Grandpa was caught off guard by the question, finding it very strange that his granddaughter, usually only interested in movies, suddenly let her thoughts drift so far afield.
Although he hadn't expected her to ask, he still answered: "Yes, it was me."
No matter what Laila had thought before, after getting this answer, she didn't feel the same nervousness she had when she was just guessing. "Was it because of me?"
Grandpa's eyes darkened. "You're my granddaughter. No one is allowed to bully you."
If it hadn't been for Roy at the time, she would have died in that place, possibly without even leaving a single bone behind. Even after all these years, he still felt a chill down his spine whenever he thought of it. If it hadn't been for the long distance, he would have acted sooner; there was no way he would have waited until recently to fulfill this wish!
"Grandpa…" Laila's eyes turned red in an instant. Of course, she understood why he had done such a thing; precisely because she understood, she was so touched that she was nearly speechless. "Thank you."
"Hmph, instead of thanking me, why don't you focus more on coming up with ideas for the company? I heard it's been a while since you submitted a new series idea to NBC?"
"...Can't you let me stay emotional for just a few more minutes?" Laila knew he was deliberately changing the subject. With his old-fashioned, stiff British style, getting mushy was simply too hard for him, so she played along and stopped mentioning Dawud's matter, choosing instead to act cute with him.
"My previous series is still ongoing, aren't they? Even if I give them new ones now, they wouldn't have the time slots."
"Don't give me that. You think I don't know you're like a tube of toothpaste—if I don't squeeze, nothing comes out! Listen, several old competitors' ratings have gone up recently. You'd better come up with something good to boost our network's ratings again. I don't want to see… cough, anyway, just get on it!"
Laila laughed knowingly. "Someone has been bragging in front of you again?"
"Bragging? Who do they think they are to brag in front of me?!" Grandpa was extremely glad they were on the phone; otherwise, his embarrassed face would have completely betrayed him.
"Alright, alright, I'll think of something. But Grandpa, you should also take care of your health. You're not young anymore. Don't keep hanging out with those people and getting yourself worked up," Laila reminded him, amused. But she knew that no matter what she said, Grandpa would still enjoy boasting among his circle. She was certain her Oscar win yesterday had already been flaunted to everyone, probably enough to keep him bragging for ten days or half a month.
She still remembered when she won her first Oscar. Zenny had told her Grandpa had bragged about it for several months straight, mentioning it every time they met, until Zenny would run away the moment he saw Grandpa coming from afar.
The fact that a genius forensic doctor—whom everyone else found headache-inducing—would rather flee than endure Grandpa's endless bragging showed just how "talkative" he could be.
After finishing his conversation with his granddaughter, Grandpa hung up the phone in satisfaction. But when he looked down at the documents in his hands, his expression immediately changed. His dark blue eyes turned cold and sharp enough to pierce through the papers.
He had never told Laila about the plan because he didn't want her to get caught up in those filthy matters. To him, his granddaughter was an angel, sunlight that shone straight into the depths of his soul. To protect her, he would do anything.
Dawud's bankruptcy was the result of several years of effort on his part, slowly dragging him into the abyss. To accomplish this, he had spent a lot of money and went to great lengths to contact Dawud's competitors—some were business rivals, some were rivals within his own family.
In a large clan like Dawud's, there was no shortage of people who wanted to take his place. After careful research, Grandpa picked a few of the most promising candidates to support.
Although Dawud was also from their extended family, his bankruptcy meant a substantial loss for the family's businesses. But if those losses could be exchanged for pulling him down and taking his place, no one could resist that temptation.
Facts proved Grandpa was right. Though it took a long time, he ultimately succeeded. The lengthy timeline wasn't just because of the long distance; Dawud's strength explained everything.
To hold that position within such a competitive family and suppress so many capable rivals, his brutal methods and mix of hard and soft tactics were key.
Whenever anyone showed even a hint of challenging his position, he would stop at nothing to destroy them. Under this suffocating pressure, he not only crushed those who coveted his seat but also deepened their hatred toward him.
As the saying goes, "Either erupt in silence or perish in it."
In the past, Dawud could smoothly maintain his dominance for decades because he had stripped his rivals of all hope. But after the incident with Faiza that nearly killed Laila, Grandpa personally handed a "knife" to those rivals, ultimately letting them plunge it straight into Dawud's heart.
The Moran family wasn't as large as Dawud's, but their blood ties ran deeper than those sprawling clans. Oswald would rather spend a fortune to exacerbate their internal conflicts than see his granddaughter suffer in silence. At his age, wealth was worthless compared to his granddaughter. No amount of money could compare to having a granddaughter like Laila, who satisfied him so deeply.
Laila didn't know all of Grandpa's thoughts, but that didn't stop her from understanding just how much he loved her. If not for her, he wouldn't have taken such a huge risk to avenge her.
Being able to come to this world, beyond achieving her dreams, what made her happiest was having such a loving family.
Although Dawud was a billionaire worth tens or even hundreds of billions, he was only active in his own country, and few in the U.S. even knew his name. His bankruptcy didn't even warrant a tiny column in the major media outlets.
But his downfall still had ripple effects and changed many things.
A few days earlier, Faaris had already learned of the bankruptcy and even investigated the reasons behind it thoroughly. He had long told Dawud: don't go easy on rivals—what did it matter if they shared the same surname or ancestor?
He regarded them as family; they only cared about the seat beneath him.
If it had been him, he would have snuffed out any sprouting threat at the very beginning. He had always admired what one Eastern overlord once said—"Better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one go."