Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
After the turbulent lunch, Pei Ge canceled her initial plan to stay and chat with her cousin.
“Second Uncle, Second Auntie, Cousin, we’ll take our leave now.” Pei Ge bid her relatives farewell with a polite smile.
“Not staying for a while?” Liu Yan looked wonderingly at the mother-daughter pair who seemed eager to leave.
“Unfortunately, we can’t. I still have some unfinished work at the office. Second Auntie, we’ll just catch up with you all next time,” Pei Ge explained with a smile.
While no one insisted on making them stay once they heard her reason, Liu Yan seemed determined to step on Pei Ge’s toes.
“Ge Ge, you child, our family company is very fine, so why did you resign? In fact, we never asked you to work overtime unlike that current company of yours.” Liu Yan’s voice had a touch of disdain.
Hearing this, Pei Ge calmly replied, “It’s alright, actually. I am quite satisfied with my current company.”
“I see! You go ahead, then.” Liu Yan waved them away.
Thus, once more, Pei Ge bid them goodbye with a polite smile. She then left their house with her mother.
Once the mother-daughter pair was outside of the villa’s huge gates, Zhang Manhua sighed and asked wonderingly, “Ge Ge, did you offend your cousin in any way?”
“Mom, I’m also wondering about that. I don’t know what has gotten into her today. It was as though she had eaten a bullet.” Pei Ge pouted.
“Oh. Maybe, it’s because of Zhou Zhuoyang.” Zhang Manhua sighed and looked at her daughter with a heavy heart.
Although she was not one to think badly of others, she could not deny that Pei Shishi had truly verbally attacked her daughter at the dining table earlier.
“I thought so, too. My sister is such a fine woman and can do so much better than that Zhou Zhuoyang. I don’t know why she’s so insistent on marrying that jerk.” Pei Ge pouted, feeling extremely disdainful at the mention of the man.
“Alright, alright, that’s your cousin’s business. It’s better for you not to say too much about it, lest your cousin should hear you and be unhappy again.” The mother hurriedly stopped the daughter from speaking further about the matter.
“I know, Mom. I’m really not that dumb.” Pei Ge originally wanted to have a proper chat about Zhou Zhuoyang with her cousin, but based on what had happened earlier, that man seemed to be a taboo topic between them.
The mother-daughter pair chatted all the way to the bus stop, which was located just outside this mid-range neighborhood, and was soon on board a public bus.
…
“Mom, which company did Pei Ge go to after resigning from ours?” Pei Shishi, who was enjoying her tea, suddenly asked her mother this as she felt that something was not right about this particular matter.
“I think it’s called Chenguang Real Estate. Before you all arrived, that Zhang Manhua boasted to me about Pei Ge receiving a promotion and pay raise despite her being with that new company for only a month. He he! She dared boast to me. Our family owns a company, while her daughter is only a small-time office assistant. What is there to be proud of?” Liu Yan spoke of this matter in a voice filled with disdain.
Pei Shishi also disdained the mother-daughter pair, but when she saw the frown on Zhou Zhuoyang’s face, she immediately disagreed, “Mom, what are you saying? Since Auntie is praising Pei Ge to that extent, then she must really be doing well in that new company of hers.”
“What progress? She’s still just a small assistant even in that new company.” Liu Yan waved her words away.
Pei Shishi still wanted to follow with a rebuttal, but she suddenly thought that the name ‘Chenguang Real Estate’ sounded familiar. Pondering on it for a bit, her eyes suddenly widened.
“Chenguang Real Estate?! Pei Ge is at Chenguang Real Estate?!” Pei Shishi’s voice pitched higher as she asked this in disbelief.
Liu Yan gawked at her daughter’s sudden loss of composure and reflexively nodded her head. “Yes. She’s an assistant in the Planning Department of Chenguang Real Estate.”
“How can that be?” Pei Shishi’s eyebrows tightly knitted together as her usual gentle self all but vanished.
“Shishi, is there something wrong with Chenguang Real Estate?” Zhou Zhuoyang asked worriedly when he noticed her almost losing it.
Suppressing her feeling of shock and assuming her usual gentle expression once more, Pei Shishi softly replied, “Oh, nothing. I just thought of that news about Chenguang Real Estate being acquired by the Ji Group.”
After mentioning the surname Ji, Pei Shishi’s grip on her cup involuntarily tightened.
“Oh, I know about that, too. Chenguang Real Estate’s big boss is now Ji Group’s Ji Ziming. Ji Ziming is really outstanding. No one expected that Chenguang Real Estate would successfully be acquired by him. When the acquisition was made at that time, everyone in the real estate industry was so shocked,” Zhou Zhuoyang said. His age was not that far from Ji Ziming’s, yet the distance between their statuses in life was really far.
The elite in the capital knew about Ji Ziming and all the pioneers in the industry were full of praises for him.
Zhou Zhuoyang’s words caused Pei Shishi’s fingers to tighten around the cup even more.
Ji Ziming, that high and mighty man… The man I could never get, never reach….
Pei Shishi’s face was pale, yet her eyes were on fire.
Ji Ziming… Ji Ziming… She seemed to have lost her sanity with the way she hatefully yet longingly chanted Ji Ziming’s name inside her.
Suddenly, her eyes flashed and then turned ghastly.
Pei Ge, Chenguang Real Estate, Ji Ziming….
‘That Mr. Ji is indeed very suave. He is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen!’
Recalling the nurse’s words, her eyes squinted and she strove to cover the gloom in them.
Could it be that Ji Ziming was the person Pei Ge was with at the hospital?
No, that’s impossible! Ji Ziming is such an outstanding man, so how could he be with Pei Ge, that ugly freak? Truly impossible!
Pei Shishi firmly rejected that possibility, yet her gut was telling her that the man who had accompanied Pei Ge to the hospital was indeed Ji Ziming.
“Shishi, Shishi? What’s wrong? What are you thinking about? You are so deep in thought.”
Pei Shishi returned to her senses and saw Zhou Zhuoyang’s gentle face in front of her. His eyes were filled with gentleness and smile.
“Nothing. Just thinking about that nurse clearly saying that Pei Ge was there to check if she is pregnant, yet Pei Ge was strongly denying it today, so I couldn’t help but worry about her.” Pei Shishi softly smiled and lightly reassured him.
“Hai! Why do you care about her? It doesn’t concern us whether she is pregnant or not.” Liu Yan shrugged and waved this concern away as she picked up the oranges in the tea.
While Liu Yan did not care about it, Zhou Zhuoyang was very concerned about it!
Just the thought of Pei Ge having someone else’s baby made him feel depressed and extremely uncomfortable.