“With such terrible alcohol tolerance, you still drank with them? If you knew you’d had too much, why didn’t you call someone to pick you up? I don’t think it was the alcohol that numbed your brain—it was watching those male models dance that shook your brains right out of your head! How do you know those male models aren’t just selling their looks and not their bodies? What if you slept with someone unclean? Do you know how much harm that could do to you?”
Inside the private apartment at Shuihua Jingcheng, Ji Qingtang laid into Meng Xiao without holding back.
The moment she learned that Meng Xiao had slept with someone after getting drunk, she didn’t even bother putting on makeup—she just threw on some clothes and rushed straight to Meng Xiao’s apartment.
Meng Xiao nodded repeatedly with a sincere attitude, then muttered quietly, “It should be fine… I didn’t… didn’t fully pay for it…”
Ji Qingtang sat on the chair, arms crossed, interrogating her. “What do you mean ‘didn’t fully pay for it’? Explain clearly.”
“It means we probably didn’t get to the final step…”
Ji Qingtang stared at the hickeys on her neck—comparable to the ones she herself had—and frowned. “Probably?”
Meng Xiao hung her head, running a hand through her hair in frustration. “It’s just that I don’t feel any discomfort. I don’t have experience, but based on common sense, we didn’t get to the final step.”
Ji Qingtang let out a slight sigh of relief. “Liu Chun might play wild, but she can keep things under control. You’re just all talk and no game.”
Meng Xiao gave an appeasing laugh and admitted her mistake with a sincere attitude.
Ji Qingtang asked cautiously and tactfully, “That person didn’t get any leverage on you, did they?”
“No, no.” Meng Xiao shook her head. “When I escaped from the hotel, he was still asleep with his eyes closed. Besides, if he wanted something from me, he would have contacted me by now.”
Ji Qingtang hummed in acknowledgment. “When you’re sober, your brain still works decently.”
Meng Xiao continued analyzing, as if trying to show Ji Qingtang that her brain really did work fine. “But that person was very well-dressed. He probably wasn’t a male model.”
The man’s face surfaced in her mind, and Meng Xiao nodded to herself.
“Actually, I have to say, he was pretty handsome. If I hadn’t been so panicked, I might have actually asked for his contact info and developed a friends-with-benefits situation.”
Ji Qingtang listened to Meng Xiao’s rambling. “Want to go back to Jingguo International to pick up your brain first?”
Meng Xiao let out a dry laugh and immediately stopped her rambling. “I should probably go to the hospital for a check-up. I really blacked out yesterday. I vaguely remember that after I got to the hotel, someone made me drink half a bottle of mineral water. Could he have put something weird in the water?”
Ji Qingtang opened her mouth, the words just reaching her throat, when she heard Meng Xiao continue, “But how did I even get to the hotel in the first place?”
“You have the nerve to say you got a free ride?” Ji Qingtang’s face practically screamed “speechless.” “Getting picked up by some stranger and even tipping them—isn’t that more believable than your story of getting a free ride from a man?”
…
At Huifu Center, a towering building rose into the clouds.
Inside the conference room, Shen Jinyu sat at the center.
Dozens of senior executives noticed the absence of Cao Sikang, a founding-level figure of the group, and seeing Shen Jinyu’s calm, confident demeanor, they knew that in this war thick with smoke, it was ultimately Shen Jinyu, the younger generation, who had won completely.
Three years ago, Shen Jinyu had taken office as the president of the Shen Group.
Before that, the older executives in the company had been full of praise for Shen Jinyu, but the moment he climbed above them, they immediately put on airs.
Unfortunately, Shen Jinyu was even more ruthless than they had imagined. From the very start, he openly opposed Cao Sikang, forcibly suppressing Cao Sikang’s project to expand and build business hotels domestically, and vigorously pushing forward the “Oriental Tangchun Hotel” project, which aimed to create internationally high-end resort hotels.
More than a decade ago, the Shen Group had tested the waters in building world-class international tourist hotels, but the results were mediocre at best—unable to rival world-renowned luxury hotels, yet a cut above the average five-star establishment. It was an awkward position to be in.
After that, the Shen Group focused on stability, shifting its emphasis to commercial real estate.
The Oriental Tangchun project was grand in scale, requiring enormous investment with little prospect of short-term profit. Even though the market assessment data looked favorable, the actual results remained uncertain.
Most of the group’s senior executives believed Shen Jinyu was taking too big a step forward, idealizing the project’s returns. As a result, when it was first launched, it met with tremendous resistance.
Three years passed in the blink of an eye. Six Oriental Tangchun hotels had been built and were in operation. Thanks to their mysterious Eastern aesthetic and understated luxury design, they were listed by a well-known media outlet as one of the world’s top ten renowned hotels.
A little over three months ago, Shen Jinyu went to Switzerland, signaling that the seventh Oriental Tangchun hotel would soon be built overseas.
The Oriental Tangchun project had not only become the new pillar of the Shen Group but had also driven the growth of the group’s commercial real estate business.
At just 27 years old, Shen Jinyu had become a celebrated business prodigy.
As for why Cao Sikang was absent from the meeting, every senior executive present knew exactly why.
When the first Oriental Tangchun hotel was being built, Cao Sikang had gone to considerable lengths to throw obstacles in the way.
Cao Sikang had not been involved in this project, yet Shen Jinyu had included him on the meeting list—a blatant move to humiliate him.
Naturally, Cao Sikang couldn’t save face, so he simply used an excuse to skip the meeting.
After the meeting concluded, Shen Jinyu returned to the president’s office.
Song Qikun handed him a tablet. “President Shen, this is your schedule for the coming week. Saturday and Sunday have been left open. Please take a look.”
Shen Jinyu glanced at it and nodded.
Song Qikun added, “Also, your wife’s private driver just called to say that she went to the hospital.”
Shen Jinyu frowned slightly and reached for his phone on the desk.
Song Qikun, quick to read the room, said, “President Shen, I’ll step out for now. Just call me if you need anything.”
Shen Jinyu gave a brief “Mm” and dialed Ji Qingtang’s number.
“Why did you go to the hospital?” He could hear the somewhat noisy background on the other end. “Are you feeling unwell?”
Ji Qingtang wasn’t at all surprised that Shen Jinyu knew where she was. “No, I came with a friend.”
There was no response from the other end of the line. Ji Qingtang, keeping her patience, added a random explanation. “I came with Meng Xiao. She has irregular menstruation.”
Shen Jinyu seemed to think of something and, after a few seconds of silence, asked, “You’re not feeling unwell, are you? I didn’t notice anything wrong with you last night. This morning…”
Hearing the dial tone, Ji Qingtang cut him off. “I’m fine. Gotta go, I’m busy.”
Seeing Ji Qingtang hang up, Meng Xiao teased, “Your husband cares about you that much. He’s not as superficial as you make him out to be, is he?”
Ji Qingtang’s tone was flat. “Look at you, so naive. You know exactly why Shen Jinyu and I got married.”
Meng Xiao naturally knew what circumstances had brought about their marriage.
A year and a half ago, while building the sixth Oriental Tangchun hotel, the Shen Group had encountered a financial crisis.
This was the first Oriental Tangchun hotel that the Shen family had built overseas. To smoothly expand the project abroad, the Shen and Ji families had bound their interests together through marriage—one side received a massive infusion of capital to turn its crisis around, while the other invested in the Oriental Tangchun project for long-term gains.
Ji Qingtang saw it clearly: “Surface-level concern cannot withstand deep scrutiny.”
Beyond the entanglement of interests, a large part of the reason also came down to Shen Jinyu himself.
He was highly methodical and equally possessive—anything he had marked as his own, whether he liked it or not, he cared about deeply.