A Broken Mirror Never Mends - Chapter 10

Shi Tian glanced at Ji Yuanlin beside him and noticed that he seemed trapped in some uncontrollable emotion, not yet fully back to his senses.

Another call popped up on the screen. He held the phone in silence for a moment before sliding the screen to answer.

The sound of the waves around them was too loud. Worried the person on the other end wouldn’t hear him, Shi Tian raised his voice slightly. “Hello?”

“…”

Upon hearing his voice, the owner of the number suddenly went silent.

On the other end of the line.

That all-too-familiar voice came through the phone, echoing in the spacious CEO’s office. Mixed with the sound of wind and waves, it sounded broken and intermittent.

Zhou Sifu’s expression froze. He immediately handed the phone to the secretary in front of him, signaling him to speak.

Secretary: “???”

Wait… what am I supposed to say?

He had just watched his boss look completely impatient while making call after call, his brow furrowed because the other party wouldn’t pick up. But he really didn’t know what the boss wanted to say to Mr. Shi!

Under Zhou Sifu’s intimidating gaze, the secretary swallowed and took the phone. “…Hello, is this President Shi?”

The other party paused for a second before saying politely, “Yes, it is. And you are?”

“I am a secretary from the CEO’s office at Danofe. You can call me Alan.”

The secretary spoke cautiously, watching his boss’s face for a reaction.

Seeing that the boss didn’t seem to have a major reaction, he had an idea and continued bravely: “It’s like this, President Shi. Our company’s finance department is interested in learning about your investment strategy for LED chips to see if there are future opportunities for cooperation. However, my colleagues in finance called your office and found that your CFO, Director of Financing, and Head of Legal are all unreachable. We wanted to ask what’s going on.”

Seeing the boss glare coldly at him, the secretary felt like crying.

He had no other choice but to say that. What connection could a lighting company like Fengyu possibly have with a car manufacturer like Danofe?!

The person on the other end said, “One moment.” Soon, the noise in the receiver quieted down; Mr. Shi seemed to have found a quieter place.

“Sorry, Alan,” he heard the other party say. “Our company organized an overseas trip for employees these past two days, and those managers came along. We haven’t been able to handle work matters in a timely manner; I’m very sorry. As for them being unreachable, I will follow up and get back to you shortly.”

This was a very standard piece of professional communication—polite, calm, and composed.

The secretary opened his mouth, not knowing how to respond for a moment, only to see that the boss had quickly scribbled two lines on a piece of scrap paper and pushed it toward him.

Following the points on the paper, he cleared his throat and said with a smile, “I see… well, thank you, President Shi. We just thought it was a bit strange that only the people in charge of company finances were unavailable, while other departments could be reached normally. I feel much better now that you’ve explained.”

Hearing this, the person on the phone went silent for a few seconds before slowly responding, “I understand. Thank you for the reminder.”

Then, another voice came from the other end of the line, seemingly asking Mr. Shi who he was talking to. It was likely his husband, Mr. Ji.

He didn’t hear clearly what Mr. Shi said to his husband. Just as he was about to continue under the boss’s signaling gaze, he suddenly heard Mr. Shi ask calmly over the phone: “Alan, if you have to relay everything, does your boss not have a mouth of his own?”

As soon as Mr. Shi finished speaking, the secretary saw his boss’s face turn instantly black.

The next second, the boss snatched the phone from his hand.

“I’m hanging up.”

After saying those three words to Shi Tian, Zhou Sifu decisively and quickly pressed the end call button.

The secretary had never seen his boss’s expressions be so varied in such a short amount of time, but he didn’t dare mention Mr. Shi’s obvious mockery.

There is a three-hour time difference between the Maldives and home. While it was dawn over there, the sun was high in the sky here. Refilling the coffee for the boss at the desk, he asked, “President Zhou, what should we do next?”

Zhou Sifu lowered his eyes, his fingertips tapping lightly on the desk, his face expressionless. “Wait.”

Shi Tian had no memory of what time he returned to the hotel last night. He only remembered he and Ji Yuanlin walking along the coast in the middle of the night, later climbing a large rock by a cliff to chat for a long time under the stars.

In the middle of it, he had received a strange call from Zhou Sifu’s secretary. He wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but he thought he even heard Zhou Sifu’s own voice at the end.

After coming down from the rock, he noticed Ji Yuanlin’s mood seemed to become unstable. After returning to the resort, Ji Yuanlin took him to a small roadside bar where they both drank a lot.

He had been worried about what Alan, Zhou Sifu’s secretary, had said and wanted to go back to the hotel to ask the executives. However, while they were drinking, Ji Yuanlin suddenly hugged him and started crying, rambling on about things that happened during their student days.

Unable to leave his husband alone, he could only comfort the grown man while calling the waiter to settle the bill.

Supporting a stumbling Ji Yuanlin back to the hotel, he felt terribly dizzy for some reason. As soon as he closed his eyes and lay on the bed, he lost consciousness.

The humid sea breeze hit his cheek with a slight chill. Shi Tian opened his eyes and saw a rainbow outside the window after the rain.

He was alone in the room; Ji Yuanlin was not there.

Climbing out of bed, Shi Tian couldn’t help but let out a small hiss of pain. He reached up to touch his lips and found a patch of dried blood at the corner of his mouth.

He sat on the bed dazed for a moment. Staring at the dense kiss marks on his neck in the mirror, Shi Tian gradually realized something.

Ji Yuanlin had touched him last night.

For some reason, he had actually lost all memory of it.

Intimacy is a consensual hormonal encounter between partners, never just one-sided pressure. For the past eight years, Ji Yuanlin had always been very considerate and gentle. Never once had he ignored Shi Tian’s wishes like this, forcing a sexual encounter while he was asleep and he hadn’t even cleaned him up afterward.

Strangely, it seemed he hadn’t resisted his husband at all, letting him do whatever he wanted.

The kiss marks on his Adam’s apple and the corner of his mouth were proof. To leave marks that deep in those spots, he would have had to actively tilt his neck back to cooperate.

Frowning, he slowly got up from the bed. Shi Tian intended to find his phone to call Ji Yuanlin, but he suddenly received a call from the hotel front desk.

The front desk told him that someone had called the hotel’s main line. Since they didn’t know his room number, they could only provide his name and passport information to ask the hotel for help, saying it was an emergency.

Shi Tian asked the hotel to transfer the call. As soon as it connected, he heard Assistant Chen’s very anxious voice: “President Shi, is that you?”

“It’s me.” His temples were still throbbing slightly. Shi Tian rubbed them and leaned against the headboard. “Why didn’t you call me directly?”

Assistant Chen’s voice sounded shaky, taking three breaths for every sentence. “Your phone kept saying it was powered off. I really couldn’t find you, so I found the hotel’s contact info online—”

Hearing this, Shi Tian suddenly realized that since he woke up, he hadn’t seen his clothes or his phone at all. It was as if those items had vanished into thin air.

Putting on the bathrobe from the chair, Shi Tian began to search the room for his phone. He discovered that not only were his phone and clothes gone, but his wallet, ID, and all the luggage he and Ji Yuanlin had kept in the closet had completely disappeared from the room.

He suddenly had a very bad feeling.

On the phone, Assistant Chen spoke hurriedly: “Someone from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce came this afternoon. They said they wanted to find you and President Ji to investigate the guarantee the company provided to Mingde Technology last year, as well as the company’s debt issues from this year and last.”

“Secretary Qiu told me that President Ji rushed back to the country early. He just arrived at the airport, ready to cooperate with the investigation.”

As he spoke, Assistant Chen’s voice sounded a bit aggrieved: “I just went back to the office to get some files, but my key card wouldn’t work. HR came to me and said I was fired verbally by the two bosses. I saw that you didn’t return with President Ji, so I wanted to call and ask what happened. But your phone was off; I thought you had blocked me and didn’t want to take my calls.”

“Wait—”

Shi Tian held his aching head and interrupted Assistant Chen. “You’re saying Ji Yuanlin left me here and went back alone to be investigated, and he fired you on top of that?”

“Yes, so I thought it was strange too.”

“What about Lao Cui and A-Hao?” Shi Tian asked immediately. “Did they go back with him too?”

Lao Cui and A-Hao were the company’s CFO and Head of Legal. They were the most familiar with the company’s financial transactions and legal regulations. If there was a misunderstanding, these two would be crucial during an investigation.

Hearing this, Assistant Chen stammered, “It… it seems only President Ji came back alone.”

Shi Tian: “…”

He was a very precise person when it came to work. Before leaving for his honeymoon, he had arranged all company affairs for the next two weeks to prevent any sudden issues.

The only thing he didn’t expect was that the company’s finances would suddenly have problems now.

But even if there was such a risk, someone had called him last night to drop hints.

If he hadn’t been unconscious, he would have personally questioned those three executives last night.

Unless someone had acted against him in advance to keep the truth from coming out.

After a moment, Assistant Chen suddenly heard President Shi speak coldly on the other end: “The wine.”

Assistant Chen froze. “What?”

“He drugged my wine.”

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