Chapter 62 Basic Principles of Recording
Jessica vaguely guessed that her son's dentist might have some inappropriate thoughts about her.
The timing of their flirtation was fortuitous. She had recently fallen into complete confusion and disillusionment about her marriage: her son had entered third grade, and while his classmates were preparing for an IELTS score of 6.0, her son was floundering on even the simplest Cambridge English test. A teammate, having successfully risen through the ranks at a critical age and secured a down payment on a second home through shady income, faced dismissal after a foolish mistake exposed her. Looking back, she felt that quitting her job to become a full-time housewife was the worst decision she had ever made.
She had clearly disliked everything about the dentist at first, finding him cold, arrogant, and condescending. But the ambiguous signals he sent her changed everything. Even the mask welded to his face seemed alluring to her, and she always wanted to see what was going on underneath.
She remembered clearly the beginning of the deterioration of their relationship.
That day, as usual, she took her son to a dental clinic near her teammate's company to have his expander adjusted. The dentist said the treatment was effective, with a noticeable gap now forming between the young patient's front teeth. She glanced at the large factory campus nearby, and couldn't help but think of her teammate's blunder, so she didn't pay close attention to the follow-up treatment arrangements.
While the nurse was installing the dilator for her son, she was invited to sit in the adjacent activity room. It was just the two of them.
The clinic had just received a new batch of picture books and stuffed toys, and the dentist told her she could pick some to take home. She wasn't in the mood, so she just randomly picked up a Yaya, the limited edition for the Year of the Snake.
The other person then selected three picture books for her and asked with concern: "You look very bad today. Are you feeling unwell?"
She woke up as if from a dream and subconsciously touched her cheek: "Is it obvious? I clearly put on makeup when I went out today."
"No, you misunderstood me. I didn't say you were ugly. I just wanted you to take care of yourself." The other person easily saw through her anxiety and comforted her with a smile, "It's precisely because you're beautiful that people pay so much attention to your face."
Jessica's heart trembled.
After turning 30, she experienced a genuine anxiety about her appearance. Perhaps it was her age, or perhaps it was the monotony of being a stay-at-home wife, with little to do besides raising her children and anti-aging beauty. She had gold microneedling and ultrasound cannon treatments some time ago, but Zeus never praised her beauty and instead mocked her, saying that no matter how much effort she put into it, she'd never be able to return to her 18th birthday.
She tucked a few curls behind her ears and said, "Thank you, Dr. Jiang. I've been worried about things at home lately, so I might be a little irritated. Nothing else is wrong."
"You need to relax." The date invitation was thrown out naturally. "Want some coffee? It's my treat."
She hesitated. "But Perseus is still waiting for me..."
"Twenty minutes, the nurse will play with him," the dentist insisted. "The child has completely filled your life. Don't you feel suffocated?"
It was clearly a rather offensive question, but she seemed possessed, her mind swollen, and she could only obey the man's instructions, leaving her son alone in the dental clinic and following him to the coffee shop.
Once you cross the line, it's bound to happen again. She couldn't remember how many times they'd met for coffee in private, but she couldn't help but confide in him about her troubles at home.
The other party said with a half-smile: "Zeus is really a loser. Even a small matter of 300,000 yuan can go wrong."
Jessica let out a lot of resentment that had been pent up in her chest. "Zeus said he had a very stupid subordinate who would definitely take the blame for him. Humph. I think the stupidest person in the world is himself."
"Subordinates? That proves he used his brain and knew to find someone to take the blame."
"What the hell... He's completely clueless." Jessica was determined to rally the doctor to her side and criticize her incredibly clueless teammate, Zeus. "I warned him a long time ago to be careful and to have a plan for escape. He told me to stop worrying, saying he'd trick his subordinates into coming forward and then push them over if the investigation really happened. And what happened? He ended up getting himself into trouble."
The other party seemed quite interested in her topic. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "What reason does he have to send his subordinates to do this? It has to be secretive and yet achieve the goal. I can't think of a reason at the moment. At least he is smarter than me."
Jesscia had a lot of grievances to pour out when she spoke about this. She started by talking about her job before marriage, when she was working on an e-commerce platform, recruiting merchants. Merchants often paid bribes to gain access to the platform, and she saw business opportunities in this.
Her stupid teammate Zeus was just repeating his wife's words. Relying on the connections she had before leaving, he used the same routine to present treasures to Vice President Zhuge, and successfully climbed up the big tree of Old Zhuge.
But old Zhuge was even more cautious than them, always taking the money without doing any work, pushing all the dirty work onto his subordinates. Zeus was so dissatisfied with the uneven distribution of the spoils that he wanted to use Zhuge's reputation to make a big deal on his own.
Just as the old Zhuge Liang would find a subordinate to blame, Zeus followed suit, finding his own subordinates to blame. These people boast of their deep alumni ties, but secretly push their alumni into the fire. The so-called "alumni" is just one of many titles used to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship, essentially no different from "fellow townspeople" or "like-minded individuals."
Jessica cursed, "That's why I hate Zeus's alumni the most. Alumni always cheat alumni, just like fellow villagers always cheat fellow villagers."
"Well, you're a very intelligent woman. You don't need the halo of a prestigious school." The waiter brought two lattes, and the dentist pushed the one with the concentrate to her. "Actually, I don't understand why you chose to marry Zeus. If—just a hypothesis—you chose to be single, you'd be freer than you are now."
This sentence can be regarded as an explicit confession.
Jessica's heart was beating wildly, almost bursting out of her throat, but she caught a glimpse of the other party's ring out of the corner of her eye... It turned out that the doctor was of the same status as her and was also married.
The other person, like a beautiful monster covered in psychic tentacles and possessing remarkable insight, immediately sensed her retreat. He calmly removed the ring from his ring finger and tucked the glittering silver object into his jacket pocket, leaving only a faint dent on his finger.
Her remaining sanity was swallowed up by the indentations between his fingers. She was convinced that they were in the same situation, a deeply disappointing marriage, a life of sheer boredom. She wanted to change, and so did he.
"We got married in such a hurry. Everyone else was getting married, so I got married without thinking too much." She mustered up the courage to ask, "What about you, Dr. Jiang? Do you regret getting married, too?"
The other person just laughed and said: "At least I don't have children, so I have one less financial expense and psychological burden."
Did he dislike her bringing a burden with her? Jessica didn't know how to answer, so she just drank her own espresso latte. Then she heard the other party say:
"I want to help you."
"What?"
"Zeus's been suspended, and you're unemployed. Raising an elementary-aged child must be a struggle." He extended a new olive branch to her, as natural as a date invitation. "Director Tan, coincidentally, is also worried about expanding his business. I can help connect you two. Just give me a bank account. Just don't charge too much for the entry fee. Director Tan is a bit stingy."
——
[R Jiang] Please thank your ex-lover on my behalf. The voice recorder he gave to Weiwei Soy Milk is very useful.
[R Jiang] Although I didn't use it myself, I already fully understand the basic principles of recording. So remember to thank your lawyer.
Asher replied with a concise "Get lost" followed by a 58-second voice message.
Jiang Ranxu had achieved his goal of asserting his sovereignty, and was too lazy to click on Asher's voice message, so he casually threw the phone away.
He woke up the car stereo, fiddled with the ring on his ring finger while listening to the playlist on repeat, and waited for Meng Weishen to complete the resignation procedures and take him home.
Autumn is a rare and beautiful time of year in the imperial capital. The haze dissipates, the leaves fall, and the sky becomes clear and high, making more room for the little creatures on the ground.
People who are free from work feel relaxed. Meng Weishen appeared at the entrance to the park, his steps almost taking flight. He had cleared out his personal belongings from his workstation a few days ago, and today, his shoulder bag contained only a light resignation certificate. As he swung the bag into the back seat of the car, it made only a light, scraping sound.
Meng Weishen immediately opened the passenger door and, before he even fastened his seatbelt, threw himself over and wrapped his arms around his waist, rubbing and pressing against his neck, becoming clingy. The rain had just stopped in the evening, and Jiang Ranxu could taste the dew on the leaves between Meng Weishen's lips and teeth.
Jiang Ranxu took the time to ask, "Is it clean?"
"Anyway, I've already cleaned it up myself. As for whether my alumni can clean it up, that depends on the luck of the Compliance Department."
It is rare for Meng Weishen to come up with such wise words, which shows that leaving a job can make one clear-headed.
The other party had just resigned for the first time in his life. The process seemed normal: application and approval. But he was lucky enough to have escaped the fraud scandal unscathed, to receive the full amount of his overdue reimbursement and option repurchase, and most importantly, to have found peace of mind.
Fortunately, at this critical moment, the Compliance Department received an anonymous report, along with a recording and bank transfer receipts, from a dental clinic. With irrefutable evidence and clear culprits, Wesley was acquitted.
Jiang Ranxu pecked the corner of Meng Weishen's lips: "Congratulations, you will be free from now on."
"Should I thank those two wicked old schoolmates for helping me make up my mind to leave?" Meng Weishen clung to his neck. "I should thank you. Thank you for helping me."
Jiang Ranxu feigned pity, his eyes drooping. "You came up with this shady trick of your own to get information out of your manager's wife. I sold my body for you. How are you going to repay me?"
"How do you repay me? I'll give you my beauty again?"
It was rare for Meng Weishen to be so understanding. There were so many benefits to leaving his job that even his interest level had risen significantly.
The fabrics of clothes in this season were still thin, and Jiang Ranxu easily reached into the hem of the other person's sweatshirt and touched a clear section of the tailbone.
Perhaps his fingertips were too cold, and Meng Weishen shivered slightly. But he didn't struggle, instead hugging him tightly.
Because the other party was willing, Jiang Ranxu became even more presumptuous: "Not enough, you should have sold your body to me. Anyway, you don't have to go to work tomorrow, you must stay with me all the time."
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