Chapter 451

Chapter 451 Meeting Again

After hanging up the phone, Lin Aoxue pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began sketching on it with a pencil.

On closer inspection, what she had casually drawn was a rough relationship map, with Bikang and the five major families all marked on it.

Around these major families were quite a few company names, all of them connected to these families in some way.

On some of the company names, Lin Aoxue had already casually drawn X marks — signifying that they were about to be brought down by her.

The former eldest daughter of the Lin family had played a role within Bikang that leaned more heavily toward research and technology, primarily overseeing the affairs of the R&D center — she would even sit up in bed at night poring over technical research papers. But now, she had channeled nearly all of her energy into the company’s operations and management.

Because of the Sanzuo Aminlun incident, Bikang had launched a new round of financing, and the company had now reached an unprecedented new height. Lin Aoxue also felt that her own capabilities needed to be further developed, otherwise she would fall behind the company’s pace.

Of course, most importantly, with Su Rui’s involvement, Bikang had quietly come into opposition with the major families and might even become a target of their displaced anger. Lin Aoxue had seen this coming long ago, and so she had to respond with full force, keeping the company’s growth on a steadier footing. When everyone else assumed Bikang would be at an absolute disadvantage, she was determined to carve out a path through the odds.

After all her writing and sketching, Lin Aoxue stared at the tangled web of relationships for a moment, then furrowed her brow slightly. Looking somewhat troubled, she set the paper aside, picked up the cup of Mosby flower tea that had long gone cold on her desk, and took a big sip.

The flower tea still had its familiar taste, yet Lin Aoxue couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing from it.

Despite having drunk so much of it, this heat-relieving flower tea still couldn’t extinguish the flame burning in the eldest Lin daughter’s heart. She stared at the teacup, a trace of coldness flickering in her eyes.

Lin Aoxue had no idea how Su Rui was faring after being arrested, but she was going to make sure that those who had dared to frame him would not be faring well at all.

Pulling out another blank sheet of paper, Lin Aoxue began writing again with a soft scratch, one item, two items, three items — and on closer inspection, every single one was a plan for retribution against the major families.

They say women are the most fearsome creatures in the world, and that you should never get on their bad side, or you’ll face endless retaliation. There’s not a word of that which is wrong.

Just then, a knock at the door suddenly came.

Lin Aoxue’s brow furrowed slightly, and she said nothing. In moments like this, when her mood was not great, she had little patience for being disturbed.

She pressed the intercom on her desk and said to the secretary at the door, “I’m not seeing anyone right now. Push back all appointments to tomorrow — no exceptions, no matter how important.”

“But, Director Lin…”

“No buts.” Lin Aoxue cut the secretary off and switched off the intercom.

Su Rui stood by the door, watching the secretary’s helpless expression, and gave her a grinning shush gesture.

The young secretary was at a loss. She knew Su Rui was someone the president held in high regard, and if he wanted to go in, there was no way she could physically stop him. All she could do was watch helplessly as Su Rui pushed open the office door.

Lin Aoxue was sitting there holding her flower tea, lost in thought, when she suddenly heard the door open. An icy look instantly crossed her face.

“Whoever you are, you’d better give me a reason why you absolutely had to come in right now — otherwise you can head straight to HR and file your resignation.” Lin Aoxue kept her eyes fixed on the teacup, not looking up, her voice cold.

Su Rui looked at the frosty Lin Aoxue, rubbed his nose, and couldn’t help finding it a little funny. A few days apart and this girl’s temper had gone up a notch.

“Could you really bring yourself to fire me?” Su Rui pulled out the chair across from her, sat down with a grin, and casually picked up the teacup and took a sip.

Lin Aoxue was right in the middle of her anger when those words hit her — she froze, then looked up in disbelief.

Her eyes met a pair of eyes filled with a smiling warmth.

Those eyes had appeared over and over in her mind during the restless, sleepless nights of the past few days.

Su Rui, shameless as ever, reached out and waved his hand in front of a slightly dazed Lin Aoxue. “Hey, you okay? Your big brother’s back and that’s the face you give me? Did I get even more handsome or something?”

Lin Aoxue finally confirmed that the person in front of her was unmistakably Su Rui. Was there a more shameless man anywhere under the sun?

Looking at the familiar smiling face before her, Lin Aoxue felt an intense surge of joy well up inside her — but she concealed it well, letting only a faint smile show on her face.

And that faint smile alone was enough to make anyone’s heart stir.

“Good that you’re back.”

She didn’t ask how Su Rui had gotten free, nor did she ask what had become of Nangong Shun. Lin Aoxue understood that as long as Su Rui could come back, nothing else mattered anymore.

Only, she herself didn’t know — when exactly had Su Rui come to hold such an important place in her heart?

Lin Aoxue stood up, walked to the office door, and quietly locked it from the inside.

Su Rui was taken aback. “What are you doing?”

What had gotten into this girl? Locking the door the moment they met — was she planning to have her way with him? And if so, should he go along with it or not?

In that instant, two little figures appeared in Su Rui’s mind, locked in a lively debate.

But Lin Aoxue’s words caught Su Rui completely off guard. She walked up to him and gazed at the dark circles shadowing his eyes, feeling a quiet ache in her heart. How much had he been through these past two days? He surely hadn’t slept at all.

Miss Lin said softly, “Get some proper sleep on the sofa. There are still two hours until the end of the workday, and no one will disturb you during that time.”

Lin Aoxue’s words seemed to carry no emotion at all, her tone almost like a command — yet Su Rui felt a deep warmth radiating from them.

Looking at the girl before him, thinking of how she had just locked the door, Su Rui felt something strike his heart, making it tremble hard.

Lin Aoxue’s way of expressing her feelings was just like this — unique. She wasn’t passionate and expressive like other girls, nor did she speak sweet words. In many moments she didn’t even know how to express what she felt inside. But this girl, who seemed like an iceberg on the surface, only needed the outer layer of ice to melt just a little, and what greeted you was a warmth as gentle as a spring breeze.

“Alright, I’ll sleep now.”

With that, Su Rui kicked off his shoes and flopped sideways onto the expensive imported sofa. Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

Lin Aoxue smoothed the back of her skirt and sat down gently on the edge of the sofa, watching Su Rui sleep. Her face was expressionless, yet her eyes were as soft and gentle as a pool of spring water.

By the time Su Rui woke up, it was completely dark outside. The office lights hadn’t been turned on either — it had to be at least eight o’clock.

It seemed that two straight days without sleep had drained Su Rui’s energy nearly dry.

A faint, delicate fragrance drifted to his nose. He opened his drowsy eyes and found Lin Aoxue’s bright, gleaming gaze looking back at him from the darkness.

She was still sitting beside him, watching him all along.

Su Rui said with a cheerful smile, “Didn’t we say just two hours? How did I end up sleeping so long without you waking me?”

“Mm.”

Lin Aoxue gave only a soft hum in response. She was certainly not going to say anything like “you were sleeping so soundly I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

“You waited for me all that time — aren’t you hungry?”

Su Rui propped himself up and sat facing Lin Aoxue. The two of them were very close, close enough to feel each other’s breath.

“A little.” Lin Aoxue was still speaking in one or two words at a time.

In truth, for a while before this, Lin Aoxue had been talking noticeably more than before — but after these few days apart, she had reverted back to her old ways.

“Then let’s hurry and go eat. With a figure like yours, you can’t afford to let the already impressive parts shrink from hunger.” Su Rui’s eyes swept briefly over the curve of Lin Aoxue’s chest and said, “That would really be a waste of something wonderful.”

After all, the very first time he had met Lin Aoxue on the plane, his attention had been almost entirely captured by those peaks.

Even in the darkness, Lin Aoxue could still feel Su Rui’s burning gaze. Though they had been in close contact many times at the pool, her cheeks still felt hot right now.

She no longer resisted Su Rui’s flirtatious gaze the way she once had — she even felt a tiny flicker of quiet delight.

Because it meant there was something about her that could captivate Su Rui.

Of course, if Lin Aoxue ever saw Su Rui giving that same look to another woman, she would probably want to strangle him on the spot.

Su Rui breathed in the faint, sweet fragrance in the air and felt the subtle tension between them. He finally realized he couldn’t keep sitting here — otherwise the two of them might actually end up doing something.

It wasn’t that Su Rui didn’t like Lin Aoxue. On the contrary, the more time he spent with this outwardly cold but inwardly warm girl, the more he discovered the things about her that shone, slowly becoming captivated, to the point of no return.

But Su Rui felt his romantic life was already a bit of a mess. Xue Ruyun had kissed him in the elevator before she left, Qin Yueran had kissed him wildly through the night on the rooftop of the Junlan Kaibin, and even Zhang Ziwei — the one he’d known the shortest — had made the first move and stolen his Nth first kiss in the ship’s cabin. So Su Rui’s love life was tangled beyond description. If he let impulse take over and did something with Lin Aoxue on top of all that, what would he do going forward? Could he still stay friends with all these women?

“Where are we eating tonight?”

The subtle atmosphere was broken by Su Rui’s words. Lin Aoxue seemed almost reluctant for a moment, then gently rubbed her temple and said, “I’ve reserved a private room at the Junlan Kaibin Hotel.”

“The Junlan Kaibin Hotel?”

The moment those words reached his ears, Su Rui’s expression became utterly priceless.