Jin Liwei fished out his phone from his pocket. Ketchup immediately took over the phone and showed her mommy and daddy all the current headlines featuring her Uncle Lin Lin.
Iris’ curiosity about the news made her instantly forget about her suspicion at Jin Liwei and her big brother exchanging secret glances with each other all weekend long. She restrained herself from asking the two of them that time because she didn’t want to cause conflict when they were all enjoying the weekend with her friends.
She peeked at Jin Liwei’s phone to read the headlines together with him. His arms wrapped around her and positioned the phone so that she could see better.
“Superstar Jin Chonglin Refuses to Renew Contract with Bright Summit”
“Prince Lin Lin Ready to Abandon Bright Summit Palace to Build His Own Kingdom?”
“Bright Summit Offers Quadruple Jin Chonglin’s Guaranteed Salary from Previous Contract But the Greedy Prince Says NO! He Wants More?”
“Does Jin Chonglin Plan to Become a Freelance Artist After Contract with Bright Summit Expires?”
“Jin Chonglin’s Army of Fans Anxious About their Prince Lin Lin’s Future Amidst His Repeated Rejection of Bright Summit’s Offers”
Iris pursed her lips upon reading the headlines. “It seems like someone from Bright Summit deliberately leaked to the media about the failed negotiations with Brother Chonglin.”
“Bright Summit is getting desperate,” Jin Liwei said.
“As they should. Brother Chonglin is a big whale in showbiz and their current biggest moneymaker. I’m surprised that they only offered to quadruple his guaranteed base salary. I was expecting that by this time, they would’ve already offered him six times, no, maybe seven times the money. And that doesn’t even include endorsement earnings. Maybe he would even be tempted to sign with them again and abandon our plan to create our own talent management company if they offered more money.”
Jin Liwei shook his head. “I can sense my brother’s determination to forge his own future without being at the mercy of another entity like Bright Summit. No matter how much money they tempt him with, he won’t budge. Besides, he’s a Jin and would own his own Jin Corporation shares soon when the transfer procedure and all the required legalities are completed. My brother doesn’t need Bright Summit’s paltry money offer.”
She smiled in amusement at his haughty tone when defending his younger brother. Then she hugged his arm and began acting lovey-dovey to him again as they continued walking to their home office.
Jin Liwei also smiled but inwardly released a big sigh of relief. He was thankful that his wife’s mood swing this time changed so quickly before settling to a pleasant one. She also seemed to have already forgotten about her earlier suspicion regarding the secret glances he had been exchanging with her brother throughout the weekend.
This was good for him because it gave him extra time to think of the best way to tell her about his deal with her brother. Keeping it a complete secret to her crossed his mind but he quickly rejected the idea. If she could tell him the huge secret about her highly sensitive identity in her past life, then the least he could do was reciprocate her honesty. Nevertheless, he still needed to be careful in how to break it to her while reducing the stress.
He didn’t know how long this extra time would last before she remembered this issue again. All he could do was take advantage of her so-called pregnancy brain right now. In recent days, the frequency of her forgetting about some things here and there had increased.
Asking Ketchup to remind her of things in advance was proving to be very helpful to her. But the problem was that she would also forget to ask Ketchup for reminders sometimes.
Finally, they arrived at their shared home office. Iris didn’t bother climbing up to the staircase to her mezzanine office space. She settled on the biggest couch in Jin Liwei’s office and took off both of her sandals. He sat beside her, placed her legs on his lap, and began massaging her feet. She sighed in contentment, looking very much like a cat who was being petted just the way she liked it.
“Darling, before I consult you about leaving Bright Summit and starting my own management company with Brother Chonglin, I feel like I’m forgetting about something important but I can’t remember what it is. It’s bothering me.”
Jin Liwei’s hands paused for a second. Good thing that she didn’t notice. He continued massaging her legs, trying his hardest to distract her with his hands, and hoping that she would forget about her suspicion again. [This novel is a contracted work with W e b n o v e l . c o m (remove spaces). If you’re not reading this chapter on W e b n o v e l, it has been stolen. It’s very discouraging to see thieves profitting from my hard work. Please support the original author, ArriaCross. Thank you! Also follow me on Instagram @arriacross]
“Oh, right!” Her eyes lit up.
His heart sank. It seemed like he wouldn’t have time to think of a better way to tell her everything after all. He steeled himself and prepared himself to just wing it and proceed according to how she would react.
“I forgot to ask Big Brother or even Big Sister Jinjing if he really told her to call him Nikolai,” she said.
He blinked a few times. His brain took a few seconds longer to process what she just said. Wait, what? She wasn’t talking about the secret glances he had been exchanging with her brother? When he realized that she was talking about something else, he released another mental sigh of relief. Then he focused on her current concern and listened to her explanation.
She told him about the incident where Long Jinjing almost called her brother “Nikolai” but stopped in time before correcting herself and saying “Zihao” instead. It was the day that Iris had a meeting with Jin Chonglin at Orchidia Beauty to finalize his men’s line.
“I don’t know why I keep forgetting about it,” she said with a purse of her lips while tilting her head to the side. “I missed my chance to ask the two of them when they slept over the weekend.”
“Did you hear Long Jinjing call your brother ‘Nikolai’ again?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“If she’s really calling him ‘Nikolai’, then their relationship must be quite serious,” he said.
She didn’t reply.
