Lin Wanwan's cheeks flushed with a faint pink hue. She picked up a freshly boiled piece of tripe with her chopsticks and blew on it to cool it down, but she didn't put it in her own bowl.
She tilted her head up slightly, bit one end of the tripe with her pearly white teeth, leaned forward, and offered it directly to Chen Zhi's lips.
Chen Zhi cooperatively opened his mouth, catching the tripe along with her two soft lips.
Lin Wanwan naturally fell into Chen Zhi's arms, giggling happily.
Just as Chen Zhi wrapped his arm around her waist, preparing for the next move, the phone on the table suddenly vibrated.
Still dizzy from the kiss, Lin Wanwan leaned softly against Chen Zhi's chest. She casually swiped to answer the call and turned on the speakerphone.
"Hello, Sister Su," Lin Wanwan's voice still carried a breathless, charming innocence.
"Wanwan, are you still with Chen Zhi right now?"
"Yeah, we're having dinner." Lin Wanwan completely missed the strange tone in her agent's voice.
"Wanwan, ask Chen Zhi right away if his company is planning to sign you as their exclusive spokesperson!" Su Man took a deep breath, seemingly trying to calm her excitement. "I just ran into their company's CFO at a dinner party. That President Pei decided on the spot to sign a three-year, one-hundred-million-yuan exclusive domestic endorsement contract with you!"
As soon as these words came out, Lin Wanwan's slightly muddled brain instantly cleared up. Her eyes widened little by little as she turned to look at Chen Zhi.
"Hubby, is this a surprise you prepared for me?" Tears of emotion shimmered in Lin Wanwan's eyes.
Chen Zhi was a bit confused, having no idea why Pei Ningxue would suddenly invest in her own romantic rival.
But seeing Lin Wanwan looking so moved that she was ready to devote her entire life to him, Chen Zhi's mind raced, and he decided to shamelessly take the credit for it.
"Cough, I was actually going to wait until you got back to the hotel to tell you." Chen Zhi reached out and pinched Lin Wanwan's cheek. "Seeing as you just won the championship, I wanted to give you top-tier commercial resources that match your worth. Best to keep the wealth within our own family, right?"
Lin Wanwan was overwhelmed with emotion. She threw her arms around Chen Zhi's neck, ready to kiss him again.
However, Su Man immediately poured a bucket of cold water over the moment.
"But, that President Pei added a very strict condition," Su Man's tone turned serious. "Within these three years, you absolutely cannot publicly announce any romantic relationship. If the paparazzi catch solid evidence of you dating, you'll face an astronomical breach-of-contract penalty. Wanwan, tell me honestly, how far along are you and Chen Zhi right now?"
Lin Wanwan looked at Chen Zhi in disbelief, her eyes turning red.
"Are you ashamed of me?" Lin Wanwan's voice carried a hint of a sob.
"No!" Chen Zhi cried foul. He adored Wanwan, how could he be ashamed?
Pei Ningxue's move was too sinister.
How was this giving Lin Wanwan resources? This was clearly putting a knife right to Chen Zhi's throat!
"Then why did you add this condition?" Lin Wanwan pushed Chen Zhi away, tears welling up in her eyes. "Do you think that now you have me, you don't want to be responsible for me anymore? You want to use a hundred million to brush me off and keep me hidden in the dark for three years?"
"Wanwan, listen to me explain."
"I won't listen!" Lin Wanwan sniffled, tears falling drop by drop, feeling incredibly wronged.
Chen Zhi quickly slid over, forcefully pulling her into his arms and clumsily wiping away her tears.
"This really isn't my fault." Chen Zhi decisively passed the buck. "Look, I've been spending every day with you lately. I handed all company matters over to the management team a long time ago. That CFO I hired is a workaholic who only cares about money and not people. She must be looking at it from the perspective of the company's interests, thinking that you're on the rise and that announcing a relationship would severely impact your commercial value. That's why she added this clause on her own!"
Chen Zhi continued to throw dirt on Pei Ningxue. "That President Pei has a very weird temper. She likes to throw her weight around at the company. I'll definitely dock her bonus when I get back!"
"Really?" Lin Wanwan looked up at him with teary eyes.
"Truer than gold!" Chen Zhi raised three fingers, swearing solemnly. "If I'm lying to you, I'll never find a girlfriend for the rest of my life!"
Lin Wanwan smiled through her tears and playfully punched Chen Zhi's chest.
"You only know how to lie to me," Lin Wanwan said coquettishly. "You already have me, yet you still make such useless vows."
Chen Zhi let out a long sigh of relief in his heart.
Being hopelessly romantic was truly the greatest invention in human history.
As long as you offered a few sweet words and stroked their ego a bit, they could be easily coaxed.
"Then this contract... should I still sign it?" Lin Wanwan leaned conflictedly against Chen Zhi's shoulder. "If we get caught, a hundred million in penalties... I couldn't afford it even if I sold myself."
"Sign it! Why wouldn't you?" Chen Zhi waved his hand generously, acting like a wealthy tycoon. "It's the company's money, we might as well take it. As for going public, as long as you want to, I can announce it with you anytime. At worst, I'll just pay the one hundred million penalty to the company out of my own pocket—it's just moving money from my left hand to my right!"
Hearing this, Lin Wanwan completely surrendered.
She hugged Chen Zhi tightly, all her grievances vanishing into thin air, and took the initiative to offer a sweet kiss.
"Hubby, you're the best."
The two of them acted lovey-dovey in the private room for quite a while longer, until Su Man frantically urged them via WeChat, prompting Chen Zhi to pay the bill and lead Lin Wanwan out.
At 10:30 PM.
Chen Zhi escorted Lin Wanwan back to her hotel.
Watching Lin Wanwan's retreating figure, the smile on Chen Zhi's face vanished completely.
He rubbed his somewhat stiff cheeks and hailed a taxi by the road.
"Driver, Wanliu Academy."
Sitting in the back seat, Chen Zhi watched the night scenery rapidly receding outside the window, feeling anxious.
This woman, Pei Ningxue, usually seemed so quiet, but when she made a move, she went big.
She was using this method to tell Chen Zhi: You want to play, I'll play with you, but I definitely won't let you have an easy time of it.
Chen Zhi took out his phone and opened Pei Ningxue's WeChat.
The chat history was still stuck on the word "Scram" from this afternoon.
I definitely have to show her who's boss when I get back. She's been getting a bit too full of herself lately.
Half an hour later, the taxi stopped at the main gate of Wanliu Academy.
Chen Zhi used facial recognition to enter the community and took the elevator straight to the top-floor duplex.
He entered the password.
With two beeps, the door lock popped open.
The main lights in the house weren't on; only a floor lamp in the corner of the living room cast a warm, dim glow.
Pei Ningxue was wearing a black silk slip nightgown, her legs crossed, sitting lazily on the sofa.
She was holding a tablet, looking at something. Her originally cold and elegant face appeared even fairer in the light.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, she slowly turned her head, her gaze landing on Chen Zhi.
"President Chen," Pei Ningxue smiled. "How was your dinner?"
"I thought you wouldn't be able to bear coming back tonight."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
