The phone, now on speaker, clearly broadcast Zhou Jiayan’s ragged breathing.
He was obviously furious.
Jiang Wanqing froze. After a long pause, she finally managed to stammer,
“Jiayan, I…”
But before she could say another word, Shen Shuhe hung up.
Her expression turned cold.
“If you want to explain yourself, Miss Jiang, be my guest.”
Putting away her phone, she turned to Wang Shanlou.
“Manager Wang, please show our guest out.”
With that, she didn’t spare Jiang Wanqing another glance before turning and walking away.
As she passed through the finance department’s cubicles toward the elevator, she wore a faint smile, nodding politely to every employee who greeted her.
The crisp clicks of her black stilettos with red soles echoed through the office—
the footsteps of a victor.
Back in her office on the twelfth floor, Shen Shuhe sat down at her desk.
Normally, she was the type to settle scores on the spot rather than brood over them, so conflicts rarely affected her mood.
But this time, instead of immediately returning to work, she found herself unable to focus.
Lu Yanzhou’s face kept surfacing in her mind.
The next moment, she typed his name into a search engine.
She wasn’t looking for gossip.
She simply wanted to know more about him so she’d be better prepared when he contacted her again to discuss the investigation.
She had never imagined she’d one day cross paths with Lu Yanzhou, so she’d never paid attention to information about him before. All she had known was that, despite his young age, he was already the commanding officer of an entire military region.
Now, as the search results filled with an intimidating list of distinguished military achievements, the weight of his title—Commander—finally felt real.
A man this extraordinary…
What kind of woman would he eventually marry?
One thing was certain.
It would never be Jiang Wanqing.
Shen Shuhe shifted her gaze away from the lengthy biographies and looked for photographs instead.
There was no denying it—his appearance was exceptional.
His features, his build…
Everything about him was flawless.
As though he had been meticulously sculpted by the goddess Nüwa herself, rather than hastily fashioned from leftover clay.
Yet strangely enough, the search engine offered almost no clear photographs of his face.
The few available images were all taken from a distance.
Most showed only his side profile or his back.
None revealed him head-on.
Scrolling tirelessly, she finally came across a slightly closer photograph.
It appeared to have been cropped from a large group photo. The image was blurry, and his head was lowered, the brim of his cap hiding most of his face.
Shen Shuhe’s breathing hitched.
Another face surfaced in her mind.
Her flash-marriage husband.
The resemblance…
was uncanny.
That had been her first impression when she’d climbed the spiral staircase yesterday and seen Lu Yanzhou.
But yesterday he’d been standing openly before her, his face completely visible.
With such striking, sharply defined features, the similarity hadn’t felt nearly as overwhelming as it did now.
After all…
She had never actually gotten a good look at her husband’s face.
In her remaining memories, he’d been wearing a baseball cap and a mask.
The only thing she’d clearly seen were his deep, dark eyes.
Now, the figure in her memory overlapped almost perfectly with the image on her computer screen.
The resemblance was at least ninety percent.
Then she suddenly remembered—
Her husband was also surnamed Lu.
That was far too much of a coincidence.
Something seemed to snap inside her head, leaving her dizzy with disbelief.
How was that even possible?
Just yesterday, she had been absolutely certain that someone like Lu Yanzhou—a man at the very top—could never impulsively sleep with a woman he’d just met and then register a marriage with her.
But now…
She had to admit she was beginning to waver.
What if…
What if it really was him?
Her heart tightened.
She immediately grabbed her phone and found the unfamiliar number that had texted her yesterday.
The conversation still ended with her last message:
I’ve transferred the sincerity payment. I’ve been really busy lately. Let’s meet in a month.
He hadn’t replied since.
She cautiously opened Alipay as well.
There wasn’t a single new message there, either.
Now she wasn’t so sure anymore.
If he really were Lu Yanzhou…
With his family background and status, there was no way he’d care about a mere one million yuan.
If anything, he’d probably consider the payment insulting.
So why had he calmly accepted it…
and then actually disappeared without another word?
After wrestling with herself for a long while, Shen Shuhe finally switched back to the text message screen and sent another message.
You there? Send me a photo of yourself.
Instead of driving herself crazy with guesses…
She might as well take the initiative.
What was there to lose?
One photograph would settle everything.
She stared at her phone for a long time.
Unlike last night, there was no instant reply.
Five minutes later, she decided she shouldn’t waste any more time waiting.
She closed the search engine and forced herself back to work.
Ten minutes later, she couldn’t help grabbing her phone again.
Still nothing.
Growing restless, she tapped her finger against the desk before copying the phone number and searching for it on WeChat.
The result disappointed her.
The profile picture wasn’t a selfie.
It was simply a vast expanse of lush green grassland stretching to the horizon.
It radiated the unmistakable aura of an older generation.
…And somehow made the account seem profoundly unromantic.
Well…
Green really was refreshing.
Very calming.
Oddly enough, she suddenly wasn’t quite so eager to see his face anymore.
Meanwhile, Jiang Wanqing left Shen Group in frustration and returned to her car.
She didn’t start the engine.
Instead, she stared at her phone for a very long time.
She had already prepared the perfect explanation to fool Zhou Jiayan.
All she had to do was wait for him to call, heartbroken and seeking answers.
After all…
No matter what she told him, he’d always believed her without question.
But she waited.
And waited.
A full thirty minutes passed.
No phone call.
No messages.
She had long since grown accustomed to being adored by him, so there was no way she would lower herself to explain first.
Still…
Before Shen Group collapsed, she wasn’t ready to discard him completely.
What if, in a moment of desperation, he offered to reinvest in Shen Group on the condition that Shen Shuhe reconcile with him?
That absolutely could not happen.
Thinking of that possibility, she finally opened their WeChat conversation and sent him a sighing emoji.
There was still no reply.
No call back, either.
An unfamiliar anxiety crept into her heart.
Afraid Zhou Jiayan might actually go begging Shen Shuhe to take him back, she finally called him herself.
She was confident that all it would take was the slightest gesture of goodwill…
and he’d come running back to her.
Beep… Beep…
Beep…
Zhou Jiayan declined her call immediately.