A Straight Woman Forcefully Claims The Little White Flower Heroine - Chapter 1

At the start of Beginning of Spring, then in what felt like the blink of an eye, Awakening of Insects arrived—and the rain simply refused to stop. Dark clouds stretched hand in hand across the horizon, as though they meant to swallow the entire city whole.

“Hey, Qin Wei, where are you? Didn’t I tell you to keep an eye on my sister? She drank so much while entertaining clients that she threw up blood, and you’re nowhere to be found again?”

“What exactly are you even capable of doing?”

Qin Wei had just finished class. After seeing her students off, she returned to her office and picked up her phone, only to be met with a barrage of yelling the moment she answered.

“…I just finished teaching. Where’s Zhou Jing?”

Qin Wei grabbed her shoulder bag, snatched up her coat, and threw it over herself as she hurried out in a fluster. The hem of her coat fluttered wildly behind her like a butterfly falling to the ground.

The person on the other end merely snorted before hanging up.

“Oh, Teacher Qin, you’re leaving already? The new Director Fang said she’s treating us to a spa tonight so we can relax. Are you—”

“Something came up at home. Sorry.”

Qin Wei hurried down the stairwell in her heels. Just as she reached the first floor, her phone suddenly vibrated, distracting her enough that she nearly twisted her ankle.

She grabbed the railing and barely steadied herself before lowering her head to look at her phone.

—Hanlin Waterside Pavilion, Jingzhe · One.

The message was from Zhou Jing, her girlfriend.

After sending her location, Zhou Jing followed it with several apologetic stickers.

—Did Zhou You call and scold you? Sorry, Weiwei. I’d just thrown up at the time and couldn’t stop her.

—I didn’t throw up blood, so don’t worry. Zhou You was just trying to scare you.

—I already told her you tried to stop me before you left this morning. I only came out because I heard someone might show up over at the Yuzhou Forest Farm, so I wanted to try my luck.

—Weiwei, you’re not mad, are you? You don’t need to come pick me up. Ignore whatever Zhou You said. If you’re tired, just go home first, okay? I’ll be home later.

Qin Wei’s fingers rubbed back and forth over the phone screen several times. She exited the chat, booked a car, then finally took a deep breath. Lowering her head, she tapped carefully at the screen and replied to Zhou Jing.

—I’ll be there soon. Stop drinking.

Zhou Jing didn’t reply again. Qin Wei had no idea whether she had been dragged back to the table.

Qin Wei stared over and over at the chat history in her hand. Only when the car arrived did she slowly let out the breath trapped in her chest, turn off her phone, and get into the car.

She and Zhou Jing had grown up together. Their families’ elders also had some business dealings with one another. Before she turned eighteen, she had always maintained a friendship with Zhou Jing, and she had always believed that she, Zhou Jing, and Zhou You, who followed them around like a little tail, would remain friends for life.

But when Zhou Jing was eighteen, she somehow heard that Qin Wei’s family was planning an arranged marriage for her. So, on the day of Qin Wei’s coming-of-age ceremony, Zhou Jing declared in front of all their elders that she liked Qin Wei and wanted to marry her.

Afraid anyone might object, she had even brought out her great-grandmother, who had been enjoying retirement at the old family residence. Naturally, no one in the Zhou family dared make a sound, much less drag Zhou Jing down from where she stood.

And so the problem fell to Qin Wei. She looked at Zhou Jing, spirited and dazzling as she openly declared her love, then turned her head toward her two mothers pretending to be an affectionate couple and the illegitimate son who had just been brought home.

A tremendous sense of distortion seemed to tear everything apart before her eyes. Qin Wei looked into Zhou Jing’s eyes. She didn’t dislike Zhou Jing. In fact, she liked the way Zhou Jing always stepped in front of her without hesitation and stood up for her.

She nodded, and somehow, just like that, the two of them got together.

What she hadn’t expected was that the rumor Zhou Jing had heard about her family arranging a marriage for her was actually true. The Qin family’s businesses collapsed overnight, and the entire purpose of holding Qin Wei’s coming-of-age ceremony had been to find someone willing to invest, giving the Qin family the slightest chance to come back from the brink.

Originally, that person wasn’t supposed to be Zhou Jing.

Now, it was.

The Qin family went bankrupt overnight, and several people were even imprisoned over financial issues.

And so their engagement banquet was postponed again and again. The Zhou family even publicly declared that they would not offer the Qin family the slightest help simply because of Qin Wei’s relationship with Zhou Jing. For a long period of time, Zhou Jing’s family forcibly froze all her cards and cut off every expense, demanding that she break up with Qin Wei.

Zhou Jing really did break up with her for a while. She went home, managed to get a sum of money, started her own business, and then got back together with Qin Wei.

The Jingwei Group of today was something they had built together. Still, they had ultimately received Old Madam Zhou’s covert support. People said the two of them had founded Jingwei together, but on the surface, the company was backed by the Zhou family.

Naturally, in everyone’s eyes, Jingwei belonged to Zhou Jing.

Because of that, Qin Wei’s work at Jingwei had never gone smoothly. Especially after the company went public, Zhou Jing, wanting greater convenience in staffing, directly transferred quite a few people over from the Zhou family.

Like Zhou You, those people all looked down on Qin Wei, the fallen young miss. They believed that if Zhou Jing hadn’t succeeded, Qin Wei would never have been able to stand where she did now. So what if she was highly educated? In the end, she was still only fit to be a teacher.

If Zhou Jing didn’t love her, with Qin Wei’s current status, what right would she have to even set foot in Jingwei?

Qin Wei left Jingwei, kept her original shares, and returned to school to work as a teacher.

But even though she had clearly distanced herself from Jingwei and every business connected to the Zhou family, those mocking, sarcastic voices still managed to seep through every crack and reach her.

If it weren’t for her, Zhou Jing wouldn’t have had to work this hard. She should have inherited everything belonging to the Zhou family from the start instead of suffering so much and going through endless hardships to build Jingwei simply so her family would acknowledge her.

Yet when things reached a critical point, her own girlfriend was unable to offer her any help whatsoever.

—Qin Wei, if you have even the slightest bit of conscience, you should stay away from my sister!

Qin Wei leaned against the edge of the back seat, staring at the blurred scenery retreating behind the misted-up car window.

Her phone vibrated and lit up. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the words Zhou You had repeated to her countless times.

“…”

Qin Wei closed her eyes. In one month, she and Zhou Jing would be getting engaged. She still remembered the excitement in Zhou Jing’s eyes when she told her about it last week.

She would not break up with Zhou Jing. She didn’t care about the rest of the Zhou family.

As long as Zhou Jing loved her, that was enough.

“Miss, we’re here.”

The driver stopped in front of Hanlin Waterside Pavilion. Qin Wei came back to herself and looked at the quiet, elegant entrance before her. She gently drew in a breath and held it faintly in her chest, then opened the car door and stepped out.

The rainwater pooled at the entrance rippled outward along the edges of her heels. Qin Wei glanced down, then walked straight inside.

She was already a familiar face at Hanlin Waterside Pavilion. Back when Zhou Jing had first started her business, Qin Wei often accompanied her here to meet all kinds of people, drinking glass after glass until she ended up in the hospital. Only then had she managed to bring Jingwei investment after investment, resource after resource.

Rain City had heavy rainfall year-round and uneven mountainous terrain. Its natural scenery went without saying, and those who had entered the market early had already made fortunes.

But large-scale man-made scenic areas were still rare.

Zhou Jing had long had her eye on the city’s abundant freshwater resources, hoping to carve out a piece of the hydropower industry to sustain Jingwei. But forget the other families—even the Zhou family itself would never allow Zhou Jing to touch so much as a fraction of it.

So last year, despite pressure from the investors and even from Zhou Jing herself, Qin Wei had forcibly pushed through a project to redevelop an abandoned forest farm, creating what was now the city’s first large-scale man-made scenic area—Guansong Rainforest Mountain.

Drawing on Rain City’s natural and historical background, she divided and replanned the forest farm area until every facility in the scenic area blended seamlessly with its historical setting, forming a massive immersive historical and natural attraction.

Only then did the tottering Jingwei survive. It was this scenic area that allowed Jingwei to attract more investors and even earn Old Madam Zhou’s support, eventually allowing the company to successfully go public.

Only then did Jingwei gain enough capital to break into other industries.

Zhou Jing still hadn’t given up on the small hydropower station serving the farms in the western district.

It might have been called small, but the farms in the western district were anything but ordinary.

They belonged to the Lu family.

Securing that independently operated small hydropower station would practically mean securing the Lu family’s farms as well.

Once they established a connection with the Lu family—a top-tier wealthy merchant family with a century of history—then in Rain City, they could practically go wherever they pleased.

Any project they wanted would be theirs for the taking.

That was exactly what Zhou Jing wanted.

For this, she had invested practically every publicly movable asset Jingwei possessed, determined to force her way into the game.

Qin Wei had left Jingwei nearly a year ago. Over that year, she had barely asked about anything related to the company. It was only last week, when Zhou You came to her school, blocked her path, and berated her, that she finally learned about it.

“Our family wants absolutely nothing to do with a jinx like you! If you hadn’t deceived my sister back then, my great-grandmother never would’ve helped your Qin family before everything went wrong! And what happened? Your parents took the money and ran! We even lost the competition for the western district farms because of it!”

“Why do you think Zhou Jing has been so determined to force her way into the western district all these years? Because she has to reclaim the western district hydropower project she lost four years ago because she was trying to help you, along with the chance to establish ties with the Lu family! That should’ve been your responsibility, but instead you’ve left my sister to shoulder it alone?”

“Last year, we finally had even the slightest hope of getting a foot in the door! But right at that critical moment, you insisted on diverting the funds to some forest scenic-area project! Fine, it made money—and then what? You don’t have a family anymore, but my sister does! She can’t waste her entire life on you, can she?”

“If you really like my sister, can’t you think about what’s best for her? Can’t you let her go home?”

“…”

“President Qin, you’re here.”

“I’m not with Jingwei anymore. You don’t need to call me President Qin.” Qin Wei rubbed her furrowed brow twice and glanced to the side. “I’ll go up myself.”

“O-okay.” The attendant led Qin Wei toward the VIP elevator on the other side. After swiping the card, she said gently, “President Qin, President Zhou and the others are in the Jingzhe private room…” Number Two.

Qin Wei nodded and quietly interrupted as the elevator doors closed. “I know.”

The elevator went straight to the top floor. The moment the doors opened, an enormous sky garden came into view. But what fell from overhead wasn’t sunlight—it was a fine, unending drizzle.

The rain tapped softly against the transparent glass above, or trickled down through the lush vegetation with a steady tap, tap, tap.

Qin Wei lifted her head and glanced around before looking toward the railing in the corner.

When she had secured Jingwei’s first project, that was where she had clung to the railing and vomited until she could barely tell up from down. She had wanted to tell Zhou Jing the good news immediately, but when she called, Zhou Jing hadn’t answered.

In the miserable gaps between bouts of vomiting, Qin Wei had listened to the soft patter and light tapping of the rain overhead, laughing and crying at the same time as she waited for a car.

Zhou Jing hadn’t come to pick her up. Later, though, she had held Qin Wei and cried for a long time. That day, Zhou Jing had gone back to the Zhou family to beg her great-grandmother for funding.

Qin Wei had been a little hurt that Zhou Jing hadn’t answered her call and hadn’t come to pick her up at the time they had agreed on.

But when she thought about how she had secured the project and Zhou Jing had obtained another portion of funding, how Jingwei would get better and they would get better too, she simply hugged Zhou Jing and said nothing.

“…”

Qin Wei sighed again. She had lost count of how many times she had sighed along the way.

Perhaps the familiar surroundings had stirred old emotions. Qin Wei took the medicine from her bag and swallowed it in one gulp, then pressed at her head before walking toward the Jingzhe private rooms.

The corridor was almost completely silent. Even after Qin Wei’s heels carried her into the Jingzhe section, she still couldn’t hear a sound. When she stopped in front of Private Room One and looked at the door left slightly ajar, there was still nothing.

It suddenly occurred to her that this didn’t seem to be the private room Zhou Jing usually reserved.

“…” Qin Wei took out her phone, intending to send Zhou Jing a message, but a new message popped up on the screen first.

—Are you here yet? Doesn’t Jingwei belong to both of you? And you’re really just leaving everything to everyone else like this?

Another message from Zhou You.

Qin Wei pressed her lips together and replied.

—I’m at the door. Jingzhe · One?

Zhou You replied almost immediately.

—What, do you need me to personally come open the door for you? Do you think this is still like before? Who do you think you are?

“…”

Qin Wei flipped her phone over and tossed it directly into her bag, refusing to look at it again.

She stared at the door in front of her, took a deep breath, straightened her back, grasped the handle, and gently pushed it open.

“Zhou—”

“Ah!”

Qin Wei stared into the dim private room. She froze for an instant and immediately tried to back out, but before she could, a tremendous force suddenly seized her arm and yanked her inside.

Her vision spun and overturned in confusion. Before Qin Wei could even struggle twice, she was pinned down against the soft seat.

“Let…!”

The moment the sound left her mouth, her neck was seized viciously. Qin Wei let out a muffled whimper and tilted her head back, narrowing her eyes as she struggled to make out the other person’s face. At the same time, her other hand quickly grabbed the bag she had managed not to drop and rummaged through it for anything useful.