Mu Yu gave him a sideways glance. “What do you think?” she asked in a sing-song voice, clearly mocking him now.

Qin Jinhuan stared at her for a moment and said nothing more. “Regardless of what you actually saw…” he began in a cautioning tone, “it’s company-related and highly confidential—you can’t tell anybody about it. We’d get in trouble if word of it gets out.”

“Company-related and highly confidential?” Mu Yu was incredulous, but regarded him with suspicion as she demanded, “Well, then, tell me who’s this Qing Qing.”

“Secretary Zhi,” Qin Jinhuan answered plainly.

“Secretary Zhi?”

“Yes,” Qin Jinhuan confirmed, leaning his weight against the edge of the desk as he geared up for an explanation. “Qing Tian Group is a huge corporation, and there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes—most of which are confidential—to make sure the company continues to progress. We’re trying to avoid unnecessary risks, so we never use our workplace QQ accounts to communicate in private.”

Mu Yu, as stubborn as she was, tried to denounce him. “And, for some reason, only you and Secretary Zhi are allowed to know about what goes on behind the scenes?”

Zhi Xiaoyin might have been efficient at her job, but she was timid, and she approached everything with wariness. How could someone like that assist Qin Jinhuan on matters as confidential and important as this?

As if hearing her thoughts, Qin Jinhuan went on to explain, “Secretary Zhi acts on my instruction when it comes to these things; the one who’s really doing all the work is Zeyu.”

“But, you only have one friend on this QQ account and it’s Qing Qing!”

“No…” Qin Jinhuan countered, “Zeyu’s on there too.”

“No, he isn’t!” Mu Yu maintained, distinctly recalling that she had only seen Qing Qing and no one else.

“You probably didn’t notice the group chat,” Qin Jinhuan said as he turned around and, blocking Mu Yu’s view, quickly keyed in the password to the laptop. He quickly closed the window with the conversation history that Mu Yu had pulled up earlier, then shifted aside. He jerked his head toward the laptop, indicating to her to take a look at the screen. “See; there are two columns there. ”

Mu Yu fixed her gaze on the screen and saw that there really were two columns—one with Qing Qing’s name, and the other with Wen Zeyu’s and Rong Jian’s. She was friends with Wen Zeyu and Rong Jian on QQ, and she recognized their profile pictures from the conversations she’d had with them before.

“Is Qing Qing really Secretary Zhi?” Mu Yu enquired with narrowed eyes.

“There’s no point lying to you about it,” Qin Jinhuan replied easily.

“So, what were you two talking about just now? She mentioned someone who ‘has been on a roll lately’ and she ‘thinks it’s best if you tread a bit more carefully around her.’ Who was she referring to? And who were you referring to when you said ‘she’s been getting on my nerves’?”

“I was talking about a business partner. She’s an old woman and she’s great at her job, but she’s been getting on my nerves with her incessant nagging. In the best interests of the company, I thought it would be better if I asked Secretary Zhi to handle her instead.”

“I don’t believe you,” Mu Yu argued with her eyes glued to the screen. Her jaw was set and her expression clearly said, “Let me see the conversation history, then I’ll believe you.”

“I really can’t show it to you!” Qin Jinhuan insisted earnestly and became exasperated when he saw how adamant she was. “Did you think I was cheating on you with some other woman?”

Having asked that, Qin Jinhuan sighed and reached out for Mu Yu, chuckling as he cajoled her, “The whole An City is filled with women who would gladly throw themselves at me; if I wanted to cheat on you, I wouldn’t need to resort to such archaic methods.”

Mu Yu knew he made sense, but just as her suspicions were beginning to wane, she thought about how he’d refused to show her the conversation with Qing Qing and grew angry again. “If you weren’t cheating on me, and if it really was just some confidential company matter, then why won’t you show it to me? Do you not trust me at all?”

“No! It’s not that I don’t trust you; it’s just—” Qin Jinhuan clicked his tongue in frustration and casted a brief glance at his laptop, looking torn. “There’s nothing wrong with letting you read the conversation, but I’m worried that you might start questioning my ethics and you’d look at me differently.”

Mu Yu’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Is it that serious? You didn’t do anything illegal, did you?”

“No, don’t worry. I know the law and I wouldn’t deliberately break it.” Qin Jinhuan gently pulled her down into the seat and leaned forward, placing his hands on both her shoulders as he said softly, “When I said you might start questioning my ethics, what I meant was that if I’d told you about all the things we’ve done—the special arrangements we’ve made for our clients—to secure business deals, you might disapprove of them.”

“Give me an example.”

“A few days ago, Zeyu arranged for two good-looking men to accompany a female client of ours, and it was only yesterday when he made arrangements for a male client to luxuriate in the company of three women.”

“Three women?!”

“That’s right.”

Mu Yu stood up abruptly. “If you make these arrangements for your clients when they come to you for business deals, wouldn’t it mean that they would do the same for you if you were in their shoes?”

Qin Jinhuan’s smile was humorless. “See how you’re already questioning my sense of ethics? In reality, these things boil down to personal preferences; I’m only interested in making business deals and I have no interest in… all the other stuff.”

Mu Yu snorted. “Oh, you aren’t interested in ‘all the other stuff’? Really? Who are you trying to kid? Don’t make it sound like you don’t ask for it all the time.”

“My bad—that wasn’t what I meant. What I mean, however, is that I have no interest in other women.” Qin Jinhuan drew Mu Yu into his arms and quickly planted a kiss on her cheek, then said playfully, “I’m only interested in you.”

“Stop it,” Mu Yu snapped and, not too gently, pushed his head with her finger. “If a beautiful seductress was to make a move on you, I hardly think you’d be so valiant as to reject her advances.”

Qin Jinhuan straightened himself and pulled Mu Yu closer to him, then murmured softly into her ear, “Darling…”

“What are you doing?” Mu Yu shrunk back, blushing furiously as she pinched him. “Behave yourself! Don’t act all crazy!”

With his arms still around her, Qin Jinhuan chuckled as a teasing grin stretched across his face. “I’m crazy for you.”

“Pfft! Shameless Beast Qin.”

Mu Yu pushed him away so she could go back to the room. She had only just turned away when Qin Jinhuan hugged her from behind, his arms tightening around her. “You know, darling, I need someone to comfort me, too,” he whispered, mercilessly teasing her.

“I’m tired. I’m going back to bed.” Mu Yu rolled her eyes at him as she said this and walked out of the study without sparing him a second glance.

It was only when the door closed behind Mu Yu that Qin Jinhuan let out a sigh of relief. He turned to his laptop and activated it, then deleted his conversation history with Qing Qing.

It had been for contingency reasons when Qin Jinhuan added Wen Zeyu and Rong Jian with this QQ, but he had not expected for it to come in handy so soon. He was lucky that he had intervened before Mu Yu could finish reading the conversation between Qing Qing and himself; otherwise, she would have discovered that Qing Qing was, in fact, Jiang Wenwen. He shuddered when he thought about how things could have gone wrong if that had happened; Mu Yu would think that he was fooling her all along, and she would be so mad at him that she would no longer listen to his explanations.

Qin Jinhuan was about to close the window for QQ when a sense of uneasiness gnawed at him. Changing his mind, he clicked into his conversation with Qing Qing again and began typing.

‘Yu has found out about this account, but she didn’t read all of our conversation history. I told her that Qing Qing was Secretary Zhi, but, just to be safe, you should delete our conversation history too. Don’t reply.’

After sending the message, Qin Jinhuan deleted the conversation once more and exited QQ before shutting down his laptop. Then, he went downstairs to look for Li Xianglan. He retreated to his bedroom after that.

Upon finding the bedroom door unlocked, Qin Jinhuan was relieved to know that the storm between Mu Yu and himself had finally blown over. He entered the room with a smile—only to be shocked when a pillow flew toward him. He caught the pillow deftly and turned to look at Mu Yu in surprise. She was standing with her hands on her hips, glowering at him.

“Darling, why—”

“Because I’m angry!”

Qin Jinhuan broke into a placating smile. He threw the pillow aside and went over to where she stood, then held her as he asked, “What’s wrong this time?”

“Again? I’ve been angry since the beginning! I’ve been angry since you decided to defend Yin Anran—and you did that unconditionally! I only went into your study to confront you on this!” It was only after returning to the bedroom that Mu Yu recalled the actual reason she had gone to look for him in the first place.

“Oh, you silly little thing, are you still upset about that?” Qin Jinhuan beamed and pinched her cheeks, then said patiently, “I didn’t defend her unconditionally, you know. I was merely standing in a third-person point of view for the purposes of discussing the matter at hand. I didn’t want to speak up at first, but when I saw Dong Yueyun and Qin Wentao acting so full of themselves, I had to say something. Come on; don’t be angry—didn’t you always say that anger is just punishing oneself for someone else’s mistake? Don’t punish yourself anymore; it breaks my heart to see you do that.”

“How witty of you.” Mu Yu rolled her eyes at his words. In truth, she was no longer angry about the incident, but she wanted Qin Jinhuan to think she was. “Besides, I don’t even know for sure if Qing Qing really is Secretary Zhi.”

“Why not quit your job as a forensic doctor and be my personal assistant at the company instead? You could take over from Secretary Zhi and help me resolve all these little things.”

Mu Yu scoffed. “Who do you think you are? How shameless could you be? I’m the wife of the CEO of Qing Tian Group, and you think you can hire me to be some personal assistant?”

Qin Jinhuan grinned. “I can’t help that you’re so attractive, Madam CEO. My admiration—no, my love for you—burns like an eternal flame…”

“Stop! I may be attractive, but I’m certainly not dumb. I’m perfectly comfortable being the CEO’s wife, so why would I even go and become your lowly personal assistant?”

“Well, if you don’t want to be my personal assistant, then don’t go around thinking that I’m doing something shady behind your back.”

“Your shady arrangements do not interest me in the slightest. Goodnight.”

“Wait.” Qin Jinhuan kept his hold on her.

“What is it?”

“You must be hungry. Do you wanna eat some noodles?”

Mu Yu grimaced in disgust and pushed him away. “Ew, no! Gross!”

Qin Jinhuan was confused and threw his head back when he realized after a while, then started laughing while pointing at her.

Tears were already running down his face as he continued laughing. Seeing this, Mu Yu became flustered. “What are you laughing about?”

“N-Noodles… you think I meant—hahaha… Noodles…” Qin Jinhuan could barely get the words out.

She turned her face away indignantly. “You can laugh all you want, but I’m not in the mood for ‘noodles’! That’s disgusting! You—”

Mu Yu was cut off by someone knocking on the door. She glanced over just as Li Xianglan’s voice came from the other side. “Young Master, the noodles are ready.”

“Coming!” Qin Jinhuan answered as he went over to open the door, barely suppressing his laughter.

Sh*t! He was talking about actual noodles!

Mu Yu blushed, feeling the tips of her ears turning red with embarrassment.

“Darling, I had no idea that you were so quick to catch on, and so smoothly, too!” Qin Jinhuan teased, as he placed a huge bowl of noodles before her.

“Stop it!” Mu Yu whined, then aimed a kick at his leg. She snatched up the chopsticks and knelt by the coffee table, quietly slurping up the noodles.

Mu Yu had been so angry earlier on that she had forgotten all about dinner, and by the time her anger had dissipated, her stomach had begun grumbling in protest. She had planned on eating snacks to get through the night, but it looked like Qin Jinhuan had been one step ahead of her when he had asked Li Xianglan to cook some noodles.

Qin Jinhuan knelt by the coffee table, too, beaming as he watched Mu Yu eat her supper. “Slow down or you’ll burn your tongue,” he pointed out gently. “You look like Qiqi when you scarf down your food like that.”

“Does Qiqi eat fast, too?”

“She does. She said that when she was a child, she didn’t want to waste time on eating when she could be helping her grandma make some extra cash, so she would shovel down her food just so she could get back to work.”

Mu Yu slammed her chopsticks down on the coffee table, and the impact made Qin Jinhuan jump.

“What’s wrong?” Qin Jinhuan’s eyes searched her face nervously.

“Quick! Give me your phone! I need to call Chief Rong! I just remembered what I wanted to tell him!”