Family on Their Knees Heart Turned to Ice novel Chapter 859

Aside from Victor Knight, Ethan Hayes, and a select few who knew Lillian's true identity, the rest of the room was completely in the dark.

Even Emma Ruiz was stunned. The script she had memorized mentioned nothing about a mystery guest. Her job was simply to transition the stage to Nathan.

But what Nathan was revealing right now was absolute industry-shaking gold.

The energy in the room hit a fever pitch. Knowing that the legendary Li might actually step out of the shadows today, people couldn't contain themselves. They completely forgot about the product launch and furiously began drafting posts, blasting the news across their social networks—status updates, blogs, TikToks, you name it.

Simultaneously, word trickled out to the casual tech enthusiasts who had wandered into the stream.

Just as Nathan dropped the bombshell, someone ripped a link to the livestream and posted it directly onto Nexus, the ultra-exclusive forum for elite developers.

In an instant, the viewer count skyrocketed.

From a pathetic few dozen, it surged to a hundred, then five hundred, then thousands in a matter of minutes.

The news spread like wildfire across social media.

Nathan dragged his speech out, playing his role perfectly. As a shareholder of the company with a deep technical background, his presentation carried infinitely more weight and hype than Emma's ever could.

The virality was unstoppable. The name 'Li' commanded too much respect. Anyone who had ever touched a line of code knew about the Li Algorithm and the mythological architect behind it.

The shockwave didn't just stay in tech circles—it ripped straight into the extravagant wedding across town.

At the banquet, guests were still whispering frantically about why the Blake elders had suddenly crashed the ceremony. But the well-connected attendees had already received frantic texts about Li's return and were discreetly pulling up the launch livestream under the tables.

Standing near the altar, Julian Ross felt his phone buzz. He checked the message, keeping one eye on the unfolding disaster on stage and the other on the exploding livestream metrics.

His brow furrowed deeply. No wonder Nathan Cole skipped the wedding of the year for that launch.

The comment section devolved into a mess of question marks and shock. Even though someone quickly identified the elders in the chat, the audience couldn't fathom why the groom's father had stormed the stage just to strike the bride.

What confused them even more was Bella's bizarre demand for a cash settlement right before the hit.

In a fraction of a second, the fairy-tale illusion of the century's grandest wedding shattered.

The envy people felt watching Bella draped in diamonds, marrying a handsome billionaire, instantly morphed into morbid fascination.

But no one was more utterly shell-shocked than Bella herself.

The stinging, burning pain radiating across her cheek snapped her violently out of her ten-million-dollar fantasy.

It took her several agonizing seconds to process what had just happened. Staring in bewildered horror, she stammered, "You... you hit me?"