“I visited the World Studio two days ago. I heard that Cen Xiangyang is currently filming there.” Ji Fanyin spoke as if she was just prattling about random, everyday affairs. “You do know that I have a film set there, right?”
“…”
“Cen Xiangyang approached me. You’re aware of that too,” Ji Fanyin spoke with a trace of mirth in her voice. “But do you know why?”
Ji Xinxin finally broke her silence. She sneered in disdain, “Weren’t you the one who approached him, offering to play my stand-in so you could earn some quick cash from him? He even rejected you.”
“So that’s what he said.” Ji Fanyin wasn’t too surprised to hear that Cen Xiangyang had only told half the story. “I’m not talking about that incident but what happened afterward. Let’s see… He told you everything shortly after you returned to France, right?”
“…”
Ji Fanyin chuckled softly. “That’s right. He took the initiative to approach me afterward.”
“…”
“Aren’t you going to ask why?” Ji Fanyin provoked Ji Xinxin out of malicious pleasure.
“Why did he approach you?” asked Ji Xinxin with a hoarse voice.
“For you, of course.” Ji Fanyin made a dramatic pause. “How should I put it using his words? He wants my help in crippling your wings so that he can enclose you in a cage.”
“He approached you for that?” Ji Xinxin scoffed. “I don’t believe you. He told me about how he nearly struck a deal with you.”
Ji Fanyin went into her phone gallery and took some time searching through it. Without bothering to explain anything, she tapped onto the screenshot she had taken from her conversation with Cen Xiangyang, and sent it to Ji Xinxin.
“I can’t stop you if you insist that the screenshot was photoshopped. It’s your judgment,” added Ji Fanyin calmly.
Ji Xinxin would have to feel utterly cornered for her to accept Li Xiaoxing’s outstretched hand, albeit with gritted teeth.
“… How can I be certain that you won’t divulge the truth to Li Xiaoxing?”
“You can’t. You won’t believe me even if I made a vow to the heavens,” replied Ji Fanyin with a smile. “You can only take a step at a time and hope everything goes well, no?”
With those words, Ji Fanyin unhesitatingly hung up the phone. She wasn’t worried that Li Xiaoxing would come after her.
There was only one path Ji Xinxin could take.
To be more exact, she could choose to take a step back too, but that would mean that all of her hard work would disintegrate to dust. She wasn’t going to be able to lose everything and still rise up once more.
…
The following morning, Ji Fanyin woke up to a message from the bank, informing her that she had received a sum of money from Secretary Fan. She also received a notification from WeChat, where Ji Xinxin posted a picture of two interlocked hands and announced the joyous news of her engagement.
Ji Fanyin rubbed her eyes and counted the number of digits on the message from the bank.
Ah, I got a bonus.
Or is this Li Xiaoxing’s way of apologizing for his disrespectful words from the previous night?
Ji Fanyin tapped into the ‘Temptation of Home’ app and saw that the progress bar had suddenly advanced to 1.8 billion within a short period of time. Not only so, the number was growing at an incredible rate every second.
Out of curiosity, she tapped into the logs and saw that everyone—from Ji Xinxin to Song Shiyu to Li Xiaoxing to Cen Xiangyang, as well as Mrs. Bai, Chen Yunsheng, and a few others—was working very hard for her. It was as if they were trying to up their KPI for a year end bonus.
Ji Fanyin felt deeply moved.
Without your contributions, I would have never been able to conquer this seemingly insurmountable goal of 10 billion!