Chapter 4

Chapter 4

At noon, Zhou Yan sent me a long message for the first time of his own accord.

He said we shouldn’t bring our personal problems into the company.

He said Xinglan was his life’s work, and I shouldn’t have embarrassed him in front of the entire staff.

He said Xu Nianchu was just a friend from the past, and I had misunderstood.

In his final line, he wrote, “Jianwei, you never used to be this aggressive.”

I stared at that sentence and suddenly thought of three years ago.

Back then, Xinglan wasn’t Xinglan yet. It was just a tiny team of Zhou Yan and two classmates crammed into a shared workspace. Investors had turned him down seven times. After getting drunk, he sat by the roadside and said he might never accomplish anything in this life.

I helped him home. The next day, I arranged his eighth investor meeting for him.

Later, he succeeded.

At the annual gala, he stood onstage and said, “The most important thing for a man is having the guts to fight for what he wants.”

Thunderous applause erupted from the audience.

I sat in a corner and saw the empty seat beside him.

That seat should have been mine.

But Zhou Yan had said, “Jianwei, don’t come onstage. Everyone knows you’re my wife. It won’t look good.”

I agreed.

I handed over the credit, hid our relationship, and bundled the assets my mother had left me into a guarantee of the company’s stability.

I thought marriage meant helping each other succeed.

It wasn’t until Xu Nianchu came back that I understood sometimes helping someone succeed was just handing a knife to an ingrate.

That afternoon, Finance sent me Xinglan’s detailed expense records for the past three years.

The business entertainment expenses under Zhou Yan’s name were abnormally high.

I opened the attachment and read through it line by line.

High-end restaurants, private clubs, island hotels, jewelry stores.

The notes all said client relations.

But on those same dates, Xu Nianchu had posted photos on her social media.

The same stretch of sea. The same hotel. The same white porcelain cup on the same terrace.

She hadn’t shown her face, only a man’s cuff.

That cuff was on a shirt I had bought for Zhou Yan.

My assistant, Chen Cheng, knocked and came in. Carefully, she said, “President Lin, Xu Nianchu is crying in the break room, saying you’re going to drive everyone to their deaths. Some people are filming it.”

I closed the reimbursement form. “Let them film.”

Chen Cheng froze. “We’re not going to handle it?”

“We are.” I handed her a document. “Send the group transfer position list, compensation standards, and signing schedule to everyone’s inbox. Everyone gets a choice. Don’t let her cry on their behalf.”

Chen Cheng’s eyes brightened. “Understood.”

She walked to the door, then turned back. “President Lin, about what they said in the group chat last night… please don’t take it to heart.”

I said, “I won’t.”

Not because I was magnanimous.

But because I had finally decided to focus my strength where it mattered most.