Plunder-Chapter 43 - Is One Hundred Million Enough
Chapter 43: Chapter 43 Is One Hundred Million Enough
Chapter 43 -43 Is One Hundred Million Enough
One urgent call followed another, each more pressing than the last.
Without overthinking it, Qiao En went to open the door.
Outside stood Cheng Lu, propping up Zhou Jin’an.
“Secretary Qiao, Director Zhou insisted on coming to see you,”
Cheng Lu said with a troubled expression.
Qiao En felt a bit dazed.
Wasn’t Jin’an spending a romantic night with An Kexin?
Before Qiao En could gather her thoughts, Cheng Lu had already helped Jin’an into the room.
Zhou Jin’an was heavily drunk, barely in control of his legs.
Cheng Lu escorted Zhou Jin’an directly to Qiao En’s bedroom.
“Secretary Qiao, please take care of Director Zhou tonight! If there’s anything, just contact me; I’ll be in the car downstairs,”
Saying this, Cheng Lu quickly exited the room.
With his departure, only Qiao En and Zhou Jin’an remained in the room, abruptly creating a somewhat strange atmosphere.
Zhou Jin’an slept deeply; the room was so quiet that his breathing seemed loud.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.
Qiao En tucked the corner of the blanket around him and was about to leave when her phone on the bedside table buzzed again.
Another message from An Kexin came through.
“Secretary Qiao, An-ge says he wants to have three children with me, preferably all girls. He said if we have a daughter that looks like me, he could dote on her for a lifetime. But I only want to bear him a son who resembles him. Help me think, how should I tell him?”
Qiao En glanced at the message and then at Zhou Jin’an on the bed. Now, everything was clear to her.
The message lingered for a second before An Kexin retracted it.
The same action, she had attempted many times, to unfailing effect.
“Secretary Qiao, I won’t talk to you anymore. Jin’an is calling me to take a bath with him,”
This time, after speaking, she didn’t retract the message.
Qiao En furrowed her brows, turned off her phone, and tossed it into a drawer.
An Kexin was both pitiful and tragic, but wasn’t she the same?
Qiao En found the cigarettes and a lighter in Jin’an’s pocket, and made her way to the balcony.
The night had deepened and was quiet all around with only a few distant lights shining.
Qiao En lit a cigarette and leaned back in the lounge chair, taking a deep breath towards the night sky.
The taste of the smoke wasn’t bitter, yet she felt a bitter sadness in her heart.
A three-person swing required one person to make a concession.
She had chosen to let go, yet the other two clung to her, not letting her move on.
The pitch-black night made it easy to lose one’s way.
Qiao En lost track of time; a non-smoker, she nevertheless smoked one cigarette after another, finishing the entire pack in Zhou Jin’an’s cigarette box.
With the last cigarette extinguished, dawn was breaking.
When a sliver of daybreak appeared in the east, Zhou Jin’an turned over and suddenly woke up.
Qiao En was still slumped in the lounge chair, her slender figure hugging her knees. Perhaps due to the cold, she tightly wrapped her legs with the hem of her nightgown.
She turned her face sideways, gazing blankly into the distance.
Zhou Jin’an couldn’t see her expression clearly, but he felt that this version of Qiao En was piling up too much unhappiness inside.
Back when they had just started dating, Qiao En would occasionally show such a demeanor.
He would always go over to her, take her into his arms, and ask, “Run into some trouble?”
“Mr. Zhou, how could I have encountered any trouble?”
Qiao En always reined in her bad mood within a second, revealing a naive smile as if she had never experienced any worries at all.
As a secretary at work, she was very capable, flawlessly handling the tasks Zhou Jin’an entrusted to her, sparing him any worry.
Of course, in private, she was also an exceptionally considerate lover, not only not troubling him but also providing emotional support.
In the three years they were together, she rarely mentioned her family matters. He vaguely knew that Qiao En came from an ordinary but warm and harmonious household, where her father was a teacher, and her younger brother was still studying.
Regarding other matters, she didn’t speak of them, and he didn’t pry much either.
After all, Qiao En lived in a well-rounded family with lesser material conditions, but she was rich in spirit.
While he grew up without a caring father or loving mother, never knowing what familial warmth was.
He thought that Qiao En, luckier than him, happier than him, would never have too many troubles.
But now, Zhou Jin’an suddenly felt that Qiao En was even unluckier than he was.
He slowly rose from the bed, his head heavy as a thousand pounds after the hangover, and his feet still felt as if he was stepping on cotton.
He grabbed a thin blanket and walked toward the balcony.
Perhaps because Zhou Jin’an’s footsteps were light, or maybe Qiao En was too absorbed in her thoughts, when he wrapped her slender back with the blanket, she jumped in fright.
“You’re awake?”
Qiao En asked, preparing to get up, but Zhou Jin’an pressed down on her shoulders.
“Talk for a bit?”
This time, he took the initiative to speak.
Zhou Jin’an pulled over a chair and sat down, his complexion not very good, the bloodshot in his eyes still not dissipated.
A pair of sharp eyes returned to calm, staring straight at Qiao En.
He wanted to see through her heart, but she hid it too deeply, he simply couldn’t as he wished.
Qiao En met his gaze openly and suddenly flashed a smile, “Shall I go finish cooking the noodles for you? Do you want an egg in them?”
With that said, she stood up and quickly went into the kitchen.
Soon, the kitchen was filled with the smell of cooking.
After a while, she came out with two bowls of noodles, one with an egg and one without.
She naturally handed the bowl with the egg to Zhou Jin’an, “Here, eat it while it’s hot.”
Qiao En sat down, picked up a big bunch of noodles with her chopsticks, blew on them, and then started eating.
A lock of hair fell in front of her forehead, and she quickly tucked it behind her ear.
“I have something to tell you.”
Zhou Jin’an held his bowl but didn’t move his chopsticks.
Without looking up, Qiao En continued to eat, “We don’t talk while eating, let’s talk after.”
She ate her noodles with the same focus she applied to her work.
Zhou Jin’an was indeed hungry, having only cared about drinking last night, without eating much, and now his stomach felt empty.
Qiao En’s cooking was not exactly her strong suit, the plain boiled noodles were mediocre, nothing compared to the chef specially appointed at Zhou Jin’an’s Chu Garden.
But eating with her always managed to increase Zhou Jin’an’s appetite significantly, making a bowl of plain boiled noodles taste like a delicacy.
When the bowl was finished, the conversation they needed to have could no longer be avoided.
“You want to ask why I did it, right?”
Qiao En took the initiative.
Zhou Jin’an remained silent, his silence serving as consent.
Qiao En used the back of her hand to wipe the noodle sauce from the corner of her mouth, looking up at Zhou Jin’an.
“Mr. Zhou, I lied to you, that’s a fact. I come from a humble background and am vain, so for money, I sold myself. I didn’t just sell myself to you, but to your mother as well, earning double from both sides. Tell me, don’t I have a real head for business?”
Qiao En sported a proud smile on her face.
She was playing with fire in Zhou Jin’an’s heart, crossing the line, wanting him to let go of his obsessions.
“What do you need that much money for?”
Qiao En pulled over the blanket, wrapping herself tightly, with her slender legs propped up on the back of the chair.
“Is having money bad? Mr. Zhou, you haven’t suffered the hardships of being penniless, so you might not understand my desire for money. I, too, have dreamed of the life of the wealthy, with everything provided for me, living in large houses, driving luxury cars, but as you know, I can’t achieve that by just working, so I had to take a shortcut!”
She spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Zhou Jin’an didn’t like this side of Qiao En; the petty bourgeois cunning was too strong in her.
He had intended to have a calm talk with her, but she successfully aroused the anger in his heart.
“You like money that much, huh?”
Zhou Jin’an’s expression grew stern, the veins on his forehead visible.
Qiao En immediately put on a greedy expression, “Of course, since money makes the world go ’round, who doesn’t love money?”
“Is this enough for you?”
Zhou Jin’an contained his anger, took out a check from his pocket, scribbled down a series of numbers, and handed it to Qiao En.
She didn’t take it, but her gaze swept over it.
She wasn’t mistaken; he had given her a billion.
