After the Harem Novel’s Female Lead was Spoiled by the Comments - Chapter 30

After the program finished recording, Wen Hebai took the nearest flight back to K City.

As soon as she walked out of the arrivals gate, she saw an unfamiliar woman holding up a pickup sign with her name written on it.

Lu Tie went over first to ask, “May I ask who you are?”

“I’m President Yan’s fifth secretary. My name is Qi Zange. President Yan asked me to come pick up Ms. Wen.”

Lu Tie frowned. “When did President Yan hire a fifth secretary?”

“Four days ago. This is my work ID.” Qi Zange calmly took out her employee badge.

Wen Hebai did not suspect that Qi Zange’s identity was fake. She asked, “Why didn’t she come personally?”

They had agreed last night that Yan Qingwen would come pick her up—though it had only been Wen Hebai’s one-sided request, and Yan Qingwen had never directly agreed. Was she standing her up today? Wen Hebai felt extremely irritated.

Qi Zange hurriedly said, “President Yan is here. She’s in the car having a video conference. She asked me to come pick you up first!”

Wen Hebai’s mood instantly turned from cloudy to clear. She asked Lu Tie to wait for the luggage while she followed Qi Zange directly.

After getting into the car, before she could even greet Yan Qingwen, the latter looked at her with a deep gaze, then sighed.

Wen Hebai found President Yan’s reaction very interesting. She asked, “We haven’t seen each other for so many days. Why sigh the moment you see me?”

“Where’s Lu Tie?” Yan Qingwen asked her.

“She went to get the luggage.”

Yan Qingwen’s brows furrowed even deeper. “You just abandoned Lu Tie and left with a stranger?”

Wen Hebai reacted and pointed at Qi Zange, who had already gotten into the driver’s seat. “Isn’t she your secretary? How does she count as a stranger?”

“Had you met her before today? What if her identity as my secretary was faked by someone else? What if someone learned in advance that I was coming to pick you up and arranged someone beforehand to deceive you and take you away before I arrived?” Yan Qingwen asked in return.

Wen Hebai was momentarily speechless. She had probably never considered that someone would pretend to be someone from Yan Qingwen’s side to trick her.

But even if Qi Zange were not Yan Qingwen’s person and had been impersonating someone else, as long as the other party brought up Yan Qingwen’s name, she probably would have believed it without question.

Yan Qingwen had deliberately brought Qi Zange to pick her up today because she wanted to see how vigilant Wen Hebai was. She had not expected this person to have absolutely no sense of caution! And she still had the nerve to call Su Jinyue naive, when she herself was clearly very naive too!

Wen Hebai lowered her eyes and stared at her nose, then at her heart. After a while, she suddenly tasted something off and asked, “That time at the bar, you told me to bring Lu Tie with me whenever I went out. This time, you specially tested me. Did something happen?”

“We’ll talk when we get back!” Aside from Assistant Xiao Chen, there was also Qi Zange, the secretary acting as driver, in the car. There were some things Yan Qingwen did not feel comfortable letting too many people know.

Only after Lu Tie put the luggage into the bodyguards’ car behind them did Qi Zange start the car.

On the way back, the atmosphere in the car was somewhat dull. Xiao Chen kept glancing at the two main parties through the rearview mirror. After thinking for a long while, she finally found a topic to warm up the mood.

“By the way, President Yan, I’ve selected a few dates you specifically asked me to clear. It now depends on whether Madam’s schedule is suitable.”

Wen Hebai immediately knew that these were dates for taking wedding photos. She took the tablet Xiao Chen handed over, looked through it, and said, “The second weekend of next month is quite suitable. The weather will be good, and there will be enough time for us to choose wedding dress styles and shooting locations. I’ll also ask my manager to clear those days.”

Once Yan Qingwen nodded, the schedule was considered settled. Xiao Chen very consciously opened an app and began helping them choose a suitable wedding photography studio.

Suddenly, she saw that the couples taking wedding photos all wore rings on their hands. Then she looked at President Yan and the Best Actress’s clean, slender fingers, and inspiration struck her.

“President Yan, Madam, since you’re both taking wedding photos, not having wedding rings seems a little—” unreasonable.

Before she could finish, she met Yan Qingwen’s emotionless gaze and immediately shut up in fright.

But Wen Hebai seemed to have been reminded by her. She spread out her long, slender fingers and cried out exaggeratedly, “Right! I was wondering why my hands look so beautiful, yet feel like they’re missing something. So it turns out they’re missing wedding rings!”

Yan Qingwen held her forehead.

The moment Wen Hebai opened her mouth, Yan Qingwen knew what she was scheming, so she said, “I’ll ask Aunt to help us design a pair of wedding rings.”

Actually, when Yan Qingwen had been scrolling through Weibo recently, she had seen CP fans wondering why the two of them did not wear wedding rings. Only then had she remembered that wedding rings were a thing. However, she always felt that suddenly bringing up wedding rings with Wen Hebai would be a little strange. On top of that, she was not used to wearing a ring on her finger, so she had simply ignored the matter.

Now that Xiao Chen had brought it up and Wen Hebai had taken it to heart, it would be somewhat unreasonable if she did not make a statement.

Wen Hebai: “Mua~ Wife, you’re so good to me!”

Wen Hebai’s artificial, coquettish tone made even Qi Zange, who was driving, subconsciously wobble the steering wheel slightly. Yan Qingwen, however, had long since cultivated the ability to be immune to all poisons. Her expression did not change at all.

After they returned home, Xiao Chen and Qi Zange helped Lu Tie carry Wen Hebai’s luggage into the villa, then withdrew. Aunt Lan was cleaning, so Yan Qingwen led Wen Hebai back to the study, opened the email, and told her one by one about someone using Wen Hebai to threaten her.

Originally, Yan Qingwen had not planned to mention it. But after several days of careful thought, she felt that keeping Wen Hebai, the person involved, in the dark was not wise. If Wen Hebai knew she was in danger, she could be more cautious.

After Wen Hebai learned about it, she could not help laughing. “How could anyone use me to threaten you?”

Yan Qingwen said lightly, “Exactly. In the past, everyone knew our relationship was bad, so naturally no one would be stupid enough to use you to threaten me. But now we’re married, and we’ve been frequently appearing together, creating the illusion that we’re deeply in love. To them, using one of us to threaten the other half is perfectly suitable.”

Wen Hebai stopped laughing. Clearly, she had also realized this point.

“I think, for the sake of our respective safety, it would be best to do less public fan service outside,” Yan Qingwen said.

Wen Hebai gave an unhappy cold snort. “I don’t remember doing any public fan service with you.”

“Does the time we went to watch a movie not count?”

Wen Hebai’s eyes darkened. “I sincerely wanted to watch a movie with you, yet you thought I was doing it for business! Yan Qingwen, can your heart get any colder?” After a pause, she turned her face away. “Forget it. It’s not like I don’t know what kind of person you are.”

Yan Qingwen frowned. She felt that her own mood had also been stirred by Wen Hebai’s emotions, becoming somewhat restless and stifled.

The silent stalemate did not last too long before Wen Hebai changed the topic. “Do you have any leads on who would use me to threaten you?”

“I have a few guesses, but I’m not certain. The clue we can currently find is that the other party likely has power overseas.”

“Then most of those wealthy families in K City can basically be ruled out.” Wen Hebai knew very well which wealthy families in K City could come into contact with overseas forces. “Although there are plenty of people in K City with motives, aside from your Yan family, which owns multiple mines in many places around the world, only the Liao family has cooperation with foreign medical institutions.”

Yan Qingwen’s thoughts coincided with Wen Hebai’s. However, she had never suspected her own family. As for the Liao family, they could actually be ruled out too. After all, the Yan and Liao families had no grudges. If the Liao family wanted to act against the Yan family, they would definitely choose an area they were good at. There was no need to find foreign hackers and threaten her through such a roundabout method.

She leaned more toward three possibilities. First, Zhuang Yi and the force behind him were causing trouble.

That night, Zhuang Yi and Wen Hebai had appeared at Yiqi Bar one after the other. After leaving the bar, he might not have left immediately, so he had the opportunity to take photos of Wen Hebai entering and leaving the bar, then use his foreign forces to send the photos to her.

She had also wondered whether the people she sent to investigate the relationship between Zhuang Yi and the family forces in C City had drawn C City’s attention, and that was why they used this matter to warn her.

The remaining possibility was that the force behind Jiang Yunhan was at work. Since it could let the “female leads” hear his inner thoughts, then it could certainly also use certain means to take such photos and send them to her.

She could not tell Wen Hebai about these guesses.

However, Wen Hebai did not seem very nervous. She even had the mood to joke. “It’s also possible that it wasn’t a threat, but to let you know that your newlywed wife openly entered and exited a bar while you were on a business trip. In many people’s eyes, bars and nightclubs are improper places, and people who go in and out of those places are also improper. So… perhaps the other party simply wanted to tell you that I’m not a proper person.”

Yan Qingwen: “…”

Was that reasonable?

Thinking carefully, it did seem somewhat reasonable. Under normal circumstances, if one wanted to threaten a person, one would definitely not only send a few photos. They should also add some rather bloody content in order to achieve the effect of intimidation.

So, despite her strict defenses, it was possible she had guarded against nothing?

“If that’s really the case, then the other party was doing something unnecessary—I already knew you weren’t a proper person long ago,” Yan Qingwen said.

Wen Hebai cried injustice. “How am I not a proper person?!”

“What proper person would buy a pile of ‘phone accessories’?” Yan Qingwen gave her a sidelong glance.

Wen Hebai leaned against the sofa back in a relaxed and leisurely posture, her lashes slightly lifted. “Buying adult toys isn’t something shameful. My dear wife, where did you put them?”

“No matter what, we still need to stay vigilant.” Yan Qingwen withdrew her gaze and placed it on the computer screen, dignified and serious. “I need to work.”

Wen Hebai stretched lazily, moved over a footstool to prop up her legs, and said, “You do your work. I’m tired anyway and need to rest for a bit.”

Seeing that she intended to rest here, Yan Qingwen gave an order to leave. “Go back to your room to sleep.”

“Unless you accompany me.”

Yan Qingwen: “…”

It was broad daylight. What was she dreaming about?

The corners of Wen Hebai’s lips curved slightly. She closed her eyes, tilted her head, and started pretending to sleep.

Yan Qingwen was too lazy to drive her away. She put away all distracting thoughts and began focusing on work.

Without anyone noticing, the sky outside gradually darkened. The clouds in the sky looked as though ink had been splashed across them. Before long, an autumn rain began falling in a light patter.

The autumn wind carrying threads of rain blew in through the open floor-to-ceiling window, bringing the chill of autumn. The room’s temperature gradually dropped, and Yan Qingwen, who was only wearing a silk blouse, felt the cold.

She got up and closed the floor-to-ceiling window. Then she glanced at Wen Hebai, who had fallen asleep crookedly on the sofa. The latter seemed to have sensed the cold and had folded her arms in her sleep.

Yan Qingwen lowered her eyes and pondered what Wen Hebai had meant earlier when she said she had sincerely wanted to watch a movie with her. But Yan Qingwen did not like guessing other people’s intentions. It was just like wondering in a relationship whether the other person loved you or not—meaningless and exhausting.

After thinking in circles and still failing to come up with anything, she stopped thinking about it.

She took a thin blanket from the cabinet, covered Wen Hebai with it, then left the study and called her aunt, Yan Su, to discuss the wedding ring design.