In full view of everyone, the police snapped cold steel handcuffs around Zhao Yinian’s wrists.
Zhao Yinian’s gaze remained fixed on Qin Yuhe, her eyes filled with unwillingness, resentment, and disbelief.
She looked at him with tear-damp, pitiful eyes.
“Qin Yuhe, we’ve known each other for so many years. I’m your grandmother’s god-granddaughter, and I’ve always treated you like my own brother. How could you personally send me to prison? How can your heart be so cruel?”
Qin Yuhe’s expression was as cold as a frozen lake. “If you truly regarded me as your brother, you wouldn’t have framed my wife.”
“You’ve done nothing but evil, yet you still want sympathy. You’ve been false and hypocritical, yet you expect others to treat you sincerely. You’ve hurt people, yet you still want forgiveness. That’s shameless!”
“What goes around comes around. There is a cause for every effect. You should have thought of the day you’d be arrested when you committed those crimes.”
Qin Yuhe cast a cold look at Zhao Yinian. His deep, frigid gaze swept across everyone in the lobby, and the pressure he exuded was like a mountain crashing down on them. Everyone held their breath, not daring to make a sound.
He was speaking not only for Zhao Yinian to hear, but also warning everyone else.
“My wife is my bottom line!”
His words landed with the force of a hammer, his tone leaving no room for argument. Everyone’s hearts seemed to stop for a moment.
The female employees were filled with envy toward Song Xinya. Who didn’t want a good husband? Who didn’t want to be cherished, protected, and held and kissed by such a powerful and handsome man?
As for the male employees who had coveted Song Xinya’s beauty, it felt as if they had been struck over the head. Not one of their impure little thoughts dared show itself again.
The air in the lobby seemed frozen. The atmosphere was as tense as a bow drawn to its limit. No one dared speak; it was so quiet that even a pin dropping to the floor would have been clearly audible.
While Zhao Yinian’s heart was turning to ashes and everyone else was as silent as frightened cicadas, Song Xinya’s heart felt as if it had been soaking in warm honey. Layer upon layer of sweetness stretched on and on, flowing through her veins and permeating every cell in her body.
She extended her little finger and hooked it around Qin Yuhe’s.
Her slender, jade-like finger was smooth and delicate, like a nimble little fish winding between his fingers and clinging tightly.
She lightly scratched his palm with her fingertip, stirring up a teasing itch.
Qin Yuhe suddenly tightened his grip on her hand, enclosing it completely so that the mischievous little fish could no longer make trouble.
He looked toward the police officers. “What are you waiting for? Take Zhao Yinian away.”
Under the watchful eyes of everyone in the company, Zhao Yinian was escorted away in handcuffs.
The moment she stepped out of the Qin Group building, Zhao Yinian raised her head and looked at the sky.
It was so blue, so vast, so free.
She would never see it again.
Then her gaze shifted to the side, where she saw Song Xinya walking home hand in hand with Qin Yuhe.
The glow of the setting sun filled the horizon. Rosy golden light enveloped Song Xinya and Qin Yuhe. Their fingers were interlocked, and they chatted and laughed as they walked, their intimate manner radiating a sweet, loving atmosphere.
Sitting in the police car, Zhao Yinian watched Song Xinya and Qin Yuhe’s blissful retreating figures. Tears streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably. She sobbed until her heart broke, crying so hard she could barely breathe.
The car door closed, and amid the piercing wail of the siren, the police car headed toward the detention center.
Song Xinya sat in a spacious, luxurious Rolls-Royce traveling in the opposite direction.
Through the rearview mirror, she watched the police car grow farther and farther away. Thinking about what Qin Yuhe had said, she realized that he had been the one to hand Zhao Yinian’s evidence of embezzlement, bribery, and misappropriation of company property over to the police.
Then she thought of how Qin Yuhe had worked nonstop in front of his computer after returning home the night before.
Song Xinya seemed to understand what had happened. “Were you busy searching for evidence of Zhao Yinian’s embezzlement, bribery, and misappropriation of company property last night?”
Qin Yuhe replied, “Yes.”
After learning that Zhao Yinian had framed her, he had immediately begun searching for evidence of her crimes. With a meticulous plan, swift execution, and the sacrifice of working overtime through the night, he had personally sent Zhao Yinian—the woman who had hurt her—to prison, completely cutting off any possibility of her harming Song Xinya again.
How could she not be moved by being protected so wholeheartedly by someone?
Song Xinya’s soft body lunged toward Qin Yuhe. She wrapped her arms around his neck, draped herself over him, and planted a loud, emphatic kiss on his cheek.
Qin Yuhe lowered his eyes to look at her and rubbed her head with his palm. “Just one kiss?”
Song Xinya leaned over and gave his other cheek another loud, emphatic kiss.
Then she took the initiative to ask, “Do you want more?”
Qin Yuhe said, “I do want more, but…”
He nodded toward the front. “Did you notice that the privacy screen isn’t up?”
The driver immediately felt as if he were sitting on pins and needles. He shifted uneasily in his seat.
His eyes remained fixed straight ahead. He pretended to be deaf and mute, acting like an emotionless block of wood.
Song Xinya continued clinging to Qin Yuhe’s neck, her entire body hanging onto him without a care. Her heart and attention were completely focused on him, and she simply wanted to hold him.
“What’s wrong with a married couple kissing? It’s not against the law. Which married couple doesn’t kiss? Doesn’t the driver kiss his wife?”
The driver certainly did, but he continued pretending to be deaf and didn’t dare say a word. He quickly raised the privacy screen, leaving the two people in the back seat their private space.
Once the screen was up, Song Xinya asked Qin Yuhe, “Are you going to work overtime tonight?”
One of Qin Yuhe’s hands rested on the small of Song Xinya’s back. His fingers moved with practiced skill, applying neither too much nor too little pressure as they rubbed and kneaded the sensitive skin at her waist.
“Whether I work overtime tonight depends on you.”
Song Xinya’s eyes were as gentle as water, with a hint of coquettishness in her voice. “What if I don’t want you to work overtime?”
“Then I won’t.”
“What if I want you to work overtime?”
“Really?”
Song Xinya smiled sweetly. “I’m kidding.”
She pressed her full, soft chest against him.
“I don’t want you to work overtime tonight.”
Qin Yuhe understood her signal.
“No overtime tonight. I’ll accompany you while we play…”
Song Xinya was a proud young woman. Blushing, she argued with him, “Why are you accompanying me instead of me accompanying you?”
“What’s the difference?”
“There is a difference! If you accompany me, it makes me look especially needy. If I accompany you, then you’re the one who wants it.”
Qin Yuhe replied, “You are needy. I could tell.”
Song Xinya immediately flushed with embarrassment. “You’re falsely accusing me.”
“I’m not. You were so needy last night that you even read a dirty book.”
Song Xinya truly felt wronged. “When did I read a dirty book? I didn’t!”
“You did.”
“I really don’t have a thing for dirty books.”
“You do.”
Song Xinya nearly fainted from exasperation.
Qin Yuhe continued, “Should I pull up the surveillance footage from last night? You didn’t just read it. Even after you fell asleep, you couldn’t bear to put it down. You covered your face with the dirty book and fell asleep breathing in its scent.”
Song Xinya finally understood. The book she had casually picked up the night before had been the dirty book confiscated from Qin Yuyan.
She opened her mouth to explain. “That was…”
If Qin Yuhe found out that Qin Yuyan had been reading dirty books at such a young age, Qin Yuyan’s backside would certainly be beaten black and blue with a switch.
As a good sister-in-law, Song Xinya said, “I did read some erotica.”
Qin Yuhe didn’t really mind that she read it.
They were both adults, and they’d already had sex. Looking at a few pictures of naked bodies hardly seemed worth making a fuss over.
There was nothing to get worked up about.
What Qin Yuhe cared about was this: “After reading it, did you learn anything?”
Song Xinya was astonished. What was he expecting her to learn from that kind of thing—how to “study hard and strengthen the nation”?
Qin Yuhe said, “I’ve seen women in those things use their mouths…”
