Transmigrated as the Domineering Scumbag Alpha Forced into Marriage by a Delicate Subordinate (GL) - Chapter 17

“Why do you ask that?” Tang Yun suddenly sat up straight.

Lin Hao smiled with a touch of embarrassment, rubbing his hands as he explained: “Don’t be nervous. I don’t mean any harm.”

“There’s a rumor that you slept your way in. I believed it at first, which is why I was rude to you that day, but now I feel the rumor might not be credible, so I wanted to confirm it with you personally.”

“No other reason. I just feel that with your talent, you absolutely don’t need to sleep your way in. You and the big boss definitely aren’t in that kind of relationship they talk about. Just tell me a little, and next time I hear them gossiping, I’ll shut them down,” Lin Hao said.

Tang Yun lowered her gaze. Rumors don’t come from nowhere. Qin Jue didn’t even try to hide anything. Tang Yun went in and out with Qin Jue every day. She figured a lot of people in the company were gossiping behind her back. Lin Hao was familiar with her, so he was willing to speak up for justice. But how was she supposed to tell Lin Hao that she and Qin Jue were exactly in that kind of relationship the rumors described?

Tang Yun blinked and could only tell Lin Hao: “It’s not convenient for me to say.”

“Huh?” Lin Hao was stunned, not expecting this turn of events.

Gossip between a young Omega and a wealthy Alpha was always exaggerated by busybodies. Ninety-nine percent of it was unfounded nonsense born of jealousy or self-interest. Lin Hao had finally rolled up his sleeves, intending to be righteous, but it seemed he had run into the real one percent.

Tang Yun clutched her phone, unwilling to say more. Lin Hao was so embarrassed he seemed to have lost the ability to speak. He had come to make peace, but now he sounded incredibly passive-aggressive.

Finally, Lin Hao stammered for a long time and then managed to squeeze out, “I won’t discriminate against you.”

Pah! What kind of thing is that to say? Why did he even open his mouth!

Silence. A long silence.

Lin Hao racked his brain trying to break the deadlock. He glanced at the phone Tang Yun was tightly holding in her hand. Some context suddenly clicked in his mind. He abruptly realized what Tang Yun meant by “I might have to leave a little early.”

He pointed at Tang Yun’s phone and meekly asked, “Is it CEO Qin?”

Tang Yun nodded.

Lin Hao closed his eyes.

After a long moment, Lin Hao opened his eyes and asked hopefully, “You came out with us, so you must have asked her for leave, right?”

Tang Yun: “No.”

Lin Hao closed his eyes again.

No wonder. No wonder Tang Yun’s departure every night was so sudden. One second she was focused, and the next she was leaping out of her seat, grabbing her bag, and running out. It turned out she was on call.

It was almost the time she usually suddenly left work.

“How about you go back first?” Lin Hao suggested.

“Sister Tang, it’s your song. Here’s the microphone,” a microphone traveled across the distance to Tang Yun.

It had been a long time since Tang Yun had purely relaxed like this with friends, without worrying about how to pay the bills at the end of the month, or whether Xin Xin had eaten. The song she requested was a huge hit from three years ago. She didn’t even know what was popular now.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to take leave occasionally, would it? Qin Jue seemed quite easy to talk to, and ever since she returned from the hospital, she seemed to have genuinely become more ascetic. Whether Tang Yun was around or not didn’t seem to matter much.

She didn’t know where the confidence came from, but when the microphone reached her, she took it on an impulse. She sang the entire song following the accompaniment and lyrics, and then, in one breath, drafted a leave request message to Qin Jue.

“CEO Qin, our project team is having a get-together tonight. I might not be able to go back with you. I’m requesting leave.”

Send.

Tang Yun regretted it as soon as she sent it, debating whether to recall it. But what if Qin Jue had already seen it? Even if Qin Jue hadn’t seen it, there would still be a record of a recalled message on her end. How would she explain that?

After agonizing back and forth, two minutes passed. She couldn’t recall it anymore. She had no choice.

Three more minutes passed. Qin Jue replied with a single word: “Good.”

Did that mean she agreed?

Perhaps Qin Jue was a good boss in every sense of the word?

A huge weight pressing on Tang Yun’s chest suddenly vanished. She felt much easier breathing. The next few songs were all ones she knew how to sing. She sang along with her colleagues who had requested them. She hadn’t felt this carefree in a long time.

Late at night, the KTV session finally ended. Lin Hao, who was in the know, praised Qin Jue’s generosity and flexibility, which made Tang Yun feel a little lightheaded herself. She hailed a taxi back to the apartment in the city center. Riding the elevator up, she only realized at the apartment door that Qin Jue hadn’t registered her fingerprint, so she couldn’t get in.

Tang Yun immediately sobered up. She realized she might have gotten a little too ahead of herself. This apartment overlooking the entire city was not her home; it was just a temporary cage.

Tang Yun pulled out her phone and messaged Qin Jue, hoping the CEO would open the door for her.

Silence.

She stood at the apartment door staring at the message interface for half an hour. Even the most oblivious person would realize that the “Good” Qin Jue had replied earlier was not an expression of willing agreement. She had offended CEO Qin.

The night was very cold, and Tang Yun couldn’t help but shiver standing at the door. She truly had no experience provoking Qin Jue. She suspected it was possible that Qin Jue would leave her out in the hallway all night.

Tang Yun didn’t know what a qualified kept person should do at this moment. Should she plead and act spoiled? But she didn’t know how to plead or act spoiled.

Just as Tang Yun was debating whether to try calling Qin Jue, the door in front of her finally opened.

Qin Jue was wrapped in a bathrobe, with wet strands of hair dangling from the gaps in her hair drying towel. She was surrounded by warm steam.

She looked Tang Yun up and down, smelled a hint of alcohol, and her face instantly darkened. She turned around without a word and sat down on the sofa in the living room. After a moment of hesitation, Tang Yun entered and quietly closed the door.

From outside the door to inside, she had simply changed her location for being punished to stand.

“Did you drink?” Qin Jue asked.

“No, no,” Tang Yun shook her head, then, looking at Qin Jue’s expression, quickly added, “Just a little bit.”

Qin Jue frowned.

Qin Jue was used to the light, clean, soapy scent on Tang Yun. It was very incompatible with the smell of alcohol, and Qin Jue disliked that mixed odor.

“Do you know what you did wrong?” Qin Jue asked.

Tang Yun quickly nodded.

“What did you do wrong?” Qin Jue continued to ask.

Tang Yun whispered, “I shouldn’t have gone out to the gathering with them.”

Qin Jue scoffed.

This child was simply too inexperienced in the workplace. Asking for leave was fine, but she needed to know how to deal with the boss. From the moment Qin Jue saw Tang Yun’s leave request, she knew her KPI as a villainous cannon fodder could be achieved again.

“You still don’t know what you did wrong,” Qin Jue shook her head.

“Was that a leave request?” Qin Jue asked.

Tang Yun looked utterly confused.

“You didn’t give me advance notice, nor did you give me room to refuse. You weren’t discussing it with me, you were notifying me,” Qin Jue said.

“If I’m not mistaken, I’m the one who’s paying you, right?”

“Or do you think we have some other kind of relationship?”

Every word Qin Jue spoke felt like a slap across Tang Yun’s face. She felt all the blood in her body rushing to her head. The recent peaceful cohabitation with Qin Jue had been like a veil covering the nature of this relationship. She was like someone who never learned from past mistakes, forgetting that Qin Jue was fundamentally an unpleasant person.

Tang Yun lowered her head, feeling shame and anger.

Qin Jue felt like Tang Yun was about to cry. In her estimation, these words shouldn’t be enough to make Tang Yun cry.

Qin Jue rarely disciplined employees herself. Most of the time, one look from her and the responsible manager would relay her intentions, which was why many people felt that the big boss was amiable and the middle management were the problematic ones. Now having to play the villain herself, she felt very uncomfortable.

“That’s enough. I allow you to do things for yourself when I don’t have special requests, but you need to be mindful of your attitude toward me,” Qin Jue decided to end the topic.

Qin Jue was inexplicably irritable, as if she had genuinely been provoked by Tang Yun. But why would she be provoked by Tang Yun? Tang Yun triggered her, wasn’t that exactly what she needed to complete her mission?

Qin Jue sipped some cold water to calm herself down, got up, and walked to the door. She pressed a few spots on the fingerprint lock and said to Tang Yun, “Come here. Record your fingerprint.”

She only saw Tang Yun’s request to enter after she had finished showering, nearly half an hour after the message was sent.

While she could have taken the opportunity to humiliate the female lead, this apartment only had her and Tang Yun as permanent residents. Creating this distinction of one person being able to enter and the other not was pointless and inconvenient. Qin Jue had overlooked it before, but now she would fix it.

Tang Yun looked up, seeming very surprised.

She placed her index finger on the sensor and watched the green outline of her fingerprint slowly fill the small display. Her lips trembled. She said to Qin Jue in a very polite and measured tone, “Thank you, CEO Qin.”

Her attitude was very respectful. Qin Jue didn’t understand why she was still unsatisfied.

“There’s an industry annual conference tomorrow. You’ll come with me to listen in. We’ll be staying overnight. I’ve prepared clothes for you,” Qin Jue instructed.

These industry annual conferences were essentially platforms for companies to boast and network, exchange information, expand connections, and find new partners to divide up the pie. They were very valuable to people at a certain level but were purely for free food and drinks for those who weren’t.

Qin Jue wanted to preserve the core of Changfeng Technology as much as possible when the company inevitably collapsed, leaving some basic dignity for Mrs. Qin and the Changfeng employees. To do that, she had to work through the female lead. Given how she was oppressing Tang Yun, her true love interest, who hadn’t appeared yet, would probably want to tear her business apart. Therefore, Qin Jue hoped that Tang Yun, rather than the love interest, would be the one to carry out the revenge against her and Changfeng Technology. This meant Tang Yun’s standing in the company needed to be higher.

Taking her to gain some experience was a good idea.

Qin Jue felt that she had put a lot of careful thought into this, but for some reason, Tang Yun’s face turned very unpleasant, especially after hearing that Qin Jue had prepared clothes for her, as if she had suffered some great humiliation.

Qin Jue: “?”

What KPI did she unknowingly complete this time?