At the Splendor Residency, Yin Anran was listening to music as she lounged on the rocking chair with a face mask stretched over her skin. When the ringtone she had specifically set for Qin Jinhuan sounded, she sat up and hurriedly ripped off the face mask before picking up the call.

“Jinhuan! You’ve finally called! Did you miss me?”

When she called Jinhuan’s name, it felt as though someone was wrenching her heart out. Her nose pricked and her throat tightened; it had been so long since Qin Jinhuan had called her number, particularly at night.

“I need to ask you something. Did you give Dong Wanqing any fruit gummies made by Yun Ji Workshop?”

She did not expect those to be the first words to come from Qin Jinhuan, especially since he was the one who called her first at this time of night. Yin Anran was disappointed, but she sounded composed when she answered, “No, I did not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. Even if I did, Wanqing wouldn’t take them. She’s always trying to lose weight and she’d never eat sweets. Why are you asking this, Jinhuan?”

“No reason at all—I was just asking. Get some rest.”

“Hello? Jinhuan?”

But he had already hung up. Yin Anran groaned in frustration and stared blankly at Qin Jinhuan’s name in the recent call log, feeling the resentment bubble up within her.

“B*tch!” Yin Anran cursed through gritted teeth after a long while.

If that shameless b*tch hadn’t come between me and Jinhuan, we wouldn’t even be acting like strangers right now.

Yin Anran was fuming. That b*tch had taken Qin Jinhuan away from me, and, as if that hadn’t been enough, she even tried to have me fired from his company. She’s trying to completely erase me from his life!

She could combust on the spot just thinking about it.

Yin Anran imagined clamping her fist around Mu Yu’s throat—it was a surprise that she had not crushed her phone in the midst of her wrath.

Don’t be too happy, little b*tch, Yin Anran thought, let’s see who will have the last laugh.

“Hmph!” A string of curses hit the floor as Yin Anran was fuming. She did not feel any better until after another round of calling Mu Yu every dirty name in the book.

Procuring a new face mask, Yin Anran tucked herself back into the rocking chair and closed her eyes as she thought about what Qin Jinhuan had said over the phone.

Fruit gummies… Dong Wanqing… Qin Chengxi’s poisoning incident… Jinhuan asking me about the gummies…

An odd look spread across Yin Anran’s face and the wheels in her brain turned as the pieces came together like a jigsaw puzzle falling into place.

After she had been caught poisoning Mu Yu’s food and framing Dong Wanqing for it, Yin Anran had been worried that Dong Wanqing would take revenge by doing the same to her. Yin Anran had then installed hidden pinhole cameras in her own home, as well as in her office, for some peace of mind.

Yin Anran had found it strange when, a couple of days ago, Dong Wanqing had taken some of the fruit gummies from the former’s office drawer when she was in the bathroom. The fruit gummies were by no means expensive, and one could get them easily enough. Besides, Yin Anran was not selfish—she would have offered some to Dong Wanqing if she had only asked. After some thinking, Yin Anran deduced that she had stolen the gummies for some undisclosed, twisted reason. She had said nothing then, and instead watched Dong Wanqing’s every move while being very careful with her own words and actions.

All had been quiet until today when Yin Anran had heard about how Qin Chengxi had been sent into the emergency room due to a bad case of food poisoning. She had briefly wondered if that had anything to do with Dong Wanqing stealing the fruit gummies, but seeing as it was Qin Chengxi—not Mu Yu—who had been hospitalized, she had remained uncertain. Now, after Qin Jinhuan’s phone call, Yin Anran began to understand.

Yin Anran figured that the plan had been to poison Mu Yu, and Dong Wanqing had wanted to frame her by stealing the fruit gummies from her office drawer, but by some divine intervention, Qin Chengxi had been the one poisoned instead.

What an incompetent moron, Yin Anran thought scornfully as she clenched her jaw.

All Dong Wanqing had needed to do was to poison Mu Yu—or even just render her physically disabled, blind, deaf, or cause her to have a miscarriage. Then, Yin Anran would only have to wait for Dong Wanqing to frame her before she brought out the camera footage taken from her office that would reveal Dong Wanqing as the wicked mastermind. Yin Anran could have played the role of the wrongfully-accused damsel in distress, earning Qin Jinhuan’s sympathy and winning him back once more!

What a moron! Stupid, stupid girl! How did she even manage to mess this up?

So many lost opportunities, Yin Anran mourned.

If she had known that the moronic Dong Wanqing had been plotting to hurt Mu Yu, she would have dropped hints here and there, guiding Dong Wanqing so that the plan could go off without a hitch.

The incompetent are all but hopeless.

No longer in the mood, Yin Anran peeled off the face mask and threw it on the floor.

Then again, Dong Wanqing couldn’t possibly be smart enough to come up with the plan to frame Yin Anran; this had to be the work of Dong Yueyun, that sly old woman.

Yin Anran scoffed. She was willing to bet that Dong Yueyun had not expected the poison to end up hurting the gender-confused Qin Chengxi.

Serves her right! Karma has its way! Yin Anran laughed.

Just the other day, she had been sulking over how Qin Jinhuan did not care for her when Dong Yueyun called, begging her to figure out a way to stop Qin Jinhuan from firing Dong Wanqing. “If you can get rid of Mu Yu’s baby, I’ll help you,” Yin Anran had proposed without much thought, and unexpectedly, Dong Yueyun had agreed to it almost immediately. In retrospect, Dong Yueyun had probably long wanted to go after Mu Yu’s child, but she had never had the chance to plan around it. Yin Anran’s proposal had likely prompted Dong Yueyun to come up with this scathing plan to kill two birds with one stone.

And yet, fate had other plans.

Dong Wanqing was stupid enough on her own, but coupled with Qin Chengxi—who nearly lost her life today because she had been too dim-witted to tell the gummies apart—the whole plan was doomed since its inception.

Dong Yueyun, it’s amazing how you could end up with such morons as your lap dogs, Yin Anran mocked. She laughed, tears welling up in her eyes at the sheer comedy of it all, then stopped as a dark cloud passed over her face. Her expression turned dark.

Trying to frame me? What do you take me for? A fool? Yin Anran’s lips twisted into a scowl as she let the anger simmer within her. Don’t blame me when I come for you all.

She closed her eyes once more, still lounging in the comfort of the rocking chair. A moment passed before Yin Anran’s eyes flew open, and in her dark orbs there lay a sinister smile.

Dong Wanqing, let me show you how framing is done.

…

After locking Qin Jinhuan out of the room, Mu Yu was having trouble sleeping. She tossed and turned in bed, then, deciding that she was not going to fall asleep any time soon, she crawled out from beneath the covers. She took out her notebook and prowled through her case materials instead.

It was during moments like these, when Mu Yu was furious at Qin Jinhuan, that she needed the welcome distraction of her cases. When she focused on her case materials, her mind took a break away from the real world, and her mind wouldn’t be occupied with Qin Jinhuan—especially now when she was angry with him and most definitely did not want to be thinking about him.

However, things felt different today. Mu Yu had wanted to process whatever information Rong Jian had given her over the past two days—just to make sure nothing was amiss—but even as she rubbed her temples to make herself concentrate on the case at hand, Mu Yu was forced to concede nonetheless; there was no way she could go through the case materials now, since every thought she had drifted back to Qin Jinhuan.

Mu Yu resorted to clutching her head now, given that rubbing her temples had not worked. When she was certain that she would inflict cranial injury upon herself before making any progress, Mu Yu sighed and gave up on the case analysis, then shoved her notes back into her bag in a show of defeat.

After pacing back and forth in the room, Mu Yu concluded that she was only torturing herself by being so stubborn and angry. Insisting that she ought to be kinder to herself, she made up her mind to resolve this pent-up resentment by confronting the man who caused it. Mu Yu then bundled herself in a jacket and pulled on her slippers; she was emboldened by adrenaline as she strode out of the bedroom. She headed toward the study; when she locked Qin Jinhuan out for the night, she had not heard the car ignition, so she knew for a fact that he was at home. Therefore, he was either right across the hall, or he was cooped up in the downstairs study.

The door to Qin Jinhuan’s study across the hall was concealed, but Mu Yu could see the light peeking out from the edges, so there was a chance that he could be inside. Composing herself like she was about to head into war, she entered the room without knocking.

To her surprise, he was not in the study. Mu Yu blinked and decided that he must have been in the one downstairs. She was about to leave when she spotted his phone lying on the desk. She glanced at the bathroom and saw that the door was closed, which meant he was in there. Mu Yu decided to wait for him to come out and moved toward his desk, but just as she was about to sit down, she noticed that his laptop had been left on. There was an incessant blinking that came from the bottom right corner of the screen, indicating that there was a QQ message.

Qin Jinhuan had signed up for both QQ and WeChat, but he deemed them such a waste of time that he preferred calling Mu Yu instead, even when there was nothing important to convey.

Why would he be having a conversation on QQ in the middle of the night?

With an inkling that something was wrong, Mu Yu noted that Qin Jinhuan had yet to emerge from the bathroom, and her hand reached for the mouse. She moved the cursor to the QQ application, and she clicked into it.

The QQ chat box opened up; the conversation was with a netizen who went by the name ‘Qing Qing’. Her profile picture looked cute—she was probably someone younger.

Her eyes scanned the latest message, which read: ‘Why is she angry again? Seems like she’s been on a roll lately. I think it’s best if you tread a bit more carefully around her.’

Mu Yu raised her brows. Is he talking to other women in the middle of the night? How much free time does he have on his hands?

Something wasn’t right—this was not the profile picture she remembered seeing on Qin Jinhuan’s QQ!

No, she thought, this is not his QQ!

“Sh*t!” Mu Yu cursed when she saw that Qing Qing was the only friend listed in this QQ.

What could this possibly mean?

An affair? Mu Yu’s eyes widened at the idea of this.

She felt her heart drop, and her first instinct was to open up the conversation history to find out just how well Qin Jinhuan had gotten to know this girl.

The bathroom door opened just as she had clicked into the conversation history.

She glanced up and locked eyes with Qin Jinhuan, who looked surprised to see her.

“Yu? What are you doing here?” he asked as he rushed toward the desk. With one swift move, he closed the lid of his laptop.

“What are you doing? Go away!”

Mu Yu pried his hand away so she could open the lid again. She had already taken note of the frequent exchanges in the conversation history, and while she had not been able to finish reading everything, she had seen the words ‘she’s been getting on my nerves’ appear in one of the messages.

The word ‘she’ could only be referring to her. After all, Mu Yu had been fighting with him these past couple of days.

“Yu, are you here to ask me to go back into the bedroom?” Qin Jinhuan asked with a playful grin stretched over his face, wedging himself firmly between Mu Yu and the desk.

“Move!” she snapped, standing up abruptly.

She was beginning to wonder if ‘Qing Qing’ was really Yin Anran in disguise. Mu Yu was determined to find out the truth now; if Qin Jinhuan deleted everything after this, she would have nothing to proceed on.

“It’s getting late. Let’s go to bed,” Qin Jinhuan coaxed with a pleasant voice. He seemed unfazed as though he could not understand what she had just told him.

The fact that he was getting in the way made her blood boil. He was definitely hiding something, and, seeing as he would not budge, Mu Yu pulled him up by the elbow. She glared at him balefully. “Move! If you don’t, I swear I’ll break your arm!” she threatened.

Her determination was exasperating, but he smiled nonetheless. “That’s my QQ account for work.” He began to reason with her, “it’s confidential—you can’t look at it.”

“A QQ account for work?” Mu Yu sneered, then, with a humorless smirk, she went on, “Do you think I’m an idiot? Do I look like a three-year-old to you? Let me tell you this, Qin Jinhuan; I’ve already seen part of your recent conversation.”

“What?” Qin Jinhuan jumped. “What did you see?”