confusion.“Huh? I didn't know I was supposed to get your permission to look into a case of arson.”Isaac Shawl was a little lost for words but he continued.“Yeah, but you're not a law enforcement agent either. What gave you the right to hold an investigation?! Especially o
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Principal Dice pulled out a file contained within one of his shelves and retrieved a document, sliding it over the desk to Isaac Shawl.“Landlord Shawl, you should go through the content of this document.”The landlord frowned as he looked down through the document on the desk, unable to understand beyond his recognition of a few things.“Um, Sir…Principal Dice, I can't understand most of what is in this document. I, along with so many of my people, did not finish beyond the scope of middle school. I'm afraid you'll have to elaborate on this.”“Oh, alright.” Principal Dice nodded with a tight-lipped smile before pulling the document back toward him with two fingers.“Landlord Shawl, this document reveals that there was a heavy trace of chlorine trifluoride that indicates, at highest probability, to be the gas which was used to cause the explosion in the first place.”Principal Dice glanced up at the landlord. “Is that right?”Isaac Shawl's gaze shifted from side to side, his eyes refl
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The room was layered in an atmosphere so tense that the thickness of it could be easily felt by the skin and could be cut through with a knife. The horrible landlord, Mr. Isaac, says right beside Benjamin with his hands bound in handcuffs. He, along with the numerous protesters had been arrested by the police who arrived on the university campus a couple of hours ago. He was about to be taken along with everybody when the police received words from their superior.According to the call, Principal Dice had called in a favor - he needed to talk to the old landlord before he was taken to the police station.As for the rest of the protesters, the police were allowed to take them away first, and Mr. Isaac would be sent to join them behind bars later.Now, the old man sat in his seat with a squared shoulder, worried that Benjamin would suddenly lunge and attack him. The seats they were occupying were not very far from each other.The old man recalled Benjamin's gaze after watching his girl
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A couple of minutes later, the video came to an end. The holographic screen went blank before it faded to reveal Andy's holographic bald head once again.“And that concludes all gathered visual pieces of evidence of File Arson.” Though these words were supposed to be spoken with a much lighter tone to relieve the sadness in the atmosphere, Andy couldn't make it as convincing as he should have.It was like the AI assistant itself was finding it hard to o pretend like it hadn't just played the worst video possible right now. Andy had just displayed a video that contained key moments in how the true arson at Benjamin’s former home had truly taken place.In the series of videos, it is revealed that a bunch of masked men had snuck into the one-room apartment that Benjamin grew up in, raised by his foster grandmother, Theresa.Here, these masked men carried a sizable tank into that apartment. They then proceeded to ransack the room, obviously looking for something valuable they could steal
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The super chaotic scene was witnessed by the students from the upper floors, and some of these students began cheering on the chasers and the chased ones.Seeing the opportunity to get away was here, the secretary held Benjamin by his arm, immediately blushing as she found that Benjamin’s arms were quite too big for her fingers to wrap around. Even more so, she felt the sturdy muscles that rippled beneath every movement of that body part, despite the thick layer of clothes Benjamin had on.This young man wasn't really incredibly handsome, he was incredibly fit as well.She accepted this considering the fact that Benjamin had held that muscular culprit by the neck with such incredible strength just a moment ago.Benjamin was oblivious to the secretary's state of mind, agreeing with her words for him to take this chance and leave.Benjamin turned to Olivia. “I think you should go stay with April. Keep me updated on how she's doing.”Olivia saw the silent plea in Benjamin's gaze, finding
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The short and muscular culprit was scared. Though his neck was thick, Benjamin's fingers wrapped around a good portion of it, enough to strangle him in the first place. With his terrifyingly brutal strength, he could feel the breath of life being stolen away from him.Meanwhile, Olivia felt her heart shaking by the feeling Be Jasmin gave off from the start and everything that played out before her eyes.From this, she deduced that Benjamin wasn't…your typical intellectually gifted young man. She had always known this but this physical display of intimidation made her realize that Benjamin was on a whole different level. It was simultaneously incredible and scary.She turned to Max to find that the guy was not as dumbfounded or taken aback as she was. In fact, Max was the most calm about the scenario that was playing before everyone here.Turning to the secretary, Olivia round her just as awed by Benjamin’s display as everyone else.With her observant eyes and sharp mind, Olivia deduce
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For the first time in forever, Benjamin felt his heart grow cold with intense fear as he watched April lie motionless in his arms. His right hand, placed right behind her head, had gone wet with her blood.“I'm glad you're safe.”Those whispered words from April's lips right before she lost consciousness went a shockwave down his body. He couldn't move, just kneeling on the ground as he stared at his fake girlfriend with shocked eyes.It was safe to say that the world had faded out of his awareness as he focused solely on the unconscious lady. Even though he didn't witness every single moment that led up to this point, he could easily deduce it.These people. These greedy-ass old neighbors of his…..They had intended to hurt him physically, and April took the hit for him, probably out of impulse.Benjamin felt really complicated in his heart, struggling to process his emotions, a truly rare occurrence.At that moment, he felt a firm hand on his shoulders.“Young man! Young man, please
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Hearing this, Max smiled proudly with a head nod to convey his understanding. As for the two ladies, they were tearing up at varying degrees, having never met such a handsome man with such an overbearing aura but acting with such meticulous protectiveness when it came to the people he cared about.“Haba haba!” Olivia fanned herself while batting her eyes at Benjamin, conveying how flustered she was. “Just when I think you couldn't get more attractive with your show of masculinity, you prove me wrong.”Benjamin didn't reply to Olivia, turning to face Lieutenant Jason and his team of soldiers.“As for you guys, I know you'll resort to fircecwadikt if that means that I'm kept out of harm's way. And in that kind of situation, the chances of you hurting the protesters are high. This would only make the public view me truly as a bully, and they'll become more susceptible to believing those people outside. Don't forget, my old neighbors have made it clear of their intention to sue me. I don'
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Max placed a hand over Benjamin's shoulder. “Ben, what do you mean by that?”Benjamin turned to his best friend with a gentle smile.“It's exactly as you've heard. I don't want any of you guys near me once I start walking out of this building.”He turned a calm glare at Anthony.“Especially you guys.” He nudged his head at Lieutenant Jason while still speaking to his driver. “Hold him back, will you?”Anthony could only nod his head as he fought his reluctance.Olivia squinted her eyes. “There's something you're not telling us. This decision came to abrupt. What exactly are you thinking?”April watched as Benjamin kept quiet, refusing to reply to Olivia, so she did that instead.“It's because Benjamin knows that his old neighbors would definitely attack him. They'll run after him to physically assault him just to show some grievances of what they've lost.”Max nodded his head as he stared outside the faculty building main entrance with a frown.“Yeah. Those people will definitely ass
