Pretending to be stupid
With her eyes closed, every detail was not blurry at all; instead, it was as if it had been carved into her brain with a high-definition engraving knife, frighteningly clear.
It's over, it's all over.
And that damn three thousand yuan! What was she thinking?! How could she be so stupid as to do something so self-destructive?!
It was just dawn, and she was all alone in the unfamiliar luxury hotel room.
The splitting headache from the hangover, mixed with the hazy memories of last night's outrageous behavior and immense panic, made her want to escape immediately.
She hurriedly dressed, wanting only to cut off contact in the fastest and most thorough way, as if that would erase the mistake.
She happened to have a wad of cash in her wallet that she hadn't spent the day before, about three thousand yuan. Almost instinctively, like throwing away a hot potato, she placed it on the bedside table next to the sleeping man's pillow.
Looking back now, placing that thin stack of RMB next to that person in that luxurious suite of a top hotel... that wasn't drawing a line, but rather the most clumsy, ridiculous insult and provocation!
A man like Chi Zhuo, who stands on the clouds and is used to being looked up to and revered, can turn the world upside down with a flick of his wrist. How could he possibly see money?
All he would see is her "ungratefulness" and "outrageous audacity"!
His last casual remark wasn't just polite talk; it was clearly a signal that he wanted to settle scores with her later!
What should we do? What should we do?
Lin Tingyue scratched her long, wet hair in frustration, pacing back and forth in the bathroom filled with the scent of shower gel. Her footprints left a trail of messy, water-stained marks on the gleaming tile floor.
The warm steam enveloped her, but it did nothing to dispel the chill that kept rising in her heart.
An apology? A tearful confession? Or double the compensation? Ten times? A hundred times? But what is this amount of money to someone like him?
It's not even a drop in the ocean; it will probably only provoke him further, making him feel that she's using money to humiliate him again.
Then... will he retaliate with even worse and more cruel methods?
Various scenes she had seen in novels and TV dramas were now uncontrollably flooding her mind:
"With just one word from him, he could bankrupt countless companies, make it impossible for her to survive in the design industry, and even worse, force her family into bankruptcy, destroying the foundation that her parents had worked so hard for all their lives... Although the Lin family is considered well-off and has some wealth, in front of the Chi family, a behemoth that has been entrenched for a long time and a true capital tycoon, they probably wouldn't even have a chance to struggle. They would be like a small stone that would be easily crushed."
Fear, like countless cold vines, grew wildly from the deepest part of her heart, coiling around it again and again, tightening its grip until her chest felt tight and she could barely breathe.
No! We absolutely cannot sit idly by and wait to die!
She abruptly reached out and snapped off the still dripping showerhead. She grabbed a large white bathrobe and hastily wrapped it around herself. Without even drying her hair, she rushed barefoot out of the bathroom and ran all the way back to the bedroom.
She grabbed her phone from the bed. The screen lit up, showing several unread messages, all from her best friend, Xia Xiaoran.
[Holy crap?! Incredibly handsome?! Tell me more already! Don't keep me in suspense!]
[What trouble have you gotten yourself into? Confess! Did you scratch your blind date's limited-edition sports car? Or did you accidentally spill red wine in his face?]
Where are you? Stop playing dead! I'm so worried! Come back now!
[Answer the phone!!! What's going on?]
The last message was sent ten minutes ago, and there's a red missed call notification below it.
Lin Tingyue took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to calm her racing heart, but to little avail. She directly clicked on Xia Xiaoran's profile picture and made a video call request.
It rang almost once before being answered immediately. The phone screen was instantly filled with Xia Xiaoran's face, which, despite having a green seaweed mask on, still couldn't hide her big, gossipy eyes.
"Lin Tingyue! You're finally alive! Tell me quickly! Why does going on a blind date feel like the end of the world? Who is this guy? How could he scare our fearless Miss Lin into such a dazed state?" Xia Xiaoran bombarded her with questions at an astonishing speed.
Looking at her best friend's familiar face in the video, Lin Tingyue felt a lump in her throat, her emotions of grievance and fear intertwined, and she almost burst into tears.
She quickly adjusted the angle of her phone camera to make her wet hair and pale face look less disheveled, then took a deep breath and spoke in an almost tragic tone, as if she were about to heroically sacrifice herself:
"Ranran, this time... I might really be finished."
"Speak like a human being! Stop with the preamble!" Xia Xiaoran urged impatiently.
"My blind date tonight... is, is Chi Zhuo." Lin Tingyue said the name almost with her eyes closed.
A deathly silence fell over the other end of the phone screen, as if time had frozen for three seconds. Then, Xia Xiaoran erupted in an incredulous scream that could pierce eardrums. In her excitement, the green face mask on her face slipped halfway down, hanging precariously on her cheek, making her look rather comical.
"Who?! Who did you say?! Which Chi Zhuo?! Is it the Chi family I know?! The heir to the Chi Group?! The Chi Zhuo whose name is always on the front page of financial magazines and who tops the list of the most desirable husbands in Beijing's socialite circles?!" Xia Xiaoran ripped off her face mask, her eyes wide open, her face almost pressed against the phone screen, as if she wanted to pop out of it.
"In Jingbei... is there another person who dares to be named Chi Zhuo, and who makes my parents so nervous that they repeatedly warn me not to offend him?"
Lin Tingyue collapsed weakly onto the soft bed, pulled the down comforter over half her face, leaving only her eyes filled with despair and impending doom.
"My goodness! Chi Zhuo! You actually met Chi Zhuo?! He's a legendary figure, a top-tier guy! A walking money-printing machine! The dream lover of countless young ladies from prominent families in Beijing! And you actually met him?! What incredible luck you had... wait, judging from your expression, what terrible misfortune you've suffered? And then? And then? What happened with the trouble you mentioned earlier? Get to the point!"
Xia Xiaoran's shock was quickly replaced by a burning thirst for gossip, and she spoke urgently.
Lin Tingyue closed her eyes, steeled her resolve, and, with a trembling voice, spoke as if squeezed out from between her teeth:
"Then... I discovered... he, he was the one I accidentally... unwittingly got involved with half a year ago in Vichytand... after getting completely drunk...
A deathly silence fell again on the other end of the phone, this time lasting even longer, a full ten seconds. Then came Xia Xiaoran's sharp, rapid gasp, as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, followed by a garbled, incoherent exclamation:
"W-What?! Vishitander?! The one you woke up terrified, then left three thousand yuan and ran away... My God! That man... that man is Chi Zhuo?! Lin Tingyue! You're finished! You're completely finished! You actually used three thousand yuan... three thousand yuan to insult Chi Zhuo?! This... this... this is a thousand times, ten thousand times worse than scratching ten of his limited edition supercars! You're slapping him in the face!"
"I know... I wish I could go back in time and strangle my past self..." Lin Tingyue's voice was already trembling with tears, muffled as it came from under the covers. "He must hate me to death now! He thinks I'm so arrogant! He even brought it up tonight, his words were full of threats. Ranran, do you think he'll retaliate against me? Will he use any means to ruin my family's company? I... what if I suddenly find myself dead in the street tomorrow?"
Extreme fear caused her to start having uncontrollable wild thoughts, imagining all sorts of tragic endings.
Xia Xiaoran gradually calmed down from her initial extreme shock. She touched her chin, her brows furrowed, and began to analyze the situation at high speed:
"Wait, don't scare yourself and panic. A man of Chi Zhuo's status and position is unfathomably cunning. If he really wanted to kill you right away, do you think you could walk out of that banquet hall unscathed tonight? What else did he say to you? What was his tone like? Don't miss a single detail, be specific!"
Lin Tingyue tried her best to suppress her inner panic and carefully recalled every detail of her brief confrontation with Chi Zhuo that night. She recounted his meaningful words and his precise questioning about Vichytand that night as completely as possible.
Xia Xiaoran's eyes lit up as she listened, as if she had discovered a new continent: "Wait! Wait a minute! He said he also has someone he likes, and then he asked you who that person is? Hmm... that tone... that wording... why does it sound a little sour? Like he's testing me? And in the end, he didn't completely shut things down, he didn't say anything harsh, he just said we'd talk next time... This doesn't quite fit his usual domineering CEO revenge style of meeting on the spot..."
"That's clearly a suspended sentence! A death sentence!" Lin Tingyue wailed, burying her face even deeper into the blankets.
"Not necessarily! Yueyue! Calm down. Based on my extensive reading experience of having read no less than eight hundred romance novels, this plot is a bit off!" Xia Xiaoran slapped her thigh suddenly, her voice rising eight octaves.
"What's wrong? Everything seems fine to me, but it's a sign that I'm about to have a really bad time!"
"Given his status, he was so humiliated by you, yet he didn't immediately retaliate and embarrass you. Instead, he patiently played word games with you, testing your feelings. And even let you go so easily in the end? This is completely unlike the typical behavior of a domineering CEO who would make you suffer on the spot!"
Xia Xiaoran's eyes gleamed with a strange yet excited light. She lowered her voice, her tone filled with the thrill of discovering a secret, "Do you think... he might actually... have a thing for you? Or perhaps, he's... still thinking about that night?"
Lin Tingyue seemed to have heard something unbelievable, and suddenly sat up in bed, water droplets from her wet hair splashing onto her phone screen.
"Xia Xiaoran! Are you crazy?! Or have you read too many novels and ruined your brain? That's Chi Zhuo! What kind of woman can't he have? From plump to slender, from famous women at home and abroad, which one wouldn't be chasing after him? Would he be interested in a woman who only paid him three thousand yuan and who in his eyes is probably no different from a beggar? He has a typical cat-and-mouse mentality! He'll play with her to his heart's content first, then devour her in one bite! He'll make your death even more miserable!"
"Tsk, you don't understand!" Xia Xiaoran said with an air of self-assurance, "I'm the real master of relationships. The higher a man's position, the more different his way of thinking is from ordinary people. He's more likely to have some special fetishes... ah, no, I mean special points of interest! Your unconventional approach, treating him like... um... that kind of person, might just be a lucky coincidence, precisely hitting one of his hidden... excitement points? Or arousing his desire to conquer?"
"..." Lin Tingyue was completely speechless. She felt that she could no longer have a normal and dangerous conversation with her best friend who was addicted to deep novels.
"Alright, alright, stop joking around, let's get serious." Seeing her friend getting really anxious and her face turning pale, Xia Xiaoran quickly stopped joking and became serious. "No matter what he means, whether it's revenge or something else, judging from the current situation, he doesn't seem to be planning to use any drastic measures yet, which means there's still room for maneuver. Things might not be as bad as you think."
"So what should I do now? Just wait for him to summon me?" Lin Tingyue asked, completely at a loss.
"First and foremost, absolutely do not panic! You must appear calm! Even if you're terrified inside, you must put on a good show on the surface! If he brings up the Vichytand incident again, just pretend you're stupid! Pretend you have amnesia! Since you were drunk at the time, just say you blacked out and don't remember anything!"
Xia Xiaoran began to seriously offer advice, tapping her finger in the air, "Secondly, try to find out Chi Zhuo's recent schedule and avoid any occasions where he might appear, such as business parties and high-end banquets! Reduce all opportunities for direct contact and try to minimize your presence in front of him!"
"Pretend to be stupid? Will that even work?" Lin Tingyue expressed deep doubt. Thinking of Chi Zhuo's unfathomable black eyes that seemed to see through everything, she felt that pretending to be stupid in front of him was like showing off one's skills in front of an expert.
"It has to work! This is the best strategy right now! Are you going to go up to him, kneel down and say, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Chi, it was my fault. I shouldn't have insulted you with three thousand yuan. How much do you think is appropriate? Name your price!' Wouldn't that confirm that you know who he is and admit that it was an insult? That would be even worse!"
Xia Xiaoran rolled her eyes. "As for avoiding him... your social circles are worlds apart. He lives in the financial headlines and the top e-commerce world, while you are just an ordinary rich kid who does some small art and design. As long as you don't actively try to get into those top business circles, the probability of running into him is not much higher than winning the lottery!"
These words offered Lin Tingyue a little comfort. Yes, Chi Zhuo's world and the world she usually interacted with were practically parallel lines. As long as she was careful enough and kept a low profile, she should... be able to avoid him, right? Given time, he might just forget about her, such a nobody.
"Finally!" Xia Xiaoran's tone became serious. "We also need to prepare for the worst. If... I mean, in the unlikely event that he really wants revenge and is determined to get his revenge, you need to think about your options beforehand. But personally, I think that possibility is unlikely. After all, dealing with someone as insignificant as you would be too beneath him, and it wouldn't be good for his reputation if word got out."
After finishing the video call with Xia Xiaoran, which lasted for more than half an hour, Lin Tingyue's mood calmed down a bit. Although the fear in her heart was still there, like a big stone pressing down on her, at least she was no longer completely lost and in the dark as before, and finally had some vague direction.
The core strategy is: play dumb and stay away.
Yes, that's the way to do it! As long as she holds on, she'll be safe once he gets bored or gets distracted by something more important and forgets about it.
She took another deep breath, patted her cheeks, and tried to mentally prepare herself.
However, just as she finished cheering herself up and relaxed a little, her phone, which she was holding, suddenly "dinged" and the screen lit up, showing that she had received a new text message.
It was a completely unfamiliar number.
She opened the message with a puzzled look. The message contained only a concise and unquestionable sentence, even the punctuation was cold and hard.
But this one sentence, like a thunderbolt carrying hail, struck down from above without warning, shattering her fragile psychological defenses that she had just painstakingly built up, leaving not a trace.
[Ms. Lin, meet me at the Cloud Cafe downstairs in the Zhuoyue Building at 3 PM tomorrow. We'll discuss the... compensation.]
There was no unnecessary fluff at the end of the text message.
Her plan to feign ignorance, which had not yet been implemented, was declared bankrupt at this moment.
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