Chapter 42

Ding Chenhai greeted them warmly, “ Good Morning Mr Lu! Good morning….um”, he looked at the woman next to Lu Zheng,” Ms Yan.”

“You know her ? “ Lu Zheng pretended to be surprised. His performance was flawless.

Yan Liang had to make every effort to match his performance; she smiled at Ding Chenhai as well.

But before Yan Liang could explain, Ding Chenhai explained on her behalf, “ The cosmetics shops of my company have also started stocking a large quantity of Ya Yan products, aren’t Yan Liang and I almost friends?”

As Ding Chenhai talked, all three of them walked towards the interior of the restaurant.

Inside, there was a long table with lots of snacks on display. The bone china tableware was very elegant. In the dining area, on each round table, a vase of fresh fragrant roses was placed. Some people chose to sit, most people were standing at the long table and chatting with friends as they ate. The whole atmosphere was very relaxed and comfortable.

As soon as Yan Liang came in, the people clustering around the table looked up surprised at the girl Lu Zheng had brought with him. But they soon covered up their expressions and nodded at them, as if nothing had changed.

Yan Liang also played her role to the hilt. She took some crabs on her plate. Ding Chenhai was tempted to ask, “I thought Ms Yan would be very busy now. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Any mention of this matter was extremely troublesome to Yan Liang, but she could not show her real emotions. She smiled at Ding Chenhai , “ Actually everything is in control in Xu, it’s just that the media exaggerated the seriousness of this matter.”

Lu Zheng was at her side and put some salad on Yan Liang’s plate. While this topic was being discussed, he also chipped in. As if complaining about a pampered child, he said, “She is a born empress. She has assigned eunuchs to the relevant government departments to do the work. The results are yet to come out, but many businesses have already rushed to get Ya Yan off the shelves. She doesn’t care. Since she had some free time, she decided to come with me for brunch.”

Lu Zheng inadvertently revealed the whole purpose of this outing. Ding Chenhai had already taken a lemon tart from the tower. He put it back, thought for a while and asked Lu Zheng, “ Is Ya Yan still being displayed on the counters of Ming Ting square ?”

Seeing Mr Ding had taken the bait, Yan Liang’s heart was delighted. Immediately Lu Zheng started, “ Ya Yan..”

But at this moment he winked at Yan Liang giving her permission to step in. She hurriedly interrupted, “ We have already recalled those batches . We don’t know how this problem arose, probably something bought from the low end market provoked these allergies. Normally, purchases from authorised dealers should not create such problems, Mr Ding, what do you say?”

Ding Chenhai just smiled.

It was not clear what he thought, but there was a sudden change in his appetite. Yan Liang was slowly picking food from the table; when she turned back to look at him, his plate was empty. “ Mr Ding, it seems you have no appetite?”

Ding Chenhai was deep in thought, his brow scrunched. He looked at Yan Liang and Lu Xheng and apologised, “ I am sorry, I need to make an urgent call. Its my loss that I cant accompany you anymore.”

So did they manage to convince Ding Chenhai?

Yan Liang was not sure whether they could now relax.

Lu Zheng whispered in her ears,” Guess he will be making an urgent call not to dump Ya Yan!”

She looked at Lu Zheng and shrugged helplessly, “ Hope so.”

Just within half an hour, Lu Zheng managed to introduce her to a lot of people. Finally, they relaxed. The first thing she needed to do was to avoid the eyes of everyone who was watching her so she hastily excused herself, “ I need to go to the washroom.”

Hiding in the bathroom, away from prying eyes, she sat down on the toilet lid and checked the price of Xu shares on her phone. The prices had stabilised. She was surprised. In fact, for a short period of time, the prices had even risen.

It looked like the time it had risen was at the same time that she was in the restaurant with lu Zheng. She could only hope that this was not a coincidence.

Just when she put the bag in the phone and was getting ready to pull the door, she heard the sound of high heels coming into the room.

Her hand stiffened on the door and she silently stood there.

Soon after, two women came in and started talking. “ Today , Xu crashed in the stock market. How can she come to eat a leisurely lunch ? “

“Exactly ! These Xu women are so easy. The older sister hooked up with the old man of Li Bo group, the younger sister is also unable to hold herself back and is trying to hook up with Lu Zheng.”

“ This is really sad. These are daughters of a good family, now forced to selling their body!”

“ Why are you saying “ forced to ?”, Yan Liang may be quite eager .”

Yan Liang was silently listening. She turned back to sit in the toilet lid and thought about what to do, then suddenly changed her mind and opened the door and stepped out.

The two women were standing in front of the mirror. They were shocked to see Yan Liang and stared at her. Yan Liang pretended indifference and went straight to the basin to wash her hands.

When the two women said hello, she didn’t ignore them but calmly smiled at them, as if she hadn’t hear the dialogue before. They tentatively smiled back.

Yan Liang smiled and said, “There is a saying that the man who is fond of gossip goes to hell and his tongue is chopped off. I hope you don’t believe that.”

She watched as their smiles grew stiff, then turned and left the bathroom.

As the door closed behind her and the silence was once again restored, Yan Liang took a deep indrawn breath and went back to face the others in the restaurant.

She saw Lu Zheng a bit farther away and walked towards him. Lu Zheng saw her, and drew a smiling face in the air. Although unwilling, Yan Liang followed his instructions and smiled.

The two made their way to the long table side by side. At one of the round tables, a man was reading a newspaper. As they passed by, he looked up and his eyes caught Yan Liang’s.

He was first surprised, then he saw Lu Zheng by her side and was taken aback even more. He folded his newspaper and got up, “ Mr Lu?”

Yan Liang glanced at the newspaper. Yesterday’s press conference of Xu Jin Fu had been published on the front page, even though he had folded the paper, the photo was visible in the front.

“Weren’t you abroad on a vacation?”

Yan Liang did not recognise this person, Lu Zheng looked at the person and replied, “Something came up in the family, I had to come back early.”

In the family?

This ‘family’ that Lu Zheng has just referred to calmly, what exactly did he mean?

The stranger now looked at Yan Liang.

Obviously she had been classified as Lu Zheng’s family. Lu Zheng gave an innocent look , he introduced the man to Yan Liang , “ This is Lin Rui from Fangda securities. This is Xu’s..”

Before he finished, he was interrupted by Lin Rui, “ I know the Xu family’s second daughter very well.” Lin Rui extended his hand “ I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time, Ms Yan.”

Lu Zheng encouraged her and Yan Liang extended her hand as well .

This intimate drama has been arranged by Lu Zheng in front of one of the country’s biggest brokerage firms for her benefit alone.

Lu Zheng left them to take a phone call. When he came back, he apologised to Lin Rui, “ I’m sorry. There are some things we need to attend to. We will have to leave.”

Lin Rui smiled and nodded, “Then we will talk again later,”

Once they were out of the restaurant, Yan Liang asked, “Where are we going?”

Lu Zheng asked her, “Are you interested in going to the Ming Ting World Fair?”

Truthfully, Yan Liang was more than willing to stay in the restaurant and continue to talk to Lin Rui. He handled big customers and if each person used some of his investments to buy Xu’s stock, that would be enough for a comeback.As long as the stock price stayed stable, and Lu Zheng helped her , Ya yan could also be saved.

“ What would we do there?” Yan Liang looked back wistfully at the restaurant and asked.

“ Change the venue, and play the same drama”, Lu Zheng answered

The Ming Ting world fair was going to be the largest investment of the group. It was also one of the key items on the government’s agenda. This project was supposed to become the city’s largest Central Business District integrated area. Although it was still under construction, the leisure shopping centres, office buildings and semi-enclosed pedestrian streets had already started taking shape.

As Yan Liang entered the site with Lu Zheng, she saw reporters standing there. One suddenly noticed her by Lu Zheng’s side. Lu Zheng was led personally by the manager in charge to inspect the shopping centre.

The reporter followed all the way and he was naturally curious about the interaction between them, “ Mr Lu, is the relationship between you and Ms Yan….”

Lu Zheng’s assistant immediately interrupted the reporter’s question, but saw that Lu Zheng was upset and silently retreated to the side. Lu Zheng did not stop and while walking said, “ Ya Yan’s new herbal range will be placed in the first counter. She was free today so I just brought her to see.”

They stopped as soon as he stopped speaking. Then he pointed to an open space at Yan Liang’s side and said, “That is the space reserved for it.. ..the best position.”

Not only was the reporter surprised, even Yan Liang was stunned speechless. Lu Zheng only smiled at her, a trace of deeper meaning behind that smile.

The reporter’s camera snapped a photo at that instant, storing the scene for eternity; a man pampering his woman, the woman overwhelmed.

She was at a loss on what to do. This was too big a gift.

Back at the car, Yan Liang could not help but ask , “ Why are you helping me ?”

Lu Zheng looked at the phone, and looked at the breaking news on a news portal. He looked up to see her, ignored her question and said , “ This reporter is pretty good. Last time on the cover of a financial magazine, he made me look good.”

Yan Liang glanced at his cell phone. She was surprised the news had already been published.

She retreated and withdrew her gaze and asked again, “ Why?”

He realised that the change in topic was not enough to divert this woman’s attention. When she asked him a second time, he no longer seemed to hear her. With a faraway look he said , “ Since we cannot recover from past mistakes, it is better to give them a beautiful future. This will give more hope to the partners and they will support you.”

But his evasions failed to sway Yan Liang’s determination. As long as he did not answer, she would ask the question over and over again, “ Why?”

Why?

Lu Zheng seemed to put a lot of thought in this, then answered with a laugh, “ Perhaps because I fell in love..”

“……” “…”

“……” “…”

Lu Zheng deliberately paused here.

Yan Liang could feel her whole body stiffen.

With a smile, Lu Zheng added, “ … fell in love with the idea of being your saviour.”

As he finished speaking, he didn’t wait to see her reaction. Instead he bent down to look at the phone to see the photo of the two of them together.

*** ***

This translation for miumiu596.wordpress.com. Please do not copy.

At the same time, someone apart from Lu Zheng was also looking at the same photo…

There was a knock at the door and Jiang Yu Nan moved his gaze from the computer screen and looked at the door after regaining his normal indifferent expression.

This is the expression Secretary Li saw when he entered. However, he had been with Jiang Yu Nan for a long time. Naturally, he could gauge a trace of unusual emotion under the mask of indifference on Jiang Yu Nan’s face.

But he merely said, “ Mr Jiang Shi Jun has arrived.”

“Send him in”, Jiang Shi Jun said while closing the browser.

The photo of the couple, who looked well matched to each other in all aspects of appearance, manners and character, instantly disappeared from the screen..

Phew! This was a longer chapter but don’t you love how LZ is helping YL? We all need heroes like this sometimes..