The woman casually tossed her handbag onto Zhang Wei's desk. Zhang Wei, who had been lounging in his chair just a second ago, sprang up from it.
"Come on, I was just afraid of letting Ruoruo down," he said.
Zhang Wei was approaching his fifties. His daughter was around the same age as Ding Ruola but was studying abroad.
The girl's youthful vitality always reminded him of his own daughter.
Zhang Wei's wife was a renowned jewelry designer. She had been so busy attending events in the country that she hadn't had the time to visit her daughter.
When Zhang Wei got himself into trouble at the company this time, she came to "clean up the mess" and, by the way, to meet Ding Ruola and ease her longing for her daughter.
Ding Ruola stood to the side, listening to their conversation. Through their back - and - forth banter, she finally understood the relationship between them.
Just as she was about to leave, the woman stopped her.
People in the design circle naturally knew Ding Ruola. The woman had been keeping a close eye on this girl since the design competition.
Now that she saw her in person, the more she looked, the more she liked her.
"Ruoruo, right? Would you like to be my goddaughter?"
Ding Ruola was taken aback. The woman was so straightforward. Coming right out and asking her to be her goddaughter, Ding Ruola didn't know how to react.
"I need to discuss this with my family," she replied.
Ding Ruola's mother was quite superstitious. She had strong beliefs about such things.
If Ding Ruola did something without her mother's consent, her mother would surely be unhappy.
"Oh! This little girl is really filial. I like her more and more," the woman said.
After sitting in the office for a while, Zhang Wei thought it wasn't right for Ding Ruola to be idle. So he told her to go back to work.
After Ding Ruola left, Zhang Wei gave his wife a meaningful look.
"Qing Lin, isn't there something you haven't done yet?"
Qing Lin covered her face with her hand and let out an embarrassed laugh, scolding herself for her poor memory. Then she took out a lunch box from her bag.
There were two bento boxes inside, one for Zhang Wei and the other for Ding Ruola.
Qing Lin walked out and, in front of everyone in the work area, handed the lunch box to Ding Ruola.
An Ran was completely stunned. She couldn't believe that the wife of Manager Zhang had such a good relationship with Ding Ruola.
"It's settled. You're going to be my goddaughter," Qing Lin repeated deliberately. After saying that, she glared at An Ran.
Although Qing Lin had been busy with her jewelry studio at home, she still knew what was going on in the company.
There were only a few gossips. It didn't take much effort to find out who they were.
"If you ever get wronged in the future, I'll protect you," she said.
An Ran's face turned even uglier. She knew that Qing Lin's words were meant for her.
She never thought that Ding Ruola not only had a background but also had high professional skills.
This was really awkward.
An Ran was scheming in her mind how to get rid of this woman. There could only be one number one in the publicity department.
She hired a private detective to investigate Ding Ruola but found nothing.
Fang Siyan had anticipated that someone would try to investigate Ding Ruola. He had long since blocked all of Ding Ruola's information. As long as it was a problem that could be solved with money, it wasn't a problem.
The only thing An Ran managed to find out was Ding Ruola's studio.
Maybe it could be a breakthrough.
When the company was about to change the posters, the competing real - estate project put up new advertisements.
The whole company was in an uproar.
Someone posted on the company's forum that the Hengyu real - estate project had collaborated with a studio called Soraka.
And the founder of this studio was Ding Ruola.
This incident spread like wildfire in the company.
Many people said that Ding Ruola had no professional ethics for using the same design twice.
Ding Ruola had a clear conscience.
She didn't even need to think to know that it was An Ran who had leaked this information.
Zhang Wei was under a lot of pressure. On one hand, he was anxious to find out who had leaked the design. On the other hand, he was urging the employees to come up with new designs.
Ding Ruola was suspended for a few days and couldn't go back to work until the matter was investigated.
One morning, there was an unexpected deposit of 100,000 yuan in her bank account.
She had a bad feeling.
Before she could investigate the source of the money, Zhang Wei had already sent her a screenshot of the bank statement.
Zhang Wei naturally believed in Ding Ruola's innocence, but he couldn't explain this money.
[Zhang Wei: You'd better sort this out quickly!]
The remittance account was a private one, belonging to a secretary from the sales department of the Hengyu real - estate project.
Ding Ruola was at a loss. She had never encountered such a problem before.
She went back to her studio. The people there said that the Hengyu real - estate project had indeed ordered posters but had quickly canceled the order.
Jiang Chen thought it was because their production period was too long and didn't think much of it.
No one had expected that someone was deliberately trying to frame Ding Ruola.
Zhang Wei was so worried about Ding Ruola's matter that it gave him a headache. Somehow, this got to Qing Lin's ears.
As soon as she got home in the evening, Qing Lin started nagging Zhang Wei like a broken record.
If he didn't solve this problem quickly, either he or his wife would go crazy.
The surveillance camera showed that An Ran had stayed alone in the work area during lunch.
Since Ding Ruola didn't have many private files on her computer, she hadn't set a password.
Zhang Wei saw An Ran sneaking up to Ding Ruola's seat.
It was very likely that she had stolen the files.
He asked the accounting department to check An Ran's bank statement. There was a sum of 50,000 yuan.
The remitter was the Hengyu Group.
The case was finally solved.
The question that had puzzled Zhang Wei for days was finally answered.
He didn't want to waste any more time on An Ran. He simply sent her an email.
[Come and resign tomorrow. I'll send you the details about the liquidated damages and the compensation for the company's losses later.]
An Ran stared at the words on the computer screen and slumped into her chair.
"Why did this happen?"
After the matter was resolved, Ding Ruola returned to the company. During her time at home, she had designed a new promotional poster.
However, a large number of the previous posters had already been printed, so the company still suffered some losses. It wasn't a big deal for a company, but if a person had to pay for it, An Ran would be in big trouble.
If it weren't for this incident, no one would have known about An Ran's situation.
No one would have known that An Ran was living beyond her means.
She not only had no money but also had more than 100,000 yuan in debt. Her personal credit score was negative.
"Old Fang, am I really annoying?"
Ding Ruola found everything tasteless. She couldn't understand why An Ran had targeted her.
"Baby, it's not your fault. Some people just can't stand to see others do well," Fang Siyan said as he reached out and stroked Ding Ruola's head.
He had let Ding Ruola start from the bottom in the company this time just to let her experience the evil side of human nature. In the face of jealousy and interests, there was no humanity.
He wanted to protect Ding Ruola's innocence, but he knew that it would actually harm her.