Romance
As the administrative manager of KZ, Ji Quan had joined him after switching from Shen's Group when Shen Yan started his business. As the company grew, so did her power.
She had her own way of managing her subordinates. If they tried to rebel, she had plenty of ways to motivate and discipline them. But the men of the mountains weren't like the beasts of burden in the city; they were used to the wild, and the winds of gender equality didn't reach them—being lectured by a woman was a humiliation. Moreover, this was rural society, and as an outsider with no roots and no connections, who had the right to dictate things?
Zheng Youshan thought, I don’t owe you any money, why should I be a gentleman when you put a knife to my neck?
He quickly reacted and reached out to push her.
"Fuck, who are you?"
As a woman who grew up in the city, Ji Quan is familiar with the rules of the city, where bright lights and colorful lights are a maze of treasures built by consumerism.
There, on one side, the river flows through the endless expanse of the city, on the other, the ever-lasting clamor of the crowd. There are all sorts of spiritual beings, and there are all sorts of shops with distinct styles. You can be avant-garde, artistic, stay up all night for idols, get drunk on the streets for men... If you want, there are ten thousand possible lifestyles.
But the countryside is not like that. The stability of the land dictates that the people living here must also be stable, and this lifestyle has lasted for thousands of years.
Ji Quan couldn't understand why R&D had to be carried out in this rural area. Weren't the samples in the city rich and representative enough? She simply couldn't understand why Chen Dian'an was so sentimental. Was it just because his wife's hometown was here that he was trying to please her in this way?
But she is not worthy, and he is not a love-brained person.
Ji Quan felt truly wronged. There was nothing here, the people were ignorant, and they were isolated and backward. There was only eternal darkness, endless desolation and backwardness, and people's way of thinking was simplistic and crude. If it weren't for him, she wouldn't have been able to stay even for a day.
Sediment leaned over to help her up and asked, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." As soon as she stood firm, he immediately let go of her hand.
Zheng Youshan's fury hadn't subsided yet. He took a few steps forward, walked to his own stone, and asked Secretary Ma, "Why is it back again?"
Chen Yanan whispered a few words into Ye Yuanyin's ear, and she nodded as she listened. As he spoke, his warm breath brushed against her fair earlobe. Because they were so close, his pleasant scent reached her, a rich, cold after-snow pine forest. Because of the wind, a few strands of her hair brushed against their cheeks from time to time.
Fortunately, it was dark, otherwise her hot face would have betrayed her feelings at the moment.
After Chen Yan finished speaking, he probably felt that her hair was a little messy, so he stretched out his fingers to help her tuck it behind her ears, gently pushed her back and said, "Go."
Ye Yuanyin explained to Tian Enliang what he said. Sure enough, when the villagers helped return the stone, they also released Lin Yi.
Zheng Youshan was about to make another scene, but Secretary Ma held him back. The brutish man was no fool. After being stopped for a moment, he figured that the truth would eventually come to light. If Zheng Baoshu found out that he had been the leader in stealing the rocks from the mountain, he would be punished by his father.
Before leaving, Tian Enliang specifically called Ye Yuanyin over, smiling nonchalantly and teasing her in a wild and untamed manner, "Ayin, come and play with me next time. Just treat it as catching up with old classmates. Your husband doesn't need to come."
The more openly a joke is told, the less suspicious it seems. Ye Yuan was used to the harmless jokes of his acquaintances, so he just laughed it off.
Perhaps because he felt that she was too unprincipled, Chen Yan looked over and glanced at her expressionlessly.
On the way down the mountain, because they talked about work, Ji Quan stood next to him. When he talked about work, he would become cold and serious. It was rare that Ji Quan could withstand his series of questions.
After listening to her report, Chen Yan said, "Let Xiao Ye contact the technical department regarding the issues just reported. She knows the habits of the children here better than you do."
Ji Quan asked again, "Shouldn't the parent manual also be updated regularly? Ms. Ye can certainly serve as the children's educator, but wouldn't it be better for me to convince the parents?"
"Not good." Yan Chen shook his head, as if wondering why she would make such an unrealistic decision, but he still expressed his thoughts: "Communicating with the people here, do you think you have more advantages than her?"
“I just think I’m more professional.”
"We don't need professionalism here, we only need human connection."
Ji Quan was indignant, his face turning red and blue as if he was being burned by fire and soaked in ice.
Chen Dian'an understood her strong temper, but the reason he used Ye Yuanyin was to avoid the "art elitism" from an urban perspective. He did not come here to develop an art product, but what he needed was to establish a possible and effective connection with the children through one person.
But Ji Quan obviously could not understand his thoughts. Because of prejudice and resentment, she even felt that he, who had always been fair, was protecting and condoning his wife to snatch the only remaining power in her hands.
So she has to fight again.
Ye Yuanyin followed behind and looked at the two people walking side by side in front of him. He felt unhappy and kicked a small stone unconsciously.
Zheng Youshan followed her and kept her company.
"Ayin, what did '100,000 Yuan' say to you just now? Why did he have someone bring up the rocks again?"
"Oh, the stones on the mountain are numbered. Now that they've been returned to their rightful owners, Tian Enliang and the others won't pursue the matter any further. This is a perfect ending. You haven't been exposed, and Lin Yi's suspicion has been cleared."
Zheng Youshan was speechless. His father was truly a fool. He actually numbered the stones. He could have numbered them, but he was so secretive. He'd resorted to all sorts of shady tactics to prevent the villagers from taking advantage of them. He wondered if this Shen guy was a profiteer. He'd clearly found the stones at the foot of the mountain, yet he'd still tricked them into coming all this way. That wasn't the way to use a mule!
"Then, what about my tea plantation?" Youshan asked somewhat dejectedly, "Can the thing your husband promised me still be done?"
"He didn't say." Ye Yuanyin thought, given his style of doing things, since he agreed, he would probably still see it through to the end. "But... just be patient and wait."
Zheng Youshan had originally thought all was lost, but he felt a little encouraged by her ambiguous words and said earnestly, "I think your husband is a very loyal man. If he forgets, remember to keep him company. Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, '100,000 yuan' is simply too busy, and he's still working so late."
It wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't said anything, but once he did, Ye Yuanyin felt even more uncomfortable looking at the backs of the two people in front of her. Furthermore, Zheng Youshan added, "Ah Yin, you're such a generous person. You don't look unhappy when your husband is with such a beautiful woman."
Ye Yuanyin asked him, as if to confirm his own thoughts, "If you get married in the future, and she only interacts with the opposite sex for work, wouldn't you feel embarrassed if you were unhappy because of such a small thing?"
"Why should I be embarrassed? Is she my wife? If she is, regardless of whether it's for work or not, as long as she's in close contact with other people of the opposite sex, I'll definitely feel uncomfortable. Because loving her means I can't stand seeing other men around her all the time! This is the boundary, this is the principle." Zheng Youshan spread his hands and said, "Of course, unless we're not really husband and wife, then it doesn't matter."
"Yeah." She didn't say anything else.
Zheng Youshan looked at her and recalled the ways his mother used to deal with his father. He thought that for a plain-looking old man like his father, who was in his fifties or sixties and was a minor official in a poor mountain village, his mother would be wary of other women like thieves, let alone the rich and handsome Chen Di'an.
"Ayin, I'll take care of it if I need to," Zheng Youshan thought. Just because his marriage to her was over didn't mean they'd never meet again. He and she went to elementary school, and their families were even close friends from previous generations. So, as long as Ayin and '100,000 Yuan' were on good terms, it would mean he'd have no problem asking her for favors in the future. After all, there were plenty of opportunities for her to help him.
He became more and more attentive in giving her advice. "Such a fashionable and beautiful woman is always very careful in choosing a husband. I think she's always after '100,000 yuan'. Don't you think men have been having three wives and four concubines for thousands of years? It's a tradition passed down from generation to generation, and it's not something that can be changed in just one or two hundred years. As long as there are interested women around, no man can resist the temptation. Ah Yin, you need to be more careful."
"..." Ye Yuanyin didn't expect him to be so observant, so he humbly asked, "Then—do you think I like 'one hundred thousand yuan'?"
Zheng Youshan shook his head and pulled a handful of beautiful blue wildflowers from the vines on both sides of the stone steps and handed them to her. "To be honest, I see you don't know him very well. Why, you don't like him?"
"I like him." Ye Yuanyin lowered his head and fiddled with the blue bouquet in his hand, saying, "I like him very much, but I feel like I shouldn't like him——"
Zheng Youshan used the few melodramatic dramas he'd seen as a metaphor for the situation, wondering when one might "like" something and not "like" it. Wasn't it simply a matter of not being able to get over it?
There was a recent news report about women who, unwilling to compromise their figures, sought out impoverished college students with clean backgrounds to act as surrogate mothers, ultimately paying them off. Could it be that Ah Yin was paid a "hundred thousand yuan" for a surrogate mother?
"Oh my! It's bad!" Zheng Youshan was shocked by his own thoughts. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He didn't pay attention to the small stones under his feet and accidentally stepped on empty air. Stumbling, he quickly grabbed her shoulders and said, "Ayin, save me! Ahhhh!"
Ye Yuanyin was pulled down by the man, and inertia followed his downward force and rolled down the hill. Secretary Ma quickly grabbed Zheng Youshan's big and thick body. The woman was on the next step, and he couldn't catch her even if he stretched out his arms, so he shouted, "Oh no!"
Seeing that there were only twenty or so steps left to reach the foot of the mountain, Ye Yuanyin covered his eyes and thought to himself how unlucky he was. He was only a few steps away from reaching the flat ground, and he fell down. Would he become a cripple?
Suddenly, someone put his arms around her waist. Ye Yuanyin was turned over, and her body bounced up in an arc. Chen Yan'an tightened his arms, and she gradually recovered and used the force to fit tightly into his arms.
Ye Yuanyin clutched the clothes around his waist with both hands, looked at the steps under his feet in shock, and muttered, "I'm scared to death."
Chen Yan looked down at her and said indifferently, "You seemed quite happy chatting just now. Be careful not to get too carried away and break your neck."
He let her go, saw the blue wildflower in her hand, pulled it out, and threw it into the thorn bush beside the road.
Ye Yuanyin was still in shock and pressed his chest where his heart was beating too fast. After a while, he suddenly realized that he was angry.
*
The few of them went home in different directions, and they separated after going down the mountain.
Secretary Zheng sent Lin Yi home. Zheng Youshan felt a little embarrassed for betraying a half-grown child. He pulled Ye Yuanyin's sleeve and whispered to her, "What happened today must be kept secret, otherwise that tigress Lin Huamei will tear me apart."
"I won't tell you."
Looking at the two of them being so close and innocent, Chen Yan'an's face suddenly darkened and he asked her, "Are you not leaving?"
"Let's go," Ye Yuanyin hurriedly walked to his side in two steps, looking up and said, "Let's go back together."
"It's too late. I'll take Ji Quan back." His face was as cold as ice. He said, "You're familiar with the roads in the mountains. Secretary Zheng is going the same way too. Just follow them."
After hearing this, Ye Yuanyin instinctively looked at Ji Quan. Even Ji Quan was stunned for a moment, but then she smiled and said, "Thank you, boss. Let's go."
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