Su Yun was taken aback. "Xiao Jiao, how did you know it was Aunt Feng?"
"A guess. Mom, Xiao Shi is only eighteen. She just got into college and has her whole future ahead of her. Plus, she has a mind of her own, so we shouldn’t worry about her love life."
"I know. That’s why I turned her down. But what does that have to do with this?"
"It’s obvious that Aunt Feng just wants to cozy up to our family. You rejected her nephew, so she’s probably a little ticked off. She came up with this plan to upset you and, ideally, stir up some trouble for our family."
It dawned on Su Yun. "So, at the end of the day, you still have complete faith that Shen Yi wouldn’t do anything wrong?"
Qin Jiao said, "No. Whether he did something wrong is a separate issue. The fact is, that Aunt Feng has malicious intentions. The very act of her deliberately hiring someone to take a picture of Shen Yi is enough to piss me off."
Su Yun’s eyes went wide. "Xiao Jiao, are you saying she deliberately had her nephew do this?"
"Yes. Think about it—who carries a point-and-shoot camera around just for fun? And then goes out of their way to get the film developed? He gave you one print, but he can make many more from the negative. If I’m not mistaken, he’ll sell the rest to Shen Yi’s business rivals."
As the thought struck her, Qin Jiao suddenly said, "Mom, you go on with dinner. I need to go talk to Shen Yi about this."
Su Yun was dumbfounded.
’She was the one trying to convince Xiao Jiao to be more careful, to not let some vixen out there snatch Shen Yi away.’
’How had this turned into a corporate scheme?’
In truth, Qin Jiao wouldn’t have understood this sort of thing at first either. But as their business grew over the years, she and Shen Yi had encountered plenty of people trying to pull dirty tricks.
Nothing had escalated to the level of the kidnapping years ago, but there were still some despicable incidents.
For instance, there was a time the whole family was eating at a restaurant. Qin Jiao had only exchanged a few words with Beidou before they both headed back to their respective partners.
But in that brief moment they were talking, one of Qin Jiao’s competitors had someone photograph them. The picture ended up in the papers with a story claiming that Qin Jiao, the general manager of Jiuyi Company, was cheating on her husband.
When they saw the photo, Shen Yi and his mother, Du Liya, fell silent. Du Liya was the first to speak, saying, "Xiao Jiao wouldn’t look twice at Beidou."
Shen Yi nodded vigorously. "And I’m way more handsome and younger than Beidou, okay?"
It was only thanks to the family’s trust in one another that the incident didn’t spiral out of control. Of course, afterward, Qin Jiao and Shen Yi went after the newspaper. They sued for false reporting, which cost the paper a fortune and got its publication suspended for three months.
’And now it was happening again?’
When Qin Jiao found Shen Yi, photo in hand, he was sitting in front of his computer, watching the stock market.
He didn’t have bad eyesight, but he liked wearing glasses, as if they made him look more composed.
The moment he saw Qin Jiao, his lips split into a brilliant grin, and his whole demeanor instantly shifted to that of an oversized, happy puppy.
If he had a tail, it would have been wagging.
"Jiao Jiao, did you miss me?"
"Mhm, it’s been over twenty minutes. I missed you terribly. I found a photo; let’s admire it together."
Qin Jiao handed him the photograph. The smile on Shen Yi’s face slowly vanished, replaced by cold fury.
"Which son of a bitch took this? What the hell is wrong with them!"
Qin Jiao asked, "So, you really went to a club with this woman?"
"I went to the club, yes, but that’s not a woman! That’s a man! It’s Ouyang, remember him? The artist with the long hair."
Qin Jiao vaguely remembered someone like that. He was a friend of Du Liya’s, an itinerant artist who loved to travel the world.