Chapter 93: Everywhere We Meet Again

“Brother-in-law, you only just came to Hangzhou this time because of that company called Forty Thieves, didn’t you?” Leng Zhiruo asked with a smile from the car.

“Only partly,” Huang He said with a grin. “My main reason was still to see you. I haven’t seen you in a month, and I missed you.”

“Hmph.” Leng Zhiruo gave a soft snort. She knew perfectly well that her brother-in-law was talking nonsense, but the nonsense was strangely pleasant to hear.

“Oh, by the way, brother-in-law, are you satisfied with the secretary I found for you?” Leng Zhiruo asked curiously. At first she had wanted to pull Leng Zhiwen into the role, but Leng Zhiwen had flatly refused on the grounds that she was still in college. In the end, Leng Zhiruo had no choice but to hire someone on short notice, a high school classmate of hers.

She had also graduated from college, but had married early and even had a son already, so she seemed fairly reliable and unlikely to cause trouble.

Of course, if Huang He were anything like a certain chief minister, that was another matter entirely.

“Very unsatisfactory. I’ve already sent her away,” Huang He said, shaking his head.

“Why?” Leng Zhiruo asked, bewildered. “Her ability was enough, and if anything she was even more meticulous than I am. Did she offend you somehow?”

“Nothing like that. She just told me that a man named Cai Hua was her high school classmate, and then she started talking about stories from your school days,” Huang He said lightly.

“What? Why would she bring up that bastard Cai Hua!” Leng Zhiruo instantly panicked, her face reddening with anger. “Brother-in-law, I don’t know what he told you, but don’t listen to her nonsense. In high school, Cai Hua really did chase me for three years, but I never gave him the slightest response. I never even looked at the love letters he gave me. My mother burned every single one of them. My whole family knows that!”

“Is that so?” Huang He said with an expression of surprise. “But I heard Cai Hua was pretty handsome. You really didn’t like him?”

“Handsome my ass. He was a grown man who carried himself like a woman, all soft and girlish, not one bit like a man. Do you know what topic he liked using most when he tried to strike up a conversation with me? He loved talking about the newest Korean skincare products, the latest Japanese cosmetics, which kind of face mask would suit the skin of people from Wenzhou better and all that. I was getting so disgusted I could feel goose bumps all over me!” As she spoke, her face remained full of revulsion.

“Hahahaha!” Huang He could not help laughing. “That’s not what your former classmate told me. She said that during those three years of high school, you exchanged love letters, and that you were always discussing cosmetics and skincare products together. It was basically the same as what you just said.”

“How is that the same? She’s deliberately trying to confuse the issue!” Leng Zhiruo was not foolish, and of course she understood just how lethal those seemingly truthful details could be in the eyes of an outsider.

“How could she do this to me? I gave her a job when she was laid off, and how could she do this to me?” Leng Zhiruo sounded as though she were about to cry.

“So the next day after she told me all that, I had her pack up and get lost,” Huang He said with a smile as he patted her head. “Your brother-in-law isn’t stupid. The moment she opened her mouth, I knew exactly what kind of person she was. Still, I should blame myself too. I only gave you a few days to hire someone and hand over the work, so it was inevitable you’d run into someone unworthy.”

“Thank you, brother-in-law,” Leng Zhiruo said softly. “But I still can’t understand it. She already had a husband and a child. Did she really not care about her own family anymore? And she only looks ordinary at best. Did she really think that if she brought me down, you would take a fancy to her?”

Leng Zhiruo’s words were not wrong. The main reason her classmate had been chosen was precisely because she was so utterly average. If she had married an ordinary man, that might not have mattered, but for Huang He, there was no way he would ever be interested in such a woman.

“That’s not quite true. She did have some self-awareness,” Huang He said with a smile. “But on her second day here, she placed a photo of her younger sister in the most visible spot on her desk, and she would often mention, offhandedly, how outstanding her sister was. I think she was studying at the Hong Kong Film Academy too. She really was a lovely little beauty. Even I found myself rather moved when I saw her.”

“Her younger sister? You mean Mao Lin? Are you kidding me? She’s only fifteen this year. That woman is truly shameless, pushing her own underage sister toward an old man. Isn’t that harming her own family?” Leng Zhiruo said angrily.

“Hey, watch your wording. What do you mean old man? Your brother-in-law is only twenty-six,” Huang He glared at his sister-in-law. Twenty-six, eleven years older. He really was, by that standard, an old man.

“Hmph. In any case, I’m severing all ties with that woman!” Leng Zhiruo said in a huff, while Huang He merely smiled, as composed as ever.

Leng Zhiruo would never know that after learning Cai Hua existed, Huang He had immediately sent someone to investigate him, stripping away every last detail of the man’s background. In fact, the things Leng Zhiruo had just mentioned were something Huang He knew in even greater detail than she did.

And Cai Hua truly was the sort of man women liked. Right after graduating from high school, he had married within a few years, and it had been a shotgun wedding. A few months after the wedding, he had a son, named Cai Kun. Huang He could not help sighing at how small the world was.

“Don’t worry, brother-in-law. I’ll definitely find you a suitable secretary,” Leng Zhiruo promised.

At that moment the car came to a stop, and the driver said quietly, “President Leng, Chairman Huang, we’ve arrived at Fenghe Garden in Lakeside Villas. Their office is in Building 6, Unit 1, Apartment 202.”

“Oh, that was quick,” Huang He nodded and was just about to get out of the car when Leng Zhiruo climbed out after him as well.

“What are you getting out for?” Huang He asked with a smile.

“I’m going with you to meet the people from Forty Thieves. A chairman as grand as you can’t even have someone to carry your bag, can you?” Leng Zhiruo said with a grin.

“That won’t do,” Huang He said, shaking his head. “You’re the chief executive of Jiangnan Sales now. It wouldn’t be proper for you to trail behind me.”

“Brother-in-law, I’m not the chief executive today. I’m still your secretary, and you just happen to be without one, don’t you?” Leng Zhiruo said with a sly smile.

“All right, all right, I’m afraid of you,” Huang He laughed, leading this temporary secretary back to her post into the rather ordinary-looking residential complex.

He knocked on an equally ordinary door. After waiting more than ten seconds, it was suddenly opened with a rustle. A female receptionist who looked severely sleep-deprived answered the door, and after hearing the situation, she led the two of them to the reception room to sit.

There, a young man was already seated in the reception room. The moment Huang He saw him, even as someone who had been reborn, he could not help but gape at the familiar figure before him.

It was as if the man had two huge words written across his forehead:

Cash cow.

This world really was full of chance encounters.