Chapter 53

Xu Chun nearly choked on her own spit. Her clear, bright eyes fixed on Jiang Zhaolie; though she didn’t say a word, her face was already a litany of unspoken curses: ...Is there something seriously wrong with you?

What on earth possessed you to call me “Mom” right in front of Qin Yao? Was the other half of your motherly love not arriving fast enough?

She’d met ridiculous people before, but never anyone this ridiculous.

Xu Chun’s expression was anything but friendly. Jiang Zhaolie’s throat tightened, and she instinctively looked toward Qin Yao. Wasn’t that what Qin Yao had meant?

Qin Yao seemed just as caught off guard by how wildly off the rails the situation had gone. For a moment she too fell silent, unsure what would be appropriate to say just now. Only when Jiang Zhaolie’s uneasy eyes turned toward her did she rein in the extra emotion in her gaze and give a faint nod, as if affirming Jiang Zhaolie’s earlier behavior. “You go on ahead.”

Qin Yao said calmly, “She and I still have something to discuss.”

Jiang Zhaolie understood and tactfully rose to her feet. Before leaving, she didn’t forget to give Xu Chun a slight nod, observing all the proper courtesies on the surface. Xu Chun felt oddly flattered, oddly at a loss, and a little dazed on top of it all, unable to snap out of it.

She was only in her early twenties, and she’d already become someone’s mother without any pain?

No matter how hard she racked her brains, Xu Chun never could have imagined her life turning out this way.

She was so dazed that she didn’t even react when Jiang Zhaolie gently closed the office door and walked off. Only when Qin Yao’s tall figure stopped without warning in front of her did Xu Chun abruptly snap awake.

The other woman looked down at her, tone unreadable. “You don’t like her calling you that?”

Xu Chun hesitated. Like it? She liked it quite a lot, actually; it was just... awkward.

She couldn’t help picturing herself out with Jiang Zhaolie in the future, Jiang Zhaolie respectfully shouting “Mom” at her every so often, and a chill ran straight down her spine. Far too bizarre—

Yet somehow, she was also secretly thrilled.

Who could have imagined that Jiang Zhaolie, who a year ago had been utterly unreasonable, kicking up a fuss over another woman, treating her like dirt and humiliating her at will, would now be so meek and obedient, calling her “Mom”?

Xu Chun’s lashes fluttered, and the corners of her lips curved up before she could stop them.

She hadn’t been that happy at first, but for some reason, Qin Yao’s question inexplicably put her heart at ease. Without hesitation, she nodded. Xu Chun’s eyes glistened, silken and seductive. “I like it.”

She liked it immensely!

There was nothing more satisfying in her entire life!

Qin Yao lowered her gaze and looked at her deeply; the emotion in those eyes instantly made Xu Chun’s scalp prickle, a bad premonition rising in her heart. Without hesitation she turned to flee, but at such a close distance, Qin Yao caught her effortlessly, voice carrying a mild, gentle laugh. “Caught you.”

A faint, ambiguous curve tugged at her lips. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“W-work?” Xu Chun said uncertainly. She gazed at Qin Yao with pleading eyes, hoping the other woman would be merciful today, but clearly her hopes were dashed.

Qin Yao coaxed her into the lounge without hesitation, using every kind of sweet temptation to muddle Xu Chun’s head. Every movement was carefully calculated yet looked casual, leaving Xu Chun no chance to react at all.

Only when the door clicked softly shut did Xu Chun jolt, her head clearing, but by then it was too late.

Qin Yao’s finely sculpted fingers wrapped firmly around her waist while her other long, pale hand gently cradled the back of Xu Chun’s head. Then hot kisses came down in a torrent, leaving Xu Chun dizzy and utterly disoriented.

“Don’t you like me?” Qin Yao murmured, lightly rubbing her earlobe, warm breath spilling across her slender, snow-white neck, voice pitched low and unbearably pleasant.

Xu Chun’s bones turned soft and numb. Her arched neck formed a lovely, alluring curve; her brain had no room for any extra thought, and she answered purely on instinct: “I like you.”

“Then don’t you want to be with me?” Qin Yao’s magnetic, husky voice pressed on. She was unhurried, coaxing step by step, neither impatient nor agitated, leaving Xu Chun no room for resistance or rebellion.

“I want to.” Xu Chun nodded dizzily again, helpless to stop herself. She wanted to be with Qin Yao, and being with Qin Yao meant she had already changed more than half of the ending that had once been fated for her. If she had Qin Yao as her support and protection from now on, she would never again be ganged up on by Jiang Zhaolie and Yu Sui’an, left to wander the streets, dead three days before anyone found her.

So she wanted to be with Qin Yao. It was a kind of... will to survive radiating from deep in her bones.

Yes, “will to survive” was the most fitting way to describe her feelings for Qin Yao.

Except that mixed in with that will to survive was also her genuine greed and yearning for Qin Yao. Every inch of the other woman matched her aesthetic sensibilities exactly; from the very beginning, she had been inexorably drawn to Qin Yao.

But sometimes fear rose in her heart beyond her control.

As for what she feared, beyond those earlier reasons, she couldn’t quite put it into words either.

“Then why...” Qin Yao’s voice trailed off. Her gaze left the snow-white skin that made her fingers itch, and her deep eyes stared unblinking at Xu Chun. “...do you always refuse to take a couple more steps toward me?”

Xu Chun looked somewhat lost at the question. “Always?”

“That’s not the point.” Qin Yao denied it without hesitation. “Don’t change the subject.” She gazed deeply at Xu Chun. “Deep down, you’re deliberately avoiding me.”

“You don’t really want to get any closer to me, do you?”

Qin Yao’s tone was calm, carrying little extra emotion, and it didn’t sound particularly aggressive. Yet that calm statement easily pierced the disguise Xu Chun had maintained all along, exposing the most fragile feelings in the deepest part of her heart, the ones she herself often deliberately ignored.

Xu Chun didn’t deny it. Qin Yao wasn’t wrong at all.

She wanted to get close, but whenever things reached a point she felt was just right, she would deliberately pull back and put distance between herself and Qin Yao. It was unconscious; if Qin Yao hadn’t pointed it out so plainly now, she herself had never carefully thought about why.

Xu Chun pondered for a while, then attributed it to other external factors. “Maybe I feel that if I’m with you, people will point fingers at us—” Before she could finish, Qin Yao cut her off decisively. “That’s not it.”

“You’re not that kind of person.” Qin Yao’s tone was certain to an astonishing degree. “You don’t care about outside voices or outside opinions.”

“Deep down, you’re a very self-possessed, very resolute person.” For someone with Xu Chun’s personality, all her joy, anger, and confidence came from within herself. Some people needed others’ affirmation and praise to feel they were excellent; Xu Chun wasn’t like that.

All her affirmation of herself came from her own inner voice.

Only when she felt she’d done well enough, enough to satisfy her own heart, did she consider herself excellent enough. And if she felt she hadn’t done well enough, even if others praised her to the skies, her view wouldn’t change.

So how could a person so self-assured possibly be easily influenced by others when it came to such an important decision?

She had always been clear-headed. No matter how unreliable she might appear on the surface, she was always lucid and deeply aware of herself, never easily swayed by others.

Xu Chun was speechless. At a moment like this, she was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, feeling a rare surge of mortified anger. She hated how clearly Qin Yao understood her; she hated how thoroughly Qin Yao knew her true nature and real self.

She didn’t like being seen through so easily by others, even if that person was Qin Yao.

She stayed silent, and Qin Yao simply watched her quietly, gaze deep, the two of them locked in a standoff, neither willing to yield easily. In fact, what Xu Chun understood even less was why things had turned into such a deadlock when they’d been kissing so nicely, when the atmosphere and rhythm had been just right.

They clearly didn’t have to end up in such an awkward situation.

Xu Chun hung her head. The hair on top was soft, with a few fine new strands. From Qin Yao’s angle, she could just see the snow-white, tempting skin of her nape.

The girl’s breathtaking beauty filled her eyes; her faint fragrance lingered at the tip of Qin Yao’s nose. Every inch of the other’s skin made it hard for Qin Yao to restrain herself.

She had to admit that at first she’d had no such thoughts about Xu Chun at all, but... her gaze darkened slightly. Qin Yao’s eyes flickered, and she redirected her attention to Xu Chun’s stubborn face. “You don’t love me enough.”

Qin Yao concluded, “The ‘liking me’ you spoke of before was only to make Zhaolie angry...”

“No!” Xu Chun retorted, anxious and angry, furious that Qin Yao would see her this way, that she would twist and slander her feelings like this. Her eyes reddened at the rims.

Seeing that she was about to shed tears, Qin Yao’s tense, serious face involuntarily softened. She raised a hand gently, her elegant, well-shaped fingers cradling Xu Chun’s cheeks tenderly, even her voice turning impossibly gentle. “Then what is it?” she guided Xu Chun patiently, step by step. “I want to know the reason.”

“I don’t want you to keep hiding it from me, and I don’t want you to keep deceiving yourself.”

Qin Yao had given her the chance, but when it came time to explain, Xu Chun found she couldn’t speak. Why was this happening? She didn’t know either; just moments ago she’d known the reason, but now she was truly at a loss.

She didn’t know whether the reasons and excuses she’d believed before were truly her innermost thoughts.

For a moment, Xu Chun suddenly felt that she didn’t understand herself at all.

“No need to rush.” Qin Yao didn’t press her; instead she gently stroked her head, her eyes and brows full of smiles and the mature charm that came from a wealth of life experience. “I’ll wait for you.”

“When you’ve thought it through, tell me.”

Xu Chun nodded blankly, eyes slightly red as she looked at her, and said awkwardly, “Okay.”

Qin Yao didn’t take things any further; instead she generously let her go. Xu Chun walked a long way in a daze before it hit her—had she just been brainwashed by Qin Yao?

She was supposed to finally get some meat today with Qin Yao taking the initiative, but Qin Yao had turned everything upside down with a tangle of words, leaving her heart in chaos and utterly at a loss. In the end, she hadn’t even gotten a sip of soup, let alone a bowl of meat.

And now she felt uncomfortable all over.

Xu Chun couldn’t help but suspect Qin Yao’s motives: Was this person doing it on purpose? Knowing full well how badly she craved her, yet pulling this move right at the last moment, when she’d already taken her pants off.

Annoying.

Annoying not to have gotten the meat, and Qin Yao’s words annoyed her even more.

Without realizing it, she had walked to the place where she’d met Fu Xin last time. Xu Chun stared blankly at the endless traffic below. So what exactly was she resisting about Qin Yao?

It wasn’t society’s gaze, other people’s opinions, or Qin Yao herself.

Just then Jiang Zhaolie walked over. Xu Chun’s eyes turned fierce. It must be because of her. If Jiang Zhaolie weren’t practically a daughter to Qin Yao, if she hadn’t once been engaged to Xu Chun, if she hadn’t, because of Yu Sui’an, forced Xu Chun to expose herself on the dating show and thereby created every possible obstacle for Xu Chun’s relationship with Qin Yao once it came out, Xu Chun wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

She could have openly and squarely announced her relationship with Qin Yao, with nothing holding her back.

Xu Chun admitted it: right now she was taking her frustration out on Jiang Zhaolie, and she wanted to immediately, right this second, put on the face of a vicious stepmother and make Jiang Zhaolie miserable too, as if she could pile her own pain onto Jiang Zhaolie’s back.

Jiang Zhaolie had been walking along fine when she was suddenly frozen in place by a fierce look from Xu Chun.

She was baffled, utterly bewildered, and racked her brains without figuring out why her stepmother, who’d been so gentle and kind to her at the airport, had suddenly turned into this ferocious, murderous-looking figure, as if she wanted to skin her alive and pull out her tendons.

Jiang Zhaolie hesitated. Could it be that Mom had just settled a score with her over what happened earlier? No way. Qin Yao wasn’t that petty.

Jiang Zhaolie couldn’t figure it out, so she held her breath, lowered her head, and did her best to pretend she was deep in thought and hadn’t noticed Xu Chun, then fled past her as fast as she could.

Fortunately, Xu Chun didn’t grab her and make trouble; she just stood rooted to the spot, brows tightly knit, motionless, as if she’d encountered something extremely troubling.

What could possibly trouble her like this? Jiang Zhaolie thought it over carefully and finally reached a conclusion. It was Yu Sui’an. Other than Yu Sui’an, no one else could leave her so helpless and at a loss.

Xu Chun worked to calm her inexplicably restless mood and settle herself. Qin Yao must have had a reason for suddenly saying all that, but Xu Chun couldn’t figure out how Qin Yao could see through her so thoroughly after only meeting her a handful of times.

Though she was unwilling to admit it, Qin Yao truly knew her inside out.

This was very wrong.

Since arriving, Xu Chun had instinctively kept herself disguised, and after all that mess with Yu Sui’an and Jiang Zhaolie, she now almost never showed her true self. So even if Qin Yao had seen countless people, Xu Chun didn’t believe she could pry open nearly all her deepest secrets after just a few brief encounters.

Where exactly was the problem? This question kept Xu Chun thinking for three whole days, until the final day of the program.

Since a week ago, everyone at Qin Group had been run off their feet; last night almost the entire staff worked overtime, all to prepare fully for today’s event. Though Xu Chun didn’t have to work as hard as the Qin Group employees, she still got up at five in the morning, tidied up, and rushed to the company to help Qin Yao and Jiang Zhaolie handle various trivial matters.

Because of the tense atmosphere throughout the company, Xu Chun was affected too, and before she knew it, her heart was hanging in suspense, uneasy along with everyone else.

When the livestream was about to begin, Xu Chun’s heart pounded like a drum, her mouth dry. She couldn’t help but pick up the bottled water beside her and take sip after sip. Her hands were cold and clammy with a thin sheen of sweat, wet and sticky, deeply uncomfortable. But she had no time to care about that now; she sat in the conference room with Qin Group’s senior executives, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the screen.

As the countdown ended, Qin Group’s official livestream instantly lagged. Xu Chun held her breath, her heart feeling as if it might burst out of her chest.

After a slight stutter, the number of viewers in the livestream grew at a terrifying rate. Even Jiang Zhaolie couldn’t help but feel her heart pound, a flicker of excitement rising.

This was truly rare!

It wasn’t that there were no other groups as strong and well-run as Qin Group, but only one group had traffic like today’s Qin Group.

Jiang Zhaolie was utterly certain that today’s Qin Group would be written into the annals of history, in bold, heavy strokes.

After today, who would still have the capital to contend with Qin Group? No one.

As long as they could maintain the traffic and continue developing with corporate ethics and a bottom line, then unless they courted death themselves, Qin Group would forever remain an unshakable lion.

Jiang Zhaolie clenched her palms and instinctively looked toward Xu Chun, but when her gaze landed on her, she found that Xu Chun was looking at someone else.

Xu Chun was staring intently at Qin Yao, eyes unblinking. After the initial excitement and joy, Xu Chun gradually calmed down and suddenly found herself unable to make sense of something.

In the book, Jiang Zhaolie’s background had always been portrayed as very strong, the kind that could run rampant across the world and do as she pleased, but since Qin Yao could ultimately be backstabbed and counter-killed by Jiang Zhaolie, that proved that Qin Yao, or the former Qin Group, was far from being as powerful as it was today.

Qin Group might be strong, but it wasn’t without weaknesses, which was why Jiang Zhaolie had a chance to find an opening and become the final winner. But from what Xu Chun could see, today’s Qin Group was already far beyond the reach of a mere Jiang Zhaolie.

Even Qin Yao was no longer someone Jiang Zhaolie could topple with a few petty schemes.

Without anyone noticing, she had already grown so powerful that people couldn’t help but revere and fear her.

Xu Chun thought carefully. If all these changes were a butterfly effect caused by her, then if Qin Yao had followed her original path, could she have easily suppressed Jiang Zhaolie and become this powerful in just one year?

A couple of days ago, Xu Chun had seriously looked into Qin Yao for a while. Before Xu Chun arrived, Qin Yao’s plans for the company’s development had always been ordinary, unremarkable, nothing like this desperate, world-shaking momentum.

The current Qin Yao was like someone who’d activated a cheat code; it was frightening.

She even felt that given enough time, if Qin Yao expanded her business into outer space one day, Xu Chun wouldn’t be surprised.

But what catalyst had changed Qin Yao so much? It couldn’t be that, because the Jiang-Xu marriage alliance had fallen through, she’d had to fend for herself and carve out her own way—could it?

In the original text, the Jiang-Xu marriage alliance had also fallen through, and the Xu family had even gone bankrupt, yet Qin Yao hadn’t made any big moves.

Could it be... A guess rose in Xu Chun’s heart that she didn’t want to believe.

Her head ached from thinking, making her stand out oddly in the cheering conference room. Xu Chun agonized for a long time, and finally decided that once things wrapped up here, she would properly sound Qin Yao out.

If that really was the possibility she suspected, it explained why Qin Yao understood her so well and had suddenly abandoned her former steady development strategy for a gambler’s risky, aggressive advance.

Xu Chun kept staring at Qin Yao; Jiang Zhaolie kept watching Xu Chun stare at Qin Yao. Who knew how much time passed before Qin Yao’s faint gaze suddenly flicked toward Jiang Zhaolie. Jiang Zhaolie trembled all over and guiltily, clumsily pulled her gaze back, her expression shifting uncertainly.

Her mind spun madly. If she said she hadn’t done it on purpose... would Mom believe her?

She’d been staring at Xu Chun for so long just now—had Mom seen the whole thing? Jiang Zhaolie wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to look at Xu Chun again, but her eyes just wouldn’t obey.

Compared with her earlier blatant staring, though, this time Jiang Zhaolie was much more low-key and subtle.

Qin Group’s livestream was so wildly popular it lagged, and the trending topics across major platforms were countless. The hosts had barely greeted the audience before all the pre-set product links were snapped up and sold out, almost without a scrap left.

The hosts stared blankly, then cast pleading looks offstage. At Qin Yao’s command, the hosts suppressed their panic and introduced the products’ various functions and uses as if nothing had happened. Out of habit, they smoothly added, “If you’re interested, dears, you can click the link at the bottom of the screen...”

Before they could finish, the comments flooded in: 【Go look for yourselves—is there any stock left in your links?】

The hosts were nearly rendered speechless. Fortunately, the back end operated in time and uploaded another batch, barely satisfying everyone’s appetite.

The event proceeded methodically, and the four morning hours flew by. By now not a single product in the links had survived. Xu Chun guessed that in Qin Group’s factories, the workers were probably operating the machines so hard they were shooting sparks.

The morning livestream came to a temporary close. Everyone went back to review what had gone well and what hadn’t, or to eat. Xu Chun thought for a moment, then quietly tagged along behind Qin Yao like a little tail, following her all the way to the President’s Office.

Qin Yao had long noticed Xu Chun being sneaky and hesitant to speak. Now that there were no outsiders, she sat down without looking up. “If you have something to say, just say it.”

“Um...” Xu Chun hemmed and hawed, swallowed, steeled herself, shut her eyes and opened them, and with the momentum of a mighty river, blurted at Qin Yao: “Sister, in our past lives...” She paused. “...were we very familiar?”

“Like... an abnormal kind of relationship?”

Her gaze fixed tightly on Qin Yao, trying to catch any hint of an unusual expression on her face.

At the question, Qin Yao didn’t look up; her gaze remained focused on the computer screen, her long, jade-white fingers flying across the keyboard. She looked the picture of focused work, yet upon hearing Xu Chun’s question, she still found time to answer. “Xu Chun.”

She called Xu Chun’s name lightly, making Xu Chun’s scalp prickle. “Don’t think I’m very good at holding back.”