Jiang Xiao broke free and slapped him across the face. "Cheng Yuan, go get drunk somewhere else. Don't make me sick here."
Cheng Yuan staggered back two steps, hitting the wall behind him. His shoulder ached terribly, but compared to Jiang Xiao's words, the pain in his shoulder meant nothing.
"Xiao Xiao, I'm not drunk. I... I missed you so much, I couldn't help but drink a little. If you don't like it, I won't drink anymore. Don't be mad, okay?"
He begged humbly. "Oh, I bought you a gift."
He took out a necklace from his pocket—one he'd kept for who knows how long. "You said you liked this brand before. Remember?"
Jiang Xiao immediately recognized the brand. It was custom-made. On their first wedding anniversary, she had indeed mentioned wanting jewelry from this brand.
How had Cheng Yuan responded back then?
He'd said impatiently, "It's just a necklace. What's wrong with any brand?"
"Jiang Xiao, don't be so high-maintenance."
He'd said that in front of family and friends. As his words fell, the room filled with soft tsk-tsks of derision, as if everyone were mocking her cluelessness.
Back then, she had so hoped Cheng Yuan would speak up for her, but he didn't.
He'd gone off to take a phone call, chatting softly for twenty minutes, coaxing the person on the other end, and only hung up when someone teased him.
Friends joked about which woman he was having a phone romance with.
He just smiled and said, "Mind your own business."
She'd left amid everyone's jeers and sarcasm. He didn't come home for a month after that.
Remembering the past, Jiang Xiao's eyes turned icy. She knocked the necklace out of his hand and stepped on it. "This... you think I care about this?"
She stomped hard, and the necklace snapped with a sound.
Cheng Yuan knelt to pick it up, his fingers trembling. "I had this custom-made just for you."
"So what?" Jiang Xiao said. "What does that have to do with me?"
"It took nearly two years." In Cheng Yuan's eyes, Jiang Xiao hadn't just crushed a necklace; she'd crushed his heart.
Pain radiated through every limb and bone.
At first it was a dull ache, then the pain surged, suffocating him once again.
"Xiao Xiao, I did all this just to make you happy," he coaxed softly.
"It's very simple to make me happy." Jiang Xiao looked down at him like a victor surveying the vanquished. "Just get far away from me!"
Cheng Yuan had thought Jiang Xiao would be touched by his efforts, but that wasn't the case. His eyes bloodshot, he asked, "Can you really not forgive me?"
"Forgive?" Jiang Xiao said. "CEO Cheng, are we close? It's not appropriate for people who aren't close to talk about forgiveness."
"We are close, very close." Cheng Yuan hugged Jiang Xiao's legs, just as she had once hugged his, begging, "Xiao Xiao, we're husband and wife."
"That was in the past," Jiang Xiao said. "Not anymore."
"I still love you." Cheng Yuan was being presumptuous again, thinking Jiang Xiao would like to hear that.
"Love?" Jiang Xiao sneered. "Cheng Yuan, do you even know what love is? Are you worthy of talking about love?"
"Get out! I don't want to see you anymore!"
Jiang Xiao pulled her leg free and slammed the door shut in his face.
Cheng Yuan didn't move. He remained half-kneeling until dawn, when Jiang Yu finally forced him to leave.
"President Cheng, there's an emergency at the company. We need to get back to Jingbei quickly."
Cheng Yuan was listless, as if lifeless. "The company? Hmph, whatever."
Jiang Yu: "President Cheng, snap out of it. It's really serious."
He tried to rouse Cheng Yuan, but Cheng Yuan's mind was filled with Jiang Xiao, her sharp, cold words echoing in his ears. His heart felt like it had been stabbed over and over again.
Where it couldn't be seen, it was a bloody mess.
"A hacker has breached our internal network, causing huge losses. If we don't stop it soon, the consequences will be disastrous," Jiang Yu said again.
Cheng Yuan still wore that half-dead expression. "It's just money. Whatever."
"It's not just money—it's client data." Jiang Yu urged the driver to hurry, then confirmed the departure time of the private jet. "If we deal with it late, there'll be big trouble."
As Jiang Yu had warned, Cheng Group suffered heavy losses from the hacking. The next day, the shareholders stormed the company, holding a board meeting under claims of Cheng Yuan's negligence, demanding his removal as president.
Coincidentally, that same morning, several projects encountered major flaws. Cheng Yuan was besieged from all sides.
While he was up to his ears in trouble, Jiang Xiao closed a new deal and moved her studio to the busiest office building in the city center.
The department expanded, hiring a batch of new people.
Jiang Xiao only needed to handle major client contacts; other matters were managed by dedicated staff.
With the studio on track, the first person she should thank was Zhao Kai. Xiao Zhou had booked the most luxurious Western restaurant in Jingbei and prepared expensive red wine.
When they were alone, Xiao Zhou teased, "Boss, I think President Zhao really cares about you. Why not give him a chance?"
Xiao Zhou had been with her the longest and could be a bit informal in private. Jiang Xiao said flatly, "We're just seniors and juniors from school."
"I don't think President Zhao sees it that way," Xiao Zhou said. "The way he looks at you is the way a man looks at a woman. And these deals—he set them all up. He wouldn't do that if there wasn't something in it for him."