Chapter 8, "Does nobody believe it's a real relationship?"...
"Chairman Xu, you saw it all, didn't you?" Xu Shaoting listened to the clear female voice coming from the other end of the phone.
Five minutes earlier, Xu Shaoting had just finished talking with the man and woman and was about to get up to see them off when his message notification rang.
He took out his phone, took a few steps unhurriedly, and after reading the message, he suddenly turned around and went back to his office, leaving Lin Youzhe to see the guest off alone.
He was sitting in his office chair, with a mountain of documents on his desk. He was signing documents while talking on the phone with his phone on speakerphone and placed to the side.
"What do you see?" Xu Shaoting replied calmly, his hand holding the pen not stopping as he neatly signed three large characters in the signature area.
Wen Jia heard that his tone was calm, reserved, and serious, as if he were asking someone in a business setting what prospects they could see.
"We've been photographed on Weibo's trending topics..." Wen Jia said, squeezing into a corner and covering her mouth on the other end of the phone.
Xu Shaoting found her slightly guilty tone quite amusing. He lifted his eyes from the snow-white document paper, glanced at the lit phone screen, and suddenly chuckled, but said nothing.
Wen Jia hid in a corner, surrounded by silence. She heard his laughter very clearly. She suddenly realized that Xu Shaoting must have known all along, otherwise he wouldn't have called her less than five seconds after she sent the message.
She felt embarrassed, as if she had been tricked, and her tone sounded like she was scolding him: "Why is Chairman Xu pretending to be stupid?"
Xu Shaoting said with a half-smile, "I'm not pretending to be stupid. I really don't know what Miss Wen means by 'saw', but if it's a trending topic on Weibo," he paused, "then I saw it."
"I thought Chairman Xu didn't read Weibo..." Wen Jia was shocked by how well-informed he was.
Xu Shaoting's lips curled up slightly. "I didn't look at it; my subordinate brought it to me to see."
He wasn't lying to her. As the head of such a large group, he was at least a public figure, but he wasn't a regular in entertainment news, much less the subject of media ridicule, and he had nothing to do with gossip, let alone pay attention to such information.
If we were to trace back to the last time he was active in the public eye, it would probably be a few years ago when Xu Bozheng held a press conference to announce that he was handing the group over to him.
However, this time he didn't make it onto the entertainment trending list, but rather the finance list. But because his news photos were also too outstanding, he eventually ended up uncontrollably moving towards the entertainment direction.
Initially, Xu Shaoting planned to handle the situation quietly, without commenting or making any statements. However, when he discovered that people were starting to scrutinize the suit he wore to the press conference, the watch he wore, the pen he used, and even calling on him to hold a press conference every month in the comments section of Tianxu Group's official Weibo account, he held back again and again, and finally had the heat suppressed.
Wen Jia knew he wasn't the type to enjoy being in the spotlight, so she changed the subject: "Has Chairman Xu seen the comments section?"
Xu Shaoting paused in signing, not answering her, but instead asking, "What?"
Wen Jia understood that he was asking if there were any comments worth sharing, so she suppressed a laugh and said, "I saw them. The comments section says... you're my cousin."
As Xu Shaoting wrote the last stroke of the character "Xu," upon hearing this, the expensive fountain pen in his hand suddenly slipped, leaving a long trail of black ink that splattered onto the white paper, creating a striking contrast.
But he quickly regained his composure: "Anything else?"
"And you even said... you're my cousin." Wen Jia suppressed the urge to burst out laughing.
Lin Youzhe had just finished seeing off his guests and returned to Xu Shaoting's office to await instructions when he pushed open the door and heard this sentence.
Even with his excellent self-control, he couldn't help but laugh.
Hearing the noise, Xu Shaoting looked up from his documents. His handsome face held an indescribable expression, as if half of it was displeasure at Lin Youzhe's sudden visit and the other half was an uncontrollable chuckle at Wen Jia's words.
Lin Youzhe stared at his boss's expression and finally realized that his behavior was inappropriate. He composed himself, pursed his lips, and dared not smile anymore. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and left as if he had come in the same way.
Wen Jia's ears were sharp enough to hear laughter that didn't belong to Xu Shaoting on the other end of the phone, so she asked, "Chairman Xu, what are you doing? Is anyone else around? Are you in a meeting?"
“He’s in the office. His subordinate just came in,” she added thoughtfully, “but he’s gone now. You can rest assured.”
Wen Jia's internal alarm bells rang: "Subordinates? How many?"
"one."
After signing all the documents, Xu Shaoting calmly flipped open the folder. He didn't put down his pen, but kept playing with it in his hand, his tone a little flippant: "What, so worried about being overheard? Have you considered that even if we don't say anything, they can see it online?"
“Of course I’m worried. As I’ve said before, my reputation is very important,” she added. “And not everyone watches Weibo every day, so naturally the fewer people who know about it, the better.”
Xu Shaoting seized on the key point of her words: "From what you're saying, you think that if it really is a relationship, your reputation will be ruined?"
“Of course,” Wen Jia blurted out, then quickly explained as if she had realized something, “No, no, I didn’t mean that my reputation would be ruined if I dated Chairman Xu. What I meant was that my reputation would be ruined if I dated anyone. But then again, I’m an actress, so dating isn’t a big deal. It’s just that my career hasn’t recovered yet, and dating would give people something to gossip about.”
Wen Jia talked for a long time, but she didn't know if Xu Shaoting understood. Afraid that she would make things worse, she said in a deflated voice, "Never mind... I won't explain anymore."
Tired of standing, she gathered her skirt and squatted down. The skirt spread out around her, looking from a distance like petals surrounding a flower's stamen.
Xu Shaoting crossed his arms and leaned back in his office chair, listening to her presentation with a faint smile in his eyes.
“I understand what you mean, Miss Wen.” He said this seriously, then joked in a very unserious way, “It seems I can’t escape being your relative no matter what. There’s no real difference between cousin and cousin. I suggest you do your public relations in this direction.”
Wen Jia almost dropped the phone, thinking he had gone mad. She gave a fake laugh: "Chairman Xu, instead of telling everyone you're my cousin, I might as well just admit our relationship is real."
Xu Shaoting sensed from her tone that she seemed to take his words seriously, so he immediately stopped and changed the subject: "Is everyone in the comments section questioning this? Isn't anyone believing it?"
Wen Jia seemed to understand but not quite: "What?"
“I’m saying,” Xu Shaoting said slowly, picking up his phone from the table and deliberately turning off the speakerphone. He stood up, walked to the French windows, put one hand in his pocket and held the phone to his ear with the other, “is there really no one who believes it’s a real relationship?”
Although his deep eyes were gazing out the window, his mind was not on the bustling traffic outside.
Wen Jia swallowed hard, her throat tightening. Xu Shaoting's words were spoken lightly, yet they felt like a heavy stone thrown into the ocean of her heart. On the surface, they didn't cause any big waves, but only Wen Jia herself knew the turmoil that surged inside.
Only she heard the echo of that muffled thud reverberating in her chest.
Half a minute passed, and neither of them spoke first.
Xu Shaoting remained silent because he was waiting for Wen Jia's reply.
Wen Jia remained silent because she didn't know how to answer.
Once the tightness in Wen Jia's throat subsided, she regained her normal tone: "Chairman Xu, do you want people to believe it's a real relationship?"
The two people were playing a game where the rule was that whoever answered the other's question seriously would lose. Therefore, asking questions in return became the safest defensive strategy.
However, this time Hsu Shao-ting seemed to be admitting defeat first, and answered seriously: "No, just curious."
Curiosity, and more curiosity.
But clearly, Xu Shaoting did not lose completely, because his words and actions left Wen Jia with no ammunition.
So she had no choice but to answer honestly: "Of course, but..."
"But what?"
"But what's the use of them believing? A fake is a fake, it can't become real." She habitually looked down at her fingernails, as if she could see some trickery in them.
“That’s true.” Xu Shaoting turned away from looking out the window, sat back down at his desk, and steered the conversation back on track.
"Should the trending topic be removed?" he pressed.
"Do you think Chairman Xu will just leave if I say so?"
"nature."
"What if I say I don't want to leave?"
"Then we won't leave, we'll do as you say."
"Will this affect you, Chairman Xu?" Wen Jia's eyes darted around, seemingly seriously considering whether to withdraw or not, before finally asking this question.
Hearing her call him "Chairman Xu" repeatedly, Xu Shaoting thought for a while before truthfully replying, "It won't have any impact."
Wen Jia pondered for a moment, then made the final decision: "No withdrawal."
This answer was somewhat unexpected for Xu Shaoting; he thought she would tell him to withdraw without hesitation.
"reason?"
“It’s not exactly bad news anyway, and besides…” she lifted her eyes from her nails, her gaze dark, “besides, I need the attention.”
Wen Jia huddled in a corner of the studio making a phone call for half an hour. Yu Kaiqing ran out to buy some food to appease the staff. At that moment, more than a dozen people were gathered together, eating and chatting. They burst into laughter, and Wen Jia glanced over there.
"Are you on set?" Xu Shaoting must have heard the noise on the other end of the phone to ask that question.
"No, it's a photography studio. We're shooting an advertisement today."
Xu Shaoting understood and chuckled, "Still in the mood to shoot commercials?"
Just as he finished asking the question, Yu Kaiqing came over to urge him on. Wen Jia was distracted and didn't answer him. Instead, she said in a somewhat hurried tone, "Chairman Xu, I'll hang up now. We're in a hurry to finish work."
Xu Shaoting didn't say anything, only 'okay'.
Wen Jia took the phone away from her ear; it had gotten slightly warm after a long call.
Just as she was about to press the hang-up button.
Then she heard a man's voice on the phone: "Ms. Wen."
Xu Shaoting's tone sounded hurried, as if he wanted to call her back at the last second.
Wen Jia's hand trembled, and she moved her fingertip away from the hang-up button, then put the phone back to her ear; "Chairman Xu, what is it?"
Xu Shaoting paused for two seconds, then asked, "When are you going to return my suit?"
Wen Jia gripped her phone tightly, unable to tell whether it was the phone that was getting hot or her own palms.
A note from the author:
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