Chapter 161 Wangcai is the Boss

The early morning sunshine from Haicheng streamed in warmly through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of 1601 at Genting Highlands Villa, but it could not dispel the stagnant, cold air in the living room.

Yu Ling sat cross-legged on the living room carpet, her laptop open in front of her. She'd gotten drunk at the barbecue stall the previous night, and Zhao Chen had brought her back to 1601. She was still wearing her business suit, which was wrinkled, just like her current chaotic mood.

She did not return to the rental house. She wanted to give Zhao Chen another chance, and also wanted to give herself another chance, but she still wanted to know who Zhao Chen, who was full of lies?

The keyboard was clattering as she typed, with a suppressed anger and stubbornness that had nowhere to vent.

A long list of browser pages opened.

Tianyancha, Qichacha, the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System... all the business information query platforms she could think of, repeatedly entering keywords in the search bar:

Venucia Technology

Zhao Chen

Haicheng Software Company Zhao Chen

The results page is dazzlingly clean.

"Sorry, no relevant company information was found."

"No matching results were found for the keywords you entered."

"No records matching the criteria."

"Venucia Technology? There is no such company!" Yu Ling stared at the screen, squeezing out these words from between her teeth, her fingers poking the enter key hard, as if she wanted to poke through the keyboard.

She didn't believe it and changed her mind. Didn't Zhao Chen say he graduated from Stanford? She climbed over the firewall, logged into the Stanford University website, found the alumni directory, took a deep breath, and typed in:

Zhao Chen

Puter Science

Graduation Year: 2015-2018 (estimated)

The page loaded, and the spinning circle made Yu Ling anxious. After a few seconds, the result popped up:

"No matching records found."

No such person!

"Stanford alumni directory? No such person!" Yu Ling's voice rose, a tinge of sharp disbelief and dupeness. Gold-rimmed glasses? Elegant conversation? Effortlessly solving technical problems? All fake?! Even her academic credentials were fabricated?!

The immense sense of absurdity and the anger of being deceived washed over her once again, even more so than at the barbecue stall last night! She felt like a complete fool! She had been fooled around in a gentle trap woven with countless lies!

She scratched her hair irritably, her eyes sweeping across the empty living room. Zhao Chen wasn't there. Last night, he'd put her, drunk as a fuss, on the bed, covered her with a quilt, and then left.

At this moment, the communication software in the lower right corner of the computer began flashing wildly.

It was Su Xiao’s video request.

Yu Ling took a deep breath, suppressed her turbulent emotions, and clicked the answer button.

Su Xiao's enlarged face instantly filled half the screen, with her messy bedroom in the background. She had obviously just woken up, her hair a mess, but her eyes were surprisingly bright, flashing with the excitement of "digging up a big melon."

"Lingzi! Lingzi! Major breakthrough!!" Su Xiao's voice exploded through the speakers, hoarse from staying up late and filled with unconcealed excitement. "The master of my hacker cousin's online friend! He's incredible! He followed the clues of the 'Cayman Islands' and the 'Bankrupt Pancake Man Foundation' and dug deep into every nook and cranny! Guess what he found?!"

Yu Ling's heart suddenly jumped: "What?"

"Zhao Chen! He really registered a company! It was in Haicheng! About five years ago!" Su Xiao spoke so fast that his saliva almost sprayed onto the camera.

Yu Ling's breath hitched! Found it?!

"What's the name of the company?" she asked, her voice filled with a nervousness she didn't even realize.

Lidya Su's expression instantly became extremely strange, as if she wanted to laugh but was desperately trying to hold it back, with a hint of incredible absurdity. She cleared her throat and announced in an extremely exaggerated, word-by-word tone:

"The full name of the company is—"

She deliberately prolonged her tone to whet everyone's appetite, then suddenly spat out that earth-shattering name:

"Wangwang Shiba Inu Pet Products Wholesale Co., Ltd."

"What?!" Yu Ling thought she had misheard.

"Yes! You heard it right!" Su Xiao slapped her thighs on the other side of the screen, laughing so hard that tears were almost coming out. "Woof woof Shiba Inu! Wholesale! Pet supplies! Hahahaha! The legal representative isn't even Zhao Chen himself!"

Yu Ling was completely confused: "If it's not him? Then who is it?"

Su Xiao suppressed his laughter, moved closer to the camera, lowered his voice mysteriously, and uttered an even more outrageous name:

"The legal representative is his dog! The registered name is - Wangcai! Hahahahaha!" Su Xiao finally couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into earth-shaking laughter on the other side of the screen.

"Registered capital is 10,000 yuan! Business scope: wholesale of pet food, toys, and supplies... Hahahaha! God damn wholesale! And it went bankrupt! It was deregistered three years ago! Hahahaha! Lingzi, your Zhao Chen... Hahahaha... He... He used to sell dog food?! And he let his dog be the boss?! Hahahaha! I'm dying of laughter! Ouch, my stomach..."

Wangwang Shiba Inu Pet Products Wholesale Co., Ltd.?

Legal representative: Wangcai?

Three years after closing down?

Yu Ling sat in front of her computer, completely petrified. Lidya Su's devilish laughter echoed through the speakers, like countless little hammers hammering at her already shattered nerves.

absurd!

The utmost absurdity!

She'd been searching all morning, to no avail! She'd discovered that Zhao Chen's only "business empire" was a shell company he'd established five years ago with a registered capital of 10,000 yuan, using his dog as the legal representative, selling dog food and cat litter, and then going bankrupt?!

Does this have anything to do with the "Bankrupt Pancake Man Foundation" she saw, which was causing chaos in the Cayman Islands and freezing tens of billions of Gu family assets with a single order?!

A huge feeling of powerlessness and anger at being played with, like an icy tide, instantly overwhelmed Yu Ling. She looked at Su Xiao's distorted smile on the screen, then at the glaring "No such company" and "No such person" on her search page, and she felt her vision go dark.

Just as Lidya Su’s laughter and Yu Ling’s petrification were at a stalemate, “Click.”

There was a slight sound of a door opening at the entrance.

Yu Ling turned around suddenly.

Zhao Chen is back.

He changed into a light grey home suit; the soft fabric made him look tall and straight, and his temperament was refreshing.

He held an exquisite glass fruit plate, filled with evenly chopped, brightly colored strawberries, blueberries, and kiwis. Several small fruit forks were carefully inserted into the plate. There was even a fresh mint leaf garnishing the edge of the plate.

He walked into the living room with a gentle smile on his face.