Chapter 70: The Replacement

He woke up, and she was awake in his arms. He held her tightly, took a deep breath of her breath, and kissed her forehead, "When did you wake up?" She didn't answer him. She pulled her upper body away from his arms, looked up at him, and pinched his chin to ask, "When are you going back?" "Are you sending me away? I'm going straight back to the company. I want to stay longer." He pressed her head back into his arms, pulled her hand to his chest, and covered it with his own hand. "You should let Shi Shi see you in the morning. Duoduo wakes up early these days, don't let him see." "Can we not hide it in front of the children?" "Duoduo, that won't work." "Can you talk to him properly? Otherwise, you'll have to wait until he falls asleep every time. It's too late, and it will affect your sleep. Your body can't stand it." He kissed her face. "Don't come over at night anymore. Everyone's busy. Take good care of the child and get some rest. We can see each other on the weekends if we can." He suddenly rolled over and pressed her down. "Tell me, what do you mean by not coming over at night anymore? What do you mean by seeing each other on the weekends if we can? What do you mean?" He was still naked, his muscles stiff and thriving this morning. He knew she hadn't slept well the night before. He'd just been controlling his desires and pressed hard, but he couldn't bear to see her tired. He rolled over, hugged her and kissed her hair. "It's tough taking care of him alone, isn't it? You live too far from the kindergarten, and getting him to school must be exhausting. Can we live closer? I've found a house near the kindergarten, so we can be closer too. Aunt Xu can help with both pickups and drop-offs and look after him. You should have more time for yourself and rest." With the dual pressures of work and the child, he believed she had no time to breathe, her body would be overdrawn, and there wouldn't be many openings for him to enter her life. Sneaking around while the child slept, like he did last night, would require a lot of restraint. She got very little sleep, so he had to find a solution. "You don't have to worry about arranging my life," she shifted. "What I mean is... I don't want our lives to be too intertwined. It's good to maintain a proper distance. We should all have our own independent space, and we should also keep some of the children's original space. We should be busy with our own things during the week, and see each other on weekends when we are free. Isn't that good?" "No!" He tightened his grip on her arm. "Can you give us more time? We shouldn't have any set rules. I want to see you every day, I want to take care of you and Duoduo openly. Now I have to leave before dawn like a thief." He buried his head in her chest. "Okay, go home quickly and wake Shi Shi up, quickly!" She pulled him up, cupped his face, and kissed him between his eyebrows. Seeing her get up and leave the bed, he felt extremely...

He woke up, and she was awake in his arms. He held her tightly, breathing in her breath deeply, and kissed her forehead, "When did you wake up?"

She didn't answer him, but pulled her upper body away from his embrace, looked up at him, and pinched his chin to ask, "When are you going back?"

"Are you sending me away? I'll go straight back to the company from here. I want to stay a little longer." He pressed her head back into his arms, pulled her hand to his chest, and covered it with his own hand.

"You should let Shi Shi see you in the morning. Duoduo wakes up early these days, so don't let anyone see you."

"Can we please stop hiding it in front of the children?"

"That won't work, Duoduo."

"Can you please have a good talk with him? Otherwise, you will have to wait for him to fall asleep every time. It will be too late and affect your sleep. Your body can't bear it." He kissed her face.

"Don't come over at night in the future. We're all busy. Take good care of the children and get some rest. We'll meet on weekends if we can."

He suddenly turned over and pressed her down, "Tell me, what do you mean by not coming over at night? What do you mean by meeting me on weekends if conditions permit?"

He was still naked, his muscles hard and throbbing that morning. He knew she hadn't slept well last night, and just as he was controlling his desire, he pressed down hard, but he couldn't bear to see her tired, so he rolled over, hugged her, and kissed her hair. "It must be hard to take care of him alone, right? You live too far from the kindergarten, and it must be very tiring to take him to school. Can we live closer? I've arranged a house near the kindergarten, so we can live close by, and Aunt Xu can help pick him up and take care of him together. You should have more time for yourself and rest more."

With the double pressure of work and children, he thought she had no time to breathe and her body would be overdrawn, and there would not be many opportunities for him to enter her life. He would have to exercise a lot of restraint to sneak in while the child was asleep like he did last night. She had very little sleep, so he had to find a solution.

"You don't have to worry about arranging my life," she shifted. "What I mean is... I don't want our lives to be too intertwined. It's good to maintain a proper distance. We should all have our own independent space, and we should also keep some of our original space for the children. We can each be busy with our own things during the week, and see each other on weekends when we're free. Isn't that good?"

"No!" He held her arms tighter, "Can you give us more time? We shouldn't have any arrangements. I want to see you every day and take care of you and Duoduo openly. Now you have to leave before dawn like a thief." He buried his head in her chest.

"Okay, let's go home quickly and wake Shi Shi up, quickly!" She pulled him up, held his face and kissed him between the eyebrows.

Watching her rise from the bed, his feeling of immense happiness shifted to a sudden sense of emptiness. Her desire to maintain distance was clearly inconsistent with what he wanted. Her life was not his to control.

She simply combed his hair, took out a bath towel to wrap him up, told him to take a shower, picked up his white shirt and went to another room.

When he came back from the shower and got dressed, she helped him put on his shirt, and the warmth from the ironing instantly spread across his body.

She lowered her eyes and buttoned his shirt one by one, from top to bottom, with great concentration. When buttoning the top button, her hand accidentally touched her throat, and he wanted to say something, but he swallowed and held it back, looking at her serious expression.

After buttoning it, she pulled his collar and smiled at him.

He grabbed her hand, and continued to suppress his reluctance to keep his distance from her. "We're together, so we're together. Let's have dinner together tonight. I'll book a place, just the two of us."

"I can't leave Duoduo with Lin Yao. She just took care of it last night."

"Then take him with me. I'll go home and pick up Shi Shi, or maybe Lin Yao too? We agreed to treat her to dinner, so I won't treat her alone."

"I'll ask her."

When she returned to the office that morning, Lin Yao started talking before she could ask, "Shi Zhenglin just called me and said he'd treat me and your family of four to dinner tonight. You guys were meeting up for a date, and you dragged me along to eat some dog food. How wicked!"

"What do you mean by a family of four? Be more measured in your words."

"Other people's children have crawled into your bed, and you are taking care of their children. Aren't we family?"

"I told you it's a special case. Are you going or not?"

"Go, go, I'm going to formally acknowledge my relationship. I also need to make some things clear to him. He has somewhat destroyed the relationship between us, and I won't let him get too comfortable. You should be mentally prepared in advance."

Long Weihe ignored her, staring at her phone. Ping Mei had sent a message, saying she could find a time to talk with Yang Chengkai. The only condition was that it must be kept strictly confidential. She asked Ping Mei for her availability, and she said any Saturday or Sunday in the next two weeks would be fine.

She spoke with Lin Yao and then called Shi Zhenglin. Shi Zhenglin said it was incredibly difficult for Pingmei to take this step, and asked if she could bring Aunt Xu along that evening to look after the two children while he and the two of them discussed the matter. She agreed.

It only took Jiang Lingli ten minutes from the time she received her call to the time she replied. She was extremely happy and said that Yang Chengkai had chosen this Saturday night and would book a highly private place to invite Ping Mei to dinner.

Yang Chengkai even called her to express his praise. From his perspective, getting Ping Mei to come to him for a discussion was a success for a headhunter. Whether or not the subsequent discussions were successful was his own business. He also knew that Ping Mei would face numerous obstacles and challenges, depending on her ability to navigate them and her luck.

For dinner in the evening, Shi Zhenglin found a place nearby.

When they met, Long Wei felt uncomfortable. Since the two of them couldn't agree on a date alone, he suggested four people. Then he added Lin Yao, and then Aunt Xu. Even Lin Yao felt like he was arranging a meeting between the families of both parties.

He didn't say anything to Aunt Xu, just said he wanted to have dinner together. Aunt Xu thought he was coming back from a business trip to thank Long Weihe for taking care of Shi Shi. She thought it was the right thing to do.

He'd specially booked a large room with separate lounge and dining areas. The two children entered the room, closed the door, and ran to play on the sofa in the lounge area at one end, with Aunt Xu by their side. Behind the screen at the other end was the dining table. He arranged the seating, reserving three connected seats for Aunt Xu and her family. He sat next to Long Weihe, and Lin Yao sat across from them.

Lin Yao was a little reserved at first. When they sat down, he treated her with respect and gave her a gift, a La Mer gift box, a big green box tied with a beautiful green ribbon.

I used to prepare gifts for Li Yasong all year round, and he had experience buying women's things. He asked his secretary to go out and get it for him that afternoon.

"Mr. Shi is too polite. It's not appropriate for me to accept the gift. What do you think, Long Weihe? Is it appropriate for me to accept it?" She looked at her and asked her deliberately, asking her to express her opinion.

It would be wrong for Long Weihe to ask her to collect it, and it would be wrong for her not to collect it.

Asking her to stop would mean she was siding with Shi Zhenglin, shifting her emotions towards him, and breaking their united front. Not asking her to stop would also make the atmosphere awkward and deny him face.

This is exactly what Lin Yao wanted to do to them.

Long Weihe couldn't do anything to her, so Shi Zhenglin dealt with her. He smiled and said, "Thank you for helping Xingtan configure Li Xuan. She assisted me in my work very well. You didn't charge her for her services, did you? This small gift is just a token of my gratitude, and it's not worth refusing."

His words completely shifted his logic, defining gift-giving as a business transaction, not a bribe. Lin Yao's mind flashed back to how she and Li Xuan had badmouthed him behind his back, and she could only mask her embarrassment with a "thank you, thank you." She thought, what kind of person is this? He's taking advantage of this to make things difficult for him, only to end up feeling guilty and embarrassed. It's no wonder he's so easily manipulated by someone as soft-hearted as Long Weihe. No wonder she fell for him so quickly. She picked up her tea and took a sip.

After ordering the food, he went to the leisure area to interact with the two children and then ran back.

Lin Yao couldn't stand the glances and small gestures they exchanged. She only responded briefly to whatever he asked her to talk about, and she would often turn the topic around to Long Weihe. Long Weihe gave her a look, warning her not to act so pretentiously.

Later, Long Weihe mentioned Ping Mei first, saying that the two parties had agreed to talk this Saturday night.

"Her departure will be quite complicated. Have you studied the obstacles to her departure?" he asked.

Long Weihe replied, "I've learned that her competing interests are with similar pharmaceutical companies. Qimai and Xingtan's drugs are not in the same field, so Xingtan is not a similar company. She also has very little un-locked equity. The main obstacles she faces at the board level are probably issues related to corporate governance, supervision, and falling stock prices."

"Has the Qimai board of directors thought about the core plan to deal with issues such as regulation and falling stock prices?" he asked.

They both thought of a replacement at the same time. There was an excellent replacement for Ping Mei, similar to the situation he was in now.

He continued, "If there's someone who can replace her or even outperform her, the risk of a share price drop will be mitigated, and the board will naturally have fewer concerns about her resignation. You can consider finding a replacement and recommending it to Qimai's boss, Song Changhe."

He said it lightly, but it was not that simple. Not only was Song Changhe and the others out of reach, but they also had no replacements.

Lin Yao frowned. "It's definitely not okay for us to contact her boss rashly. We have to consider the source of the information. It's too sensitive. Contacting him will only harm Pingmei, and Pingmei will be unable to leave."

"You can consider another path. Communicate well with Heping Mei and find a replacement she approves of. She will introduce you to her boss. She and Song Changhe have been friends for many years. Even if she leaves, Song Changhe still trusts her." He continued to guide.

This is an operation that benefits them and allows them to achieve success. If this path doesn't work, he will take care of it.

"The prerequisite is that we must have people. We can't do this in the short term." Long Weihe felt it was unrealistic.

The thin suit jacket she was wearing had slipped off one shoulder, so he helped her put it on. "Where's the one from out of town?"

“We have even more limited resources for this type of people from outside the area.”

"I'll provide you with someone, you can try to talk to him."

"Who is it?" Lin Yao asked.

"Gu Liang from Tianjin."

"Gu Liang from Tianjin Huameng? Impossible." Lin Yao looked incredulous.