Chapter 2: Encountering an Adulterous Affair
After leaving the villa in the morning, Yan Ai temporarily stayed in a star-rated hotel in the city center and did not return to her parents' home.
Before successfully getting a divorce, she didn't want to alert anyone, not even her father or her parents-in-law. She didn't want them to know.
If my father knew about this, he would definitely be sad, and if my parents-in-law knew about this, they would definitely stop us.
Neither of these was what she wanted right now.
At this moment, the cell phone next to him rang.
She picked up the phone and saw that it was her editor An Chi calling.
"Xingchen, something happened with your new book. Can we meet and talk?"
Listening to An Chi's slightly anxious voice, Yan Ai remembered something.
It was indeed that incident.
Yan Ai pretended to be ignorant and asked, "Now?"
"Yes, now!"
Yan Ai thought for a moment before saying, "Okay, where shall we meet?"
An Chi told her the time and place on the phone. Originally, An Chi wanted to drive over to pick her up, but she refused.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, the two met at a very stylish coffee shop in the city center and asked for a private room.
Yan Ai arrived five minutes earlier than An Chi.
"Junior sister Yan Ai, we finally meet again!" When An Chi entered the private room and saw Yan Ai, his eyes lit up and the anxiety in his heart was relieved a lot.
They are senior and junior students in the same high school and they met because they participated in the same club.
It was also because of this relationship that Yan Ai was willing to meet him privately.
However, he had promised Yan Ai that he would never reveal their relationship in the editorial office, so when he was in the editorial office, he would only call her by her pen name "Xingchen".
After An Chi sat down, Yan Ai smiled at him and said with a double meaning, "Yes, long time no see, Senior An Chi."
They haven't seen each other for almost four years since their last life.
"Senior, are you so anxious to meet me because my new book that just came out was accused of plagiarism?" Yan Ai didn't exchange too many pleasantries and quickly got straight to the point.
An Chi was slightly stunned. "So you already know everything?"
Yan Ai's face remained calm. "Before coming here, I checked the author account that the editorial department manages for me. The comments were quite interesting. I checked out the trending searches and sort of figured it out."
An Chi's face showed concern. "I've also read the color palette created by netizens and the online novel you're accused of plagiarism. There are indeed two identical plot points at the beginning, and even a few innovative nouns and vocabulary are exactly the same. Although these similarities only account for less than 5% of the entire book, there is still a core plot point that is shared. Even though that plot point was written terribly by the author, netizens nowadays are obsessed with these few points."
At this point, An Chi couldn't help but wonder, "Xiaomei Yan Ai, was your original manuscript leaked?"
In any case, he didn't believe Yan Ai would plagiarize.
Yan Ai is a science fiction writer known for her unique ideas and rich imagination. In order to create a sense of mystery, apart from her pen name, all personal information about the author, including gender and age, has not been made public.
Her works are never serialized on the Internet, but only published in physical books. She basically publishes one book a year, and every book is a bestseller, with sales exceeding one million copies.
The new book in question, "Glimpses of Time," happens to be the fifth one, and was just published at the beginning of this month.
Yan Ai tried to search her memory, and sure enough, she caught a fleeting picture.
She nodded thoughtfully, "The idea for this book did indeed take shape three years ago..."
An Chi's dark eyes lit up after hearing this. "Three years ago? Doesn't that mean it was two years before the online article accusing you was published?"
Yan Ai said, "That's right, but I still need some time to find evidence of the leak."
In her previous life, when An Chi called her to ask her out, she refused because she was upset by Feng Jue's plan to divorce her and had no time to deal with the groundless accusation. So she just asked An Chi to help her deal with it on the phone and respond to the lawsuit. Anyway, she didn't plagiarize and was not worried about the verdict.
The result was exactly as she expected: the plagiarism charge was not established and the false accuser was required to apologize to her in a newspaper.
However, the lawsuit lasted for two full years, during which time the new book was boycotted and removed from the shelves, supporters and opponents quarreled online, and the reputation and economic losses caused were irreparable.
In order to express her apology, Yan Ai took the initiative to compensate the editorial department and publishing house for the financial losses caused by this, and stopped writing from then on.
But in this life, she will never let anyone slander her again, nor will she let those who slander her go unpunished.
Now that he had a clue about what was going on, Yan Ai wanted to go back and deal with the matter as soon as possible before finishing her coffee.
The matter was of great importance, so An Chi did not try to keep him. After paying the bill, the two prepared to leave together.
Unexpectedly, as soon as Yan Ai walked out of the box, a naughty kid knocked her over and splashed her shirt with coffee, which stained a large area on her left shoulder. In the end, she had to accept An Chi's kindness and let him take her back to the hotel.
Before going out, An Chi very gentlemanly took off his suit jacket and put it on Yan Ai. Then the two walked out of the coffee shop side by side, talked and laughed, and got into the car.
Shen Yihang had just stepped out of Yindu when he saw this scene.
"Am I seeing things? Ah Jue, look across here!"
Shen Yihang quickly called his friends behind him to look at the man and woman across the street who looked like a couple.
In fact, Feng Jue had already seen it before Shen Yihang reminded him.
His usually indifferent expression did not change at all, and Shen Yihang's words did not stop his pace. When his long legs passed Shen Yihang, the man said calmly, "There's nothing to see, let's go."
Shen Yihang raised his eyebrows, as if expressing regret, but also contempt, "She looks like a pretty and simple girl, how come..."
Shen Yihang didn't continue the rest of the words. He shook his head in the direction of Yan Ai, then retracted his gaze and quickly followed Feng Jue.
Yan Ai didn't notice at all that someone was pointing at her across the street.
After she got in the car, she told An Chi the address of the hotel.
An Chi asked in confusion, "Why are you staying in a hotel?"
Yan Ai brought out the excuse she had prepared before getting on the bus, "I'll just be staying for a few days to collect materials."
An Chi didn't doubt it and nodded, then gently warned, "You look a little haggard. Don't work too hard and take care of yourself."
"I will." Yan Ai responded.
After that, An Chi said nothing more, fastened his seat belt, started the engine, and sent Yan Ai back to the hotel safely.
After returning to the hotel, Yan Ai gave priority to dealing with the more important matters at hand, and then went to look for the manuscript from three years ago to keep as archives.
In the blink of an eye, the sky outside had become dark and yellow.
Night is about to fall.
Yan Ai stopped what she was doing, picked up her cell phone and made a call.
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