A Twisted Love Affair-Chapter 209: Black silk..._1

So fierce.

Zhou Luchen didn’t take the card. He glanced at the luggage beside her and, with a slight teasing lilt in his voice, suddenly laughed and asked, "Are you angry?"

Shen Jing continued to hold out the card. It wasn’t that she absolutely *had* to return it, but she had been trying her best not to actively seek him out. Yet, he had taken the initiative to lie in her bed and ’take care’ of her. This kind of relationship always left her feeling uneasy. "Second Master, are you pretending not to know me because you think public places aren’t suitable for speaking to me? Are we only fit for seeking pleasure at night?"

Zhou Luchen appeared very indifferent, giving her a cool glance. "It’s a good thing Miss Shen of Xihe Bay didn’t become a bailiff. Otherwise, anyone sent to jail, you’d have them executed on the spot."

He was clearly mocking her baseless temper.

Shen Jing was one to hold a grudge, her expression cold. "You always say the meanest things to me."

Zhou Luchen’s expression softened slightly. "What now? Do I need to coax you a little before I can board my plane?"

Did she really mean that?

Shen Jing calmly said no.

At this hour on the night of the Lantern Festival, there weren’t many people around. Passersby dragging their luggage would glance over but didn’t approach their spot.

Zhou Luchen reached out and touched her cheek.

Her skin was cool and tender, flawless. So beautiful that... well, even without makeup, hers was the most beautiful face he had ever seen, more so than any among the countless people he’d encountered.

How many hearts had this tear-streaked face deceived into aching for her?

He suddenly remembered how plastic surgery hospitals were always keen to use her features for marketing; he had bought all those photos. It was only 500,000, yet she had never asked him for a single cent.

He wanted to ask if her knee still hurt, but he didn’t.

If it did hurt, she would have already shed her ’little pearls’ in front of him. He understood her to such an extent that just by seeing her, he could instantly tell what she was thinking, what she wanted to ask.

"I’m leaving."

Shen Jing looked up. "For long?"

Zhou Luchen himself didn’t know. He’d return when he felt like it, and if he didn’t, he wouldn’t. A private jet was just a flight of over ten hours.

"This card... will you know everything I buy with it?" she asked.

As she kept trying to hand him the card, Zhou Luchen recalled some of the recent charges.

Initially, Shen Jing had been charging hundreds of thousands at a time.

Lately, it was eighteen hundred, every other day, always the same amount.

"What kind of junk costs only eighteen hundred?" he asked.

Shen Jing’s face inexplicably turned red. She clutched the card tightly and said nothing.

Perhaps she was unaware. The more she refrained from speaking, the more mysterious she seemed, and the more a man would want to uncover the truth. Seeing her shyly lower her head, Zhou Luchen felt an even stronger urge to explore.

Not daring to meet his gaze, Shen Jing lowered her eyes. "It’s nothing, just things girls use."

Zhou Luchen remained silent, bending down to look at her face.

A blush spread across the young woman’s cheeks, as if she had been drinking.

She looked up at him, their gazes meeting. Two seconds later, her lips parted slightly, and she said in a soft, shy voice, "It’s black stockings, and also..."

He detected a hint of her intention—she was trying to seduce him. It was incredibly tempting and provocative. Zhou Luchen was no saint; he naturally noticed the pair of straight, shapely, beautiful legs beneath her short skirt, adorned with sexy black stockings bearing English lettering.

She stood before him in high heels, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her leather skirt, her fingertips occasionally curling inwards. Black stockings on her were utterly captivating, no matter the setting.

She was also dressed much more lightly, in thinner clothes, than the average passerby.

She claimed there was heating everywhere she went, so she didn’t want to wear too much.

She made no effort to hide her vanity.

Zhou Luchen gazed into her eyes, teasing, "And what else?"

"...A scarf," she forced out the lie.

Zhou Luchen didn’t expose her.

She added, "I change them daily. It’s a habit."

The man withdrew his gaze. "So cheap. No wonder they tear so easily."

For Shen Jing, even if black stockings were disposable, were they really cheap? Muttering under her breath, she accused, "Who asked you to rip them? You hooligan!"

With the bodyguard nearby, Zhou Luchen and she tacitly avoided the topic.

He took the card, tucked it back into her bag, and slowly zipped it up. "Who was it that promised to accompany me abroad next time?"

"Where are you going?" she asked, though she already knew.

Zhou Luchen: "New York."

She feigned confusion, trying to be evasive. "I promised to go to Switzerland back then. You didn’t go to Switzerland either. Promises made before a breakup don’t count."

Playing with words.

Zhou Luchen didn’t quibble with her. After all, he really didn’t have time to take her to Switzerland. With so much waiting for him, he wasn’t in the mood to play games with her.

He hadn’t asked her to see him off either.

"When I’m not busy, I’ll take you to Switzerland then."

His words were casual, lacking sincerity.

It sounded like a promise, yet it also felt like a few perfunctory words spoken hastily amidst his busy schedule.

Just as Shen Jing was about to say something more, Zhou Luchen had already turned and walked away.

It was an unintentional encounter, brief and fleeting.

She quietly watched his retreating figure, as if she were truly seeing him off, watching him grow distant. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"Fourth Miss, let’s go home." Uncle Liang had arrived.

「In March.」

During this time, the only good news Shen Jing heard was that her eldest sister was pregnant. Initially, it wasn’t showing. There was an old saying that children were sensitive, and if you announced a pregnancy too early, the baby might be "scared away." So, her sister and brother-in-law had kept it a secret. It was only recently, when her clothes started to bulge and she could no longer hide it, that they held hands and announced it to their elders.

"I’m already three months along, and all the check-ups are good."

Grandfather will probably wake up laughing in the middle of the night.

Xie Qinyang nudged Shen Jing. "When the little baby arrives, they’ll call you ’Little Aunt’ and me ’Little Uncle.’ Our generational standing is about to go up! Just hearing that makes me feel years older."

Shen Jing studied Xie Qinyang’s grinning face. "Keep laughing like that and you’ll get wrinkles. I’ll take you for a Thermage treatment later."

Xie Qinyang tapped her on the head. "You’re about to be an aunt, and you still haven’t found your other half."

Was that important? Not at all.

From then on, her eldest sister could no longer accompany her to social engagements to assist with negotiations. Uncle Jiu also left his original position to work in media at the head office. Due to the resulting staff shortage, she was promoted to general manager.

Her assistant was also transferred. At the branch office, there were no familiar faces she could rely on; all that remained were strictly professional superior-subordinate relationships.

A project at the branch under her management ran into serious problems. A key client terminated their service agreement, and the resulting liability for breach of contract—a staggering deficit in the tens of millions—fell squarely on her. Without hesitation, Shen Jing used the breakup money from Zhou Luchen to cover it.

She fired all the employees who had handled the project. That afternoon, Shen Jing watched through the glass as they packed up their belongings at their workstations and left.

It was so sudden. For a moment, she couldn’t quite process how she had become so ruthless.

She didn’t know where she had learned to be so cold-blooded, intolerant of even the smallest mistake.

She scrolled through her phone; it seemed no one could give her an answer.

But then she thought, if a mistake like this had happened under Zhou Luchen, he probably would have fired the entire company.

Business was indeed difficult, and clients were certainly not to be offended. This was Shen Jing’s first lesson as a general manager, one that cost her eighty million.

To recoup the losses quickly, Shen Jing had no choice but to seek alliances with companies in other industries, leveraging their combined strength to suppress competitors in her own field.

The contact was someone Xie Qinyang had recommended.

The collaboration went smoothly.

Xie Qinyang was a little concerned about how busy she had become. "It’s just money. Whose business is ever completely smooth sailing?"

Were those the words of a pampered young master, or a normal human being?