Water and Fire~Chapter 100.2

 

Chapter 100.2

One Monday, Qin Qianyu glared at her, his eyes reddening as he told her, "Qianmiao, if you listen to me, stop reading the IPO company information with us and focus on the materials for the private placement project."

Chu Qianmiao first asked Qin Qianyu why his eyes were so red.

Qin Qianyu simply replied, "Once you see Mr. Ren's eyes, you won't notice mine anymore."

Chu Qianmiao wondered what these two men had been up to so late.

She wanted to ask Qin Qianyu why she had stopped reading the IPO information and continued with the private placement materials, but she couldn't get an answer. Qin Qianyu would only go so far.

However, Qin Qianyu told her something else. "Qian Miao, I heard from friends in your circle that Tan Shen, who's quite familiar with you, seems to be discussing a project with Kan Qingzhou. It seems to be a backdoor listing."

After a pause, he said, "Because Tan Shen is your friend, I wanted to tell you about this. Do you want to remind him that Kan isn't a very good person? Tell him to either not work with him or, if he must, to be careful and not get into trouble."

Chu Qianmiao thought about this and decided to give Tan Shen a heads-up, as Qin Qianyu had suggested.

She called Tan Shen, and when the call went through, his voice sounded a little surprised.

"Qian Miao, you need me for something?"

His tone made it seem as if he was eager for her to ask him for something.

Chu Qianmiao asked, "Ah Shen, have you been collaborating on a project with Kan Qingzhou from our company lately?"

Tan Shen's voice was clear and cheerful, "You know."

"Yes, I heard it. Ah Shen, it's like this: Kan Qingzhou's style of doing things is a bit flawed, and I'm worried you'll be ripped off by him." After a pause, she asked, "Why are you collaborating on a project with Kan Qingzhou?"

There was silence on the other end of the line for two seconds. Then, Tan Shen's voice was a little dark, "I heard someone in his department is competing with you for a project that's quite important to you. It could allow you to register as an insurance agent. So I was thinking, if I work with him, maybe he'll give up the project and let you take it."

Chu Qianmiao felt a surge of anger.

It was like this again, this feeling again, this...

He treated her like moral blackmail.

"Tan Shen, please don't be like this," she said, trying to suppress her anger. "I don't need you to selflessly fight for me on this project. I don't need you to. Okay? Don't think I'm good enough to work with someone like Kan Qingzhou. I won't be touched by it, it will only make me more resistant. I really don't want to accept your kindness. Please don't be like this."

Tan Shen's voice on the other end of the line was still faint, with a hint of laughter. "Then just agree to be my girlfriend, and I won't have to work with him anymore. And I'll always listen to you from now on. I won't do anything you don't allow me to do."

Chu Qianmiao felt a headache. "Ah Shen, if you think that working with Kan Qingzhou on this project will make him give me the signature project, then I can only laugh at you and call you naive. Forget it, Ah Shen. I'm too lazy to say anything more. I've made my point. You can handle it yourself."

She wanted to hang up. Tan Shen stopped her.

"Qian Miao, wait a minute." He breathed a sigh of relief. "Qian Miao, you care about me, think about me, and remind me of things. I'm really happy. I really am. I'm waiting for you to become an insurance agent and have your own office. I'll be traveling abroad soon. I hope you'll have been promoted by the time I return so we can start over."

Chu Qian Miao regretted waiting. She should have hung up before she said "wait a minute."

Just when everyone thought Xia Fengyong was set to sign off on Li Si's department's private placement project, things took a sudden turn for the worse.

It started with a fight between the company's receptionist, Yu Lizi, and Xia Fengyong. To be more precise, Yu Lizi ran over to Xia Fengyong's workstation and started scratching and slapping him from all sides. As she scratched and slapped him, she sang, "You scumbag, didn't you say you'd marry me if you got promoted to insurance agent? You already have a wife, and you're still talking about marrying me?"

Yu Lizi's fighting was formidable, and Xia Fengyong was left reeling. The scene was spectacular, with many onlookers.

Security later took the two away.

Later, it was reported that Yu Lizi forced Xia Fengyong to call his wife and ask for a divorce. Xia Fengyong refused, so Yu Lizi found out where his wife worked and went to her house to cause a scene. Xia Fengyong's wife wasn't one to be scorned. She then gathered some members of the underworld and went to Litong to retaliate by pulling Yu Lizi's hair.

Later, Yu Lizi went to headquarters and directly reported Xia Fengyong for rape.

Xia Fengyong seemed undeterred, insisting Yu Lizi produce evidence, accusing her of defamation and frame-up.

Yu Lizi cried and claimed to be stupid, deleting the evidence herself. Xia Fengyong, gloating over this, accused Yu Lizi of fabricating stories without evidence to frame him.

At this point, to save his job, he kicked Yu Lizi out.

But Yu Lizi suddenly produced a video that conclusively proved her and Xia Fengyong had had an affair.

What happened next was that she accused Xia Fengyong of raping her, while Xia Fengyong claimed he'd paid her for it, willingly.

The farce ultimately had such a devastating impact that Litong headquarters, unable to tolerate it, fired both individuals.

Chu Qianmiao watched the bizarre unfolding of this farce, stunned.

She wondered how low these people's moral standards had sunk, considering Litong had such strict rules against office romances, yet they could still orchestrate such shameless affairs behind the scenes.

After Xia Fengyong was fired, she moved to Li Si's project. The head of headquarters was deeply saddened by her signing without comment. The person he had recommended with such effort had failed to live up to expectations, causing such a scandal that tarnished his reputation. What else could he say now? Whoever wanted to sign could do so.

The matter was finally settled.

After many twists and turns in the plot, Qin Qianyu finally opened his mouth. During his lunch break, while strolling with Chu Qianmiao in the small park downstairs, he recounted the entire story to Chu Qianmiao.

Qin Qianyu said, "At first, President Ren felt that the documents in his office were often tampered with. Besides himself, the only person with access to his office key card was Yu Lizi, the front desk clerk. All company-wide key cards are backed up at the front desk."

At first, Ren Yan couldn't understand why Yu Lizi would enter his office and look through his documents.

It wasn't until Li Tang's first day at Litong that Chu Qianmiao and Xia Fengyong clashed.

The events of that day were actually quite strange. Xia Fengyong happened to be on the lookout for Wu Jin, the head of Litong's Beijing investment banking department, and he approached him to curry favor.

Afterward, Xia Fengyong slandered him, and Chu Qianmiao, unable to bear it, confronted him and threw coffee in his face.

He had just returned from an errand and was parking his car in the building's basement when he received a call from Qin Qianyu for help. Qin Qianyu explained that Qian Miao and Xia Fengyong had gotten into a fight, and that Kan Qingzhou, somehow so well-informed and able to pass on the information so promptly, had begun using his power to bully Qian Miao.

Qin Qianyu also explained that he had asked Yu Lizi, the front desk clerk, what had happened, but she remained evasive. It was only through an intern in Li Si's department, who had been printing documents at the front desk and witnessed the entire process, that Qin Qianyu learned the details.

That time, he had a tentative suspicion that Yu Lizi had connections to Kan Qingzhou's department. She had tipped off Xia Fengyong about Wu Jin's whereabouts. She had also been the first to inform Kan Qingzhou after the conflict between Chu Qianmiao and Xia Fengyong, and when Qin Qianyu approached her to inquire about the situation, she evaded him. (check Chapter 81)

That made sense. Why did Yu Lizi go into his office to look through documents? She was looking for documents for Kan Qingzhou.

"But is she related to Kan Qingzhou or Xia Fengyong? That's not difficult to verify," Qin Qianyu said to Chu Qianmiao. "Do you remember how Xia Fengyong always smelled of perfume a while ago? We even teased his mother about it."

Chu Qianmiao nodded. "I remember."

Qin Qianyu clapped his hands and said, "Actually, that scent on him came from Yu Lizi. That's what President Ren discovered. President Ren, when he's investigating, he's as handsome as Sherlock Holmes."

Qin Qianyu told Chu Qianmiao that the perfume had pinpointed Xia Fengyong as the target of the investigation; but Ren Yan had put in a lot of effort to determine whether Yu Lizi and Xia Fengyong were in an unconventional relationship.

Ren Yan first went to the administration department, explaining that he'd lost a crucial package containing a contract. He needed to verify whether someone had taken it, so he needed to retrieve the security footage from the front desk camera.

The administration department gave him permission to review it. Since he couldn't handle it alone, he called Qin Qianyu over to join him.

Over the weekend, they pulled two all-nighters and finally discovered the problem. They discovered that one night's footage had been deleted from the computer storing the surveillance footage.

Hearing that the deleted footage was crucial, he asked Qin Qianyu to contact his wife. His wife, a computer science major, had obtained software that could recover deleted information from a talented classmate.

Then the deleted footage from that night was recovered.

That night, Yu Lizi worked overtime until ten o'clock, and no one else was in the office. After ten o'clock, Xia Fengyong entered the office through the main door and approached the front desk. He appeared to be intoxicated, his steps unsteady, and his l*st aroused.

He went around to the front desk and flirted with Yu Lizi, then put his arm around her waist and kissed her passionately. He then dragged her to Wu Jin's office, which had a suite with a bed. Yu Lizi reluctantly agreed.

The door to Wu Jin's office closed.

Twenty minutes later, it opened, and the two people emerged. Xia Fengyong's collar was unbuttoned, his shirttail hanging out of his pants, and Yu Lizi's hair was disheveled. It was clear what the two had done in those twenty minutes.

At the time, Yu Lizi had carefully deleted the surveillance video from that night.

Now that the video has been recovered, it confirms Xia Fengyong and Yu Lizi's affair. But based on this video alone, if one of them had to go, Yu Lizi might have saved Xia Fengyong. So one thing needed to be confirmed.

He asked Qin Qianyu to talk to other female employees and find out if Yu Lizi had a boyfriend. A female employee close to Yu Lizi revealed that Yu Lizi had a boyfriend. She said he was also in the same industry, and that they would get married once he finished his current project and got a promotion.

This confirmed the final piece of information: Yu Lizi had no idea Xia Fengyong was married. Xia Fengyong was lying to her.

So, he went to the administration department and printed out the resumes of all the prospective insurers from several project departments and put them in a folder, as if to verify the identities of the prospective insurers for all the projects awaiting signature. Xia Fengyong's resume was among them, and the marital status column clearly stated "married."

He placed the folder on his desk. He was confident that Yu Lizi would come back to look through his documents.

She didn't disappoint him. She soon did and saw Xia Fengyong's marriage status.

This led to the subsequent farce of the two turning against each other.

As for the video used as evidence, he had anonymously sent it to Yu Lizi.

In the end, the argument between the two became so ugly that neither could continue at Litong.

After Qin Qianyu finished explaining what had happened, he told Chu Qianmiao, "Mr. Ren actually told me not to share this, but I feel you have a right to know, so I'm telling you privately."

After hearing all this, Chu Qianmiao's emotions were volatile, unable to calm down.

She wondered how much effort he had put into getting her to sign on this project.

She thought of Qin Qianyu's reddened eyes. Qin Qianyu said Ren Yan's eyes were even redder than his.

Qin Qianyu also said that our leader was the best leader in the world, always doing more for us than saying anything. He was the man most worthy of our love.

He had silently done so much, meticulously planning every step, all for her to sign. Yet, he had done so much without saying a word.

She thought she should thank him before heading to Li Si's department to work on the project. She entered his office and saw him look up and ask calmly if she was okay.

As if nothing had happened, he left all the storms behind him, paving a bright path for her.

Then he gave her a faint smile, not letting her know how much he had sacrificed, how much effort he had put in, how much hardship he had endured.

She looked at him, and at that moment, she felt something hard to describe. She truly couldn't deceive herself anymore. She believed Qin Qianyu was right. He, well, was truly a man worth loving.

She smiled and shook her head, saying, "Nothing," and "Thank you, boss."

Li Si's department's private placement project wasn't due until next week, so Chu Qianmiao met with the other three-year project team members.

She quickly integrated with everyone and got along very well.

There was a man named Gu Kai, and after Chu Qianmiao got to know him, they became very close. During a casual chat, Gu Kai told Chu Qianmiao, "Xia Fengyong is having a terrible time right now. Every time he applies for a job, Yu Lizi makes a scene, accusing him of raping her. Xia Fengyong's wife wants a divorce and wants him out of the house, but Xia Fengyong refuses. Now, his wife is suing." He paused, sighed, and said, "I'm not surprised he's in this situation."

Chu Qianmiao asked Gu Kai how he knew Xia Fengyong so well.

Gu Kai smiled wryly and said, "Let me put it this way. Before Lai Li Tong, we both worked in the same department at the same brokerage firm. He was a smooth talker, a flatterer, and quite deceptive. At first, he seemed like a good friend, and you trusted him. But as you got along, you increasingly realized he was a rather dishonest person. He was incredibly vain, and he couldn't be happier unless he outshined everyone else. Most importantly, he frequently plagiarized others' work."

Gu Kai told Chu Qianmiao, "At our previous company, our boss asked us to write a business plan. He said he couldn't do it, so I taught him. In the end, he copied all the details from my business plan and made it his own. I thought, 'Just learn it, forget it.' But after he learned it, he turned around and put me down, implying that I wasn't good enough and that his business plan wasn't as sophisticated as his."

Chu Qianmiao frowned. "That's a character flaw. It's outrageous."

Gu Kai gave a wry smile. "There are even worse things. Later, someone who didn't know the truth came up to me and, in a tone of advice, told me to learn how Xia Fengyong wrote a business plan. Isn't that ridiculous? I almost choked at the thought.

Chu Qianmiao didn't know what to say. She just felt that the world was becoming increasingly unbelievable due to all the weird things.

Gu Kai finally said, "Qianmiao, I'm telling you all this because I really want to tell you that Xia Fengyong is a dishonest person. He has no moral composure. Now that he's in such a miserable state, and you're doing the project he originally signed, he's definitely going to be petty and might try to do something to you. So, you better be careful."

Chu Qianmiao thanked Gu Kai solemnly for the reminder and planned to go home that night to search online to see if she could buy some pepper spray.

Chu Qianmiao didn't even wait for the pepper spray to arrive in the mail before she ran into trouble.