Princess Syndrome - Chapter 139
Extra: At the Dinner
Zhang Ting’s mistake had lowered the information flow of the entire secretariat. Because of this, she treated everyone to afternoon tea for a week, plus two hot pot meals on the weekend. Secretary Li asked, "Is Assistant Su coming too?"
Recently, Su Lingyue was doing what she should do, and eating what she should eat. What was strange was that many collectors had been calling her, asking if she would be willing to let go of the shoes. They promised that they would treasure them. Su Lingyue expressed her understanding, but after hanging up, she wanted to curse. Let go of them? More like decapitate her!
Ji Zhiyi watched her face change for a moment. "Your acting has improved."
Su Lingyue climbed up the pole. "Can I go and film a show?"
Before Ji Zhiyi could reply, Su Lingyue said, "Maybe I could go ask Yang Zhizhi..."
Before she could finish, Ji Zhiyi pulled her into her arms, kissing her again and again. Su Lingyue’s lips became a bit numb and swollen. She covered her lips. "We still have to go and have dinner later."
Ji Zhiyi said, "With Secretary Zhang and the others?"
Su Lingyue leaned into her arms. "Yeah."
Her posture was lazy. Xiao Mafan, hearing the two of them talking, squeezed in and leaned against Su Lingyue’s legs. Su Lingyue picked it up and hugged it. Then she leaned back into Ji Zhiyi's arms. She said to Xiao Mafan, "Your mom is busy tonight. You can accompany Mommy to dinner, okay?"
Xiao Mafan meowed at her, as if it was agreeing.
Su Lingyue poked its pink nose, rubbed its head. Xiao Mafan nuzzled her hand, wanting her to keep petting it. Su Lingyue said, "Zhiyi, don’t you think it’s been really attentive lately?"
Ji Zhiyi looked down at the cat in her arms. After thinking about it, it had indeed been clinging to people lately and liked to rub up against them. It would lie at the door and meow in a coquettish voice. She nodded. Su Lingyue said, "Is it going into heat? Should we get it spayed?"
Xiao Mafan stiffened in her arms and immediately looked up before quickly running away.
Su Lingyue: ...
Who said that cats didn’t understand human language?
Ji Zhiyi said, "It's already been done."
Su Lingyue was surprised. "When?"
Ji Zhiyi said, "Before the new year, when I was resting."
Su Lingyue nodded, then thought of Xiao Mafan's reaction. She said, confused, "Then why did it run away?"
Ji Zhiyi said, "It's probably unhappy."
It was like a person, being stubborn. Su Lingyue muttered to herself, but very honestly, she grabbed the cat treats and wet food to coax Xiao Mafan. Xiao Mafan turned its rear towards her. Su Lingyue tore the chicken into pieces and offered it to Xiao Mafan's nose. Xiao Mafan glanced at her, meowed softly, and then let Su Lingyue pick it up and coax it. Ji Zhiyi was amused by this. "Why are you coaxing it like you're coaxing a child?"
Su Lingyue looked down at the cat, refusing to admit it. "How am I coaxing it like a child?"
She asked Ji Zhiyi, "Have you ever coaxed a child?"
Ji Zhiyi nodded.
Su Lingyue’s gaze became fierce. Ji Zhiyi said, "My younger sister."
Ji Zhisi.
Su Lingyue remembered Ji Zhisi calling Ji Zhiyi the other day during a video call. After hesitating for a long while, she had called her sister-in-law. Su Lingyue felt like she was someone who didn't care about what other people thought. What was this sister-in-law business-- she, she, she had been overjoyed at the time!
Afterwards, she had said to Ji Zhiyi, "She called me sister-in-law, you know?"
Ji Zhiyi had pulled her closer. "Yes, yes, yes."
She had said, while hugging Ji Zhiyi in bed, "Someone called me sister-in-law.”
Ji Zhiyi had helplessly used her body to cover her mouth, finally making her think of something else. But when Ji Zhisi was mentioned, Su Lingyue's tone was happy. Ji Zhisi and the two of them weren’t very close. She was a bit scared of Ji Zhiyi. She hadn't even called her once in a month. Before, Su Lingyue and Ji Zhisi had never had any interactions. Ji Zhisi had known her because of a rumor, saying that Su Lingyue had persecuted Ji Zhiyi, so she didn't have a good impression of her.
Until she had watched a video of the grand annual meeting. She didn't know which marketing account had posted it online, and it had immediately gone viral. Accompanied by the story of the Haoyue series, the relationship appeared even more hard-won. But there were also many people who sneered at it. "What kind of beautiful love story is that? The Haoyue series isn’t selling, so they're making up stories now?"
"I used to think the Haoyue series was great, but now it looks so-so. What good shoes can Su Lingyue design?"
"The inner circle is really messy. Wasn't Su Lingyue tangled up with Shen Yuan of Dingsheng not long ago? How did she change her partner so quickly?"
"I don't dare say anything else, but the relationship between Shen Yuan and Su Lingyue is definitely not that type of relationship. If it was that type of relationship, would Ji Zhiyi still be working with Shen Yuan?"
"Who knows? Maybe it was for money? In order to get money, what kind of topics can't people fabricate nowadays? Same-sex relationships? Look at how many people know about them from this."
Ji Zhisi had also naturally seen the comments online. Although she and Ji Zhiyi weren't that close, she still knew what kind of person Ji Zhiyi was. She would definitely not use her relationship to create a publicity stunt, especially not her beloved Haoyue series.
So, that meant everything she had said was true. Her love for Su Lingyue was true. It was also true that she had liked her for so many years. Thinking about how she had misunderstood Su Lingyue back then, Ji Zhisi was a bit embarrassed. She wanted to ask Ji Zhiyi what she could do to make up for it, but Ji Zhiyi said, "She doesn’t know."
She didn't know the things that she had said, or the rumors behind it.
But even if she didn’t know, it didn’t mean that those things hadn’t happened. So Ji Zhisi had bought Su Lingyue a gift. Su Lingyue had been very happy when she had received it. Ji Zhiyi had asked, "Why are you so happy?"
Su Lingyue raised an eyebrow. "Yeah!"
Ji Zhiyi said, "Are you happier than when you receive a gift from me?"
Su Lingyue said, "That's different."
Ji Zhiyi said, "How is it different?"
Su Lingyue said, "This is a gift from your younger sister."
Your younger sister, your family. It was different.
Ji Zhiyi realized that Su Lingyue could be very persuasive at times and also very good at making people angry. She laughed. Su Lingyue asked, "Will your younger sister come back for the New Year?"
Ji Zhiyi came back to her senses. "Yeah, soon."
Ji Zhisi had originally wanted to come back before the New Year, but the New Year was in mid-January, and it wasn’t long after Su Lingyue’s birthday, so Ji Zhisi had decided to come back earlier, thinking that she could celebrate Su Lingyue’s birthday.
Su Lingyue didn't know about this yet. Ji Zhiyi hadn’t told her.
Before dinner, Su Lingyue drove to the hot pot restaurant by herself. After Ji Zhiyi’s confession, the people in the secretariat all thought that she was going to resign and elope with Ji Zhiyi. But she hadn’t left yet. Chu Yi had already gone over there.
She had heard that Zhang Xian had also submitted her resignation. Surprisingly, out of the four of them, she was the one who had stuck it out until the end. Secretary Zhang was thinking about what she would do if she left every day. She had also grabbed Su Lingyue’s hand. "Assistant Su, please take me away with you."
Without being able to see this pleasing face every day, what was the point of working?
Su Lingyue was surprised by her dramatic acting. She had wanted to laugh at her, but then she remembered her own poor acting skills. She was probably like this in their eyes before too. Some people were laughing at her, and others were looking in the mirror.
She was the one who was looking in the mirror.
Su Lingyue gave a half-smile, a bit embarrassed. She blinked and looked out the window. The restaurant wasn't in the main part of the city, so there weren't many customers. Each round table had a half-wall of green plants and screens to shield them, so it was quite private. It was a good environment to have dinner and chat. They were sitting by the window. Su Lingyue turned her head. Through the window, she could see Secretary Li and the others walking in. They had also brought Wu Meiyan with them. Secretary Li greeted them. "I saw Sister Wu in the parking lot, so we asked her to come too."
Secretary Zhang asked, "What was Sister Wu doing?"
Wu Meiyan said, "I was accompanying a friend to a blind date." Then, she saw Su Lingyue. "Oh, Assistant Su’s here too."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Zhang Ting said. "Assistant Su is the one I need to focus on making amends to. She can't not be here!"
Everyone laughed at that. Zhang Ting's incorrect information had left her colleagues at a loss for words for days. Fortunately, Su Lingyue didn't take it to heart. But she had gotten it so wrong. She had directly changed Ji Zhiyi into Zhang Xian. When Zhang Xian had come upstairs to chat, she had laughed so hard that she couldn't straighten her back. "Me? And you? Does Ji Zhiyi know about this?"
Su Lingyue had nodded seriously.
Zhang Xian had laughed, then suddenly burped. She had looked at Su Lingyue. "She knows?"
Su Lingyue’s gaze was serious.
Zhang Xian had immediately thrown out the sentence, "Don't look for me before the new year."
She had run away in a panic. She hadn’t even come when they had called her to come and eat tonight. Su Lingyue, even now, still found the whole thing unbelievable. What was even more unbelievable was her colleagues. "I remember that back then, someone said that President Ji hated Assistant Su, and made her kneel to organize the documents?"
Secretary Li suddenly looked guilty. Her eyes looked outside. "Oh, really? Was there really such a thing?"
Everyone ganged up to ‘beat’ her. She protested, "That, that, Assistant Su’s actions back then really made it easy to misunderstand, okay?!"
Everyone’s gazes turned to Su Lingyue.
Su Lingyue calmly ate her food and sipped her warm water, but the roots of her ears had turned slightly red. After Ji Zhiyi had gone public, very few people had asked her and Ji Zhiyi about what had happened. Because it wasn't even necessary to ask. Everyone knew that if Ji Zhiyi had liked her a long time ago, then all those things that they had heard were definitely fake. The claims that Ji Zhiyi had taken over Su Qi to get back at her had also changed. People were now saying it was because she liked her.
She had even seen a ‘friend’ in her social circle who had mocked her when she had been in a bad situation. That person had posted on her timeline and complained about what had happened, but she had completely forgotten about how she had praised Ji Zhiyi to the heavens six months ago.
She had spoken to Ji Zhiyi about this, and Ji Zhiyi had said, "It’s normal."
She had looked at Ji Zhiyi.
Ji Zhiyi had explained, "She wasn’t praising me, or even scolding me, she just doesn’t want you to be doing well."
Perhaps that was it. People were so strange. Some people didn’t want you to be doing well, and others wanted you to be doing well.
Fortunately, she had also met friends who wanted her to be doing well.
Su Lingyue smiled. As everyone watched her, they couldn't help but ask, "Oh right, Assistant Su, I heard that you're going to resign after the new year?"
Su Lingyue came back to her senses and nodded. Zhang Ting said, "It still feels a bit surreal. In the blink of an eye, President Ji and Assistant Su will be going to another company."
"Don't you think that when we see President Ji sometimes, we feel a sense of belonging?" Secretary Li’s words reminded everyone. After a moment of silence, they couldn't help but admit that before, when they had been with their leader in the branch for so long, they couldn't say they hadn't had a sense of belonging, but that sense of belonging had been completely different from the one they had felt with Ji Zhiyi. Later, when Su Lingyue had joined, and there had been so many things happening, the scales had naturally tipped. Now, seeing both Ji Zhiyi and Su Lingyue, they still felt the illusion that they were working at the same company.
"Didn't you say that the new company would be affiliated with Yilin?" Zhang Ting asked curiously. Secretary Li said, "Yilin is interested, but I heard that Dingsheng is also interested. They’re currently in talks with President Ji about cooperation."
News from within the circle couldn't be hidden. Especially since Ji Zhiyi hadn’t tried to hide it. So everyone knew about it.
Wu Meiyan said, "It all depends on what President Ji chooses."
Logically, she had left Yilin, so there was no reason for her to refuse them. But she had also heard that she wasn't getting along with Jiang Ya. And then, there was Dingsheng, who was pursuing her closely. Everyone would have understood it if she had chosen Dingsheng.
Su Lingyue had also asked Ji Zhiyi how she would choose. Ji Zhiyi had only shaken her head. As she was lost in thought, Su Lingyue's phone rang. She looked and saw a message from Ji Zhiyi. [What time will you finish?]
She immediately replied, [Soon.]
Zhang Ting, who was sitting close by, started to make noises. "You've only been gone for a few minutes. Is President Ji really that clingy?"
The secretary next to her said, "It's good to be clingy. I want a clingy partner so I can be held in their arms all night long!"
Zhang Ting took a sip of her wine. "Assistant Su, does President Ji hold you in her arms all night when you're sleeping?"
Su Lingyue chuckled, but before she could say anything, Secretary Li said teasingly, "You’re so brave. Do you dare to ask President Ji that to her face?"
Zhang Ting, emboldened by alcohol, said immediately, "Of course I dare! I’d ask even if she was here!"
As she said this, a voice came from behind her. It was crisp and calm. "Ask what?"
Zhang Ting turned her head. Behind the white screen, a figure was standing there. Zhang Ting's gaze slowly moved up her body from her coat. She met Ji Zhiyi’s calm gaze. Her heart skipped a beat, and the palms of her hands were sweating. The strong liquor that she had just swallowed went back into her throat. Due to the extreme tension, her face was blank as she stared dumbly at Ji Zhiyi. A few seconds later, she collapsed face down on the table. Secretary Li, confused, nudged her arm. "What's wrong?"
Zhang Ting said, "I’m dead."
Secretary Li: ...!
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