Four Years Ago, Her Husband Cheated on Her Body - Chapter 10

In the grand conference room of Qianhe Group, the previously vacant chairman’s seat finally welcomed its occupant—acting chairman Jia Qiao surprisingly came to the company in person to hold the meeting.

The executives were all present, and Huang Zheng, who hadn’t completed his resignation procedures yet, was also there, nervous like a slacker student kept behind by the teacher after school.

When everyone had arrived, Jia Qiao extended her hand toward her assistant.

“Pen.”

“Here you are,” the executive assistant immediately offered a signature pen with both hands.

Jia Qiao took the pen, opened Huang Zheng’s resignation application, and signed her name decisively.

As she handed it back, a smile played on the corner of her lips.

“It’s fortunate that you resigned voluntarily, saving the company a redundancy fee.”

Jia Qiao’s gaze was emotionless, and her gentle voice held no trace of anger.

“I wish you a promising future.”

Huang Zheng tremblingly accepted the resignation application, not daring to look at Jia Qiao’s beautiful face.

Hearing her words, he secretly mocked Jia Qiao for putting up a brave front.

He occupied a high position and controlled core technology, making him the company’s right-hand man, which was why Ruike was willing to pay a hefty price to poach him.

Now that Qianhe was missing an arm, Jia Qiao only cared about the paltry sum of the redundancy fee?

What short-sightedness!

Indeed, seeking employment elsewhere was the correct decision.

“Th-thank you, Mrs. Zhu.” Huang Zheng, holding the approved resignation, hurriedly scrambled out of the conference room at Jia Qiao’s signal.

‘Creak—’

The conference room door opened and closed. Jia Qiao scanned the room, her gaze sweeping across the face of every executive, and softly asked, “Is there anyone else who wants to resign?”

Silence.

A long silence.

The high-level management of Qianhe Group had not changed in four years, mostly being old subordinates personally promoted by Zhu Nanyu, who had jointly built the ‘Qianhe’ empire with him.

Zhu Nanyu was hailed as ‘the last conscience in the industry’ and ‘a capitalist who isn’t black-hearted at all,’ treating his employees excessively well.

Not only were the benefits generous, but he also shared stakes, delegated authority, respected every employee’s creativity and autonomy, while he himself took charge of coordination.

It was precisely because of this that, although Qianhe Group suffered a major blow when Zhu Nanyu had his accident, the overall operation remained relatively stable.

For the past four years, without Zhu Nanyu to guide the direction and control the big picture, Qianhe Group had still managed to firmly hold onto its basic foundation through the collective efforts of the executives.

However, unexpectedly, just as Lanner extended an olive branch and Qianhe was about to rise again, Huang Zheng chose to stab them in the back.

“Any decent person…” After a long silence, CFO Cai Xi pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses with her fingertip, her legs elegantly crossed in red-soled heels. “Wouldn’t resign at a time like this, would they?”

As Qianhe’s ‘Financial Queen’ spoke, the suppressed atmosphere was instantly ignited, and the other executives could no longer hold back their complaints.

“Exactly! I almost pointed my finger and cursed Huang Zheng, that turtle’s egg and bastard! Yesterday, he was still pretending to be dedicated, and today he brings Ruike’s people to the company to show off—who does he think he is!”

“Heh, does Huang Zheng think Ruike only poached him? Fu Qingyan called me three years ago.” The R&D manager finished, then quickly waved his hand, afraid of causing a misunderstanding, “I refused him then! I am wholeheartedly loyal to Chairman Zhu!”

“Ruike called me too,” Cai Xi rolled her eyes dramatically. “Is Fu Qingyan a graduate of Lanxiang a vocational school often associated with poaching or something? Always digging for people.”

Jia Qiao saw the executives, usually respectful, distant, mature, and steady in front of her, now cursing openly without any regard for their image, and she actually let out two light chuckles.

Catching the faint sound of laughter, the executives all looked at Jia Qiao as if they were seeing her for the first time today.

It was understandable. After Zhu Nanyu disappeared, Jia Qiao took the acting chairman position.

For four years, she had been like a qualified puppet, like a figurehead emperor who had been stripped of power, without any emotions of her own.

It wasn’t until today that everyone realized—

They knew nothing about Jia Qiao.

“Thank you all for being willing to stay with Qianhe.” Jia Qiao stood up, raised her hand to cover her chest, and bowed to everyone.

“Y-you’re welcome!”

The conference room was filled with the clatter of chairs being kicked back as the executives all stood up to return the bow, their expressions more flustered than the last.

Suddenly, someone raised their voice and shouted boldly, “We vow to share life and death with Qianhe!”

“Stop, it’s not time for ‘sharing life and death’ yet,” Jia Qiao stopped him and announced publicly, “Starting this month, all Qianhe employees will receive a 5% salary increase, and employees participating in the ‘Dawn Project’ will receive a 10% increase.”

“Chairwoman Jia?”

A salary increase should be a good thing, but given the current critical juncture, everyone looked at Jia Qiao with concern.

“Even without a raise, we would stay with Qianhe.”

“Right now, the funds should be used where they matter most, like hiring a more capable person for the CTO position to fill Huang Zheng’s spot with a high salary.”

Judging by the current situation, Qianhe did not have the budget for such a substantial salary increase, unless…

Cai Xi furrowed her brows tightly and asked in a very serious tone, “Chairwoman Jia, are you… preparing to accept Fu Qingyan’s condition and marry him?”

If Jia Qiao chose to accept Fu Qingyan, everything would make sense.

But in that case, the bold words of ‘vowing to share life and death with Qianhe’ they had just spoken would seem so absurd and ridiculous.

Jia Qiao looked at Cai Xi and seriously denied, “No, he’s too ugly.”

Cai Xi: “…”

The other executives: “???”

It seemed Zhu Nanyu was positioned based on his looks.

“After the meeting, please proceed with your work according to the original plan.” After Jia Qiao finished speaking, she called her assistant, “Give me the floor plans for Ruike’s headquarters.”

Late at night, Jia Qiao was draped in a plain black cloak, which made her figure appear even more slender.

On the wall in front of her, the blueprint of Ruike Group’s headquarters building was pinned.

Jia Qiao slowly picked up the sharp small knife beside her and threw it in a straight line.

‘Whoosh—’

The cold blade sliced through the air, accurately embedding itself in the dead center of the blueprint, at the location of the CEO’s office.

There were countless ways to finish off Fu Qingyan.

The problem lay in the survival rules of this world: pay your debts, a life for a life.

Dying was not a big deal; Jia Qiao simply felt that sacrificing her life for someone like Fu Qingyan was a loss.

Since she couldn’t kill Fu Qingyan, what else could she do to make him give up competing with Qianhe?

Break his arms and legs? Lock him up and torture him slowly?

Those options seemed a little too ‘criminal’.

While Jia Qiao was deep in thought, her phone next to her kept ringing non-stop.

That slow-typing Zoa was now screen-spamming with unprecedented typing speed, desperately trying to get her attention.

Zoa: I heard about the Qianhe matter.

Zoa: Before you take any action,

Zoa: I must remind you

Zoa: Chairwoman Jia herself is also an important reason for considering cooperation.

Jia Qiao saw his efforts and finally picked up her phone to reply: I know you have ulterior motives for me, but I am already married, please find someone else.

The message was sent, and Zoa replied incredibly quickly: I heard your husband has been missing for a long time.

“Here we go again,” Jia Qiao murmured.

After Zhu Nanyu’s accident, too many people had said similar things.

It seemed that after a partner’s death, one should completely turn that page and immediately find a new partner.

Jia Qiao once heard a story about a type of bird.

That large and graceful seabird, with a lifespan nearly equal to a human’s, has only one mate in its lifetime and flies across half the globe every year to reunite with its partner.

If one bird dies, the other will spend the remainder of its life, with its memories intact, searching for its mate until death.

Perhaps they didn’t pair up for love, but being faithful to a mate is an instinct etched into their DNA.

Jia Qiao thought: Humans use so many stories, laws, and vows to promote the correctness of ‘one life, one love, one partner.’

Why do they always like to betray the rules they set themselves?

Jia Qiao: He’s only dead, he didn’t divorce me.

After the message was sent, the ‘opponent is typing’ indicator flashed for a long time, but no new message came through.

Even the thickest-skinned person wouldn’t pester her after receiving such a reply, would they?

Jia Qiao was about to put down her phone and continue thinking about how to deal with Fu Qingyan when the notification sound rang again.

“…” How could anyone be this shameless?

Jia Qiao clicked on the message with the mindset of ‘I want to see what kind of outrageous nonsense you can come up with now,’ and found Zoa to be even more perverse than she imagined.

Zoa: You are welcome to string me along and use me as a tool who secretly admires a married person but lacks the courage to act, yet can be driven solely by you.

Zoa: Everyone in the industry says you are a poisonous dodder flower, ruthless, loveless, and only capable of using others. Why can’t you be cruel only to me?

Zoa: I might have to overthink this.

“He’s so full of himself. How can there be such a shameless person in the world?”

Jia Qiao’s limited experience was thoroughly shocked by the extent of the other party’s perversion. She even forgot the plan she had been devising and angrily typed a reply.

Jia Qiao: What good is there in using you? You’re just a burden.

The message was just sent, and the other party, who seemed to have been waiting a long time, immediately revealed his trump card.

Zoa: I can hack into the CEO’s office mainframe.

“…?”

Even if Jia Qiao was completely clueless about technology, she knew the high risk and incredible skill required to hack into the CEO’s office mainframe.

So, the question arose.

A master with such incredible skills could easily get a salary of tens of millions at any company, right?

Yet, Zoa’s only work during this time has been to connect with her at a speed of one ‘OK’ every five minutes?

—Who exactly is he? And for what purpose is he contacting her?

Zoa: May I have the honor of being your accomplice?

One o’clock in the morning, the night was like ink, without stars or moon.

In front of Ruike Group’s headquarters building, two-night security guards were on duty in the guard post, with a few lights still on in the office building behind them.

It was a crucial time in the competition between Ruike and Qianhe for the project, and employees frequently worked all night.

The old security guard yawned drowsily. In the blink of an eye, a black shadow seemed to flash past, lightly floating onto the top of the guard post, more than two meters high.

“Master, someone seemed to have just passed by!” The young security guard picked up his police baton, peered out of the guard post, and vigilantly scanned the surroundings.

“Are you confused from your shift? Where’s the person!” The old security guard chuckled, teasing him, “We’re guarding here. Unless he can fly, it’s impossible for him to get past.”

The young security guard, with less work experience, worriedly asked, “Is everything really okay?”

“It’s fine! Even if he gets in, so what? There are still people working overtime in the company, you need to swipe your card everywhere, and the security measures are strict. Don’t worry about nonsense!”

Inside the headquarters building, a designer who was dizzy from working overtime suddenly had his inspiration interrupted by the sound of curtains blowing in the wind. He held his head and shouted irritably, “It’s too noisy, close the window!”

“My apologies.”

A strange but very pleasant voice echoed in the office, accompanied by the sound of a window closing.

The designer suddenly jolted, then remembered—

Tonight, he was the only one working overtime on the entire floor.

And he hadn’t opened the window at all!

The designer raised his head in horror, preparing to look behind him.

The moment he turned around, he felt a sharp pain in his back, and then his consciousness quickly became blurry.

Before falling into unconsciousness, he heard that angel-like gentle voice sigh:

“Still working your butt off at one in the morning.”

“Before you die suddenly, consider changing your job.”