Chapter 59.2: Let It Be For Now
The next morning, Chu Qianmiao woke
up bright and clear. Her face had already swelled up considerably.
Before leaving, Gu Miaoyu asked,
"Is it really okay for you to go to the law firm alone?"
Chu Qianmiao smiled, "Don't
worry, it's broad daylight, and the office is full of people."
But when she reached the door, she
took a deep breath before walking in.
But as soon as she entered, she
heard that Qiao Zhixin wasn't in today. Upon hearing this news, Chu Qianmiao
didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or a sigh of relief. She
wondered what he was up to.
She went back to her workstation
and searched around. She thought the recorder must have fallen during the
argument with Qiao Zhixin yesterday.
After searching for a while, she
found it under a chair.
But it had been stepped on and
crushed.
She tried, but the wreckage of the
electronic device in her hand was completely unusable. She dug out the memory
card and connected it to the computer, but there was no response at all.
Her mind went blank for a moment.
The evidence from last night was
gone.
So what was she going to do next?
How could she prove Qiao Zhixin had done such a beastly thing to her?
She stared blankly ahead, her eyes
fixed on the phone. A voice rang in her ears.
"Qianmiao, is this phone
yours? I saw it outside my office door this morning, and it looks like it's
yours."
Chu Qianmiao turned and looked up,
seeing that it was Wang Jun who was speaking to her. He was holding a phone,
and it was hers. Qiao Zhixin had thrown it outside Wang Jun's office door
yesterday.
Chu Qianmiao saw Wang Jun as if she
were seeing Qiao Zhixin; she saw the words "birds of a feather" on
their faces.
She snatched the phone from Wang
Jun's hand and said coldly, "Thank you."
Wang Jun looked at her and asked,
"Qianmiao, what's wrong with your face?"
Chu Qianmiao turned away and said,
"Nothing." At that moment, He Wei came over and greeted Wang Jun
warmly, asking, "Where's Old Qiao?"
Wang Jun returned his greeting
warmly. Neither of them seemed to have spoken ill of the other behind his back.
"Qiao Lu sent me a message
this morning saying he's in the hospital."
He Wei sighed and said,
"Should we buy a flower basket or a fruit basket and go check it
out?"
Wang Jun said, "I'll ask
him."
Chu Qianmiao returned to her
workstation. Hearing that Qiao Zhixin was hospitalized gave her a pang of
anxiety, a vague feeling of unease.
She scrolled through her phone
while charging it. There were numerous missed calls. First, from Ren Yan, then
from Tan Shen. And then, surprisingly, from Qiao Zhixin; he'd probably called
in the wee hours.
She checked Ren Yan's first call;
it had been before the incident the previous night. Last night, after Tan Shen
said he'd bring her a midnight snack, he'd been sending her messages non-stop,
updating her on his whereabouts. He'd gone downstairs, gone to get some
late-night snacks, bought her favorite shrimp porridge, and was about to take a
taxi.
She found his constant barrage of
messages a bit too noisy, so she muted her phone. Consequently, she'd missed
Ren Yan's call. She wondered what he'd called her about last night.
After checking the missed calls,
she didn't read the messages.
There was one from Qiao Zhixin, and
it was also sent in the early morning. Perhaps because he couldn't get through
to her on the phone, he started texting.
In it, he called her a
"bitch."
"Bitch, you feel so good about
having men stand up for you. Are they all your lovers? They're so desperate for
you."
"You've been with so many men,
why are you still pretending to be pure and innocent?"
"I'm telling you, your
mistresses will get their comeuppance soon."
Chu Qianmiao was stunned by the
word "them."
So besides Tan Shen, someone else
had assaulted him.
Chu Qianmiao bit her nails,
wondering who it could be.
Soon, she stopped fooling herself.
It couldn't be that hard to guess. It had to be Ren Yan.
She texted Qiao Zhixin, "What
do you mean?"
Qiao Zhixin's reply was
surprisingly quick, "You're losing your temper, aren't you? Little bitch,
I've examined my injuries and have evidence of your men's crimes. Just wait
and see your two mistresses in jail."
After a pause, another message
popped up on the screen, "Especially that guy named Ren. Don't worry, I'll
definitely put him in jail and ruin his reputation."
Chu Qianmiao didn't reply.
She bit her nails, thinking about
the evidence Qiao Zhixin was talking about.
She stood up and walked out.
In the hallway, she received a call
from Tan Shen.
After a drunken night, Tan Shen's
voice was a little hoarse, but he finally regained his composure.
He called her "Qian
Miao." His voice was surprisingly filled with apology, as if he had done
something wrong. "I drank too much yesterday. Did I get drunk with you
again?"
Chu Qian Miao, anxious to verify
the evidence, told him, "It's okay." After a pause, she thanked him,
"And thank you for helping me vent my anger by teaching Qiao Zhixin a
lesson yesterday."
Tan Shen was silent for a moment,
then said, "Are you free at noon?"
Chu Qian Miao replied,
"Probably not." She continued walking towards the property management
office.
"Okay, I'll talk to you on the
phone now." Tan Shen straightened his tone and continued, "I heard
you say before that you wanted to change jobs, Qianmiao. Why don't you just do
it now? Come to our company, to Eagle Capital. I'll protect you. If you don't
like my protection, then you can protect me. It's all fine, as long as you
come."
Chu Qianmiao thought carefully for
a moment and told him, "Ah Shen, I don't want to work in an
investment-related financial institution for now. I want to work in the
investment banking department of a securities firm on projects like IPOs and
mergers and acquisitions." She had already reached the door of the
property management monitoring room and said to Tan Shen, "Ah Shen, I have
something very important to confirm right now, so I won't tell you for
now."
She hung up.
Chu Qianmiao wanted to check the
security footage from the hallway last night. But after searching for a while,
the property management staff told her, "Someone has transferred them
away." Chu Qianmiao knew immediately that the person who had transferred
the security footage was Qiao Zhixin.
Chu Qianmiao hurriedly asked,
"Didn't you leave a record?"
The property management staff
searched for a while longer and told her, "I didn't find it, but the
person on duty yesterday went home this morning. We'll have to wait until he
returns to work."
But Chu Qianmiao couldn't wait any
longer.
She walked back to the law firm and
spoke with the front desk, asking her to help review the surveillance footage
from last night. She used the excuse that she'd lost something.
The front desk was swamped, but
fortunately, she had a good relationship with her, so she simply let her search
the computer where the surveillance footage was stored. But Chu Qianmiao
discovered that all the footage from last night had been deleted from that
computer.
She suspected Qiao Zhixin had done
this, trying to destroy any record of his visit.
Chu Qianmiao thought for a moment
and asked the receptionist, "Are there backups of the surveillance footage
in the cloud?"
The receptionist said yes, gave her
the username and password, and then went back to her business.
Chu Qianmiao logged into the cloud
and retrieved the surveillance footage from last night.
First, Qiao Zhixin came in, looking
drunk. Soon after, she ran out, utterly panicked. The video reminded her of
yesterday's terrifying experience, and she clenched her fists beneath the
table.
A moment later, she saw Ren Yan
appear on screen. It was after she'd left. He rang the doorbell, and Qiao
Zhixin opened it.
Then Ren Yan grabbed his collar and
hit him, dragging him out again, toward a dead end in the hallway.
It turned out that after she'd left
yesterday, he'd rushed upstairs immediately. Whatever he'd been up to last
night, upon seeing her, he'd rushed upstairs without a care in the world, to
the law firm to vent her anger on him.
Chu Qianmiao hit the pause button.
She lowered her head and gently banged her forehead against the edge of the
table. Once, twice, three times, then took a deep breath, and another.
He made her feel both grateful and
sad. He was so kind, and so good to her. But he only wanted to belong to
himself. He didn't belong to any woman, and certainly not to her.
She suppressed the throbbing in her
heart, calmed herself, and looked back up.
A little later, Tan Shen arrived.
Not finding her, he began wandering aimlessly through the hallway.
At this point, Chu Qianmiao had
already grasped the entire situation, even without checking the property
management's surveillance footage.
She thought that bastard Qiao
Zhixin deserved his fate. He'd first been lectured by Ren Yan, and after Ren
Yan left, he'd gone to the property management office to get the surveillance
footage. There, he'd run into Tan Shen, who'd then given him another beating.
Tan Shen had been drinking, so he probably hadn't hit as hard as Ren Yan. So,
in his message, Qiao Zhixin gritted his teeth and emphasized his intense hatred
for Ren Yan and his determination to bring him to justice.
Chu Qianmiao knew Ren Yan had a
premeditated plan when he dragged Qiao Zhixin into a dark corner of the
hallway. He'd come to the law firm for meetings before and smoked secretly by
the window there. Back then, there weren't any surveillance cameras there. He
must have assumed there weren't any yesterday, so he dragged him that way.
But there were surveillance cameras
there.
Chu Qianmiao sat for a moment, then
stood up and went out to call Qiao Zhixin.
As soon as the call connected, Qiao
Zhixin angrily shouted, "Bitch!"
Chu Qianmiao's voice was cold,
"Shut your filthy mouth." After a pause, she said, "Qiao Zhixin,
you should be discharged."
Qiao Zhixin's voice was ferocious,
"You're dreaming, you little bitch! I have the video of the beating last
night, and I've got the medical report. I'm telling you, little bitch, if I
don't get them in, I won't be named Qiao anymore."
Chu Qianmiao's temper flared.
"Whatever surname you want, your family is lucky to have a Qiao Zhixin
without a bastard like you," she said harshly. She mentally encouraged
herself not to be timid and muster up the full force of her ferocity. "Don't
forget, ever since you started harassing me in the printing room, I've always
carried a recorder with me. I recorded every bit of your ruthless behavior last
night. Add to that the video and recording of you harassing me in the dark
corner of the hallway before, and I'm going to sue you. Die a hundred times!
You'll never be a lawyer again." Her ferocity was so unnoticeable that her
recorder had practically died.
Qiao Zhixin, taken aback by her
ferocious, almost cruel, aura, remained silent for a moment.
Chu Qianmiao continued, "So,
get out of the hospital now. If you give up the thought of suing Ren Yan and
the others, I'll let you go."
She paused, her voice becoming
especially fierce, almost sinister, from the humiliation she endured. "If
you sue them, I'll sue you."
She hung up the phone and leaned
her forehead against the wall. All the strength seemed to drain from her body.
She didn't want Ren Yan to have a
criminal record. Not at all. She thought of him always standing in the light,
aloof, dignified, and clean, an elite CEO at an investment bank.
And Tan Shen, he'd stood up for
her, and she had to consider that friendship.
Besides, there was no direct
evidence. So, let this matter rest. It was a bit unacceptable, but for him. No,
for them, it was fine.
She didn't believe there wouldn't
be another chance to bring Qiao Zhixin down. She would work tirelessly to
become stronger, and she would eventually bring him to ruin and disgrace. She
would avenge this vengeance.
Calming down, she consoled herself.
Qiao Zhixin had it worse than her. He'd been poisoned twice. He'd even been
hospitalized. It looked like he'd been severely beaten, and with no way to
appeal, he deserved it.
She silently chanted to herself,
"A gentleman's revenge is never too late," and her fluctuating
emotions gradually calmed. She rested her forehead against the wall, listening
to the song on her phone.
She glanced at the incoming call.
She stood up straight, perked up,
answered the call, and called out, "Mr. Ren."
0 Comments