Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Before the police arrived, Zhou Yan pulled Xu Nianchu into the conference room.

The glass door wasn’t very soundproof.

Standing outside, I heard him ask in a low, restrained voice, “Did you give the materials to Qiming or not?”

Xu Nianchu sobbed. “I didn’t give them to them directly. I just sent them to a friend and asked him to help me figure out how to do the project analysis.”

“What friend?”

“A college classmate.”

“What’s his name?”

She fell silent.

Zhou Yan cursed under his breath.

I pushed the door open and walked in.

As if she had seen a lifeline, Xu Nianchu grabbed his sleeve. “Zhou Yan, you have to believe me. I really just wanted to stay by your side. I didn’t want her looking down on me.”

For a split second, Zhou Yan’s expression wavered.

I placed a printed document on the table.

“Shen Yi, deputy general manager of the marketing department at Qiming Technology. Your college classmate, and the person you’ve been calling frequently since last month.”

Xu Nianchu’s head snapped up. “How do you have-”

Halfway through, she realized she’d said the wrong thing.

Zhou Yan finally looked at her.

I went on, “A company under Shen Yi’s name transferred two hundred thousand yuan into your account yesterday. The note said consulting fee.”

Xu Nianchu’s lips went pale. “That was money I borrowed.”

“Where’s the loan agreement?”

She couldn’t answer.

Slowly, Zhou Yan loosened his grip on her sleeve.

Xu Nianchu panicked. “Zhou Yan, I did it for you! Xinglan is about to be dissolved anyway. What’s the point of you staying here? Shen Yi said Qiming was willing to give you a vice president position. As long as I helped him get the quotation, he could help you jump ship.”

The conference room fell deathly silent.

Zhou Yan looked as if someone had slapped him across the face.

I looked at him.

The same hand he’d used to hit me yesterday now hung at his side, trembling violently.

“For me?” he murmured.

Xu Nianchu nodded through her tears. “You’re too exhausted in front of her. She has everything, and you’re always being suppressed by her. Zhou Yan, I just wanted you to leave her.”

It was a powerful line.

She had turned leaking secrets into love, and betrayal into salvation.

If this were the old Zhou Yan, maybe he would have felt sorry for her.

But now, with the two-hundred-thousand-yuan transfer and the promised job change laid out in front of him, the person he felt sorry for first was himself.

“Do you have any idea what responsibility I’ll have to bear if the Qingqiong Project fails?”

Xu Nianchu froze.

Perhaps for the first time, she realized that Zhou Yan loved her only on the condition that she made him feel good.

The moment she dragged him down with her, he would be the first to pull his hand away.

When the police arrived, Xu Nianchu was still crying.

This time, no one handed her a tissue.