Seeing that she was quiet and offered no rebuttal, Zhao Shunian gave her a way out. "I want to see your mobile banking account balance. Show me, and I'll take back what I said."
Zhao Shunian took her phone, opened the banking app, then handed it back to her—the screen displaying the password entry interface.
Employees dealing with their bosses often curse their bosses' ancestors eighteen generations in their hearts while maintaining a cordial facade on the surface. Toward this Rice-Bowl Boss, Yu Yin was bold in her heart. She secretly modified the phrase "bold at home" into "bold in her heart."
Yu Yin quickly entered her bank card password, letting Zhao Shunian look for only a second or two before she turned off the phone.
Zhao Shunian had a sharp sensitivity to numbers and was highly skilled at accounting. He knew the primary sources of income for this card and could guess what the necessary expenses were. He roughly calculated the accounts in his head based on the balance in the card, and only then did his suspicions dissipate.
He was inherently a suspicious man, believing that Yu Yin might have thoughts of infidelity and might even act on them. Since there had been no abnormal transactions when she used his card, checking her bank card would roughly tell him whether she was just talking or had actually done something.
Zhao Shunian didn't ask to see Yu Yin's bank card transaction history. He knew where his limits should be—making such a request would cross Yu Yin's bottom line, and she wouldn't agree to it.
"Why is there an extra ten million?"
Yu Yin instantly understood that he wanted to audit her accounts. She deliberately smiled brightly. "Hush money from your father. When you went missing back then, he thought the scandal was most likely true."
"I'll explain things clearly to him. But are you a Pixiu? You basically only take in and never let out."
"I'm preparing for a rainy day, planning for the future."
Yu Yin was still troubled by the insufficient savings in her account. In the past, this amount of money would have been enough for her to live on for a lifetime, but calculated against her current standard of living, it was nowhere near enough.
So she would leave the money in her account untouched whenever possible, accumulating it as preparation for after the divorce.
Zhao Shunian's scandal with Xu Ronghao was merely the trigger. What truly made Yu Yin feel that their marriage was coming to an end was when Zhao Shunian became the Chairman of Liang Group a month ago—and of the Liang family that founded the group, only Liang Lisheng remained on the board, and only as a non-executive director.
Back then, the Liang family needed the Zhao family's help to resolve the group's funding crisis, while the Zhao family wanted to seize the opportunity to swallow up the group. Each side had their own schemes, which was why the marriage alliance between the Zhao and Liang families continued despite Liang Yilin's broken engagement. The marriage alliance was nothing more than a fig leaf for private power plays.
Merchants chase profit. Without the drive of irresistible interests, the Zhao family would never have set aside past grievances to continue the marriage alliance after Liang Yilin called off the engagement, agreeing to let an illegitimate daughter who hadn't grown up in the Liang family marry in her place.
Yu Yin felt that the most valuable things about her, a penniless nobody, were her dignity and her pride. But because of this power play, those two things had been utterly shattered. She became obedient, resignedly accepting their arrangements…
When Yu Yin said those words, her expression was too serious. Zhao Shunian sensed something was off. Just as he was about to probe what she meant, Monday's electronic voice sounded again: "It is now ten o'clock in the evening. Please rest, Master."
It was Yu Yin who had asked Monday to remind her when the time came. She planned to wind down at ten o'clock, and after dawdling around, she finally went to sleep around eleven. When Zhao Shunian wasn't home, her daily routine was quite regular.
"I had a physical examination today, and the report shows I'm fine. Zhao Shunian, you need to get one done too."
With that, Yu Yin got up and left the media room, leaving Zhao Shunian alone there, fuming.
Zhao Shunian felt that Yu Yin knew exactly how to provoke him, and he also understood why she had suddenly gone for an examination today—she was worried about being infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
…
Zhao Shunian didn't sleep in the same room as Yu Yin, because she had locked the door from the inside, refusing to let him in.
He knew she had locked the door, but he wouldn't lower his pride to beg her to open it. He was also still angry about her words, feeling that she had slandered him.
The next morning, when Yu Yin woke up, she saw a message from Shang Zhuoming. He was apologizing to her, sending a long block of text explaining the friend gathering, saying that Zhao Shunian and Xu Ronghao had nothing going on. He also sent her pictures and image captions to prove he wasn't lying.
It was only then that Yu Yin truly believed what Zhao Shunian had said the night before.
Yu Yin went to the walk-in closet and discovered that the Hermès Birkin crocodile leather bag from yesterday was now displayed in the cabinet. Lifting her gaze higher, a Chanel diamond-studded crocodile leather bag suddenly appeared before her eyes. Beyond the wardrobe, she opened various other drawers and cabinets, and always found "new guests" among them.
Yu Yin felt like she was playing a real-life treasure hunt game.
She guessed that Yu Meimei had placed these items inside, and she could also guess who had instructed Yu Meimei to do so.
Qin He had already arrived at the villa and was sitting in the side hall waiting for Zhao Shunian. When Yu Yin passed by the side hall entrance, his eyes couldn't help but steal a glance at her, wondering whether the missus had calmed down.
Perhaps his gaze was too obvious—Yu Yin looked over. He immediately stood up, flashing a standard smile to greet her.
Yu Yin smiled back at him and asked if he had eaten breakfast. He quickly replied that he had.
In the dining room, Yu Yin didn't see Zhao Shunian. As Mother Ye was serving her food, she asked, "Where's the master?"
"The master went to change after his morning run. He should be here shortly."
Speak of the devil, and he appears—Zhao Shunian had already changed his clothes and came to sit down at the dining table.
During breakfast, Yu Yin used the serving chopsticks to pick up a lobster goldfish dumpling for Zhao Shunian.
Zhao Shunian raised his eyes to look at her. "This goldfish dumpling is truly expensive."
"What's expensive isn't the dumpling itself, but the value behind it. Since you've already put a price on it first, aren't you acknowledging the value behind it? When it comes to transactions, you should understand this better than I do."
Zhao Shunian tacitly accepted Yu Yin's words and ate the goldfish dumpling she had picked for him.
They didn't speak again after that—Zhao Shunian rarely talked during meals.
But their cold war ended less than twelve hours after it began.
…
Yu Yin didn't go directly to Yinyue Studio; instead, she went to the exhibition venue. The collector's pieces would be delivered in the afternoon, and she needed to be on-site to communicate and coordinate. Xiang Yue was also there.
She had to walk back and forth constantly, and when the installation workers couldn't keep up, she sometimes rolled up her sleeves to help with the setup herself, busy without a moment's rest.
Fortunately, Yu Yin had the foresight to wear a pair of comfortable flats. If she hadn't, her legs would have been completely worn out by now.
Just after eleven, the crisp sound of high heels clicking against the floor echoed through the space. Yu Yin looked up to see her other friend and college roommate, Mo Qianyao, striding over in a swaying short skirt and heels—the very picture of "beautifully freezing."
If Xiang Yue was a fake player, Mo Qianyao was the real deal—flitting through a garden of flowers without a single leaf clinging to her.
Mo Qianyao was the client manager at Yinyue Studio. She had previously worked at a large corporation, where she felt she was either becoming a soulless zombie bound by countless rules and regulations, or slowly turning twisted under the repression.
When she mentioned to her friends that she was thinking of quitting to change her environment, Yu Yin extended an olive branch. She joined the studio last year, and since then, the number of clients had noticeably increased.
Yu Yin held down the fort in the rear, Xiang Yue handled curation and design, and Mo Qianyao liaised with clients at the front. With the stability of their triangular dynamic, the studio gradually found its footing.