Volume One, Chapter 17: Didn’t She Look Too?
Page 1 of 3
Zheng Chengfeng, CEO of Tianyi Group, swept into the room with a chill clinging to him, the deep gray suit he wore still marked by the creases peculiar to transcontinental flights.
He strode straight to the empty seat beside Lu Jingyan and settled in, loosening his Hermès tie, his gaze as sharp as a hawk’s sweeping across the projection screen.
“Did you do this yourself?” His words were brief, tinged with the fatigue of a man just off a plane.
The air in the conference room instantly dropped ten degrees.
That undisguised suspicion landed like a slap, echoing through the room.
The Montblanc pen in Lu Jingyan’s hand snapped with a sharp crack, black ink bleeding onto the cuff of his suit, a garment worth more than most people’s monthly salary.
Xu Qian’s mascara-coated lashes trembled violently, but a moment later she lifted her face, wearing the carefully practiced look of wounded innocence. “President Zheng, of course I did…”
Her voice quivered just enough, her eyes reddening on command, though the fingers lacquered in cherry-red polish dug mercilessly into her palm, leaving four neat crescent-shaped marks.
“I pulled three all-nighters…” Xu Qian’s eyes shone with moisture.
Zheng Chengfeng leaned back in his chair at leisure, “Are you sure?”
“I swear!” Xu Qian’s voice was on the verge of tears, but she involuntarily shrank under Zheng Chengfeng’s gaze—it was as if he saw straight through every one of her lies.
His slow, deliberate tone made the room even colder.
He tapped a few keys on his laptop, and the projection screen instantly divided in two—on the left, Xu Qian’s just-presented design; on the right, a set of unfamiliar blueprints.
“What is this…”
Director Li from Tianyi shot to his feet, oblivious to the coffee spilling down his shirt. “This looks like Yun Yin’s style!”
Xu Qian’s glossed lips parted, her carefully applied false lashes casting spiderweb shadows across her now-ashen cheeks.
Yun Yin!
Even she had plagiarized?
Fu Yuting, that wretch, must have done this on purpose!
Dark sweat stains slowly spread under her Chanel suit, but she forced herself to speak, “It’s… it must be a coincidence…”
“Coincidence?” Zheng Chengfeng enlarged the parameter panels of both designs. “Even the line weights are 0.25pt, and both color codes are #4F84C4. You’re telling me that’s a coincidence?”
With each word, Xu Qian seemed to shrink.
Under the table, her manicured fingers spasmed, twitching like a fish thrown onto land.
Meanwhile—
In Fu Yuting’s office.
On the computer screen, a live feed from Tianyi’s conference room was playing.
“Are you sure this is original?” Zheng Chengfeng’s voice crackled coldly through the speakers.
Wen Yunzhi, her mouth full of potato chips, typed a quick command, and the screen split into views from various angles around Tianyi’s conference room.
“Look at that little snake Xu Qian! She didn’t pull all-nighters—she probably slept right through them,” Wen Yunzhi mumbled, still chewing.
Fu Yuting stood in front of the monitors, arms folded.
She exhaled lightly, eyes never leaving the screen, “The real show’s about to begin.”
On the monitor, Zheng Chengfeng opened his laptop, and two design drafts appeared side by side on the projection.
“Damn, they’re identical!” Wen Yunzhi slapped the table with glee, scattering potato chip crumbs everywhere. “Look at Xu Qian’s face—she’s turning green!”
She rapidly enlarged the feed from Camera 3—
Page 2 of 3
On screen, Xu Qian’s immaculate makeup was crumbling before everyone’s eyes. Her eyeliner had smudged into two dark rings, making her look like a ludicrous panda.
False lashes, painstakingly applied, were coming unglued in the cold sweat, like two dying black butterflies.
Wen Yunzhi, watching from the sofa, burst out laughing, “Girl, your move was brilliant.”
Fu Yuting said nothing, but the corners of her lips curled upward.
Then, the audio from the conference picked up again.
“I’m sorry… It’s all my fault…” Xu Qian’s sudden sobs stilled the room. She stood shakily, carefully styled curls sticking to her tear-streaked face, mascara running in black circles that made her look both pitiful and pathetic.
“It was Sister Yuting who told me to do this…” she wept, the cherry-red fingernails digging into her shirt hem. “I don’t know why she’d treat me this way.”
Wen Yunzhi spat out a mouthful of coffee onto her keyboard. “What the hell! She’s trying to pin this on you?!”
“Didn’t you say you pulled three all-nighters yourself?” Zheng Chengfeng’s icy voice cut in, cold as ever.
“I…” Xu Qian’s eyes were rimmed with red, but she was speechless.
Lu Jingyan glanced at her on stage, his expression drawn, then spoke.
“I believe Xu Qian wouldn’t do something like this. I’ll get to the bottom of it and give you an explanation, President Zheng.” His apology sounded almost comical at this moment.
“Whatever internal issues you have,” Zheng Chengfeng’s voice sliced in, cold as ice against glass, “Tianyi will never work with plagiarists.”
He slid a document to the center of the table. “This is the termination notice. Six million in penalties.”
Then he strode out of the conference room.
The document stopped right in front of Lu Jingyan.
His pen suddenly leaked, blue ink blossoming across the contract.
He tried to wipe it off with his sleeve, only to make the stain worse—just like the situation unraveling before him.
“Ah—this is so satisfying!”
Wen Yunzhi shot out of her chair, potato chips flying everywhere.
On the monitor, Xu Qian was desperately trying to wipe away her panda-eyed makeup, while Lu Jingyan clutched a six-million-dollar penalty notice.
“Did you see that? Did you? Xu Qian’s fake lashes are crying off! Lu Jingyan’s face is darker than expired soy sauce!” Wen Yunzhi shook Jiang Yuqing’s shoulders wildly.
Fu Yuting shut off the feed, her lips curling up as she raised her wine glass for a toast with Wen Yunzhi.
In the crisp clink of crystal, the dark red liquid swirled into a tiny vortex, not unlike Xu Qian’s state of mind right now.
“Cheers! Congratulations to our great designer Yun Yin—the king returns,” Wen Yunzhi cheered, leaping to her feet.
Who would have guessed that the illustrious Yun Yin was actually Fu Yuting?
Fu Yuting smiled and shook her head at the sight.
Thank goodness for her office’s top-grade soundproofing, or she’d have been caught by now.
She glanced out the window, lashes lowered. “There’s still a scene left to play.”
In the back seat of Lu Jingyan’s Maybach,
Xu Qian wept like a child robbed of candy.
Her sobs were meticulously timed—
Three short, one long, just enough that tears would slide perfectly from her cheekbones down to her chin, landing in a heart-shaped stain on Lu Jingyan’s Armani suit.
“Jingyan… am I… am I just useless…” She let her words break off, fingers clutching at the third button on his shirt—the one closest to his heart.
Page 3 of 3
Lu Jingyan tenderly wiped her smudged eye makeup, only spreading the dark residue further: “It’s not your fault, it’s Fu Yuting—she set this trap for you on purpose!”
Outwardly, Xu Qian shook her head, her lips trembling as she straightened his tie: “Maybe… my sister didn’t mean to…”
But in her heart, she was cursing Fu Yuting with every foul word she knew.
As she uttered the word “sister,” her nails dug deep into the fabric on Lu Jingyan’s back, leaving five distinct creases.
That movement gave her a glimpse of her own twisted, triumphant expression in the rearview mirror, and she quickly switched back to looking aggrieved.
“You’re still defending her?” Lu Jingyan adjusted his glasses, a cold gleam in his eyes. “Qianqian, you’re too kind.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get justice for you.”
He gently rubbed her trembling shoulder, his fingertips brushing the perfume she’d sprayed on her collarbone—the one he liked best, “Midnight Temptation.”
That tiny detail softened his heart even more, making him blind to the way her mascara’s perfect smudge looked deliberately artistic.
Xu Qian kept her head down, sobbing, but out of his sight her fingers nearly tore apart the Hermès scarf he’d given her.
“Mm… I’ll listen to you…” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but inside she was roaring:
Has that bitch Fu Yuting found out about me and Lu Jingyan?
All the work she’d done for her before had been flawless—why would she suddenly plagiarize?
So what if she humiliated me today? Lu Jingyan is still on my side. She’s nothing but a clown.
Jiahe Tower,
Fu Yuting’s office.
Bang!
The office door was flung open, slamming hard against the wall. Every employee on the floor looked up in unison to see Lu Jingyan standing at the threshold, suit askew, fury burning in his eyes.
Fu Yuting looked up from her papers, feigning surprise. “What’s wrong, Jingyan? Weren’t you at the Tianyi planning meeting?”
Lu Jingyan stormed to her desk and slammed a document down on the solid wood top.
The teacup toppled, its contents soaking the stack of files—evidence comparing Xu Qian’s plagiarized work to Yun Yin’s originals.
“You’ve really disappointed me!” He leaned in, his tie dragging through a coffee stain. “Do you have any idea how important this project is for the company? Look what you’ve done!”
Fu Yuting lowered her gaze to the papers, pupils contracting sharply.
She suddenly stood, her chair colliding with the bookshelf behind.
“This… this is…” Her voice shook, and she recoiled as if burned the moment her finger touched the page. “Xu Qian’s draft? She plagiarized?”
Lu Jingyan’s gold-rimmed glasses glinted coldly as he spoke, his voice devoid of warmth: “You put this in her hands yourself. Don’t act innocent.”
Fu Yuting snatched up the documents and flipped through them, her ring tapping softly against the paper. “I saw this file on Xu Qian’s desk—I thought she’d finished the final version…”
Abruptly, she looked up, eyes wide. “Didn’t she check it too?”
The rhetorical question was a dagger, and Lu Jingyan’s expression faltered.
Indeed, as project lead, Xu Qian should have reviewed every file with care.
Seeing Fu Yuting’s earnest look of aggrieved innocence, the anger in Lu Jingyan’s eyes faded a little.
Could he truly have blamed her unjustly?
After all, Fu Yuting loved him so much.