“Okay! We won’t snatch those from you. We will just go take them straight from the kitchen.”
An An’s eyes shone with slyness, thinking of how his sister would be unable to finish eating all the tea-flavored eggs their grandma cooked in one sitting. He was the clearest person regarding her appetite and how very picky she was about her food. She would take a few bites if the food was good and directly throw it aside if it was not.
“Big brother, you’re bullying me!”
Ran Ran felt indignant. Every time their grandma cooked something good, her brothers would snatch all of them first before it was her turn. This time, she would not let these two take away what belonged to her no matter what.
“Daddy, big brother is bullying me!”
She turned and hugged her father’s chair, acting cute as she spoke in a sweet voice, revealing reliance and timidity on him.
“That will depend on your grandma; after all, I am not the one making the tea-flavored eggs.”
Ji Ziming silently passed the decision to the older woman. At home, Zhang Manhua was brewing the broth for making tea-flavored eggs when she suddenly sneezed. She looked at the temperature of the aircon—it was set not too high.
That was weird.
When the family reached home, it was already past seven. Pei Ge woke up just as the man parked the car. Feeling groggy, she rubbed her eyes and spoke in a hoarse voice when she noticed the familiar surroundings. “Are we home?”
“Mhm. Let’s get out now.”
He nodded and alighted first to help the children get out of the car, then circled around to open the passenger seat’s door. Seeing how sleepy she was, he said with a smile, “Let’s go; we’re home.”
“I haven’t had my fill of sleep yet.”
She yawned, took a glance at the man holding her bags and clothes while standing in front of the door, and could not help laughing. “Mr. Ji, if someone sees you like this, I wonder what they will think?”
“It’s natural to dote on my wife. What can they say about that?”
He helped her out of the car, closed the door, then entered the house with everyone.
When the door was opened, the three children were spotted circling around Zhang Manhua while laughing and playing after not seeing one another for the whole day. Their innocent voices, filled with naivety, provided the house with a sense of warmth.
The light fragrance of home-cooked food, as well as the lights, in the house made the man realize that this was merely what he wanted.
During the day, he was the high and mighty CEO of the Ji Group, but what defeated him easily was a simple meal and some lights.
Seeing the fatigue on Pei Ge’s face, he took pity on her. “How about you go wash and rest first? You can come down to eat after you have your fill of sleep.”
For some reason, the woman felt very fatigued after she entered Ji Chi’s treatment room. She had clearly rested well last night, but the fatigue she felt throughout was very real.
“It’s fine. I’ll just go wash my face and come eat.”
She received her bag and clothes from him, then looked up into his worried eyes. In a light and sweet voice filled with undeniably fatigue, she said, “I’m fine. I’ll come over after washing my face. You and the children can just wait for me in the living room.”
“Okay, I’ll wait for you to come down.”
He regarded her with cool eyes. He kept forgetting that this woman could get tired and hurt. He had almost ignored her essence which was a mother.
Just as Pei Ge entered her room, her handphone rang. It was her secretary. She was perplexed as she had been keeping tabs on what was happening in the company, so why would her subordinate call her?
“What happened?”
She unbuckled the pearl belt on her waist and rubbed her eyes. It was only a day’s worth of treatment, but it felt as though she had been through a huge battle.
“Hello, ma’am. We have a big problem.”
The secretary hurriedly informed her about how their employees were poached and their investors backed out. All these forced her to wake up.
“Have you found the one behind this? Who is prying at our walls?”
Her voice was hurried. The fatigue she felt just then disappeared, and now, she was like a tightly-drawn string, which would snap if one was not careful, destroying all her hard work. This would cause the grand scheme she had painstakingly built to crumble.
“I’ve had our people investigate it. It is a real-estate company called Lvjia, but I have not found out who the boss is, so…”
The secretary fell into embarrassment. He thought that Pei Ge would berate him, but there was none of that.
A silent yet clearly noticeable pressing feeling could be sensed from the receiver.
Pei Ge pressed on her forehead and looked at her reflection in the mirror, then said in a calm and stern voice, “Continue looking into that company. I will come handle it in two days’ time—once I’m done with the matter here. Report to me anything related to where the poached employees ended up in other than that company. Also, send a copy of those employees’ personal details to my email. Be as detailed as you can be; hurry up and do it.”
“Understood. I will work on it now.”
After hanging up, she tried to search for this Lvjia in her mind but came up with nothing. She did not even remember where this company was established, nor did she know when it was listed. It was certainly no small company for it to be able to poach her employees. If it was a large company, then she needed to know who its boss was before she could make a counterplan.
“Why haven’t you come down?”
Ji Ziming suddenly pushed the door open, startling her out of her wits. The woman trembled, but then noticed it was him standing at the door. She patted her chest. “You scared me.”
“Why would you be scared in your own home? Did something happen?”
He spotted the phone in her hand and noted her expression. Without needing to say much, he already understood it.
“What’s wrong?”
He closed the door and switched on the lights, chasing away the darkness. It was akin to her heart, where the darkness was chased away by his arrival and slowly lit up by light. The deepest part of her heart was already replaced by the warmth he brought.
“Why aren’t you saying anything? What happened? I will still find out even if you don’t tell me anything.”
Seeing her expression turn worse, the string in his heart also became tauter. He sat down beside her and spoke in a low and gentle voice. “If anything happens, you still have me. Tell me what happened.”
