MMCD - 10

The moment the words left her mouth, the person not far away looked over.

Shen Zai frowned slightly. “What did you say?”

Sheng Wenyan’s heart skipped a beat. “Nothing, nothing! I was just asking you if you wanted Western or Chinese food.”

Shen Zai: “Chinese.”

“Okay, I’ll tell them.”

After hanging up the phone, Sheng Wenyan sat back down on the sofa. Shen Zai paused with his finger, seeing that she had no intention of leaving, and knew that she had ordered her own meal to his room as well.

He was about to tell her to go back to her own room to eat, but he remembered what she had said earlier about Zhu Lingyun possibly coming back.

“You...”

“Mr. Shen, how do you and Zhu Lingyun know each other?” Sheng Wenyan suddenly asked.

She was full of curiosity, like a gossipmonger, completely forgetting her role as an assistant.

Shen Zai looked away. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. I just think that with your status, if you don’t like her being so clingy, you can just send her away directly. Why go through all this trouble?”

Shen Zai said indifferently, “Do you think that as long as your status is high enough, you can do whatever you want?”

Sheng Wenyan nodded, looking confused. “Of course. If you dislike someone, you should just kick them away.”

Shen Zai glanced at her. “Is that what your father taught you?”

Sheng Wenyan’s smile froze, but she quickly said, “He never taught me anything. He just gives me money to spend, and I can do whatever I want. As long as I don’t disturb his love life, it’s fine.”

The girl not far away was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, propping her head up, playing on her phone and talking. She seemed carefree, but she was still young, and the gloom on her face was not well hidden.

Shen Zai was silent for a moment, realizing that while Sheng Tianhe was good in many ways, he was truly unreliable when it came to raising a child.

“You can’t always get your way just because of your power.”

“Why?”

Shen Zai, uncharacteristically patient, said, “Take Zhu Lingyun, for example. I’m not being direct with her not just because I knew her before and we have a bit of a relationship. It’s also because her father is in charge of this project. While it’s very likely to be mine, many investors are competing for it, and I need to be absolutely certain.”

Sheng Wenyan: “But you’re so rich. What does it matter if you lose this one project?”

A childish remark, indeed.

Shen Zai smiled. “I don’t care, but the many people who work for me need to eat. Don’t I have to care about them? In the business world, you can’t be willful. You’ll be taking over the Sheng Corporation in the future, so you need to understand this.”

Sheng Wenyan was silent for a while and then said, “How do you know I’m taking over the Sheng Corporation?”

“You’re your father’s only daughter. If not you, then who?”

“That’s exactly it because I’m a daughter. My grandparents think only a grandson will do,” Sheng Wenyan said casually. “I’m not a boy, so I can’t do it. That’s why I’m not qualified.”

Shen Zai frowned. “Who told you that girls aren’t qualified?”

“Everyone tells me that...” Perhaps the words had struck a nerve. Sheng Wenyan forgot to be a good girl and muttered, “Maybe they’re right. I’m uneducated and only know how to have fun. Heh, whatever. I don’t care anyway.”

“If you really didn’t care, how did you get into S University?”

Sheng Wenyan froze.

Shen Zai looked at the stubborn girl who was rebelling against her family, as if he could see right through her. “You and Shuyi are classmates. As far as I know, that’s a very good university in the country. If you really only knew how to eat, drink, and have fun, how did you get in? You wanted to show your family, didn’t you?”

“...”

Sheng Wenyan’s smile completely disappeared.

Everyone knew that she only knew how to have fun and was a wealthy second-generation wastrel, but no one knew that she had secretly worked hard to prove to her family that she could do well. But she also hadn’t forgotten that when she excitedly showed her family her acceptance letter, they smiled and said it was good, but then they turned around and forgot about it.

At that moment, she completely understood. Her grandparents didn’t care, and her father didn’t care either. In their hearts, they only placed their hopes on the non-existent young master of the Sheng family.

“As long as you have the ability, it doesn’t matter what your gender is. Sheng Wenyan, you don’t need to care too much about other people’s stereotypes, and you shouldn’t be bound by traditional ideas. You have to have some confidence in yourself. You might not be incapable.”

Sheng Wenyan’s hands on her legs clenched. When she spoke again, there was a glimmer of hope in her voice. “Did my dad tell you that?”

The room was silent. Shen Zai lifted his eyelids, his gaze clear yet powerful.

She saw him give a slight smile and say faintly, “I said that.”

Ding-dong!

The doorbell suddenly rang.

Her heart also felt a sudden heavy blow. She looked at Shen Zai in a daze, forgetting to react.

The doorbell didn’t stop. Shen Zai lightly tapped the table as a reminder. “Go get the door.”

Sheng Wenyan snapped back to reality. She awkwardly looked away and hurriedly got up from her seat to go to the door.

Outside the room was a waiter. After the door opened, he delivered the meals to the table and politely left.

They sat on opposite sides of the table. Shen Zai tacitly allowed her to eat there.

Sheng Wenyan lowered her head, picked up her chopsticks, and ate a few bites, then looked up at Shen Zai. He was sitting up straight, chewing slowly, exuding an air of elegance.

“You have to have confidence in yourself. You might not be incapable.”

In her mind, she could hear him say with a smile: I said that.

He was so confident and composed, as if she should be exactly as he described and could become the person he said she could be...

“Aren’t you going to eat? What are you looking at?” He suddenly looked over. The pressure in his eyes made her heart skip a beat, and she was suddenly a little flustered.

Sheng Wenyan quickly lowered her head and shoved two mouthfuls of food in her mouth. The food tasted good, stimulating her taste buds and making her feel a little dazed.

Where did his confidence come from?

________________________________________

The next day, Shen Zai went to a project meeting, and Sheng Wenyan followed, helping to take notes on key points.

Sitting across from them was Zhu Lingyun. Throughout the meeting, Sheng Wenyan could feel Zhu Lingyun’s side-eye glances, but fortunately, she was used to this kind of attack and felt no pressure at all. In fact, she occasionally gave a provocative, smug look back, which made the other woman so angry she wanted to storm out on the spot.

After the meeting, Zhu Lingyun’s father invited Shen Zai to lunch together.

“Tonight, there will be an open-air cocktail party from our company on the mountainside. You should come and take a look. That location will be perfect for guests to host parties in the future,” Mr. Zhu said at the dinner table.

Zhu Lingyun: “Yeah, Brother Shen Zai. I’ll take you to see it then. The night view there is also very beautiful.”

Shen Zai: “Thank you. But since it’s your company’s party, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll just go with my assistant and take a look then.”

Assistant... Zhu Lingyun glanced at Sheng Wenyan.

What kind of assistant was she?

Zhu Lingyun was unhappy. With her status, she completely looked down on people like Sheng Wenyan, but with Shen Zai there, she couldn’t say anything.

After lunch, Shen Zai gave Sheng Wenyan the afternoon off.

But this place was inconvenient to get to, and there wasn’t much for her to do, so she stayed in her room, playing mobile games with her friends and chatting.

Lou Ning: “So you went back to the Shen family with Shen Zai that night, and then Shen Shuyi rejected you again?”

Sheng Wenyan: “Yeah. He said that my time at IZ was a waste of time and that he thought I was willful and couldn’t achieve anything.”

Another friend, Yang Sheng, said: “He’s being honest, though.”

Sheng Wenyan: “Go away.”

Yang Sheng: “No, no... so what are you going to do now?”

Sheng Wenyan quickly controlled her character on her phone, pushing towards the high ground of the game. “What do you mean ‘what am I going to do’? Of course, I’m going to persevere at IZ. I don’t believe there’s anything I can’t do.”

Yang Sheng: “Is it that serious? Do you like Shen Shuyi that much? You even gave up eating, drinking, and having fun for him. That’s not like you, Miss Sheng.”

Sheng Wenyan narrowed her eyes and paused.

For some reason, the thought that came to her mind at that moment wasn’t a rebellious one against Shen Shuyi’s lack of trust. Instead, it was the baffling words Shen Zai had said in his room last night—

You have to have confidence in yourself.

“I’d say Wenyan can’t stand being provoked by a crush. After being told that, of course, she’s not going to give up,” Lou Ning said. “But what do you think about working with Shen Zai? I heard he’s very serious. Can someone like you satisfy him?”

When Shen Zai was mentioned, Sheng Wenyan became quiet. She was silent for a moment and then said, “Of course. You have no idea how important I am to him now, not just at work but also in his personal life.”

“Huh? Personal life~” Lou Ning’s tone suddenly became ambiguous.

Sheng Wenyan was stunned but quickly laughed in a carefree manner. “Yeah. There’s a woman who’s trying to hit on him these past two days, and you know my stunning beauty can easily embarrass those women with ulterior motives to death, so they won’t dare to get close to him. He needs me to fend off his admirers.”

Lou Ning agreed with this point. Sheng Wenyan’s looks were too stunning and aggressive.

Yang Sheng: “Damn, are you hitting on the uncle and the nephew?”

Sheng Wenyan choked and laughed, cursing, “You’re a perv, Yang Dasheng!”

“What did I do? You like handsome guys, don’t you?”

Sheng Wenyan paused and said, “Mm... Shen Zai is very good-looking.”

“See! You’re the one with a pervy mind!”

“Go away. Hurry up and follow me. Don’t you know how to push the tower?!”

...

After playing games and taking another nap, the afternoon was wasted.

When she woke up, she ordered dinner to her room. After she finished eating, the sky outside was completely dark.

The small party was starting at 8 p.m. Sheng Wenyan hadn’t been to a party or had a drink in a long time since she started her internship, so she was a little excited. Before she left, she put on some elaborate makeup and chose a little black dress to wear.

After getting ready, she called Shen Zai to remind him it was time to go, but she didn’t expect that what he said at noon was just to get rid of Zhu Lingyun. He had no intention of bringing her.

He had already left.

Sheng Wenyan was furious after hanging up the phone, but since she was already dressed up, how could she not go? She was definitely going!

So, she went downstairs, got on the hotel’s shuttle, and went down the mountain, walking the rest of the way.

The “mountainside” was actually only a six or seven-minute walk away. Sheng Wenyan walked leisurely in her high heels until she reached a flat area.

As Zhu Lingyun had said, this place was perfect for an open-air party. In the distance, the city lights were beautiful, and up here in the mountains, it was a unique kind of extravagance.

“Hello, would you like a cocktail?” A waiter was walking back and forth. He saw the unfamiliar woman on the scene and enthusiastically brought her a drink.

Of course, it wasn’t just the waiter. Most of the people on the scene noticed her appearance.

Even though it was late summer, the temperature was a little lower up in the mountains. The girls here had more or less added an outer layer, but this woman, as if she wasn’t afraid of the cold, was wearing a black dress with thin straps, her fair arms and collarbones very eye-catching. Her long legs were also visible, and she looked like... a fairy who suddenly appeared in the mountains.

A stunningly beautiful fairy.

Sheng Wenyan ignored everyone’s gaze and sat down at the bar. It had been a long time since she had had a drink, and now that she finally had a chance to have a couple, she was very excited.

But with her appearance, she would attract people even if she just sat there.

Before long, people were sitting around her, but Sheng Wenyan had no interest in them. To her, there wasn’t a single person worth looking at.

After drinking for a while, she started to feel a little buzzed. Sheng Wenyan put down her glass, propped her head up, and listened to the music.

“Beautiful lady, we’ve had a few drinks together, and I still don’t know your name,” the man next to her asked.

“Me?” Sheng Wenyan said, “I’m not from your company.”

“I can tell. If there was someone like you in the company before, how could we not know?”

Sheng Wenyan curled her lips, not bothering to respond.

“Hey, can I add you on WeChat? I’ll scan your code.”

“Me too, me too! Add me on WeChat. We can keep in touch later.”

...

Sheng Wenyan was trying to listen to the music, but the people next to her were making her feel a little annoyed.

Just as she was about to get angry, she suddenly heard someone call her name.

“Sheng Wenyan.” The voice was emotionless but familiar.

Sheng Wenyan’s eyes lit up. She turned around and saw Shen Zai, whom she hadn’t seen all night, standing not far from the bar. He was wearing a black suit, standing tall and straight. He was handsome and dashing, and it was hard to look away.

Mmm... this was the kind of handsome worth looking at.

But, why was Zhu Lingyun here again?!

Tsk, I told you to take me, but you got entangled with her, didn’t you?

Sheng Wenyan looked at Shen Zai, giving him a look that said, “I understand,” and then got down from the bar stool. She changed her expression in an instant, smiling as she jogged to his side.

Shen Zai glanced at her revealing outfit and frowned slightly. Just as he was about to say something, the girl next to him wrapped her arm around his.

She held onto his arm, rested her cheek on his shoulder, and looked up, pouting prettily.

“Shen Zai, why are you just getting here? I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”