The Hope You Gave Me: 60-Yalu River

Her face turned red, her eyes were a little disappointed, but she expected it, she smiled embarrassedly, and lowered her head into silence.

Seeing that she didn’t look up after pinching her fingers for a long time, he changed the subject: “Actually, I have something to look for you.”

“Oh?” Only then did she raise her face, her blushing still lingering, and her eyes fell on a pot of orchids on the windowsill.

“I want to do a paternity test, the kind that is judicially effective.” He took out a form and several printed documents from his bag: “This is the application form and the agreement for entrusting the appraisal, which needs your signature. Then we make an appointment, and the three of us will go to the forensic identification center for sampling, can you see it?”

His voice was soft, rarely gentle and polite.

She took it over and looked at it seriously and asked, “Are all three going? Can’t you just go with Su Quan?”

“I asked carefully. There are two types of paternity tests: ‘personal appraisal’ and ‘forensic appraisal’. Only forensic appraisal has legal effect. After Su Quan grows up, he may need to go through some procedures, such as visa, study abroad, immigration , overseas medical treatment or inheritance, etc., I need a strong proof of paternity.”

“Inheritance?” She was startled. “Whose estate? Yours?”

“Yes.” He nodded, “I have written him into my will. I am not married, and my parents and brother are rich enough to not need my property, so Su Quan is the sole heir to my property. Su If Tian was still alive, so would she.”

“Is this… too early?” She looked at his young face and was in a trance, “You are only thirty years old.”

“Not early. I have a heart attack and may die suddenly at any time.”

She bit her lip and said, “Okay.”

Then picked up the pen and signed quickly: “Tell me in advance when you make an appointment.”

I didn’t expect her to be so cheerful, he was slightly surprised: “Yes, thank you.”

After Su Quan came back, Min Hui played with him for an hour before leaving. The child has changed so fast, he is not so clingy anymore, and the habit of touching his breast and feeding his milk has disappeared. After eating, she would put the dishes in the sink by herself, put away the toys that she played with, dress herself, go to the toilet, and even play the piano for 20 minutes every day… Min Hui couldn’t help feeling a little ashamed. I am too unqualified as a mother: the child is frail and sick from birth, she is busy with work, has no plans for the child’s training, is spoiled a lot, and is not patient enough. For example, Su Quan wants to wear shoes every time, she dislikes The speed is too slow, and he often wears the wrong left and right. Every time he is not allowed to wear it, he would rather do it himself.

“You still know how to educate children,” she couldn’t help but sigh, “Quanquan seems to have grown up a lot overnight.”

“It’s your genetics. Your child is smart and learns quickly,” he said.

Min Hui smiled without saying a word, and the two of them played sticks to each other – this was the first time.

Before leaving, Xin Qi took her to the elevator door and suddenly asked, “You don’t seem to be going well recently. Can I help you?”

She shook her head: “No.”

“You’re welcome,” the elevator came. He pressed the elevator door to keep it from closing, and said earnestly, “You know I’m capable of helping you.”

“I really don’t need to, I still fight my own battles.”

“But don’t use bricks.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t be impulsive, don’t do stupid things.”

“Understood.”

The elevator door closed slowly, but her unconcerned look made him even more worried.

***

The next afternoon, Xin Qi met Deng Chen at the company. The two chatted for a while. Xin Qi suddenly asked, “Do you have any new clues about the lawsuit between Min Hui and Cheng Qirang?”

Deng Chen shook his head: “All the materials that can be obtained have been handed over to you. Once sexual harassment occurs in the workplace, it is difficult to find out the truth. Because the incident happened suddenly, it is often in a private and closed space, and it is difficult to obtain evidence. “Although he was ordered to investigate the matter, Xin Qi didn’t seem to care from the beginning to the end. There are few replies to the information sent, and this is the first time he has taken the initiative to ask.

“Not a single witness?”

“In an interview, Min Hui once mentioned a witness who happened to be walking into Cheng Qirang’s office and saw Cheng Qirang’s harassing behavior. But I don’t know why this person did not testify for her. Or Testified, but not accepted by the court.”

Xin Qi frowned: “If someone testified and witnessed it with their own eyes, why can’t they be believed?”

“Because most of the witnesses’ identities are also employees, the court may not accept the witnesses on the grounds that they have an interest in the perpetrator and the victim.” Deng Chen said.

“Who are the witnesses? Can you find out?”

“Due to the witness’s request to protect privacy, the reports and materials available on the market have not revealed this person’s identity. I sent someone to inquire about the inside of Guanchao, and there are three theories: some people said it was Mi Keer, Cheng Qirang’s secretary, she often goes in and out of the office, so she is most likely to bump into it.” Deng Chen took a sip of coffee and added, “Some people say that it is Dong Yue, Cheng Qirang’s assistant, and Wei Yongcheng’s predecessor. This person is also a software expert. The orientation is mysterious, and there are gossips that he likes Cheng Qirang, and the two have a good personal relationship. Dong Yue also often goes in and out of Cheng Qirang’s office.”

“…”

“After the sexual harassment incident, this person was inexplicably transferred to the European headquarters by Zheng Yiting. In fact, it was a promotion, but people said that he was very unhappy when he left. Guanchao specially held a party for him. A big man hugged Cheng Qirang and cried bitterly at the party, which made him very embarrassed.”

Xin Qi snorted and laughed: “This ‘President Cheng’ has a very rich private life.”

“The last statement is Lin Xiyue, who was in the sales department at the time. Before Min Hui came to watch the tide, she and Cheng Qirang got very close. There were many rumors about them in the company, but no one had any real evidence. Not anyone can enter the office, Lin Xiyue is considered his cronies, and she often reported to him during that time because of her work relationship, maybe she saw something, but chose to be silent.”

“Lin Xiyue?” Xin Qi couldn’t help pondering, remembering the disgusted expression on Minhui’s face when he saw Lin Xiyue in Beijing not long ago.

“I have asked all three of them in private. Both Mi Keer and Lin Xiyue said that they had signed a non-disclosure agreement with Guanchao, and they had no comment on this matter. Dong Yue told me that that day he I did go to see Cheng Qirang a few times, but I never met Min Hui, and he didn’t testify in court.”

“I think Lin Xiyue is the most likely.” Xin Qi said.

“Why?”

“Min Hui told me that Lin Xiyue used to be friends with her, but not anymore. Something must have happened between them.”

“Both of them were promoted by Cheng Qirang, and both of them are very close to Cheng Qirang. There may be a competitive relationship between the two.”

“Hmm.” Xin Qi walked to the window and looked at the morning clock building opposite in deep thought.

“If there is no strong evidence in a sexual harassment case, it will be difficult to win the case. Besides, Guanchao International is a private company. Cheng Qirang holds an important position and is the son-in-law of the chairman. No matter how much money Guanchao spends, he will be protected. It is difficult to gain the upper hand against an institution, so she has to use social media to expose the truth and appeal for herself. She has the courage to do so. I heard that there were ups and downs at the time, and the stock of Guanchao also plummeted. After a few days, Zheng Lan finally had to go out and solve the crisis in person, hired a lawyer to sue Min Hui for defamation, and sent out a press release to discredit Min Hui. As for Min Hui, she obviously had no combat experience and lost a crushing defeat. I didn’t succeed, so I took a bite’.”

Xin Qi paced uneasily. After a while, he turned around and asked, “What about yourself? After investigating for so long, what do you think?”

“I am willing to trust Min Hui, this is my personal judgment.”

“Why?”

“There is no reason, just intuition.” Deng Chen pointed to his head, “From the perspective of her handling of Su Tian’s disappearance, she has a strong sense of morality and a sense of responsibility. After a long walk, you will not meet at Yong’an Bridge.”

Xin Qi was silent.

“That’s right,” Deng Chen suddenly remembered one thing: “Min Hui will go to Beijing with Cheng Qirang on a business trip tomorrow.”

He looked up: “How do you know?”

“She hired me a bodyguard.”

“What?” Xin Qi was dumbfounded, “Public?”

“Yeah. She said that Cheng Qirang asked her to go to Beijing by name. It was just the two of them and no other colleagues. She felt unsafe.”

“Okay.” Xin Qi looked at his watch, “Go ahead, I have a meeting soon.”

***

He ended the meeting in half an hour and returned to the office to drink a glass of water. The secretary came in and said, “Lin Xiyue is here.”

“Invite her in.”

Suddenly there was a scent in the office, and Lin Xiyue walked in with light steps.

She was wearing a lake green dress today with her long hair flowing down to her waist. She is a go-getter under Chen Yuan. She has worked in BBG for two years and has maintained the top performance in a row. Xin Qi has a good impression of her.

“Mr. Xin, are you looking for me?” she asked with a smile.

Although she is thirty-one years old, Lin Xiyue has delicate skin, petite body, and slender hands and feet like a girl. In the shopping mall, Chen Yuan will send her out for many uncertain things, and she will most likely be able to pull back the defeat.

“Yes, please take a seat.” Xin Qi said politely, “What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? Juice?”

“Juice bar.”

He asked the secretary to bring a bottle of juice, she unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip, looking at the scar on his face curiously: “Mr. Xin, is your face okay?”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it… the window glass?”

He was startled.

“I saw it.” She said softly, her voice full of concern, “I was also on the side of the road at the time. I saw Min Hui…”

Xin Qi coughed, and she stopped immediately knowingly.

“Xiyue, I want to ask you about Min Hui.”

She straightened up subconsciously: “Please speak.”

“You know Min Hui before, right? Do you know her?” Xin Qi sat on the opposite sofa, narrowed his eyes, and said lightly, “About her and Cheng Qirang…I want to know something.” /

Lin Xiyue was startled, put the juice on the coffee table, and cleared her throat seriously: “Mr. Xin, if you have any questions, feel free to ask, I know everything.”

Seeing that she was a little nervous, Xin Qi smiled and reassured: “Please don’t worry too much. Although Min Hui is my son’s mother, I have been with her for a short time, and we are not very familiar with each other. Unexpected.”

She is mulling over the overtones of his words.

Xin Qi continued: “She and I have our own lives now, but we both want to fight for the custody of our children. I heard that you used to be a colleague with her when you worked in Guanchao, and I want to know about you first. Take a look at this person. In this case, I can do some strategic preparations when dealing with her in the future.”

“Understood.” Lin Xiyue thought for a while and said, “Only 10% of the staff at Watching Waves are women, and most of them are in administrative and secretarial work. Huaqing University has recruited many graduates, and Min Hui is the best one. She is also very beautiful, so she became a popular figure as soon as she entered the tide. Boys lined up to pursue her, and some were just secret crushes. Some of them are very explicit, and the person who chases her most fiercely is called Wang Tongyuan, who is the person in charge of her team. Wang Tongyuan is very infatuated with Min Hui, and uses his position to launch various offensives against her, often using the name of work to keep her and stay with her. She worked overtime together. Min Hui was overwhelmed and threatened to complain to HR. Only then did Wang Tongyuan restrain herself, but she began to wear small shoes for her at work. I don’t know why Cheng Qi let me know about this, but Wang Tongyuan didn’t even know it after a few days. He was transferred, and Min Hui was appointed as the team leader. You must know that she had only worked for three months at that time, and she had not become a regular. That team was the gold team of the R&D Department of Guanchao. There were many senior software engineers, some People are very unconvinced when they hear this appointment…”

“What happened later? How did the affair between her and Cheng Qirang happen?” Xin Qi asked.

“Cheng Qirang admired Min Hui very much and praised her by name at several conferences. Min Hui’s project at that time called “BlackDot” was the first project of Guanchao to test the waters of AI medical treatment. Cheng Qirang wanted to be an instant hit, right The project is very dedicated and spares no effort to bring Min Hui to promote and publicize it everywhere. Of course, Min Hui is also very ambitious, taking the project to participate in industry competitions and winning a grand prize. However, there are also many people who are not convinced and feel that without Cheng Qirang’s help, Min Hui can’t write such a good code. There are also some rumors that the relationship between the two has become so close that it exceeds the scope of colleagues…” Lin Xiyue talked casually, with a very calm tone.

Xin Qi’s side is also calm: “How about you? What do you think?”

“Cheng Qirang is a legend in Huaqing University, and he is very professional. He was born in a Kochi family, and his parents are local famous doctors. Min Hui also admires and admires him.”

“So you and Min Hui… have a good relationship?”

“It was like this at the beginning. Although she and I are not majors, we both like to go to clothing stores and we can talk very well on topics such as clothing. The apartments we rent are also very close, and we often spend time together. commute, eat together, watch movies.”

“Anything to talk about?”

“Not really. She’s nerdy, and I like parties. She likes to play games, and I like K-song. We’re just acquaintances, but we’re not inseparable. At that time, her mother had cancer, and she always went to the hospital. , I’m not in a good mood…”

“Has she talked to you about sexual harassment?”

“No.” She bit her lip and gave a wry smile, “She was quite short of money at the time, and her mother spent a lot of money on medical treatment. Usually, as long as Cheng Qirang is mentioned, she always has a tone of gratitude. Like Wang Tongyuan, she must be very annoying, and she will definitely complain and complain in front of me. So… I was surprised that a sexual harassment incident suddenly appeared. Min Hui never explained the process in front of me. A bad word from Qi Rang, and it is obvious that she secretly likes others… So I think… in the middle… um… In short, I don’t really believe that Cheng Qi Rang would do such a thing. Even if he had this idea, he would not He would choose to be in his own company, under his wife’s eyes. Before that, he and Min Hui often traveled together for business and meetings, and it was easy to want something to happen. I also persuaded her to keep a distance from Cheng Qirang, after all With a wife, Zheng Yiting is also a powerful person…”

“So on the day of the incident, you didn’t see anything?” Xin Qi suddenly interrupted.

“That day, I happened to have a contract that Cheng Qirang needed to sign. He said that he could find him anytime when the contract was completed. As the secretary was not here, I pushed the door and went in.” She paused deliberately and glanced at Xin Qi. , found that his face was indifferent, so he said: “I saw Min Hui talking to Cheng Qirang, as if he was talking about the project, I was inconvenient to disturb, so I left. Min Hui later told me that not long after I left , Cheng Qirang started to harass her, but she couldn’t find any witnesses and wanted to ask me to testify. I thought, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I was very angry. I felt that I was not friends enough. I didn’t help her at the critical moment, so I quarreled with me, and WeChat was blocked. Actually, I was also very wrong. At that time, HR was conducting investigations and looking for people to talk to, and Min Hui insisted that I was a witness. , I was interrogated by HR for a long time. Later, when they filed a lawsuit, I was called to interrogate again – my psychological shadow has not yet been filled. To be honest, her relationship with Cheng Qirang is so close, even if something happened, I would not Not surprised.”

“In other words, do you think that there is indeed some kind of intimate relationship between Min Hui and Cheng Qirang, and even if things do happen, they agree with each other?” Xin Qi said.

“I don’t know what happened between them, but I know Min Hui’s temper. She will say something directly when she wants something, and she must get it.”

“What do you mean: What did Min Hui want, but Cheng Qirang didn’t give her, so she decided to use the sexual harassment case to bring him down?”

“Probably,” Lin Xiyue shrugged. “She had just started working at the time, and she didn’t understand the cruelty of the workplace. She also had a strong competitive mentality, and she wanted to win and overwhelm others no matter what she did. Relatively violent, easy to see, impulsive in doing things – I have persuaded her many times, asking her to restrain a little, not to think that she is NumberOne at every turn…”

Xin Qi didn’t make a statement, just listened carefully.

“Min Hui doesn’t have any bad intentions, really. Cheng Qirang also pampers her very much. There are many green lights on projects, and too many people in the company are jealous. Min Hui is more confident at work, or willful, plus she has a CTO. Everyone should follow her. Maybe they had a fight with Cheng Qirang and sued him as soon as they got angry. I didn’t expect the trouble to get bigger and bigger. Continue to tear… In addition, her mother was in critical condition during that time, her mood was fluctuating, and she was prone to make irrational decisions. In short, she was not a bad person, but she didn’t know that the workplace was not as beautiful, clean, and clean as she imagined. So fair, some things will inevitably happen, we can’t react too aggressively, and if we are too aggressive, we will be backlashed…”

The secretary knocked on the door and said, “Mr. Chen wants to see you on something.”

“Invite him in.”

Xin Qi stood up, sent Lin Xiyue to the door, and said lightly, “I understand. Thank you for telling me so much.”

Lin Xiyue nodded and left, Chen Yuan hurried in, he is the financial director of BBG’s Asia Pacific Department, his English name is Frank, holding a stack of documents in his hand: “Ethan, this is a joint investment between BBG and Guanchao. The agreement, I have drawn up—”

Xin Qi took it in his hand and flipped it over, then put the document aside and whispered, “Frank, I hope you find a reason to let Lin Xiyue leave BBG within three months.”

Chen Yuan was taken aback and asked, “Why? She’s doing a good job with us.”

“So you can’t be fired directly, you have to find a reason.”

“But—”

“Is it not enough to give you three months to find a reason?”

“Enough is enough, Ethan, you want someone to go, one day is enough.”

“Let me do it, one day is enough. But she was hired by you, so give you time to deal with it.”

“Okay.” Chen Yuan is also a veteran in the workplace. Seeing that Xin Qi’s tone is firm, he knows that he must have a good reason. He wanted to argue a few words, but he had to nod in agreement, “Then look at the agreement as soon as possible. The tide side is still very positive about our capital injection.”

“Well, let’s slow down for a while.” Xin Qi added, “I still need to think about how BBG will cooperate with Guanchao.”

“…OK.”

“I need to know about Guanchao’s current shareholding structure, do you have any information there?”

“Yes, I will forward you a copy immediately.”

“Thank you.”

When Chen Yuan left, Deng Chen’s phone came in: “Ethan, I just received a text message from Min Hui, she cancelled the bodyguard thing.”

He was a little confused: “Why? Not going to Beijing?”

“Go. Maybe I think it’s not appropriate to do this after weighing it… Is it too much to bring a bodyguard on a business trip with your boss?” There was a hint of ridicule in Deng Chen’s tone on the other end of the microphone.

“Do you have her schedule for Beijing?”

“Yes.”

“Send me a copy.”

“Hey, she just posted a Moments.” Deng Chen said again.

“What?”

“With a poster of “The Avengers”, there is only one sentence on it: ‘Majestic, high-spirited, across the Yalu River’.”

Xin Qi was drinking tea, and when she heard this, she almost choked: “Majestic and high-spirited? What does she want to do?”

“I don’t know.” There was a little more worry in Deng Chen’s voice, “I only know one thing: she is definitely not afraid of death, because she has already died once.”