Giving You Dawn And Dusk - Chapter 22

Liang Shi did not know how the original owner got along with her family.

At present, she had only spoken to Qiu Zimin on the phone.

But from the brief content she knew, the original owner’s two older brothers were actually quite decent. They had simply been angered by the original owner’s unruly behavior and hated that she refused to improve, so later, they could no longer be bothered to pay attention to her.

Especially after the Liang family recognized their new daughter, their attitude toward her directly sank to its lowest point.

But the original owner also had only herself to blame for being so disappointing.

In the second half of the novel, after the original owner’s gland had been dug out and she was thrown onto the streets in an extremely miserable state, she even went to kidnap Liang Xinhe’s daughter, trying to use this to threaten the second brother who had always tolerated her since childhood, wanting a sum of money so she could flee far away.

This had infuriated Liang Xinhe. After rescuing his daughter, he directly had someone break one of the original owner’s legs.

Liang Shi: “……”

For some reason, at this moment, Liang Shi felt a kind of shared pain.

As if the person whose leg had been broken was herself.

She trembled.

“No,” Liang Shi said. “I’m staying at home.”

The implication was—I’m very obedient. I didn’t run around, and I didn’t go gambling.

“I heard you went to the hospital a couple days ago?” Liang Xinhe said. “And with your wife too. What bastard thing did you do this time?”

Liang Shi swallowed. “Nothing. It was just… a small misunderstanding.”

“I can’t be bothered to care about you either.” Liang Xinhe’s tone was impatient, but every sentence he said made sense. “You were the one who married her into the family. Our family paid a considerable price so you could marry her. Don’t act stupid. If you provoke the Xu family so badly that they use media power against the Liang family, I absolutely will not stand on your side.”

“I know.” Liang Shi promised, “I’ll treat Xu Qingzhu well.”

“I won’t interfere in matters between you wives,” Liang Xinhe said. “But are you still coming to the company or not? If you’re not coming, I’ll remove that position so an empty office won’t sit there annoying people.”

Liang Shi immediately said, “I’m going.”

She did not have much else to do right now either, and returning to her old profession would also take some time.

Before she understood this world well enough, she could not act rashly.

Besides, acting required a lot of time. In the past, once she joined a filming crew, she was basically out of contact with the outside world.

Now, she still needed to win Xu Qingzhu over. In other words, she couldn’t stay too far away from Xu Qingzhu. Otherwise, if she couldn’t obtain luck points, she would die.

For these three months, she had better stay low and survive.

People had no choice but to bow to reality.

“But Second Brother, can you change my position?” Liang Shi tried to make a request.

Liang Xinhe said impatiently, “What position? Is a forty-square-meter office not comfortable enough? Even my general manager’s office is about the same size as yours. Liang Shi, that’s enough. Don’t push your luck.”

“No.” Liang Shi said, “Second Brother, I want to change departments.”

Liang Xinhe: “?”

A few seconds later, Liang Xinhe asked very sincerely, “With your abilities, which department do you think you can go to?”

Liang Shi: “……”

She coughed awkwardly. “How about starting from the bottom?”

Acting also often required experiencing life.

In the past, in order to play a delivery rider, she had gone to deliver takeout.

She had also worked as a junior employee at an advertising company for a month, set up a street stall, and opened a malatang shop.

That was why audiences often said that whatever she acted as, she became. In fact, she seemed to truly be that person.

She could give people a sense of authenticity.

Right now, she would just treat it as experiencing life.

“I’ll go be a junior employee,” Liang Shi said. “You don’t need to arrange such a big office for me, and you don’t need to give me special privileges either. I’ll just hide my identity and be a small employee. I’ll start learning from the basics.”

This time, Liang Xinhe was truly shocked.

A moment later, he asked, “If you’ve been kidnapped, blink.”

Liang Shi: “……?”

“Forget it. I can’t see it anyway,” Liang Xinhe said. “Then which department do you want to go to?”

Liang Shi had looked up Dongheng Group earlier, so she was not completely unfamiliar with it.

But if she really had to say which department she wanted to go to, she truly did not know.

However…

An idea suddenly came to her. “Which department researches new products?”

“The R&D Department?” Liang Xinhe rejected it. “You don’t know anything. Don’t go there and make trouble.”

Liang Shi: “……”

But Liang Xinhe helped her think of a good place. “Go to the magazine department.”

“What does that do?” Liang Shi asked.

“Dongheng just established a new department last month. We plan to launch our own publication, specializing in electronic magazines. Right now, that department is short on people. You can go there and help out. If they’re short on copywriters, maybe you can even help a little. I thought you hadn’t learned anything in university, but I didn’t expect you could write poetry.” After Liang Xinhe finished speaking, he added, “Liang Shi, you were the one who said you wanted to become a new person. I’m giving you a chance. Don’t create another mess at the company when the time comes.”

Liang Shi: “…Okay.”

Liang Xinhe told her to report to the Human Resources Department again on Monday, then hung up the phone.

Liang Shi glanced at the time. It was already Saturday.

She would be able to start work very soon.

//

Near evening, Xu Qingzhu received a call from Bai Weiwei.

After that, she drove out in a hurry.

Xu Qingya watched her back and said in confusion, “What happened?”

But she received no answer.

At that time, Liang Shi was in the room preparing the materials she needed to bring to work. The original owner’s graduation certificate had already been thrown into some forgotten corner, and it took Liang Shi a lot of effort to find it.

Back then, the original owner had gone to a diploma-mill university and only had a graduation certificate, not a degree certificate.

However, the photo on the graduation certificate looked very youthful and eye-catching.

Her long hair reached her shoulders, and she was smiling brightly.

Liang Shi sighed emotionally. Time truly was a butcher’s knife.

And photos really could deceive people.

No one who looked at the person in this photo would think she was a wastrel, dissolute, and cruel person.

She organized everything neatly, then went downstairs.

Only Xu Qingya was in the living room. Liang Shi asked, “Where’s your sister?”

“She just went out,” Xu Qingya said. “It seemed like Sister Weiwei had something to find her for.”

Liang Shi said, “All right.”

She did not pay too much attention to it.

But by nine o’clock at night, Xu Qingzhu still had not returned.

Liang Shi waited in the room for quite a while, occasionally looking toward the door.

At a certain moment, for some reason, she had the illusion that she had become a “wife-watching stone.”

She was even bored enough to have already removed the carpet and found a new one from another room to lay down.

Stepping on the soft carpet, she kept feeling as if something was about to happen.

At nine twenty, Liang Shi could not resist calling Xu Qingzhu.

It kept ringing, but no one answered.

She then sent a few WeChat messages.

Still, no one replied.

The same went for text messages.

She found a jacket and went downstairs. The first floor was empty, quiet to an unreasonable degree.

Her feet stepped on the solid wood stairs, making tapping sounds.

Cold and lonely.

The unease in Liang Shi’s heart grew stronger.

She dialed Xu Qingzhu’s number once again, only for the call to go straight to a powered-off notification.

Just as she wanted to call again, she received a multimedia message.

It was sent from an unfamiliar number. The photo background was a dim private room, filled with curling smoke. A group of men and women sat around a round table, all with debauched smiles on their faces.

Bai Weiwei and Xu Qingzhu were sitting beneath the murky yellow light. Bai Weiwei was already drunk, and Xu Qingzhu was not much better.

In front of them were six wine glasses and a die.

Liang Shi frowned and was just about to send, Where is this?

But the other person had already sent another message.

[Liang Shi, you’re about to get cheated on very soon.]

Liang Shi: [Who are you? Where is this?]

A few seconds later, a text came.

[Your wife is playing Russian roulette with someone at Huayue International.]

[If you come any later, who knows whether what gets spun will still be wine—or people.]