Financial Workplace Survival Guide – CH 093

Chapter 93 ☆, Love Is A Cruel Sacrifice.

“Ms. Xin, if there are no problems with these documents, you just need to sign them.”

Xin Xin stared incredulously at the gift contract before her, feeling a sense of absurdity that was both absurd and laughable. “Where’s Zheng Zaochuan?”

Zheng Zaochuan’s lawyer was a middle-aged woman in her forties. She looked simple and gentle, not like a lawyer, but more like a school dean of students.

She glanced at Xin Xin with an emotionless look. “I don’t know where Mr. Zheng is. I’m only here to handle related matters.”

Xin Xin looked at the contract in front of her. Zheng Zaochuan was really generous. He gave her the house in Jiangcheng directly, as well as a sum of cash that she could never earn in her lifetime.

The domineering CEO trope had come to life, with Zheng Zaochuan actually pulling a “buy out youth” scheme.

Xin Xin laughed in exasperation and asked the lawyer, “What’s your surname?”

“My surname’s Zhang.”

“Attorney Zhang, I know you can contact Zheng Zaochuan. Tell him I will not sign the contract, and I don’t want these things. If he doesn’t show up, I can move out this week. You don’t need to bother me.”

A hint of confusion flashed across the middle-aged woman’s face. “Miss Xin, I advise you to think this through. Fleeting love is common, but people willing to invest real money are few and far between. Even if you don’t like him, spending a few years with him will be worth it for you.”

Xin Xin was confused and asked in return, “I don’t like him?”

Attorney Zhang tried to persuade her further, “I’ve been working as Mr. Zheng’s lawyer since I became independent. He is somewhat demanding in his work, but compared to most wealthy people, he’s not eccentric, and his appearance is… It’s quite a good deal, especially considering he’s single. Whether as a girlfriend or companion, this price is worth considering.”

Xin Xin was stunned for a moment. “So what exactly do you want me to do with this money?”

Attorney Zhang adjusted his glasses. “Ten years. This contract’s only binding for ten years. The property’s yours now, and the cash is yours if you’re willing to stay with Mr. Zheng for the next ten years.”

Xin Xin was puzzled and said with a wry smile, “If he doesn’t even want to see me, what’s the point of all this?”

The serious-looking female lawyer smiled. “Mr. Zheng asked me to pass on a message: he will appear after you sign the contract.”

Xin Xin had seen many cases of debt transfer and money laundering in her life, but at this moment, she signed the document without any hesitation. Perhaps Zheng Zaochuan would play a clumsy joke on her, but at least he would not harm her.

“Alright, let him show up.” Faced with money, which was the ultimate test of human nature, Xin Xin also chose to trust Zheng Zaochuan.

The lawyer carefully put away the documents and said with a slight smile, “I can handle the other matters that require notarization. Perhaps we will need to verify Ms. Xin’s identity later.”

Just as she finished speaking, the door opened, and Zheng Zaochuan walked in with a smile.

Xin Xin watched them put on this charade. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Zheng Zaochuan looked at her and said, “I told you, I will give you whatever you want.”

Xin Xin didn’t understand and asked in return, “You think this is what I want?”

Zheng Zaochuan didn’t seem to want to dwell on the matter. He walked over and gently took Xin Xin’s hand, like a child trying to please someone. “If you want it, and I have it, I will give it to you. I mean what I say.”

Xin Xin suspected that she and Zheng Zaochuan lived in completely different parallel universes. “What do I want?”

In her world, Zheng Zaochuan would disappear without her consent, playing dating games with her when he was happy and vanishing without a trace when he was unhappy. Then, inexplicably, he would suddenly give her a house and money, acting all lovey-dovey.

Xin Xin shook off Zheng Zaochuan’s hand, revealing a tired expression. “If I didn’t sign the contract, would you even show up?”

Zheng Zao shamelessly replied, “That’s right.”

“Why?” Xin Xin’s voice began to choke, and she couldn’t help but become agitated: “I’ve had enough of you suddenly disappearing, I’ve had enough of your unpredictable moods, and I’ve had enough of you doing everything entirely according to your own ideas. I’m breaking the contract; pretend I never signed it, and we’re breaking up.”

Zheng Zaochuan’s smile froze on his face. After a moment of silence, he stubbornly said, “I will not break up with you. You’ve already signed the contract.”

Xin Xin couldn’t understand how there could be such an arrogant and conceited person in the world. “Have you ever thought that there’s something called the human heart in this world? My feelings are like a rag to you. When you’re happy, you can wash it clean, iron it, and put it away properly. When you’re unhappy, you can trample on it and throw it away as you please.”

When the topic turned to her sadness, Xin Xin couldn’t help but shed tears.

Zheng Zaochuan hurriedly pulled Xin Xin into his arms, repeatedly saying, “I’m sorry.”

Xin Xin pushed him away. This was the first time she had seen Zheng Zaochuan’s face completely devoid of a smile. Zheng Zaochuan, without a smile, had a slightly downturned mouth, giving off a bitter and cold feeling.

“I don’t dare to see you, and I don’t dare to explain things to you. I’m afraid you’ll break up with me. You don’t know how happy I was when I received your message saying that if I gave you some money, you would be with me.”

Xin Xin was taken aback. “What message?”

Zheng Zaochuan lowered his eyes and said, “You said that if I could give you a lifetime of security, you would not leave me.”

Xin Xin searched through her memory but could not find the recollection. “I didn’t send it.”

Zheng Zaochuan’s eyes widened. “Impossible. You sent it. Don’t try to deny it.”

The two looked at each other, then opened their phones and faced off.

“I take back what I said. I will wait for you to come home.” — This sentence remained on Xin Xin’s phone screen.

But on Zheng Zaochuan’s phone screen, the person with the same profile picture and nickname as Xin Xin sent this message: “If you can’t give me 30 million within a week, we can break up.”

Xin Xin was taken aback. “Look at the WeChat ID.”

Zheng Zaochuan suddenly realized what was happening and became furious. “She did it!”

Xin Xin had no intention of shifting the blame; she firmly believed that the crux of their relationship lay between the two of them. She questioned Zheng Zaochuan, “You didn’t receive my messages, nor did you reach out to me, did you? If you wanted, you could have gone home, you could have come to me, but you did not.”

Zheng Zaochuan looked at Xin Xin. “So you haven’t given up on me, right? You don’t plan to break up with me, do you?”

Like someone who had lost something and found it again, Zheng Zaochuan’s eyes shone brightly, almost ecstatic. Xin Xin wanted to say, “Let’s break up; it’s too tiring.”

But she could not bear to give it up, so she was the one who compromised.

“Zheng Zaochuan, what stands between us is not your mother with her twisted possessiveness or your stepsister who interferes in your life from time to time, but your hidden past and your habit of constantly running away.”

Xin Xin’s anger dissipated in her sadness, transforming into an almost rational, cold statement: “Zheng Zaochuan, if you don’t trust me, then we won’t have a future. This isn’t something money can solve.”

Zheng Zaochuan’s gaze was fixed on Xin Xin’s still-lit phone screen. That sentence lingered there, as if engraved in Zheng Zaochuan’s heart.

The first sentence was, “If you want to break up, I agree.”

The second sentence was, “I take back what I said. I will wait for you to come home.”

Zheng Zaochuan looked up, staring intently at Xin Xin, and asked her, “What if I just don’t want you to know about the dark world you can’t even imagine?”

Xin Xin’s breath hitched, her temples throbbed nervously, and an instinctive sixth sense made her want to run away. However, when she saw Zheng Zaochuan’s expression of fear and anticipation, a surge of courage inexplicably welled up within her.

“I will face this with you. As long as you don’t let go of me, I will never let go of you. I promise.”

Zheng Zaochuan looked at her silently. At least for this moment, he saw unreserved love in someone for the first time. So, he reached out his hand and chose to hold her hand.

The truth of the matter began with an old newspaper.

It was a slightly yellowed newspaper, seemingly soaked in water. A sensational headline caught the eye: “Accident? Homicide? The Story Behind the Perfect Family.”

This report detailed how a man had been abusing his wife and children for a long time and how he then got into a physical altercation with his son. In an attempt to protect his mother, the child pushed his father down the stairs during the fight, tragically resulting in his father’s death.

The child in the article had had their name withheld because they were a minor, but Xin Xin knew that this person was Zheng Zaochuan.

“So this is the truth?”

Zheng Zaochuan grasped Xin Xin’s hand. “This is the truth from the police.”

On the contrary, when she learned the whole truth, Xin Xin felt incredibly calm. She was not particularly afraid, only heartbroken. In her mind, the silhouette of Zheng Zaochuan’s small figure eating leftovers in that noodle shop was as real as if she had seen it with her own eyes.

In that instant, Xin Xin understood love, and she understood what Zheng Zaochuan meant when he said, “As long as you want it, as long as I have it.”

“Then what’s the truth about you?”

“That day, my father was drunk. He always suspected my mother of having other men and that I wasn’t his child. This might be pure conjecture, but it might not be entirely unfounded. In any case, they often had arguments like that. But that day, I saw them arguing at the bottom of the stairs. They were arguing very fiercely. The woman was holding a knife and looked terrifying. When I went out, they were facing off.”

Xin Xin swallowed hard and asked cautiously, “And then?”

Zheng Zaochuan frowned. “They were arguing fiercely, pushing and shoving each other. The knife accidentally hit someone, and there was blood.”

After a pause, Zheng Zaochuan looked up, his eyes filled with an unfathomable pain and struggle.

“Perhaps in an attempt to avoid the knife, my father accidentally fell down the stairs and hit his head on the iron handrail. He couldn’t be saved. But I think that even if he had not fallen, the knife would have pierced his heart.”

Xin Xin rested her head on Zheng Zaochuan’s shoulder for a while before asking, “You didn’t push him, did you?”

Zheng Zaochuan gave a wry smile. “I don’t remember, but I remember my mom. Yes, back then, I still called her Mom. She put a knife in my hand and said I was still young and nothing would happen to me.”

To this day, Zheng Zaochuan could no longer recall the details of that time, perhaps because he was too young. But he remembered his mother, covered in wounds, asking him with a slightly comforting smile, “Do you love Mommy? If you love Mommy, then say that you pushed Daddy down.”

Perhaps it was from that day on that he learned that love was a very cruel sacrifice. Sometimes, he needed to give everything to receive love.