The next day at work, everything went on as usual.
Chu Yiran arrived very early, sitting at her desk before eight o’clock.
The morning’s work involved continuing to advance the preparations for the summit.
Sun Wanqing reviewed the revised venue plan and raised four points of feedback, which Chu Yiran noted down one by one and relayed to the supplier.
At half past ten, while she was on the phone confirming the stage dimensions with the venue, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.
Sun Wanqing walked out of her office.
Her complexion didn’t look good; her lips were pressed into a thin line, and the rhythm of her high heels tapping on the floor was faster than usual.
As she passed Chu Yiran’s workstation, she paused.
“Come to my office at eleven.”
“Okay.”
After Sun Wanqing left, Chu Yiran hung up the phone, a faint sense of unease rising in her heart.
At exactly eleven o’clock, she knocked and entered.
Sun Wanqing was seated behind her desk, a document spread out in front of her.
“Close the door.”
Chu Yiran closed the door behind her.
“Sit.”
She sat down opposite Sun Wanqing, her back ramrod straight.
Sun Wanqing remained silent for a few seconds before speaking.
“The procurement verification email you sent me earlier—the finance department has finished their investigation.”
Chu Yiran gave a slight nod but said nothing.
“The conclusion is that the previous affairs specialist made an error in reporting. It has already been corrected.”
Chu Yiran’s expression didn’t change, but inwardly, her heart skipped a beat.
An error in reporting?
The invoicing party and the payee didn’t match, off by a single character, and the three transactions totaled 720,000 yuan—and that’s called an error in reporting?
She didn’t refute or press further, simply saying, “Understood.”
Sun Wanqing’s gaze lingered on her face for two seconds, as if gauging whether she truly accepted this explanation or was merely brushing it off.
“This matter ends here.”
Sun Wanqing closed the document. “For future procurement verifications, just follow the normal procedures. If there are any issues, report them directly to me.”
“Okay.”
“You may leave.”
Chu Yiran stood up and turned toward the door.
Just as her hand touched the doorknob, Sun Wanqing spoke from behind her.
“Chu Yiran, you’re a smart person.”
Her tone gave no indication whether it was praise or a warning.
Chu Yiran didn’t turn around. She said, “Thank you, President Sun,” opened the door, and left.
After returning to her workstation and sitting down, she wrote a line in her notebook, then crossed it out.
Her intuition told her this matter was far from over.
The “error in reporting” uncovered by the finance department either meant they had genuinely investigated but someone had suppressed the findings, or they hadn’t investigated seriously at all.
In either case, it pointed to one fact: someone was protecting the person behind those three anomalous records.
And that person was most likely Sun Wanqing herself.
Or, to be more precise, Sun Wanqing’s ex-husband, the actual controller of Hengyuan Trading.
Chu Yiran closed her notebook and rubbed her forehead.
The problem she now faced was: who had slipped that note into her drawer?
This person clearly knew the inside story and had deliberately leaked the information to her.
What was their purpose?
Did they want her to keep investigating?
Or were they trying to use her to expose the matter?
Either way, she didn’t want to be the one wielding the knife.
During lunchtime, Chu Yiran carried her tray to a corner of the cafeteria.
After taking a few bites, she looked up and saw Zhao Ling walking over with his tray.
“Ran into you again,” Zhao Ling said as he sat down opposite her. “Do you always eat at this time every day?”
“Yeah.”
Zhao Ling took a few bites of her food and suddenly asked, “How are you adjusting? Has President Sun been giving you a hard time?”
“Not too bad, just normal work assignments.”
Zhao Ling hummed in acknowledgment and lowered her head to eat.
After a while, she said as if casually, “The last administrative specialist in the department was named Zhou Ning. Do you know why she left?”
Chu Yiran shook her head.
“While she was working here, she discovered some issues with procurement, wrote a report and submitted it. Then she resigned the following week.”
“I conducted her exit interview and asked for the reason. She said it was for personal development.”
Zhao Ling glanced at Chu Yiran. “Do you believe that?”
Chu Yiran put down her chopsticks.
“Sister Zhao, what are you trying to tell me by saying all this?”
Zhao Ling smiled.
“Nothing much. I just think you’re quite smart, more aware of boundaries than Zhou Ning was.”
She gathered her tray and stood up, patting Chu Yiran’s shoulder before leaving.
“Some things, it’s enough just to see them. You don’t necessarily have to do anything about them.”
“In this company, those who last the longest aren’t necessarily the most capable, but they’re definitely the best at protecting themselves.”
After Zhao Ling left, Chu Yiran sat in her seat, lost in thought for quite some time.
Zhao Ling knew more than she had imagined.
And Zhao Ling’s attitude was clear: you can know, but don’t act.
This also answered another question.
Could that note have been left by Zhao Ling?
Chu Yiran recalled the circumstances of the day she found the note.
The note had appeared in her drawer after she went out to use the restroom or run an errand.
The drawer wasn’t locked—anyone passing by her workstation could have slipped it in.
Zhao Ling worked in the Human Resources Department on the 37th floor and normally wouldn’t come down to the 35th floor.
But that day, Chu Yiran had made two trips to the 37th floor to submit materials. Zhao Ling could easily have come down during that time gap.
Of course, it might not have been Zhao Ling.
It could have been someone else within the Administrative Department, an informed employee from the Finance Department, or even a contingency left behind by Zhou Ning, who had already resigned.
Chu Yiran wrote a line in her memo: “Note source undetermined. Maintain distance, no proactive contact.”
Returning to her workstation in the afternoon, she focused on handling follow-up tasks for the summit and didn’t think about the procurement matter again.
At 5:30, she shut down her computer and prepared to leave.
As she stood up, the strap of her canvas bag caught on the drawer handle, pulling it halfway open.
She looked down.
There was another note in the drawer.
Chu Yiran’s palms instantly turned cold.
She reached in, pulled out the note, and unfolded it.
This time, the handwriting was different from the previous note—neat, printed characters, each stroke written with precision.
It contained only one sentence.
“External audit team arriving next Tuesday. Suggest you prepare accordingly.”
External audit team?
Chu Yiran folded the note and slipped it into the inner pocket of her shirt.
She didn’t know what the external audit meant, but she knew one thing.
Whoever was leaving these notes was slowly dragging her into a whirlpool she had no desire to be part of.