Chapter 24: Emotional Issues
Perhaps because something was on her mind, Wen Huai didn't eat much for lunch. But she remembered Xu Youjing's words and tried to eat slowly, finishing her bowl of preserved egg and lean meat porridge only after Dong Chen had finished it.
When the two of them were delivering the plates, Dong Chen asked, "Sister Wen, why are you eating at the same speed as me today?"
Wen Huai smiled and said, "It's really not good to eat too fast. Let's change it from today."
Dong Chen understood immediately: "You only realized it was bad today? I think someone warned you."
He had just met Wen Huai's husband last night, so it was self-evident who this "someone" was.
He smiled bitterly, but managed to keep a decent face. "Is it because of what your brother-in-law said that you're taking it so seriously? Otherwise, we've told you countless times, but you haven't listened."
The ruthless revelation left Wen Huai speechless. But when Xu Youjing was mentioned during work hours, she felt guilty but also secretly happy.
But when I thought about that incident, the rising emotions in my body seemed to be poured with a bucket of cold water.
This was the first time she asked Dong Chen a question about emotions: "Dong Chen, can I ask you a question?"
Dong Chen: "Of course, go ahead."
After thinking for a moment, she said carefully, "I have a friend whose husband was caught in a premature relationship with a girl in high school. Now that girl is beautiful and has a good personality, and she and her husband have a business relationship. My friend is a little anxious now. How do you think I should persuade her?"
"......" Dong Chen stared at her for a while, his expression worried, "Your husband was discovered with this girl--"
Wen Huai interrupted him: "It's my friend, not me."
"Oh, sorry." After coughing, Dong Chen continued, "After your friend's husband was found out about his premature relationship, did they break up?"
She shook her head: "It should be broken."
Dong Chen: "So what's your friend's husband's attitude towards his first love now?"
Wen Huai thought back to Xu Youjing this morning, "It was just business as usual, and there didn't seem to be any reaction."
Dong Chen looked as if he was facing a formidable enemy. "That's the worst! You have to...your friends should be careful. Either they're pretending not to care but still keeping close contact in private. Or they've truly let it go. But I think the second scenario is very unlikely."
Wen Huai: "Why?"
"because......"
Dong Chen couldn't continue.
He looked at Wen Huai's innocent but sincere face, and suddenly felt a lot of sympathy and resentment. He knew that Wen Huai's husband had been on a business trip since their marriage and had just returned to Beicheng. It must be sad for the two of them to reunite and then Bai Yueguang came out again, but there were some things he couldn't keep quiet.
She spoke again, lowering her voice. "Sister Wen, no man can forget his first love, unless he's not a man! Tell your friend to be more vigilant, check his phone more often, and observe him more. If you find any evidence of him cheating, file for divorce immediately and make him leave the house!"
"......" Wen Huai pursed his lips and said, "Thank you, Dong Chen."
The slightly disappointed tone and lonely expression made Dong Chen feel even more uncomfortable. He wanted to say something, but he only said, "Sister Wen, if there is anything you can do for me, just let me know."
Wen Huai was very grateful and bought him a cup of handmade yogurt when he left the restaurant.
The two returned to the office, each with their own thoughts.
After lunch, the CEO's office was busily preparing for new product launches. Suddenly, someone screamed in the quiet office, "Oh no! Dongyang's official blog released new product information half an hour ago, and one of the battery data for one series is exactly the same as our unreleased new product!"
Immediately afterwards, the intercom on Wen Huai's desk rang.
It’s Li Qicheng.
An emergency meeting was called in five minutes, and a heavy atmosphere permeated the room. Sui Jianwen and Li Qicheng, the chairmen, remained silent, while the managers from the various departments engaged in a heated argument.
"That's enough!" The person in the main seat looked serious. "It's already happened. Let's find a solution right away. What's the point of arguing here?"
The head of the marketing department was the first to express his suspicion: "The battery data in the documents we communicated with Qiao Mian's team today, could it be that they leaked it to Dongyang?"
Sui Jianwen was the first to deny it: "Hasn't Qiao Mian already signed a letter of intent with us? What's the point of leaking the endorsement company's data to the competition now?"
Li Qicheng nodded and looked towards the source. "What about the technical department? Do they have any clues?"
Meng Ting and Lu Zhixue looked at each other and shook their heads.
Li Qicheng frowned, "You are the ones closest to this data. Now that our opponent is exactly the same as us, you are just shaking your heads at me, right?"
For a moment, the room was completely silent. Everyone lowered their heads, fearing that disaster would befall them.
"Calm down, everyone, calm down." Sui Jianwen gestured for Jiao Xiaolin to pour tea for everyone and said with a smile, "Does Mr. Xu know?"
Li Qicheng: "I called him as soon as the incident happened. Jiang Han said he was on his way back and asked us to deal with it first."
"Boss Xu is really... adept at manipulating people." Sui Jianwen relaxed his posture, his eyes flicking across someone at the table. "He's only been in office for a short time and already something like this has happened. And now that it's happening, he's not around. What a coincidence."
Meng Ting, who was fiddling with something with his head down, frowned: "Boss Sui, what do you mean by this?"
"It's nothing. What could I possibly mean? Minister Meng might be being too sensitive." Sui Jianwen finished his words, hinting, "I was just wondering why this kind of thing didn't happen when my dad was here. But now that President Xu has arrived... it's really easy to gossip about."
"Mr. Sui."
A girl's voice suddenly rang out.
This title disappeared with Sui Censhan's departure. The company's employees no longer addressed Sui Jianwen as "Little Boss Sui," but instead referred to him as "Boss Sui." Now, only the president's office hadn't changed their name, and hearing it again now had a different connotation.
They looked in the direction of the sound and saw Wen Huai.
She lost her usual smile and said seriously, "As everyone knows, Peak belongs to the Xu Group, and Mr. Xu is the CEO of the Xu Group. With such a position, how could he do anything that would be detrimental to the company?"
Sui Jianwen leaned forward with great interest, raising his hand to show everyone, as if he had discovered something new. "Look, Secretary Wen has been with my father for seven or eight years, and he always comes across as gentle and efficient. Now, President Xu has only been here for a few days, and he's already refutatious in front of so many people, not giving me face. Has he found a new backer? Is he feeling confident now?"
"Boss Sui, we've strayed from the topic."
Li Qicheng saw that the situation was not right and quickly changed the subject. However, Sui Jianwen seemed to be eager for Wen Huai to speak, so he did not respond and continued to say to Wen Huai, "Don't deviate from the topic. We are just talking about the data leak. Speaking of the issue of stance, I suddenly remembered something."
Sui Jianwen: "Mr. Li, do you still remember Su Ji, the founder of EF?"
Li Qicheng: "Of course I remember. He has a temper as hard as a rock, and he doesn't tolerate any grain of sand in his eyes. He has a cold face towards everyone. What does he have to do with what happened today?"
"Although Su Ji has a bad temper, he is a top-tier talent in both skills and intelligence. Otherwise, Everflow wouldn't have been able to become a leader in the new energy market in just its first year."
"We all know he worked for Dongyang for six months. During that time, he made countless contributions to the city, which shows how capable he is. EF and Dongyang currently have close ties and cooperative relationships, so they can be considered part of the same camp."
"Through this relationship, I learned that Secretary Wen interned at the Dongyang General Affairs Department for a year while in college. This coincided with the six months Su Ji worked in Dongyang. Furthermore, more than one person has reported that the stern President Su was quite supportive of Secretary Wen in Dongyang. They weren't in the same department, one a brilliant manager, the other a mere intern who hadn't even graduated yet. Despite this disparity in status, they interacted closely, and there was a lot of gossip about their close relationship."
"I also heard that Secretary Wen had a very unpleasant argument with the leader of the General Affairs Department and ended up not even getting his internship certificate. Around that time, someone said they saw Wen Huai and Su Ji entering a hotel together, being picked up and dropped off by cars. Guess what happened in the end? It was Su Ji who came forward and did a favor for that leader, and that's how he got Wen Huai's internship certificate. Not long after that, Su Ji resigned from Dongyang."
He seemed to be lost in thought. "If Wen Huai is still in contact with Su Ji... Su Ji's EF has close ties with Dongyang, is it possible that Wen Huai has revealed something to them?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the conference room became strange, and countless gazes turned into knives and passed in front of Wen Huai, carrying judgment.
But now, Wen Huai was trapped by the painful memories coming from all directions, and she had no time to argue. Those fears, in the invisible places, continued to erode her sanity, making her sweat.
Her slender fingers clenched tightly, the bulging veins particularly conspicuous on the white backs of her hands. Her whitened joints seemed like springs wound to the limit, ready to shatter under the pressure in a second.
She tried to make a sound, her lips opened and closed, but no sound came.
"Mr. Sui, I suddenly remembered something." Jiao Xiaolin stood aside, lowering her brows and looking embarrassed.
Sui Jianwen looked at her and said, "What's the matter? If it's something unimportant, then there's no need to talk about it. Mr. Li still has a lot to ask Secretary Wen."
"It's about Secretary Wen."
Wen Huai frowned, his nails digging into his flesh, trying to keep himself calm.
"Oh? It's about Secretary Wen. Why don't you tell me quickly?"
After getting Sui Jianwen's approval, Jiao Xiaolin spoke faster, "Yesterday, I was printing documents on the public printer. After printing, I realized I had lost a page, so I went back to look for it. Who knew Secretary Wen was there? She happened to be using my printer and was still looking at the document I had left behind. When she saw me, she was reluctant to give it to me, and she even scratched her palm during the struggle."
Dong Chen was about to refute after hearing this, but the last sentence made him calm down and look at Wen Huai's clenched fist.
He remembered that Wen Huai did have a Band-Aid on the base of his right hand today.
People close to Wen Huai also saw it, and the scale in their hearts undoubtedly leaned more towards Jiao Xiaolin.
"In order to avoid missing out on the other documents I printed, I looked through Secretary Wen's printouts and found that mine was indeed not included, so I returned it to her. But I also saw the documents Secretary Wen printed, which were the battery data for the new energy series under 'Wings'."
Jiao Xiaolin looked at everyone. "We all know that the Yuyi car has entered the final stage of marketing optimization. All data is monitored and stored by various departments. So why did Secretary Wen print out the battery data so close to the end? And why did he print it out on a public printer near the end of the day when there were fewer people around?"
Wen Huai raised his eyes and happened to meet the eyes of many people.
Somehow, the tinnitus and the chill seemed to envelop her like a veil. Gradually, double vision began to appear before her eyes, and her mind combined them until they merged into a pair of—
A pair of prying eyes hidden behind the crack of the door.
The long-lost fear came over Wen Huai, his face turned pale, and he could hardly sit in the chair.
"Secretary Wen's printer broke yesterday, and someone else was using it, so they had to print at the public printer." Dong Chen said from behind Wen Huai, "If you don't believe me, you can ask the other people in the President's Office, or go to the Logistics Department and ask them if they came to fix it this morning."
"beep--"
Sui Jianwen made a call and the call was connected after a few seconds.
"Mr. Sui, is there anything I can help you with?" The person who spoke was Cui Ran, the head of the logistics department.
"Nothing, I just wanted to ask if anyone came to the president's office to get their printer repaired today?"
His breathing stagnated, and Wen Huai couldn't help but look over.
Just listen.
The person on the other end of the phone quickly said, "No."
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