My Childhood Friend, Who Is An Omega, Has Become My Personal Secretary - Chapter 37

Were you with her all night long?

In the early morning, as the first light of dawn overspread the earth, Ji Zeyuan startled awake from her dreams. Opening her eyes, she was met with the stark white ceiling of her office.

Ji Zeyuan had cleared everything off her desk; she had tossed and turned on the mahogany surface all night, finally falling into a hazy sleep just before the break of dawn, only to wake again barely half an hour later.

Outside, it was noisy with the sounds of night-shift workers finishing their duties. Lying on the desk, Ji Zeyuan lifted her hand to check the time—it was only just six o’clock.

The office staff wouldn’t start until ten o’clock local time. Currently, the entire building was devoid of people, as silent as a deserted haunted house.

Why did she lie to me?

Ji Zeyuan couldn’t understand it, but she didn’t plan to expose Zhang Linen. After all, Zhang Linen was an adult nearly thirty years old; she surely had her own considerations for what she did.

But that didn’t mean Ji Zeyuan wouldn’t let her imagination run wild.

The mahogany desk made her back ache. Ji Zeyuan propped herself up tiredly from the tabletop. On the floor was a pile of clutter she had swept off the desk, and her phone had fallen to the ground at some point as well.

Ji Zeyuan picked up the phone. Fortunately, it wasn’t broken. She glanced at her chat log with Zhang Linen, her heart filled with a complex mixture of emotions. Suddenly, her phone rang.

The caller ID showed an unfamiliar domestic number. Ji Zeyuan hung up the first time, but when the number called a second time, she answered.

“Cousin, that person named Hua Jianjiu—can you fire her?”

Ji Zeyuan frowned and looked at the screen again. After confirming it was an unknown number, she asked, “Who are you?”

The person on the other end cried out excitedly, “I’m Zhao Yan! Don’t you remember me?”

Ji Zeyuan thought to herself: I might not even remember you if I saw you in person, let alone over the phone.

“Yes, Zhao Yan. Here’s the deal.” Ji Zeyuan let out an irritated sigh. “The only reason you can work at Jixia is because of my father’s arrangements. Don’t go pointing fingers at my employees; she is currently your superior.”

“What? That high school student secretary of yours only gave me an intern position, I—”

“That’s enough.” Ji Zeyuan cut Zhao Yan off sharply. “My secretary’s arrangements are my arrangements. If you aren’t satisfied, you can resign and leave.”

The other side went silent for a few seconds before hanging up the phone.

Ji Zeyuan put her phone in her pocket and leaned over to tidy up the mess she had pushed onto the floor. At that moment, the “beep-beep” sound of the electronic door lock came from the entrance.

Just as she was wondering who could be so diligent as to come to work this early, she looked up and locked eyes with Zhang Linen, who was opening the door.

Zhang Linen was silent for two seconds before asking calmly, “When did you get here?”

Ji Zeyuan used picking up things to hide her awkwardness, saying, “Around ten o’clock last night.”

Zhang Linen walked into the office and locked the door behind her.

“Do you… have nothing you want to ask me?” Zhang Linen walked to Ji Zeyuan’s side and asked softly.

Ji Zeyuan nervously traced the tabletop with her fingertip, looking like a middle school student having her homework checked by a teacher.

“I really want to ask, but…” Ji Zeyuan looked up, her amber eyes deep and brooding. “You probably don’t want me to know right now. It would be useless for me to ask; it would only force you to lie.”

Zhang Linen did not argue. She stared at Ji Zeyuan for a while, then moved her gaze to the cluttered floor. She smiled and asked, “What happened here? You really slept on the office desk all night?”

Ji Zeyuan forced a slight tug at the corner of her mouth and said, “Yeah.” She paused, then added, “It was okay, not that bad. I slept quite well.”

Zhang Linen asked with a faint smile, “Why didn’t you sleep on the folding bed? It’s surely better than the desk.”

Ji Zeyuan curled her lips but remained silent, looking at Zhang Linen before quickly averting her gaze.

Seeing Ji Zeyuan’s evasive look, Zhang Linen could no longer maintain her forced smile.

She hadn’t slept all night. She had originally intended to return to the office for a short nap, but unfortunately, Ji Zeyuan had discovered her lie. Now, she no longer had the energy to weave together an excuse.

Zhang Linen sighed tiredly to herself, thinking: Perhaps Ji Zeyuan doesn’t even care what I did. What was the point of going through all that trouble?

Thinking this way, she silently bent down to help tidy the clutter on the floor. She gathered the scattered pens into the pen holder and placed it on the desk. At that moment, Ji Zeyuan suddenly spoke.

“Linen, have you… ever thought about going back to get a university degree?”

Zhang Linen froze. she looked at Ji Zeyuan with a strange expression, her face looking almost amused. “No.” She then asked, “Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?”

Ji Zeyuan pretended to be casual. “I just felt that your grades were so good in high school, it’s a pity you didn’t continue on to university later.”

Zhang Linen said, “Higher education is for the needs of work. I am already your secretary; getting a degree now would just be icing on the cake.”

After she finished speaking, someone’s phone rang. Both of them checked their own phones.

Mia had sent a message: “Miss Secretary, our chat last night was very pleasant.”

Zhang Linen’s face darkened. She instinctively looked up at Ji Zeyuan, and it happened that Ji Zeyuan was looking at her too.

“Who’s messaging you this early?” Ji Zeyuan asked. “Is it the person you were with last night?”

Zhang Linen hesitated for a second or two before saying, “Why do you say that? Perhaps I was just out by myself?”

Ji Zeyuan was choked up, unable to follow up on that sentence.

The phone rang again. It was still Mia: “Since you’re in Country G, you probably won’t be heading back so soon. I know a very famous venue here.”

Watching Zhang Linen’s expression shift rapidly in front of her because of two messages, Ji Zeyuan couldn’t help but press further: “So, were you alone?”

Zhang Linen looked up and smiled. “Didn’t you say you weren’t going to ask?”

After she said that, her phone rang once more. Zhang Linen’s gaze immediately returned to the screen.

“Have you ever been to this kind of venue?”

A wave of nausea hit Zhang Linen. At the thought that this shameless bastard might use the matter of the tracker to threaten her indefinitely, her brow knit into a tight knot.

But Zhang Linen was not someone who would just wait for death. She had already disconnected the link between her phone’s tracker and Ji Zeyuan’s phone’s location. This way, even if Mia snitched, there would be no proof.

However, once Mia snitched, even if Ji Zeyuan didn’t believe it this time, it would be very difficult to install a tracker on her again in the future.

Eight years of waiting had turned Zhang Linen into a coward. If she couldn’t know Ji Zeyuan’s location in real-time, she would be perpetually anxious, fearing that the day eight years ago when Ji Zeyuan left without a word would happen again.

Mia’s messages were like sticky earthworms, coming one after another.

“It will be a lot of fun.”

Ji Zeyuan suppressed her own irritability by leaning over to pick things up, but clearly, this method was useless. She threw the items she had gathered onto the desk haphazardly and asked, “Is it someone you just met?”

Zhang Linen pondered for a moment and said, “No.”

Hearing this answer, Ji Zeyuan’s anxiety turned into confusion. She asked, “You ran into an acquaintance? Who? Do I know them?”

Zhang Linen lowered her eyes and said, “Actually, it’s not my acquaintance. It’s your acquaintance.”

Ji Zeyuan’s confusion deepened. Zhang Linen answered, “Mia has also come to Country G.”

As soon as these words were spoken, Ji Zeyuan visibly stiffened. She pursed her lips, trying her best to keep her tone calm. “Did you two arrange to meet?”

Zhang Linen shook her head. “I didn’t make an appointment with her.”

Ji Zeyuan paused. She touched her forehead and asked slowly, with a trace of hope, “You weren’t… with her all night last night, were you?”

Zhang Linen nodded slightly.

The breeze was not dry as it drifted through the screen window into the room. In that instant, the expression on Ji Zeyuan’s face was difficult to describe with a single word: shock, lack of understanding, disbelief, and deep worry.

Seeing Ji Zeyuan getting so emotional and worried for her, Zhang Linen’s heart felt an irrepressible surge of excitement.

Ji Zeyuan lowered her head dejectedly. When she looked up again, her eyes were already somewhat red.

Zhang Linen’s heart felt tingly and numb. She deliberately did not clear up the misunderstanding, watching Ji Zeyuan’s heartbroken appearance.

Ji Zeyuan seemed about to ask something else. Zhang Linen intentionally looked away, and Ji Zeyuan instantly lost control, grabbing her shoulder. “Are you and her…?”

Zhang Linen’s face remained motionless as she looked at Ji Zeyuan. Ji Zeyuan’s eyes were full of longing—longing for Zhang Linen’s denial, longing for her to answer “No.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking. I just sat in a coffee shop and chatted with her all night,” Zhang Linen said, glossing over it lightheartedly.

Ji Zeyuan was stunned for a moment and hurriedly pulled her hand back. She seemed not to have reacted, spacing out for a few seconds. Then, her dim eyes regained their light as she let out a heavy sigh of relief.

Zhang Linen teased with a smile, “Why are you so worked up?”

As she spoke, she quietly observed Ji Zeyuan’s reaction. Ji Zeyuan couldn’t bring herself to smile; she looked down and said, “She is a piece of trash. I don’t want that trash to have contact with you.”

The disgust in Zhang Linen’s eyes was hard to hide. She said, “I hate her very much.”

Ji Zeyuan glanced at Zhang Linen, her eyes full of loneliness. “You kept her contact information and stayed with her all night. I really thought…”

At that moment, Zhang Linen’s phone rang again. Ji Zeyuan abruptly stopped speaking, her gaze darting toward Zhang Linen’s phone screen.

“Miss Secretary, how many times have you been in love?”

Because Zhang Linen was holding the phone without any defenses, Ji Zeyuan saw the message and the nickname of the person who sent it at a glance.

“Who is this ‘Disgusting Harasser’?” Ji Zeyuan said with a frown. “Has this person been harassing you?”

Zhang Linen relaxed her expression and said, “This is Mia.”

Ji Zeyuan was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed. “Why do you have her saved as that instead of just deleting her?”

Zhang Linen made a troubled face and said, “She threatened me, saying that if I ignored her, she would ruin my image in front of you—for example, slandering me by saying I’m a stalker or something.”

Ji Zeyuan blinked in disbelief and said hesitantly, “Just because of that? But I don’t even talk to her now; she doesn’t have the chance.”

Zhang Linen walked to the office desk, leaning against the thick executive chair, and murmured, “I didn’t think that much. I was just… just afraid she would leave a bad impression of me in your heart.”

“What are you talking about? Is it possible I would listen to her and doubt you?” Ji Zeyuan said this with a tone of “hating that the iron isn’t becoming steel,” almost through gritted teeth as she expressed: You suffered this grievance for such a pathetic reason?

Zhang Linen’s peach-blossom eyes narrowed slightly, glinting with a cunning light.

“Then I’ll block her right now.”

With that, Zhang Linen typed a line of text and sent it over: “Go die, you disgusting thing.”

Ji Zeyuan saw the line of text from the side and immediately couldn’t help but laugh. The gloom from before completely dissipated.

Zhang Linen watched Ji Zeyuan with a faint smile. While she felt a sense of relief, she also felt a bit of regret—from now on, she would have one less tool to use to stimulate Ji Zeyuan.