Financial Workplace Survival Guide – CH 065

Chapter 65 ☆, The Unity of Love and Sex.

That evening, when Zheng Zaochuan came to pick up Xin Xin, she told him about her eventful day. She described in detail how Fu Meng got involved in Yang Manman’s rape case, how Yang Manman had approached her before, and why she had not offered any help.

Xin Xin had already put the matter of the kidnapper’s attempt to plead not guilty, as reported by the Jinshi Public Security Bureau, out of her mind.

“What do you think the truth of this matter is?”

Zheng Zaochuan thoughtfully turned the music down to the lowest setting so that he could hear her rambling.

“I do not think the truth is that important to you.”

Xin Xin was not satisfied with his answer. “How can it not be important? A girl was assaulted.”

Zheng Zaochuan glanced at her and reminded her, “This girl is the one who, after working for less than two years, organized her colleagues to badmouth the boss and then proactively went to the boss to transfer to the most powerful department in the company at the time. If I remember correctly, you are the boss who got stood up, right?”

Xin Xin felt a little guilty.

After all, it was indeed she who, before recounting the incident, embellished and vividly described to Zheng Zaochuan how she was besieged on all sides and tricked by Fu Meng and Yang Manman.

However, she also genuinely felt that the truth about Yang Manman’s rape was still very important.

This feeling was very complex.

Xin Xin thought about it seriously. “It might sound a bit hypocritical, but in my world, these are two different things. I do not like her. I think she is the kind of person who would stab anyone in the back and kill anyone who gets in her way in order to climb up the social ladder. Including when she approached me before, wanting to team up with me to deal with Fu Meng, I also despise that. But I also think that if she is harmed and does not receive fair treatment, am I an accomplice?”

Zheng Zaochuan found it particularly endearing to see her frowning, earnestly trying to find a balance between “disliking” and “pursuing fairness.” She was both an idealist and an ordinary person.

Taking advantage of the traffic light, Zheng Zaochuan quickly leaned over and kissed Xin Xin.

Xin Xin was so shocked she almost jumped up. “Hey, what if we get seen by the security cameras?”

Zheng Zaochuan was amused by her. “I thought you were going to say what if you startled the car next to you, but I did not expect you to care about the electronic camera.”

Xin Xin pouted and said, “I do not need a chastity arch. We are both unmarried, and we are thirty years old. What is there to be ashamed of in kissing? But if we get caught on camera, I will lose money and points. I do not even have enough points to lose myself, let alone points for you to lose.”

Zheng Zaochuan felt his heart melt into a sticky marshmallow. For a moment, he even regretted not being with Xin Xin six or seven years ago, when he first saw the stars.

Their kids could be old enough to run errands now.

When this thought popped into his head, Zheng Zaochuan was startled.

He had never considered having children before, much less felt this way about wanting to be with his partner all the time. Since stepping down as CEO, he had primarily focused on future investment plans.

Although he had been ousted from Hanhai, he had only lost control; he still retained significant influence over shareholding. Now that things had come to this, he was considering whether to sell all his shares and start a new company.

But when he looked at the project proposals he had gathered in the morning, he kept thinking about chatting with Xin Xin on WeChat, then about whether they should take a photoshoot together, and even went through his hard drive to find all the images he had with Xin Xin since they met.

He wanted to make a handmade book to mark their one-year anniversary, to tell Xin Xin about her growth and journey in his eyes.

This pointless fantasy made him consider whether he should take a year off to seriously date.

But he soon realized that this idea would not work. Xin Xin was too busy; she was practically unreachable once she started working.

He texted, “I miss you.”

Xin Xin replied, “I am busy; eat well.”

This dialogue gave Zheng Zaochuan a sense of identification, like a woman feeling resentful and lonely in her boudoir.

Fortunately, they lived together, which greatly increased the time they spent together.

Before they were just friends, they would eat together and chat and watch TV together on the sofa. But since they got together, they’d become less respectable. When they sat on the sofa, they would touch each other and kiss each other, very restless.

If they were a couple who had just met, there may be a period of time for them to get to know each other.

But their relationship was a bit special because, starting from the very beginning of their romance, they were too familiar with each other. Years of friendship meant they knew a great deal about each other, if not everything.

However, if the relationship started entirely from physical intimacy, then this kind of romance seemed a bit too crude.

Xin Xin consulted Mary about this issue.

“Should I start wearing matching lingerie sets every day from now on?”

Mary said indifferently, “What has Zheng Zaochuan not seen? There is no need to waste your time on him.”

Xin Xin felt uneasy. “Having been through so much, is he about to get married and now wants to be an honest man to marry?”

Mary disagreed, offering positive encouragement: “You are being superficial. Look, he knows so many women, and so many of them are desperate for him. But he still likes you and chose you. A man like that would not cheat.”

Xin Xin asked curiously, “Why?”

Mary gently persuaded, “Think about it; there are many men in this world who also want to date many people and have a string of women, but they do not have the means. Zheng Zaochuan is different. He is handsome and rich. He has seen everything, yet he chose you in a garden. This shows that you are a choice he made after careful consideration.”

Mary soothed the bitterness in Xin Xin’s heart.

She told Zheng Zaochuan, “I was planning to wear a beautiful matching lingerie set every day from now on. But I figure you’ve seen everything, so I won’t bother.”

Zheng Zaochuan, who was watching TV, suddenly turned his head and asked, “When are we going to wear it?”

As they spoke, Zheng Zaochuan leaned in and gave Xin Xin a grape-flavored kiss. He licked her lips, then gently bit her, as if teasing her on purpose.

Xin Xin leaned in and kissed him, saying, “Poor thing, you’ve seen everything, and I cannot come up with any new tricks.”

Zheng Zaochuan picked her up and placed her on his lap, making her look down at him.

Xin Xin discovered that Zheng Zaochuan really liked this position. Almost without thinking, she blurted out, “You like the woman-on-top position?”

Zheng Zaochuan was breathing visibly, and his heart skipped a couple of beats. He reached out and pressed her head down, giving her a wet kiss. Then he looked up at her, revealing a slightly awkward smile.

“Xin Xin, so what kind of image do I have in your heart?”

Xin Xin thought for a moment and said succinctly, “You sleep with every woman, but you do not make any promises.”

Zheng Zaochuan gasped, “With such a bad reputation in your heart, why are you still with me?”

Xin Xin looked at Zheng Zaochuan’s face and the faintly visible chest muscles and swallowed hard. “Actually, I do not really want to be together, but lust makes me lose my mind.”

Zheng Zaochuan was so angry he laughed, then suddenly said seriously, “It is not what you think. When I was a freshman, I met a senior, and she took the initiative to sleep with me. I always thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend. At that time, I had made a little money and did not plan to continue investing. I really wanted to buy a small house and marry her after graduation.”

I did not expect Zheng Zaochuan to be so conservative.

Xin Xin felt it was a bit too surreal to be true. “And then?”

Zheng Zaochuan lowered his eyes, seemingly a little aggrieved, and said, “I bought a ring and proposed to her. She was very surprised and told me not to overthink it, that we were just friends who could go through a period of time together. Then she suddenly told me that she had a boyfriend in Beijing and that she was going to go see him. So she broke off all contact with me, saying that her boyfriend’s family had already arranged a job for her and that they were going to consider marriage, and that we should not contact each other anymore.”

Xin Xin had never heard this story before and asked curiously, “Oh? So she slept with you for years for nothing. I did not expect you to have played such a disgraceful role.”

Zheng Zaochuan was dissatisfied with Xin Xin’s indifferent attitude. “I really liked her; aren’t you jealous?”

Xin Xin shook her head. “That is all ancient history.”

Besides, everyone had a past.

Zheng Zaochuan continued, “Later, I had some money. More girls liked me, but as you know, I would not sleep with strangers. I’m afraid of getting diseases. You don’t know; some girls at drinking parties don’t even sit on the chairs that the other girls have sat on.”

Xin Xin asked incredulously, “What about Su Meiling?”

Zheng Zaochuan said, “We were not boyfriend and girlfriend yet. She hinted at it to me, but I was not sure at the time.” After saying that, he frowned, seemingly feeling a little ashamed. “I have not told anyone else, but I think love and sex are unified.”

This sounded so unfamiliar; Xin Xin had not heard a man of her age say something like this in a long time.

“What about the female college student who was interning at your company?”

“The reason she was nice to me was simply to curry favor with her boss; she wanted to stay with the company. Later I found out that Xibei had specifically sought her out.”

He said some pretty hurtful things to her. So he felt guilty, and besides, that girl was quite capable, so he took care of her.

Xin Xin and Zheng Zaochuan stared at each other. “That is it?”

Zheng Zaochuan thought for a moment, then said decisively, “Really, that is all. Xin Xin, I am very busy, just like you, obsessed with my work. And you know about my complicated family situation. Back then, I was penniless and really did not want to get married. To be honest, things have only become relatively stable in the last two years. You know what happened at Hanhai before; it was all show and no substance. I could have lost everything at any time.”

Xin Xin thought about it and realized it was true. Zheng Zaochuan’s tragic childhood, his irresponsible and crazy mother, and his obsessive stepsister who had a strong possessive desire for him—any girl from a respectable family would have had to think twice.

Although this kind of Zheng Zaochuan seemed illogical.

But at the same time, Xin Xin felt that everything was traceable. She recalled the countless ambiguous moments between them, but even when they held hands or kissed, they both felt that something could happen between them.

In the end, nothing happened.

“Oh my god!” Xin Xin screamed in her heart.

Unexpectedly, Zheng Zaochuan, who seemed to be playing around, was actually a well-behaved boy.