After adding each other on WeChat,
Qin Wan glanced at the time on her screen. A hint of anxiety immediately crossed her delicate features. She lifted her eyes to Gu Yingchuan and said, “I’m going to be late for work! Let’s meet for afternoon tea sometime, then. As for making it up to you for last night, I…”
“I’ll let you know when I think of something.”
Afraid she might say something else strange, Gu Yingchuan simply cut her off. As he spoke, he added her name to her WeChat contact.
Qin Wan thought that sounded fine, too.
Given his spending habits, she really couldn’t think of anything she could afford to do to make it up to him.
The two of them had reached an understanding on that point.
Qin Wan said goodbye politely.
As soon as Cao Jun saw her leave, he hurried in through the door.
The moment he saw Gu Yingchuan, he said urgently, “President Gu, Madam just called. She gave you an ultimatum: you have to go back to the old residence tonight and choose someone for a matchmaking date.”
Gu Yingchuan’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
He slipped his phone into his pocket and gave a quiet, indifferent “Mm.”
…
Qin Wan drove her secondhand Polo as fast as she could and just managed not to be late.
After parking, she passed the coffee shop in the lobby on the first floor and suddenly remembered something. She doubled back to buy an iced coffee with no ice, then went upstairs.
The company was on the twentieth floor of the building.
The Project Department was tucked away at the very back. Qin Wan greeted her coworkers politely as she made her way there, then stopped outside Director Zhang’s office.
She raised her hand and knocked.
“Come in,” Zhang Meng called from inside.
Qin Wan pushed open the door. Before Zhang Meng could ask what she wanted, a cup of coffee suddenly splashed across Zhang Meng’s face.
“Ah—Qin Wan! Have you lost your mind?”
Zhang Meng screamed as she sprang up from her chair.
Brown liquid dripped from her hair onto her clothes. She looked utterly disheveled.
The coworkers outside immediately crowded around the doorway.
Qin Wan tossed the empty coffee cup onto Zhang Meng’s desk. A faint, mocking smile played on her lips as she said, “I’ve lost my mind? Don’t you know what you did last night, Director Zhang?”
Zhang Meng’s face stiffened.
With a guilty conscience, she avoided Qin Wan’s gaze and threatened, “I have no idea what you’re talking about! You come barging into my office first thing in the morning and act crazy, and you’ll be getting a termination notice from HR!”
“Fine. I’ll wait.”
Qin Wan knew what the consequences would be when she did it.
Besides, she had no intention of working for a manager who used such underhanded tactics.
With her head held high, Qin Wan returned to her desk under the stunned, curious gazes of her coworkers and began packing up her things.
But what arrived wasn’t a termination notice from HR.
It was a folder Zhang Meng tossed onto her desk.
“Young people get worked up easily. I’m magnanimous enough to let this morning’s incident go.”
Standing beside Qin Wan, Zhang Meng looked down at her condescendingly. “I’ll give you a chance to make up for your mistake. Shengjing Group is putting a project out to tender. If you can secure it, I’ll forget what happened before, and you can have the deputy director position, too. But if you can’t…” She scoffed. “Pack your things and get out!”
Qin Wan didn’t believe in things falling into her lap for no reason.
But she really did need money, and she wanted a promotion.
Whatever Zhang Meng’s motive, Qin Wan had no choice but to take on the challenge.
She opened the folder and skimmed it.
Her gaze dropped—and landed, entirely by chance, on the name Gu Yingchuan.
The current president of Shengjing Group?
Qin Wan’s mind exploded with a loud bang all over again.
Could it be someone with the same name?
She hurriedly searched online. The moment his photo appeared, the last of her hopes died.
Of all the people she could have slept with,
she’d slept with the godlike President Gu, the man every young woman in City B was rumored to dream of.
And she’d actually had the nerve to offer him money as compensation!
Looking back, the fact that Gu Yingchuan hadn’t flown into a rage at her showed remarkable gentlemanly restraint.
Qin Wan felt as if her head had suddenly grown twice as heavy.
As she struggled with the headache, her phone, lying on the desk, kept receiving messages.
She unlocked it and took a look.
They were from her mother, Shen Wenna.
She’d sent more than a dozen messages in a row. In short, her stepfather had gotten into trouble again, and she wanted Qin Wan to come straight home after work.
Qin Wan’s headache only worsened.
She’d assumed her stepfather had run up gambling debts again and wanted her and her mother to use their savings to cover them. But the truth was far worse than she’d imagined.
At seven that evening,
Qin Wan had barely gotten home when her tearful mother pulled her to a chair by the dining table.
A promissory note was thrown down in front of her.
The sight nearly made her faint.
“Five hundred thousand?! Mom, how am I supposed to pay that back?”
Qin Wan counted the zeros again and again in disbelief. Once she was sure it was five hundred thousand, she raised her voice and demanded an explanation.
“Stop shouting! What are you shouting for?”
Her stepfather, Xu Liming, sat on the sofa and took a drag from his cigarette. He gave Qin Wan a hostile look. “It’s only five hundred thousand. I’ve already made a deal with the other party. If you agree to become his second wife, the debt will be wiped clean! I’ve supported you and your mother all these years. It’s time you paid me back!”
Xu Liming spoke as if it were only natural. Qin Wan’s face darkened.
She came from a blended family. Her mother had married Xu Liming, an unremarkable-looking man, so Qin Wan would have a place to live. The three of them—Qin Wan, her mother, and Xu Liming’s son—had lived together in this little two-bedroom apartment of just over seventy square meters.
For years, Xu Liming had used the apartment to keep the two of them in line.
To make life easier for her mother, Qin Wan had worked especially hard at school and earned a number of scholarships. After graduating, she’d also paid off a good deal of Xu Liming’s gambling debts. That was why even the secondhand Polo she drove now was still being paid off in installments.
She hadn’t expected him to go even further and try to wring every last bit of value out of her.
If she was to become someone’s second wife, the man must be pretty old, too!
“Actually, you’re the one who’s getting the better deal! Mr. Chen is only forty-seven, already has assets worth tens of millions, and has children of his own. All he’s missing is a wife. Marry him, and you won’t even have to give birth to any children—you can become a rich man’s wife. You’ll skip decades of struggle. This is a blessing for you!”
When Qin Wan said nothing, her face dark, Xu Liming pressed his point.
Apparently, when someone was left speechless enough, they really did laugh.
Qin Wan couldn’t help laughing as she looked at Xu Liming. “Would you like this blessing for yourself?”
Xu Liming was taken aback, but didn’t answer.
Qin Wan turned to her mother, Shen Wenna. Seeing her mother’s evasive eyes, she understood at once that Shen Wenna had known about her stepfather’s intentions all along.
“So… Mom, you think this is a blessing for me, too?”
Qin Wan’s voice trembled.
She knew the answer, but was still afraid to hear it.
Shen Wenna was a traditional woman who believed that once she was with a man, he should be the one she relied on.
She did feel sorry for her daughter, so young and lovely, being forced to become someone’s stepmother. But if Xu Liming insisted on it, she truly felt there was nothing she could do.
“Cry, cry, cry! All you ever do is cry! Damn it, say something!”
Xu Liming’s anger shot up when Shen Wenna didn’t answer. He rose from the sofa and strode over, raising a hand to hit her.
Qin Wan sprang from her chair almost instinctively and stepped in front of Shen Wenna—