The next three days passed unusually quietly for Chu Yiran.
She received no more notes, nor any further anonymous emails.
When Zhao Ling ran into her in the cafeteria, they simply exchanged nods without saying anything more.
The atmosphere in the administrative department remained tense.
Sun Wanqing arrived early and left late every day, rarely appearing in the office area during working hours, spending most of her time shut in her office making phone calls.
Chu Yiran couldn’t hear the content of the calls, but from the increasingly tight line of Sun Wanqing’s lips each time she hung up, she could tell things weren’t going well.
Chen Zhi from the external audit team, along with two auditors, spent another three full days in the small conference room.
They only emerged twice—once to pick up printed materials and once to ask Chu Yiran to supplement a supplier’s bank transaction records.
Chu Yiran complied without uttering an extra word.
At four o’clock on Friday afternoon, Chen Zhi walked out of the conference room holding a bound report.
She didn’t go to Sun Wanqing.
Instead, she walked to the elevator and pressed the up button.
Sitting at her workstation, Chu Yiran watched Chen Zhi’s back disappear behind the closing elevator doors, her heartbeat quickening involuntarily.
The sixty-second floor.
The audit report had been delivered directly into Shen Yu’s hands.
Lin Yuan leaned over from the side, his voice barely a whisper: “It’s over. She bypassed President Sun.”
Chu Yiran opened a spreadsheet on her computer, pretending to review data, though none of the numbers on the screen registered in her mind.
For the next hour, the thirty-fifth floor was unnervingly quiet.
Everyone was working, but the sound of keyboards was noticeably softer than usual. Even drinking water was done cautiously, as if a single cough could set something off.
At ten past five, the internal phone in Sun Wanqing’s office rang.
Even through the closed door, Chu Yiran could hear it.
It rang twice before being answered, followed by a low murmur of indistinguishable words.
About three minutes later, Sun Wanqing’s office door opened.
Wearing her black blazer and carrying her handbag, she walked briskly through the office area, her expression frozen.
No one spoke to her, and she didn’t look at anyone.
The elevator doors closed behind her.
Lin Yuan poked his head out from behind the partition and exchanged a glance with Chu Yiran.
“Was she called upstairs?”
Chu Yiran didn’t answer.
But the answer was already too obvious to need saying.
That night, back in her apartment, Chu Yiran finally opened the three attachments from the anonymous email and carefully cross-checked each piece of data.
Zhou Ning had organized everything meticulously. Every irregular expense was annotated with contract numbers, approver signatures, and payment dates. After cross-referencing, the implications were unmistakably clear.
Three million four hundred thousand yuan, dispersed across eleven procurement transactions spanning nearly a year.
The largest single transaction was nine hundred sixty thousand yuan, recorded as a “venue setup value-added service fee,” though the corresponding service had never actually been provided.
In every approval signature field, Sun Wanqing’s name appeared.
Chu Yiran reviewed the data once more, confirming that none of the documents she had personally handled and archived had been tampered with.
All her operational records, email correspondence, and document transfer logs since joining the company were completely clean.
She didn’t go anywhere over the weekend, spending the two days meticulously reviewing every electronic backup of documents handled by the administrative department during this period. She made sure there were no omissions, no errors, and no loopholes that could be traced back to her.
At eight o’clock on Monday morning, when Chu Yiran arrived at the company, the atmosphere on the thirty-fifth floor was completely different from the previous week.
Sun Wanqing’s office door was open, but no one was inside.
Most of the documents on the desk had been cleared away. The small brooch was no longer on the desktop, and the dark trench coat usually hung behind the door was also gone.
Lin Yuan stood at the entrance of the pantry, holding a cup. When he saw Chu Yiran approaching, he gave her a meaningful look.
“President Sun has been suspended.”
Chu Yiran paused for a moment.
“When did this happen?”
“Saturday. I heard the notice came directly from the CEO’s office, instructing her to cooperate with an internal investigation and temporarily suspend all duties.”
“What are they investigating?”
“Procurement matters.”
Lin Yuan lowered his voice. “I heard the external audit report listed several issues, all related to Hengyuan Trading.”
Chu Yiran nodded, poured herself a glass of water, and returned to her workstation.
After sitting down, she opened her email inbox.
At the top of her inbox was a company-wide notification email sent from the CEO’s office.
The subject line read: “Notice Regarding Recent Personnel Adjustments in the Administrative Department.”
The body of the email was brief.
“Due to work requirements, Sun Wanqing, Deputy Director of the Administrative Department, has been suspended from her duties to cooperate with the company’s internal investigation.”
“Daily operations of the Administrative Department will be temporarily overseen by the Comprehensive Management Department.”
“All departments are to carry out their work as usual. For any business coordination needs, please contact Zhang Mingyuan, the head of the Comprehensive Management Department.”
The email was signed by Shen Yu.
After reading the email, Chu Yiran silently calculated in her mind.
From the day she joined the company to Sun Wanqing’s suspension, it had been exactly eighteen days.
In those eighteen days, she had discovered three irregularities, received three anonymous notes, been summoned to the sixty-second floor twice, and nearly had her cover blown three times.
At 9:30 a.m., Zhang Mingyuan from the Comprehensive Management Department came to the thirty-fifth floor for an inspection.
A man in his early forties, wearing a white shirt, he spoke in a measured tone and briefly chatted with everyone.
When he reached Chu Yiran’s workstation, he flipped through the folders on her desk.
“So you’re Chu Yiran?”
“Yes.”
“How far along are you with the logistics preparations for the summit?”
“The third venue proposal has been finalized. All supplier quotations, contracts, and payment milestones have been entered into the system and archived.”
“We’re currently waiting for the final confirmation of the venue setup plan.”
Zhang Mingyuan flipped through her filing folders, looking somewhat surprised.
“Your classification method is quite clear. You’ve created separate sets by supplier, timeline, and expense category?”
“Yes, for easier reference from different angles.”
Zhang Mingyuan looked at her for a moment before nodding.
“Good work. Keep it up.”
After he left, Lin Yuan leaned over and whispered, “I recognized the look Zhang Mingyuan gave you just now.”
“He’s been in the Comprehensive Management Department for over a decade and rarely praises anyone.”
Chu Yiran smiled but didn’t respond.
She had nothing to be proud of.
The reason she had organized the files to this extent wasn’t due to diligence—it was out of fear.
Those meticulously structured document archives were a firewall she had built for herself.
If Sun Wanqing’s matter involved the administrative department and the investigation traced back to her, every document would be verifiable, and every step of the process would be traceable.
She was not an accomplice, nor was she an insider—just a newcomer who followed the rules.
In the afternoon, Chu Yiran received a call from Chen Zhi.
“Chu Yiran, the formal audit report has been submitted to management.”
“If there are any follow-up questions, we may contact you again.”
“Okay, Sister Chen.”
“Also,” Chen Zhi paused, “we included a special note in the report regarding all the data organization work you’ve handled since joining the company.”
“Your filing quality is the highest among all administrative department liaisons in recent years.”
Chu Yiran was taken aback.
“Thank you.”
After hanging up, she stared at her phone screen for a long while.
She didn’t know whether Chen Zhi’s words were merely polite or implied something else.
But she had an uneasy feeling.
In this company, performing too poorly would get you eliminated, but performing too well would get you noticed.
And being noticed could sometimes be more dangerous than being eliminated.