Chapter 54

Chapter 54

“What do you mean?” Miss Li asked, eyeing Yun Jianyue suspiciously.

Yun Jianyue pulled a small mirror from her purse. It was a magical artifact Si Wuming had given her.

“Take a look for yourself.”

Miss Li hesitated before accepting the mirror. The woman reflected in it was surrounded by lingering black qi, and the area between her brows was dark, with an ominous red glow faintly showing through.

Even without understanding physiognomy, she knew this was no good sign!

“Are you a Daoist priest?” Miss Li seemed to realize something. With a thump, she dropped to her knees in front of Yun Jianyue and began kowtowing frantically. “Please save me! Please, you have to save me! I’m still young. I don’t want to die!”

Zhou Benxin was dumbfounded. What kind of development was this? Had the mistress suddenly become the victim?

Yun Jianyue pulled her to her feet and asked, “Tell me everything you know.”

“Will you really help me?” Miss Li remembered clearly that these two were on Chu Wenxu’s side!

“Are you really unrelated to Chu Wenxu?” Yun Jianyue asked instead of answering.

A flicker of guilt passed through Miss Li’s eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by her fear of death. “I admit that I wanted to seduce him at first. I was attracted to his wealthy family, his refinement, and his good looks. I was jealous that Zhou Ruyan was better at her job than me and even had such a wonderful husband.”

“But Chu Wenxu isn’t human! He’s not human at all!”
“Have you heard? Our boss paid a fortune to poach a CEO. Apparently, he’s only thirty-two, young, rich, and handsome!”

“I saw him in the elevator this morning. He’s seriously handsome! Gold-rimmed glasses, aloof and refined. Who wouldn’t be dazzled by him? Too bad he’s a CEO. If he went into the business of being a male escort, I’d book him without hesitation!”

Hearing her colleagues gossip, Li Yuyao couldn’t resist edging closer to listen. “Is the new CEO really that handsome? Is he married?”

A female colleague glanced mysteriously toward Zhou Ruyan’s office. “Married? That’s an understatement. His wife is one of our supervisors!”

The company prohibited office romances, yet it had still paid a high price to hire the HR manager’s husband as CEO. Clearly, his abilities were extraordinary enough for the board to overlook its own rules.

“What are you all whispering about? Have you finished your work?” Zhou Ruyan had appeared behind them at some point, her tone stern.

The group scattered like startled birds and animals, each returning to her workstation.

Once they saw Zhou Ruyan enter her office, one of the female colleagues let out a cold snort.

“What’s with the attitude? Does she think having her husband become an executive makes her so important?”

“Say less. Wasn’t she like this even before her husband came? She’s still our supervisor. Don’t provoke her.”

“If you ask me, the company shouldn’t have promoted her to manager in the first place. They should have promoted Yuyao! Our Yuyao is beautiful, capable, and kind. Isn’t she far better than Zhou Ruyan?”

Li Yuyao was an employee Zhou Ruyan had personally trained. Technically, she should have addressed Zhou Ruyan as her mentor.

When the company promoted Zhou Ruyan, several people under her were promoted as well. Li Yuyao was the only one left behind.

From then on, Li Yuyao began to resent Zhou Ruyan.

Why should one person rise to power and lift everyone around her to prosperity while she couldn’t even count as one of those hangers-on? They had all worked together on the layoffs. She had contributed the most, yet received none of the benefits.

At first, these thoughts had belonged to her alone. But when she heard a colleague voice the same sentiments, the dark resentment in her heart became harder and harder to suppress.

Near quitting time, Li Yuyao hurried toward the elevator with her colleague, both of them clutching a stack of documents. She needed to return everything to her workstation so she could leave on time.

But she was wearing high heels that day, and when she failed to watch her step, she went sprawling along with all the documents.

“Are you all right?”

A man’s warm, pleasant voice reached her, and a long, well-proportioned hand appeared before her.

Li Yuyao looked up. President Chu’s handsome face came into view. In that instant, she clearly felt her heartbeat quicken.

“President Chu!” her colleague hurriedly greeted him.

Chu Wenxu helped her to her feet, gathered the papers scattered across the floor, handed them to Li Yuyao, and left without another word.

“Yuyao? He’s already gone. What are you still staring at?” Her colleague looked at Li Yuyao teasingly. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love. He’s a married man, you know.”

Li Yuyao came back to herself, the blush still lingering on her face. Yet she couldn’t stop thinking: Why did every good thing in the world have to go to Zhou Ruyan?

After she and her colleague returned the documents to their workstations and organized them, Li Yuyao passed by Zhou Ruyan’s office on her way out.

The office door was ajar, and she saw Chu Wenxu and Zhou Ruyan inside.

Zhou Ruyan was sitting in a chair, complaining softly. “I’ve been walking in high heels all day. My feet hurt so much.”

“I’ll massage them for you, then we can go home, all right?”

Chu Wenxu’s eyes and brows were filled with affection. The tall man in his finely tailored suit knelt before Zhou Ruyan, gently removed her high heels, and held her fair feet in his broad hands.

About ten minutes later, Chu Wenxu helped Zhou Ruyan put her shoes back on, then used a wet wipe to clean his hands. He reached out to take her hand, his voice tender. “What would you like for dinner, Ruyan? I’ll cook for you.”

“Sweet-and-sour spare ribs, maybe? And kung pao chicken with some vegetables.”

The moment the two of them were about to leave the office, Li Yuyao came to her senses and hurried away.

After that, she happened to see Chu Wenxu and Zhou Ruyan together many more times. Even when Chu Wenxu had to work overtime, he would first take Zhou Ruyan home before returning to the company to continue working.
The flame of jealousy burning in her heart grew stronger and stronger. Then, one day, she heard some wonderful news.

Zhou Ruyan was pregnant.

Pregnancy meant maternity leave. During her absence, someone would have to take over Zhou Ruyan’s position. Once someone else stepped in, would the position really be returned to her when she came back six months later?

Besides, how many men in the world could resist cheating when their wives were pregnant?

Li Yuqing began maneuvering at every turn, and sure enough, she took over quite a bit of Zhou Ruyan’s work. She even deliberately spread word in private that she would be replacing Zhou Ruyan after her maternity leave began.

For several days after Zhou Ruyan’s belly began to show, she didn’t come to work at all. Chu Wenxu had filed the leave requests for her.

Li Yuqing realized that her opportunity had arrived.

She deliberately brought Chu Wenxu coffee, then pretended to spill it on him by accident.

“President Chu, I’m so sorry! Let me clean that up for you!”

Li Yuqing pulled out two tissues and moved to wipe his trousers. She had put on a full face of makeup and perfume that day, and had even chosen a deliberately alluring dress.

But before her hand could touch Chu Wenxu, he abruptly stood up and backed away several steps.

“Miss Li, please show some self-respect. I have a wife.”

Chu Wenxu regarded her calmly. The shameful little scheme she had been hiding was now fully exposed before his eyes.

But Li Yuqing refused to believe it. She was young and beautiful. How could she possibly lose to a pregnant old woman who was nearly thirty?

She wanted not only Zhou Ruyan’s position, but her man as well!

Two days later, Zhou Ruyan returned to work, but her energy was clearly fading. In the end, she began her maternity leave early, leaving the position of human resources manager vacant.

After Zhou Ruyan left the company, Li Yuyao grew bolder. She was constantly trying to seduce Chu Wenxu by one means or another.

She cornered him in an empty break room and confessed her feelings boldly.

“President Chu, I like you. Zhou Ruyan is old, and her belly is so huge now that she must have stretch marks, right? President Chu, don’t you find her ugly appearance disgusting?”

Contrary to his usual behavior, Chu Wenxu stepped closer to Li Yuyao and shut the break-room door behind him.

Just as Li Yuyao thought she was about to get what she wanted, Chu Wenxu’s expression turned sinister. He clamped a hand around her neck and slammed her hard against the door.

“Bitch, I’ve put up with you for a long time. What makes you think you have the right to insult my wife?”

The intense suffocation terrified Li Yuyao. Her neck throbbed with pain as she desperately beat at Chu Wenxu, unable even to cry out for help.

To Chu Wenxu, the woman’s struggle was nothing more than a joke.

His voice was as cold as ice. “You went to great lengths to move into my residential complex, and you even tried to take my wife’s position. If you want to die so badly, I can make that happen.”

Perhaps because the killing intent had spilled out, Chu Wenxu’s eyes actually transformed into vertical snake pupils. Faint scales even appeared across his face.

A monster… Chu Wenxu was a monster! The monster was going to kill her!

An unprecedented terror plunged Li Yuyao into an icy abyss. The air in her lungs grew thinner and thinner, and her ears even began to ring.

Suddenly, Chu Wenxu’s phone rang.

He continued gripping Li Yuyao’s neck tightly with one hand while taking out his phone with the other. The moment he saw who was calling, his expression softened.

“Hello, honey. You’re awake? … I’m not working late tonight. I’ll come home and make you something delicious. … You want sweet and sour pork? Sure, no problem. … All right, be a good girl and wait for me at home.”

After hanging up, Chu Wenxu abruptly released her. Li Yuyao collapsed awkwardly onto the floor, coughing as air rushed into her lungs and tears streamed down her face.

Chu Wenxu looked down at her, his eyes filled with disgust and indifference. “My wife doesn’t like me killing people. You’d better learn to behave yourself from now on.”

With that, Chu Wenxu left the break room, once again assuming his usual gentle, refined manner. He even exchanged friendly greetings with a passing director.

Only Li Yuyao knew that she had nearly died at the hands of a snake demon.

After that, she took a week-long leave of absence, visited several monks and Taoist priests, and bought a considerable number of ritual implements at exorbitant prices.

When she finally returned to the company, she had not only failed to get Zhou Ruyan’s position, but had also found her own original duties handed over to a new young woman. She became a marginalized employee who could be fired at any time.

Li Yuyao secretly placed an anti-demon ritual implement in Chu Wenxu’s office, but nothing happened to him at all.

Her fear grew increasingly intense. Gritting her teeth, Li Yuyao submitted her resignation and told her landlord that she wanted to move out.

But she had rented the apartment at a high price to get close to Chu Wenxu, paying an entire year’s rent upfront and putting down a deposit of twenty thousand yuan.

She had only been renting the place for three months. Since she was ending the lease outside the terms agreed upon in the contract, the landlord refused to return a single cent of her rent or deposit.

Li Yuyao had already lost her job and did not want to take another loss. The residential complex was so large that she might not even run into Chu Wenxu. Even if she did, she could simply keep her distance and avoid him.

But she had miscalculated.

That evening, she ran into Chu Wenxu in the underground parking garage.

No. More accurately, Chu Wenxu had been waiting for her there.

“Mr. Chu, I’ve already resigned. What more do you want? Can’t you just let me go?”