Chapter 16

That voice… Jiang Wei looked up. Who else could it be but Ling Ze?
He looked a little surprised, thinking of the information his assistant had dug up over the past few days.
Mm. His memories weren’t quite right. Interesting.
Especially this little girl in front of him, who obviously knew him yet insisted on pretending she didn’t.
Very interesting indeed. Had she taken money from the old man too?
Jiang Wei apologized a few more times, then practically scrambled away toward the conference room.
Everyone was already seated and waiting. When Ling Ze pushed the door open and walked in, Jiang Wei’s brain froze.
What kind of meeting needs the crown prince himself to show up?
She kept telling herself it would be fine. Ling Ze didn’t remember her anymore.
What she didn’t know was that while she kept her head down taking notes, he kept turning to look at her, his gaze probing, carrying a deeper meaning he didn’t let show.
Watching her focused profile in the warm light, the translucence of her earlobe, he felt a long-dormant urge stir inside him, an urge to seize and possess.
And as the meeting went on, Jiang Wei also realized something was off about this case. Her fine brows knotted together. She was even… angry.
A Ling Group real estate subsidiary had run into a “nail house” family during construction, people who refused to move and give up their land.
The manager in charge went up to 1.2 million and refused to go higher.
Someone must have filled that family’s head with ideas; they thought the longer they waited, the more they’d get. They dug in their heels at five million.
By the time the manager grudgingly raised the offer to three million, he’d completely lost patience, and started thinking dirty.
He had the excavators come in the dead of night, when the family was asleep, to dig out everything around their house, including the very foundation.
After several heavy rains, the ground gave way. The house collapsed.
Five people died.
“That’s clearly a crime! He obviously destroyed their foundation on purpose. Their deaths were caused by the construction party.”
“Attorney Wu, I don’t think we should take this case. This is clearly…Being an accomplice to evil.”
Following close behind Wu’s back, Jiang Wei’s voice shook with fury. The whole reason she wanted to be a lawyer, the whole reason she chose this profession, was never to scrub the blood off capitalists’ hands and save them money.
Irritation flashed in Attorney Wu’s eyes, though he swallowed it back for now; the meat hadn’t even reached his mouth yet.
“Weiwei, a lot of things aren’t… that simple. You’ve just entered the workforce, it’s normal not to understand. I’ll teach you slowly.”
As he spoke, his hand slid onto her thigh.
Jiang Wei jerked away as if shocked by electricity.
Seeing her recoil like that, Attorney Wu’s expression darkened, his tone growing sharp. “That family was greedy. This is the natural result.”
If he weren’t writing her evaluation, Jiang Wei would have rolled her eyes into the stratosphere.
Greedy? That’s five living, breathing human beings. To hell with your ‘natural result.’ Why don’t you just say you’re pocketing Ling Group’s money, you dog.
Seeing how “unappreciative” she was, Attorney Wu snorted.
That night, after she showered at the hotel and came out of the bathroom, she saw a message from him: Come over. There’s a problem with your notes from today.
She stared at the screen, remembering what the other interns had said downstairs.
She slipped a fruit knife into her pocket and went.
By the time she got there, he was already in a bathrobe.
You couldn’t see much at first glance. But as the night deepened, the wolf beneath the human skin finally showed its fangs.
“Be my girlfriend,” Attorney Wu said, barely bothering to pretend. “From now on at the firm, I guarantee every big case, every moneymaker goes to you. I’m a partner.”
He lunged at her, impatient, practically panting.
“Attorney Wu, your wife was just at the office last month.”
Jiang Wei tried to drag him back to reason, but the man was already drunk on his own lust.
“Hey, if you don’t say anything and I don’t say anything, who’s going to know? Come here, baby.”
In the struggle, the knife sliced across his forearm.
That pushed the dog over the edge.
His eyes went cold and venomous, like a snake’s.
“Jiang Wei, don’t toast if you’d rather drink the penalty wine.”
Jiang Wei bolted for the door.
Attorney Wu, goaded past reason, just wanted to “teach this bitch a lesson.”
She lost one shoe in her panic. Whatever. To hell with the job.
She’d made it out, but she had nothing with her.
It was summer, but the night wind still had teeth.
She wrapped her arms around herself and walked barefoot along the roadside, not really heading anywhere, not really knowing where to go.
Behind her, a car kept pace.
The window slid down. A long-fingered hand with sharp joints dangled out, a cigarette between his fingers.
The ember at the tip glowed and dimmed in the dark.
The man’s half-lidded peach-blossom eyes glinted with something unreadable as he watched the slim figure ahead.
His expression grew more and more opaque, more and more… intrigued.
He knew this woman.
And he might very well have liked her, once.
But it seemed everyone around him was determined that he never remember.
The old man thought that if he could keep him from remembering, no one would ever know about the filth he’d done.
Ling Ze had never been the sort who enjoyed dancing on someone else’s strings.
“Bring her here.”
The assistant froze for a second. But as the aide personally chosen by Chairman Ling for his eldest son, he always put the boss’s wishes first.
“Miss Jiang, my boss invites you to get in the car and talk.”
Jiang Wei jumped. She couldn’t help stepping back. “I… I still have things to do. I won’t trouble you.”
Her brows drew together. Instinctively, she rejected the idea.
Assistant Dong hadn’t come to ask, though. He clamped a hand around her wrist and steered her toward the car.
“What are you doing? This is kidnapping, you’re committing a crime! I have the right to sue you! Let me go!”
Seeing her fight that hard, trying to wrench the car door open, Ling Ze pressed his lips into a thin line, set down the financial report in his hand, and loosened his tie.
One hand closed around her wrists, and with that tie he bound them together. His movements were unhurried, almost elegant; if it weren’t for the fact that she literally couldn’t budge, Jiang Wei would have thought he was demonstrating some kind of “decorative bondage art.”
She tried to slam into him with her shoulder, but he pinned her neatly in place and finished tying the knot in that awkward position.
After the struggle, Jiang Wei was panting, eyes blazing. “What are you trying to do?”
The world is strange like that: the more you want to avoid something, the more it shows up everywhere you turn.
“Done thrashing?”
“Did we know each other before?”
Jiang Wei kept her pretty face cold, her gaze fixed somewhere off to the side. She said nothing.
“Be good,” he said softly. “I just want one answer. You know I’m missing things up here, and I hate being kept in the dark. Can you understand that?”
“We were in love before?”
Ling Ze’s seductive peach-blossom eyes held a hint of confusion as he spoke. At that, Jiang Wei’s pupils constricted; her heart almost stopped.
…Why on earth would he think that?
She shot back immediately, face solemn. “No. Senior, you’re overthinking it.”
“But the first moment I saw you, I had this very strong feeling that you were familiar.”
Jiang Wei’s expression was ice-cold. After everything that had just happened today, she felt utterly powerless. One thing after another was overturning everything she thought she knew about this society.
“Senior, this way of hitting on girls is already out of fashion. My boyfriend wouldn’t be very happy if he heard you.”
Ling Ze clearly wasn’t satisfied with that answer. His brows lifted slightly, and he mocked, half-smiling:
“Then maybe you should consider changing your boyfriend.”
“Being this subjective is not a quality a qualified corporate heir should have. Maybe you should work on that, Senior. What you’re doing to me right now is already a criminal act. If you’re willing to admit your mistake and let me go, I won’t hold it against you. Otherwise, I’ll call the police.”
Jiang Wei lifted her bound hands as she spoke.
At that, Ling Ze actually chuckled. “Mm. I’d love to see you try. Go ahead. I’ll come pick you up tonight.”
“You!”
He was insane. This man was absolutely sick in the head. Why had she ever saved this lunatic back in high school?
“All right. My patience is limited. Relaxation time is over. Tell me what happened before the car accident. The people around me don’t seem to like telling the truth.”
Ling Ze lounged there lazily, as if he really were ready to sit and listen.
Their gazes clashed in the charged air between them. Jiang Wei was silent for a long time, then finally spoke, laying out the whole tangle between them from high school, and the scraps of information she’d heard.
Ling Ze seemed lost in thought for a moment, then smiled as if things had finally clicked into place. “No wonder. I kept feeling you were familiar. No wonder I couldn’t help feeling a little… out of control the moment I saw you.”
His fingertips, a touch frivolous, lifted a stray lock of hair that had fallen loose during her struggle.
He lowered his head slightly and breathed in. “I like this scent. I heard your relationship with your supervising attorney isn’t great? That little excuse for a firm has nothing to offer you. Come to my company. You’ll have a much better future.”
Anyone else, hearing that, would have been ecstatic. This was the legendary Ling Group, one of the top corporations in the country, with an international reputation. It was the kind of company that elite graduates clawed and bled to get into.
But to Jiang Wei, the Ling Senior in front of her felt like a complete stranger. Or maybe she’d never truly seen him clearly to begin with.
“That won’t be necessary.”
She had her pride. Others might bend their knees for wealth and power, but she wouldn’t. She had her own road to walk.
Ling Ze’s smile went cool, edged with mockery. Very well. He would wait and see.
He sent Jiang Wei back to the hotel in his usual high-handed way. Before leaving, he even draped his jacket over her shoulders like a gentleman.
“I look forward to your answer,” he said, just as the window slid up, his face as finely carved as jade, and every line of it radiating an undeniable dominance.
Jiang Wei stalked off, fuming, without looking back. As if she would ever bow her head to someone like him. She’d really misjudged him, belittling her boyfriend was one thing, but then pulling this light, dirty stunt on top of it.
Even if his company were number one in the universe, she still wouldn’t go.
Only then did she remember: Attorney Wu was still in the hotel. Another headache.
She tried to move as quietly as possible. First thing tomorrow morning, she’d fly home. She was done with this project.
The next morning, as she was checking out, she caught sight of Attorney Wu’s face, dark as storm clouds, eyes gleaming with malice. He clearly hadn’t expected that, with his status and his usual tricks, there would come a day when a still-not-officially-employed intern would reject him and even cut him with a knife.
He didn’t dare call the police, because that “bitch” had sent him an audio recording from his room the night before.
Just wait till we’re back. I’ll make that bitch pay.