Jiang Yihua frowned. “What?”
Secretary Zhu looked crestfallen. “Sir, just open your social media app. It’s not something I can explain in a sentence or two.”
On the trending list:
#Jiang Group CEO Scandal# [Hot]
#Jiang Yihua Bed Photos# [Hot]
#Performative Devoted Husband Persona# [Hot]
…
Jiang Yihua held his breath and tapped into the topic that puzzled and bewildered him the most — the bed photos. The very first post was, unmistakably, a series of bed photos of him with a strange woman!
Nine photos in a grid, no less!
In the images, he lay on the bed with his eyes tightly shut, while a young woman with a pretty face and wearing scant clothing leaned against him — sometimes draping her hand affectionately across his chest, sometimes nestling her face against the crook of his neck!
“What’s wrong?” Yu Xiang noticed the look on his face. “Is something happening at the company?”
“Nothing!” Jiang Yihua shot up from his seat, not daring to meet his wife’s eyes.
“Little Seven! Little Seven!”
Jiang Chuling was admiring herself in the mirror. Sister Xiaoqiu had designed such a gorgeous outfit for her in the game!
She was busy preening when she suddenly heard her father’s voice. With her hair loose and uncombed, she scampered up to the Roman balustrade overlooking the living room and peeked down. “What is it, Dad?”
Jiang Yihua took a deep breath. “Come down and keep your mom company watching TV. I need to step out for a bit.”
“No way, can’t Mom come up and help me pick out jewelry? Sister Xiaoqiu was just about to style my hair into a bun!”
At the mention of Qiuyun’s name, Jiang Yihua figured two heads were better than one. “Have Qiuyun come down. She’s coming with me.”
Huh?
Seeing her father’s face more stern than when Grandpa interrogated her, Jiang Chuling had no choice but to call Sister Xiaoqiu out.
Qiuyun was completely confused, but one look at the master’s expression told her something big was going down. “Miss, if I’m back late tonight, don’t wait up for me. I’ll do your hair another time when I’m free.”
Jiang Chuling nodded obediently. “Okay.”
Unlike her unreliable brother, Sister Xiaoqiu always kept her in the loop, so she wasn’t worried at all.
Qiuyun took two quick steps down the stairs and came to the master. Jiang Yihua had just finished calling to summon all his secretaries and assistants to the study, and turned around with a single word: “Let’s go.”
Before leaving, Qiuyun glanced back at the madam. “Don’t worry, madam. Even if it’s big, it’s just business.”
Yu Xiang nodded. “I know. Go on, quickly.”
Qiuyun gave her a reassuring smile and hurried out with the master, leaving the Moonlight Pavilion and heading to the study on the basement level.
Two assistants and a secretary — who had been on standby at the estate — were already there. Four more were still on their way.
“Take a look first.”
Under the stark, pale light of the study, Jiang Yihua handed over his phone. The moment Qiuyun took it, she drew in a sharp breath.
She then clicked on the profile of an account called “Cat Paw Chacha” and found that this person had been posting sappy, sentimental little love notes since last year, occasionally sharing photos of handbags, jewelry, and selfies taken from the basement level that gave away no location.
Whoever this person was, she was clever — she never revealed any identifying objects. Followers could only tell from the interior decor that it was a luxury mansion and left admiring comments below.
Then, about three months ago, one day she dropped a nine-grid photo set of bed photos with the Jiang Group president — faces clearly visible — and three of the photos showed her hand, face, and lips in close contact with him, naturally creating visible pressure marks on his skin to rule out any claims of Photoshop.
After that came a string of melancholy posts, like “Love and feelings are all fake — only money is real,” “I love you so much, but why did you sleep with me and then pretend you didn’t know me,” “I’m leaving now — if I can’t have your love, what’s the point of staying,” and “Don’t miss me, but allow me to secretly miss you,” and so on.
Given how long this timeline stretched, how emotionally elaborate the narrative was, and the photographic “proof,” the internet had almost unanimously turned against him.
What made it worse was that Jiang Group’s PR department had been heavily marketing their president as a devoted husband to shore up the company’s positive public image, which made this spectacular backfire all the more devastating! All those old marketing posts were dug up and mocked, and the internet was awash with ridicule:
"Just so everyone knows: there’s no man on this earth who’s rich AND faithful. Spread the word."
"OMG, didn’t you guys know that President Jiang and his wife were high school sweethearts — the purest, most innocent campus romance! I used to envy his wife for marrying up into the upper crust, but now I just think her whole heart went to a dog!"
"I bet he even has illegitimate kids out there by now. Now this is gonna be good."
"Wait, are you all just eating popcorn, or is anyone paying attention to the stock market? Based on this scandal today, Jiang Group’s stocks are gonna tank tomorrow! Dear heavens, I just went all in! Jiang Yihua, give me back my hard-earned money!"
"Hey, hasn’t anyone noticed that President Jiang’s face, ears, and neck are all red — clearly he was drunk?"
"So what, like there aren’t plenty of guys who screw up when they’re drunk?"
…
It was now around eight or nine in the evening, prime leisure time when people were home from work and eating dinner. Add to that the ever-popular gossip genre of the wealthy elite’s dirty laundry, and online traffic kept surging, records breaking one after another. At times, the pages wouldn’t even refresh.
“Sir?” Qiuyun looked up.
Jiang Yihua ground his teeth. “It wasn’t me! I was drunk, not dead — don’t you think I’d know if I’d actually been with someone? I got drunk in the restroom annexed to my study that day. Those photos were all taken without my knowledge!”
Then, worried that a young woman like Qiuyun might not fully grasp the situation, he added, “Ask Secretary Zhu — can a man who’s dead drunk even get it up?”
Qiuyun: “…”
I know you don’t see me as a woman in that way, but you really didn’t have to drive that point home.
“Found her, sir.” Assistant Wei handed over an iPad displaying the estate’s internal staff app page. “Qin Man, female, twenty-six. Applied to the estate’s housekeeping department two years ago, and was transferred to our basement level in March of last year. She’s been a live-in maid ever since, but resigned two months ago.”
Back then, the new regulations hadn’t been implemented yet, so no one knew exactly which area she was responsible for or who her direct supervisor was. When they called Sun Assistant Manager up to ask about this maid, all he had was a vague impression — no one had ever noticed this woman quietly snapping all those photos!
“What do we do?” Jiang Yihua looked at Qiuyun.
Now he finally understood what it meant to have a strategist. When such a mess landed on your own head, it was really hard to keep a cool head and have the leisure to worry about a solution!
“Since you didn’t do it, sir, our clarification has to be fast, forceful, serious, and widely circulated.” Qiuyun had both phones out — one eye on public sentiment online, the other scrolling through other companies’ crisis PR playbooks.
“Are you absolutely sure you don’t know this Qin Man, sir? There are no other intimate photos?”
Jiang Yihua was at his wit’s end. “There are so many maids in this house, and they get switched out from time to time — how am I supposed to remember each one? Honestly, even looking at her face now, I can’t recall who she is!”
The power struggle was less intense for the Miss’s wing of the house, but that didn’t mean the master and madam’s side didn’t have their own resistance to newcomers.
New hires who’d only been around a year or two — how could the old-timers let them get close enough to the main family to make an impression?
