Four Years Ago, Her Husband Cheated on Her Body - Chapter 17

The series of tasks for the ‘Dawn Project’ gradually began to fall into place. Logically speaking, there was nothing left for Jia Qiao, this ‘good-for-nothing puppet figurehead,’ to do.

However,

“Chairman Jia.”

A low, hoarse voice entered Jia Qiao’s ear through the Bluetooth headset, carrying a deliberate hint of grievance.

“Your coldness will affect my enthusiasm for work.”

Zoa had not gone through the official onboarding process, yet he had been diligently working for Qianhe for several days.

Jia Qiao initially thought such a peculiar working arrangement would be difficult for the team to adapt to.

Unexpectedly, the moment Zoa appeared, everyone accepted the situation in 0.1 seconds.

During the working process, they earnestly executed the tasks Zoa assigned without any objection, and no one even questioned the man’s true identity.

After they truly began cooperating, Jia Qiao discovered that Zoa’s work capabilities were far more impressive than he had imagined. In just two days, he led everyone to produce the preliminary draft for the Dawn Project, which was then successfully approved.

To have recruited such a highly capable person should have been cause for great celebration.

If only this person hadn’t made ‘caring for the useless chairman’ his daily mission—

“Did Chairman Jia review the work log submitted yesterday?”

“I did.” Jia Qiao’s tone carried a hint of helplessness. “You have so much work every day; there’s no need to specially organize and send me a log.”

The most difficult part was that Zoa seemed to have realized Jia Qiao was completely clueless about core business operations. He always included detailed annotations in the log, apparently eager to teach him how to become a competent leader.

“To be in the position is to fulfill the duty. Reporting my work to the leader is my inherent responsibility.”

“While that’s true…” Reporting to me, a mere puppet, is just a waste of time.

For the past four years, Qianhe had operated according to the framework left by Zhu Nanyu.

Jia Qiao held the shares and sat in the chairman’s seat, but ultimately, he was just a ‘caretaker.’

This fact originally didn’t matter.

After all, the entire business circle knew that Qianhe was the ‘retirement fund’ Zhu Nanyu had left for Jia Qiao, and he just needed to stay home and count his money.

However, when facing the threat from Ruike a few days ago, the executives, despite knowing the situation was highly unfavorable, still pledged to ‘coexist and perish with Qianhe,’ which caused Jia Qiao to waver slightly.

For the past four years, he had always felt that merely guarding what Zhu Nanyu left behind was enough.

Only recently did he slowly begin to feel that he was Qianhe’s current chairman, with so many employees behind him waiting to ‘grow bigger and stronger’ with him.

The sound of keyboard typing came from Zoa’s side, and a system prompt popped up on the screen:

User Zoa is requesting to share your computer.

“I’m currently free. I’ll explain the parts that weren’t clearly written in the report to Chairman Jia in detail right now.” Seeing that Jia Qiao was slow to approve the sharing request, Zoa said lightly, “If you don’t agree… just wait two minutes, I’ll write a code to hack into your computer.”

“Stop!” Jia Qiao had witnessed his capabilities and quickly agreed to the sharing request.

Although his office computer didn’t store important files or connect to the company’s internal network, for Zoa to just say he’d hack in felt like he was about to be stripped bare.

Savage! Shameless! Exploiting one’s skill to bully others!

Zoa used the screen share to remotely open the work log he had sent Jia Qiao yesterday and confirmed that there were indeed records of reading and editing.

“Is there anything you don’t understand?” Zoa asked with full concern.

“No.” Jia Qiao said vaguely. “I can probably understand it.”

In reality, a certain ‘illiterate’ person who was encountering core business operations for the first time had stayed up until midnight just to grasp the professional terminology in the report.

Given his aptitude, it would certainly take a lot of time to fully understand the report.

Zoa had more important and valuable work; there was no need to waste time on him.

Zoa glanced at Jia Qiao on the screen.

Although his face appeared calm, his ears, faintly visible through his hair, were slightly flushed, and the fingers holding the teacup were unconsciously tightly clenched.

He was pretending to be strong again.

“The Dawn Project was personally initiated by Chairman Jia, so roughly speaking, it’s like your own flesh and blood,” Zoa sighed. “If you don’t want to get deeply involved, I can’t force you.”

“Flesh and blood…” Jia Qiao were momentarily speechless.

He remembered that after they got married, Zhu Nanyu was extremely busy with work for a period because he had taken two whole months off for their honeymoon.

Often, Jia Qiao was still asleep when Zhu Nanyu left in the morning, and he was already asleep when Zhu Nanyu returned at night.

Jia Qiao had no friends and disliked going out, so he was always alone at home during the day.

Zhu Nanyu, afraid he would be bored, suggested getting a small pet.

“No,” Jia Qiao shook his head. “I’ve heard people say that raising a small animal is like raising your own child; it’s too much trouble. Since you can’t give birth, why should I learn how to raise a child?”

This clear logic made Zhu Nanyu pause for three seconds, then he smiled and gently ruffled Jia Qiao’s soft hair. “If I could give birth, would you be willing to raise one?”

“…?” Jia Qiao pushed Zhu Nanyu’s hand away, slowly lowered his head, and stared at Zhu Nanyu’s abdominal muscles for a while. “Wait, you’re not… actually able to give birth, are you?”

“What if technology makes a breakthrough?” Zhu Nanyu reached over and pinched Jia Qiao’s cheek. “It seems like a good idea to have a baby that looks like you—beautiful and cute.”

Even though he knew Zhu Nanyu was mostly joking, Jia Qiao took it seriously and watched several parenting videos, which helped him somewhat understand the depth of human love for their own flesh and blood.

After half a minute of silence, Jia Qiao moved the mouse and navigated to a certain position on the second line.

“Could you please explain this part in detail?”

Zoa’s voice was clearly amused. “Your wish is my command.”

As a result, what was supposed to be a source of solace for Zoa ended up giving him extra work.

It felt… a little like abusing a patient.

Thinking that Zoa was still hospitalized, and according to Lanner, he wouldn’t be discharged anytime soon.

Lanner’s Golden Retriever was definitely a level of mental pollution. The moment Jia Qiao thought of him, he immediately had a bothersome auditory hallucination:

‘If little Jia Qiao wants to send a small gift full of sincerity to comfort the poor, lonely patient.’

Jia Qiao thought for a few seconds, opened his search app, and slowly typed:

What gift should I send to comfort a patient?

The work was temporarily concluded, and Jia Qiao took time to handle ‘private matters’—mainly Zhu Nanyu’s funeral.

The funeral date was tentatively set for mid-October, the final deadline for processing the death certificate.

Jia Qiao had hired a professional funeral team, and the budget was ample, so there wasn’t much for the relatives to handle.

But that didn’t stop the ‘relatives’ from insisting on helping.

Since the funeral preparations began, Zhu Nanyu’s two ‘good uncles,’ Zhu Fulun and Zhu Xingwang, insisted on bringing their families to help and couldn’t be stopped.

They demanded to review every detail of the funeral, especially the reading of the will.

Even though the lawyer responsible for disclosing the will repeatedly stressed that there was only one notarized will, the Zhu family simply wouldn’t give up and insisted on finding the will that Jia Qiao claimed had been ‘revised.’

Yet, when it came to actual tasks, the two uncles, who supposedly cared about their nephew’s post-mortem affairs, were completely useless.

“The portrait for the funeral…” Zhu Xingwang was stumped by the person in charge. He pretended to be busy searching everywhere but found no photos of Zhu Nanyu.

Zhu Fulun’s reaction was clearly more experienced than his second brother’s. He feigned deep thought for a moment and then said awkwardly, “Oh dear, you know, my Nanyu passed away unexpectedly. He was so young; how could he have a funeral portrait?”

“We understand, this isn’t the first time we’ve encountered this situation,” said Mo Mo, the person in charge of the funeral. She saw that the two of them were only causing trouble, but still held out hope. “Do you have a clear ID photo or a frontal group photo… like your family portrait would do.”

“Family portrait…” Zhu Xingwang had always guarded against his nephew as if he were an outsider, fearing he would swallow up his own wealth. Where would they have had the chance to take a harmonious family portrait?

Zhu Fulun, quick-witted, shifted the blame to Jia Qiao. “My Nanyu married young; he was a typical example of having a wife and forgetting his mother. His relationship with Qiao Qiao was so good; he must have plenty of photos!”

Mo Mo recalled Jia Qiao’s instruction to ‘delegate all responsibility to you,’ and let out a long sigh, cautiously contacting her employer.

Jia Qiao didn’t say much and quickly rushed over, handing her a photo cut from an identity card.

“Is this one acceptable?” Jia Qiao asked.

“The ID photo is too blurry; it won’t be clear even after processing,” Mo Mo said with difficulty. “And it’s a bit…”

It was well-known that ID photos were the ugliest photos one took in life.

“Then there are none.”

Jia Qiao lowered his eyes, staring at the clipped ID photo, also finding it very blurry.

Furthermore, this ID was Zhu Nanyu’s first, expired one, and the person in the photo was just barely an adult, his features still youthful.

What did the later Zhu Nanyu look like?

Too much time had passed. Even in his dreams, Jia Qiao hadn’t clearly seen his husband’s face for a long time.

“I didn’t save any of his photos.”

During their life together, it was always Zhu Nanyu who tirelessly took photos of Jia Qiao.

Even group photos had only one principle: as long as the wife looks good.

The photos he took were both proper and not-so-proper.

Jia Qiao had been photographed in too many embarrassing ways and had become numb, treating the act of taking photos with an attitude of ‘too lazy to deal with that pervert’ ignorance, never thinking to take a photo of Zhu Nanyu in return.

The only photo of Zhu Nanyu he had on hand was the one he took out of the safe last time, with Zhu Nanyu’s message written on the back.

Zhu Nanyu’s face didn’t appear in it at all, and Jia Qiao didn’t want to show it to others.

“What should we do then?” Mo Mo was a bit despairing. “Although Mr. Jia Qiao said to let us handle everything, we truly are powerless in the matter of the funeral portrait.”

Zhu Fulun, overhearing, worried that the funeral couldn’t be held as scheduled and quickly leaned in. “Dear nephew’s wife, you must be joking. How could you not have photos of Nanyu?”

“Exactly!” Zhu Xingwang blurted out. “Didn’t you take wedding photos?”

“That…” Mo Mo nearly shattered.

These two uncles were truly ‘touching,’ suggesting that the photo symbolizing happiness, the wedding picture, should be used as a funeral portrait.

How sad would Jia Qiao be if that brought back painful memories…

“Oh, there are the wedding photos.”

Jia Qiao’s voice was as calm as if he were discussing the weather.

“Use that one.”