“The supplier in Spain has suddenly scheduled a video conference. President Jiang, what do you think—”
“The board has an emergency meeting at nine-thirty. They’ve already called several times to hurry us along! Someone will probably be sent over to press you in person any minute now!”
The moment Jiang Yihua arrived, several executives’ assistants swarmed around him, each insisting that their urgent matter had to be dealt with first. The phones at their respective desks were ringing nonstop as well.
The entire scene was chaotic, with everyone running around like headless chickens!
The explosive trending news had caused the workload in the group president’s office to skyrocket.
“Secretary Wang, stall the supplier for now. Tell the board I don’t have time,” Jiang Yihua said. He pointed toward a small lounge and continued, “Take Little Seven there to play. I’ll come find you if anything comes up.”
“All right.”
Jiang Yihua then led a large group of people into his office, while Qiuyun took the young miss to the lounge. With help from the administration department, she adjusted the partition’s glass windows to opaque mode.
“Wow!”
Jiang Chuling pressed herself against the floor-to-ceiling windows. “This is even higher than the flying cars!”
She had always lived in three- or four-story houses, and even the hotels she stayed in had been seaside suites. Aside from flying on planes, she had never been this high up before.
Qiuyun came over to admire the view as well.
The wetland park in front of the complex had been planned by the group. As far as the eye could see, the entire grounds were filled with scenery, stretching from the river all the way to the forest oxygen bar in the back.
Jiang Chuling said, “I always thought all companies were like my brother’s. I had no idea our family’s group was this huge. It covers everything from the river to the forest oxygen bar.”
“Miss, you’ve never been here before?” Qiuyun asked.
“No. I think the only child in the family who’s been here is my eldest brother, right?”
That seemed to be the case. If the incident hadn’t happened, the Eldest Young Master should have come to the group for an internship during his junior year.
The two of them sat down together on the sofa. Qiuyun asked, “So, should we play games or watch TV?”
Jiang Chuling shook her head. “Why don’t we listen to the surveillance recording from Fourth Uncle’s study?”
It had taken her a great deal of effort to help the family this time, so naturally she hoped it would succeed.
Qiuyun took out her phone and opened the monitoring page. “There’s no one in the study right now, but don’t worry about missing anything. It records automatically and will notify me whenever there’s a sound.”
“All right.”
There was nothing else they could do but wait anxiously. Qiuyun also didn’t dare look at all the filthy comments online in front of the young miss, so she turned on the television. A documentary about the group’s development history happened to be playing, and the two of them watched it together.
At ten-thirty, Secretary Wang came over. “Assistant Qiu, President Jiang wants to see you.”
“Coming.”
Qiuyun lowered her head, but Jiang Chuling hurriedly said, “Go ahead, Xiaoqiu. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“All right.” Qiuyun bent slightly and whispered, “I’ll keep you updated in real time later.”
“Mm!”
Jiang Chuling narrowed her eyes with a smile. She liked that Xiaoqiu never treated her like a child and trusted her enough to tell her everything.
The two of them left the small lounge and entered the president’s office. There was no time to admire the décor, furniture, or artwork.
“President Jiang.”
Jiang Yihua stepped aside and introduced them. “This is our company’s senior network engineer, Engineer Chen, and this is Engineer Li from the technology department, a UI design engineer.”
Qiuyun nodded. “Hello, I’m Qiuyun, Seventh Miss’s assistant.”
The two engineers replied, “Hello.”
Secretary Wang said, “We’ve hacked Qin Man’s social media account, but we still haven’t decided exactly what to post.”
Qiuyun broke into a light sweat. “Um… Yesterday, I meant that we should find someone to hack Qin Man’s account. Wouldn’t it be illegal for us to do it directly?”
Assistant Qian reassured her, “Don’t worry. We’ll have someone take the fall.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll find an overseas Chinese person in Canada and use a proxy server to map the network connection to a local port,” Engineer Chen explained.
Secretary Wang added, “Canadian laws regarding cybercrime are relatively lenient, and hiring someone to take the blame is cheaper too.”
So that was how it worked.
Spend a little money to accomplish a big task.
She had learned something new.
Qiuyun asked, “What about the picture? Is it finished?”
Secretary Wang said, “Not yet. We wanted to ask for your opinion on how it should be edited.”
“Just alter one of the pictures in her nine-image grid slightly, then make her open her eyes.” Qiuyun thought for a moment. “For the eyes, use one of President Jiang’s photos from a public appearance—the kind that can be found online.”
Another Engineer Li, who was wearing cat-eye nail polish, immediately began editing the picture on the spot. Her hands flew over the mouse and keyboard with the speed of an esports player, the glassy polish on her nails reflecting the light in dazzling streaks.
Qiuyun’s gaze drifted over, and she was instantly captivated.
So pretty.
Much prettier than dyeing her nails with balsam flowers.
“Right, this one has distinctive eyes, and the slightly dazed look suits someone who’s drunk.” She leaned forward a little. “We should also leave some flaws for eagle-eyed netizens to discover.”
Engineer Li gave her an OK sign. “Got it.”
Fifteen minutes later, the fresh “intimate photo” was ready. It looked so real that it could easily fool anyone. Jiang Yihua didn’t even want to look at it for more than a second.
Engineer Chen took over. “How should we post it?”
Qiuyun took out her phone. “Let me look at her usual writing style first and imitate it.”
Five minutes later, she typed a draft and showed it to Engineer Chen:
President Jiang, if it had been me, would you have given me this one hundred million too
[Image]
Qiuyun said, “Pay attention to Qin Man’s typing habits. She only uses commas in her posts and never puts punctuation at the end.”
“All right.”
Engineer Chen entered the caption. After Qiuyun, Secretary Zhu, and Assistant Qian all confirmed it, he clicked Send.
Jiang Yihua asked, “What if Qin Man doesn’t show up?”
“After something this huge happens, can she really stand to stay offline without logging in to recover her account?” Qiuyun considered it. “If she still hasn’t logged in by noon, we’ll post another one.”
“What should we post?” Assistant Qian pressed.
Qiuyun said, “Something related to private messages, of course. We’ll say that someone from the Jiang Group wants to contact her privately, and that she’ll report to her followers afterward about what they discussed.”
If it involved private messages, she would have no choice but to log in and take a look.
Someone willing to do this for money could never tolerate another person using her name to pocket a hundred million!
She might even be thinking about taking her place and collecting the money herself.
Jiang Yihua made the final decision. “Good. We’ll do that for now.”
There was still one day left before the National Day holiday. Today, office workers were having the time of their lives feasting on gossip. The scandal had gone from a steamy affair to a wealthy-family feud, and several of those parasitic men from Hong Kong had even been dug up by marketing accounts and dragged through the mud all over again.
As the account belonging to the central figure in the incident, “Cat Claw Tea” set the internet ablaze once more with an open-eyed intimate photo posted at eleven that morning.
—LOL, I’m dying. Here comes another person begging to be exposed and still refusing to believe the evidence!
—Here we go, here we go! We’re coming to pick up our darling Yihua and send him to the funeral hearse!
—What should we do? Should we sell off our stocks now and cut our losses?
—Am I the only one who thinks the Jiang Group is so pitiful? They’re being dragged into this for no reason!
—Why feel sorry for them? Isn’t Jiang Yihua’s “Jiang” the same Jiang as in the Jiang Group?
—Don’t panic. Why does this picture look a little photoshopped?
…
Half an hour after the incident continued to spread, the board and the Old Master had called Jiang Yihua’s phone so many times that they nearly blew it up, but he didn’t answer a single call.
Then Engineer Chen, who had been keeping watch in front of the computer, suddenly perked up.
“She’s logged in!”
