Chapter 21, "Pretend to date me for a year"...
Wen Jia was panting, her chest heaving, looking up at Xu Shaoting with eyes as thick and unfocused as if they were filled with wine.
"Not like you."
She said something so abrupt and out of the blue.
But Xu Shaoting still understood; she was saying that his emotional and unrestrained manner was unlike him.
"I'm sorry, I lost my composure." Xu Shaoting pursed his lips and cupped half of her cheek in his hand.
Wen Jia glanced away, smiled calmly, and said, "Apologize after the kiss."
Zhou Jingcheng was right after all.
As she was thinking this, Xu Shaoting suddenly grabbed her chin and lifted it up.
His eyes were fixed on her. "What are you thinking about?"
Wen Jia let him lift her head, "I was thinking... I didn't expect Chairman Xu to be such a casual person."
"Have a meal with the other person, and when the mood is right, kiss them, then apologize as if nothing happened."
His eyes were fixed on her, calm and deep like a waveless sea. He had the same expression just now, the only difference being that, upon hearing her words, the already faint smile on his lips vanished completely.
"Is this what Zhou Jingcheng told you?"
Wen Jia turned her head away. "No, I never believed a word he said from beginning to end."
Xu Shaoting grasped the key point. He straightened up, instantly widening the distance between them. "Wen Jia, do you want to get rid of Zhou Jingcheng completely?"
Wen Jia remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
"It's simple, just pretend to date me."
Wen Jia slowly raised her head. "What?"
Judging from her reaction, it was as if she had heard something absurd.
He wasn't drunk, but she felt he was even less sober than she was.
He casually repeated, "Pretend to date me for a year. After a year, I will give you a substantial reward."
Wen Jia didn't answer him immediately. Her lips were stubbornly pursed, and her heart felt as if it were being pricked by tiny needles. Although it wasn't enough to pierce through, the sudden sharp pain was something she couldn't ignore.
She slowly stood up. "How much?"
Name your price.
"Fifty million."
"Can."
"Seventy million." She continued to raise the price.
"for you."
What if I said I wanted 100 million?
"Then I'll give you one hundred million."
The surroundings fell silent instantly, and the undercurrents of tension froze in an instant.
"Chairman Xu, you've really gone all out." Wen Jia smiled. "I'm afraid you're offering me this deal not just to help me get rid of Zhou Jingcheng."
Xu Shaoting frowned, loosened his tie, and said bluntly, seemingly a little impatient, "I want to cancel a marriage proposal."
"marriage?"
His voice was deep and calm, but to her, those two words sounded jarring.
Wen Jia smiled, her tone frank, "People like you really think the same way I do. You have money and power, you have everything, except for the love you want. Even your spouse is arranged for you. You spend your life with someone you don't love for the sake of your family, get married and have children. Chairman Xu, in a way, you're quite noble. I definitely couldn't do that."
After saying those words, her palms were almost completely sweaty. She concealed the dull pain in her heart. "But there's something I don't understand. Why me?"
"You just happen to want to get rid of Zhou Jingcheng, and I just happen to want to get rid of the engagement. There is no one more suitable than you."
Wen Jia's eyes flickered slightly, and her eyes welled up with tears. "So, Chairman Xu has been approaching me all this time just for this matter?"
She then respectfully addressed him as "Chairman Xu".
Xu Shaoting lowered his eyes slightly, "Not entirely."
He then added, "You can name any conditions you wish to set."
Are you so sure I'll agree to your request?
"One hundred million. You can decide for yourself."
Wen Jia pondered for a long time, then let out a very soft sigh, staring at the man in front of her, "I can agree to your request, but you can't touch me."
Xu Shaoting frowned, his gaze moving down from her eyes to her lips. "Didn't we already touch each other?"
"..."
“I’m talking about something deeper.”
Xu Shaoting curled his lips into a smile. "I won't touch you. As long as you abide by the terms of the contract, the rest is up to you."
Wen Jia opened her palm to him, now appearing quite open-minded, "Where's the contract?"
Xu Shaoting paused for the first time, "...I didn't bring it, but Lin Youzhe has already prepared it, and he will bring it to you later."
"The contract has already been drafted, and you're still saying that getting close to me wasn't for this reason?"
“Wen Jia,” he looked at her, “these two things are not contradictory; if it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else.”
Upon hearing this, her heart felt as if it had been struck by a hard rock. She took a deep breath to ease the dull pain that he couldn't see, and her expression showed relief. "I want other things, can you give them to me?"
"What else do you want?" Xu Shaoting looked up at her.
Wen Jia hesitated for two seconds, then stepped closer to him. "If I said that you would give me any resources I wanted during this period, would you give them to me?"
Xu Shaoting looked down at the person who had taken the initiative to enter his arms, and suddenly smiled. He stopped arguing with her and simply said "okay" in a calm voice without hesitation.
Upon hearing the answer that satisfied her, Wen Jia immediately turned around, sat back on the velvet sofa, and tilted her head slightly back, as if she was restraining something.
No one spoke in the room; the two remained silent like strangers, as if the kiss from before had vanished.
Xu Shaoting crossed his arms and paced back and forth for a couple of steps before suddenly asking, "Now can you tell me what Zhou Jingcheng told you?"
Wen Jia scoffed coldly, not even glancing at him. "He said you're a womanizer, a philanderer, fickle, and a womanizer."
The room fell completely silent. He stopped and took a slight, sharp breath.
Before she could completely swallow her anger, she heard her say—
“I didn’t believe it at first,” she paused.
"Now, I believe."
Do you know what you're saying?
She played with her nails, a slight smile playing on her lips, and said in a flippant tone, "I'm telling you, I believe you're the kind of person Zhou Jingcheng described."
She looked directly at him without flinching, as if hearing any more absurd things from him wouldn't shock her anymore.
The man made no movement, showed no expression, yet the surrounding air temperature plummeted to zero.
He approached her, suddenly leaned down, and forcefully grabbed her slender waist with one hand, leaving her nowhere to escape.
The masculine scent was almost overwhelming her. Wen Jia realized what he was trying to do, so she used both hands to push the man away. She used almost all her strength to barely manage to push him away. She raised her fingertips and wiped her lips. "Is kissing also part of the contract?"
Xu Shaoting chuckled, "Name your price, and I'll have Lin Youzhe draft the contract."
Before she could react, another unexpected kiss came crashing down on her.
Yu Kaiqing waited downstairs for nearly half an hour before she saw two people come down the stairs one after the other. Wen Jia had changed her high heels into linen slippers, which made a 'tap-tap' sound on the stairs. She was only wearing a dress, with her two slender, fair arms exposed.
Xu Shaoting walked behind her, head down, adjusting his cuffs. His steps were unhurried, and his short black hair was as neat and tidy as when he came upstairs. It was as if the two of them had only talked for a few minutes in the room and had not done anything else.
Yu Kaiqing stood up, waving her phone in her hand. She glanced at Xu Shaoting deliberately, then said to Wen Jia, "President Zhou called just now. He said he called you but you didn't answer."
Upon hearing this, the man and woman on the stairs suddenly stopped in their tracks.
“My phone was on silent and in my bag, so I didn’t hear it,” Wen Jia lowered her eyes, her voice calm. “Did he say what he wanted to call about?”
"No, he only said to call him back when you have time."
The two of them went down the stairs completely. Wen Jia stopped and spoke again in a serious tone, as if she regarded Zhou Jingcheng's call as something very important. "I know, I'll call him back later." She noticed the man next to her looking at her out of the corner of her eye, so she said, "Kaiqing, see Chairman Xu out."
After saying that, she turned and went up the stairs without looking back. Xu Shaoting looked at her for two seconds before turning around and walking towards the door.
The two went from being parallel to each other to back to back. Yu Kaiqing looked to the left and then to the right, and finally caught up with Xu Shaoting's steps, preparing to see him out.
He took only a few long strides to reach the door, his hand already on the handle, when he suddenly turned back and said, "Don't call Zhou Jingcheng."
Wen Jia had just stepped onto the first step when she was clearly taken aback by his return and words. Her slender figure froze. "President Zhou said he has something to tell me."
He was asking about the necklace.
His tone was very firm, without the slightest hesitation.
Wen Jia turned around completely, facing the door, and the two of them stared at each other across the large living room.
"So, Mr. Xu, you gave me the necklace on purpose so he would see it?"
Xu Shaoting didn't answer, but turned around and followed Yu Kaiqing out of the villa.
Inside the door, Wen Jia leaned against the stair railing, watching his back as he stepped across the stone path and got into the Maybach waiting at the door before she walked towards the bedroom.
She returned to the small sofa in her room, sat quietly with her arms crossed for a few seconds, and as expected, she heard the 'tap-tap' sound of someone stepping on the stairs.
Yu Kaiqing pounded on her door, "Let me in, quick, quick!"
Wen Jia turned to the door with a half-smile and said, "The door's unlocked, come in."
Yu Kaiqing didn't even let her finish speaking before she turned the doorknob and rushed in.
She bit her lip, her eyes crinkling with a grin, "What did you two do upstairs?"
"Let's talk business," Wen Jia replied calmly, then got up and walked to the window to look down. The black Maybach was still parked in front of her villa, its glaring red headlights still on.
"Talking about business? So serious."
Wen Jia shook her head calmly, "The things we're talking about aren't serious."
Yu Kaiqing walked to the single sofa, and just as she was about to sit down, she heard her say, "Xu Shaoting asked me to pretend to be in a relationship with him, and he'll give me 100 million yuan a year later."
Yu Kaiqing jumped up from the sofa, her expression surprised, whether she was surprised by 'pretending to be in a relationship with him' or by 'one hundred million'.
"One... hundred million?!" She looked down and counted on her fingers.
"Um."
Seeing her calm reaction, Yu Kaiqing's alarm bells went off: "You didn't agree, did you?"
“I agreed, but…” Wen Jia stared at the car downstairs, “but I made a condition: during this period, you must give me any resources I want unconditionally.”
"One hundred million a year... My God, I'm almost forgetting about money. I would do it too. I can get the best resources. Besides, Chairman Xu's conditions are so good, it's a win-win situation no matter how you look at it."
Wen Jia glanced at her amusedly, then nodded towards the window. "Go ahead, his car is still parked there. Go talk to him now, maybe there's still a chance."
Downstairs in the Maybach, Xu Shaoting glanced through the dark car window at the floor-to-ceiling window of the master bedroom on the second floor. The white semi-transparent curtains were drawn, and he could only see the warm-colored lights on; nothing else was visible.
He looked away, leaned his head back in the chair, his short hair neat and his neck straight. He closed his eyes and said, "Let's drive."
After the car had been driving for about ten minutes, Xu Shaoting calmly instructed the person in the front seat:
"Add a clause to the contract: during the contract period, I will provide her with any resources she desires unconditionally."
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