Before today, Lu Qianzhou had always impressed her as a gentle and warm - hearted guy. It was the first time she had seen him lose his temper. Although she didn't like his angry face, since she still needed his help in the future, Yan Xia thought for a while. After washing the cream off her body, she decided to follow him and see what was going on.
She went upstairs and walked around the corridor to Lu Qianzhou's room.
The door was ajar. A gentle breeze carried the smell of tobacco out of the room. He hadn't turned on the light. There was a glowing tip of a cigarette between his fingers.
He was answering a call with his other hand. His tone was unfriendly, filled with sarcastic anger. "Keep looking if you can't find him. A living person can't just disappear into thin air! I have to handle everything myself. What good are you useless people?"
Hearing his cold voice, Yan Xia suddenly shivered.
After hanging up the phone, without even turning around, he asked, "What is it?"
Yan Xia gently knocked on the door. "Third Brother, are you okay?"
Maybe because she cherished her family, she felt that calling him Third Brother was extremely intimate.
Lu Qianzhou turned around. His expression was hard to read. "Miss Cheng, what do you want from me?"
"I saw that you didn't look well just now, so I came to check on you. Is there anything I can do to help?" Yan Xia thought for a moment and then said, "Besides, there's something else I need your help with."
In the darkness, only his silhouette could be vaguely seen.
Lu Qianzhou put out the cigarette in his hand. Without any hesitation, he started undressing in the dark.
"Speak."
Yan Xia simply leaned against the door frame sideways and didn't look at him.
"The last time I saw my step - mother, I realized I had overlooked many details. She once asked my father for shares in Shengshi. Now she's quickly hooked up with Director Wang. Thinking about it carefully, many little things are very important. I hope you can help me find out if she and Fang Jiangyi had reached some private agreement."
Lu Qianzhou asked, "You suspect that Yuan Qiuping was involved in your father's incident?"
"Seeing how familiar they were when they met that day, Yuan Qiuping suspects my identity. We still need to be careful of her to avoid revealing my identity."
After waiting for a while without hearing Lu Qianzhou's response, Yan Xia glanced over. Lu Qianzhou had already taken off his upper - body clothes and quickly put on a bathrobe.
He suddenly asked, "How's the situation at Shengshi?"
Yan Xia said, "This crisis has been resolved. As I expected, I'm the new manager of the project department. But Fang Jiangyi still doesn't fully trust me. Shengshi is booming now, and Fang Jiangyi has great ambitions."
She kept waiting for Lu Qianzhou to say something until he walked towards her step by step.
In the darkness, hormones seemed to ferment faster. The corridor light spilled in. His face emerged. He got closer to her, putting one hand on the side of her body. It seemed as if he was about to lean down the next second.
Yan Xia stared at him with wide eyes.
"Are you a cat?"
"Huh?"
Lu Qianzhou stood up straight. "Do you still have something to say? I'm going to take a shower. If you don't leave, do you want to keep watching?"
"Sorry..." she said quickly and softly, then turned around and ran away.
When she reached the end of the corridor, she still felt a bit confused. This man's emotions came and went so quickly.
He must not know how charming he was. In front of a girl who had never been in love, he naturally showed such an alluring attitude.
Damn Lu Qianzhou. Couldn't he stop flirting with her...
Yan Xia originally thought that he didn't take Yuan Qiuping's matter seriously until the next day when she heard her colleagues gossiping enthusiastically in the company.
A few people were gathered in the tea - room, chatting animatedly.
"Really? Such a powerful man has such a perfect public image, but he beats his newly - married wife at home. It's so funny."
"But I heard that she hooked up with Wang Keding soon after her ex - husband got into trouble. This woman is really capable. She can hook up with any man."
"She's been married before. She must have experience. She's really good in bed. A real sleeping beauty..."
"Aren't there also some powerful people in our company? And one is in our project department. She's only been in the company for a short time, but she's already the project department manager. Tsk tsk. It seems that a woman either needs a backer or a good figure. Since we have neither, we can only feel sorry for ourselves."
Wang Keding? Director Wang? Beating Yuan Qiuping?
Yan Xia frowned and stepped into the tea - room.
"It's not scary not to have a backer. Relying on looks and figure won't get you far either. I think self - pity is the scariest thing." Her sudden voice interrupted them.
The people who were gossiping during work hours were startled. They quickly greeted Manager Lu and were about to scatter.
Seeing that they were about to run away, Yan Xia stopped the woman who had just subtly mocked her and asked, "What were you just talking about?"
The woman secretly cursed her bad luck. She had been complaining behind someone's back and was caught by the person herself.
And this woman was a devil. She couldn't afford to offend her.
"Manager Lu, I didn't mean to say bad things about you. We were just joking around..."
Yan Xia sneered. "I'm not asking about this."
The woman stood there stiffly for a long time, then tentatively asked, "Then... Are you asking about the thing that Director Wang beat his wife?"
Yan Xia signaled with her eyes for her to continue.
The woman trembled and said, "We saw a gossip news. It said that Director Wang Keding's wife from the Municipal Bureau was keeping a young lover outside. Somehow, a media outlet exposed it. That night, the media staked out in front of Wang Keding's house. Early the next morning, they saw his wife come out of the house with a bruised face. They guessed that she must have been beaten."
Remembering how Director Wang had protected Yuan Qiuping last time, and now he was willing to hit her, especially on the face. But she felt extremely pleased.
It must have been Lu Qianzhou who did it. He must have told the media to spread the news that Yuan Qiuping was keeping a young lover, which was why the public opinion spread so quickly.
Although he didn't say it explicitly, he really did everything she asked.
"Manager Lu, can I leave now?"
Yan Xia scoffed. "Gossiping is a woman's nature, but remember the saying 'walls have ears'."
After the woman left, a smile finally bloomed on Yan Xia's lips.
After that day, Lu Qianzhou didn't return to the villa for two more days.
On the third day, the Lu family, which had been quiet for a long time, caused another commotion.
The cause was a dispute between the old master of the Lu family and the third master of the Lu family over business matters. In fact, over the years, although they were brothers, they didn't have much interaction. Many years ago, they had gone their separate ways because of various contradictions, and they were on bad terms.
This time, the dispute was because the third master of the Lu family had snatched a big business deal from the old master of the Lu family, which further deteriorated their relationship.
Lu Qianzhou was urgently summoned back by the old master of the Lu family. And Yan Xia had been living in Lu Qianzhou's house before. The third master of the Lu family also arranged for Yan Xia to move out of Lu Qianzhou's villa and into a villa under his name.
The relationship seemed to be completely broken.
But the relationship between the two branches of the Lu family had always been on - and - off. Every time it was reported, it would stir up a storm. Outsiders just watched it as a show.
Yan Xia didn't know if this was what Lu Qianzhou had planned, to create the illusion of a broken relationship.