Chapter 528: Frightened (1)

She completely surrendered to the man's farsightedness and mannerisms.

Because of his trust, she felt that her heart was filled with warmth. After thinking about it, she then reached out to gently hold his hand that rested on her thigh. His cool temperature seeped through her palm, so after a while, it became warm too.

It did not matter what others said about her as she did not care. She was only worried about how he would react. However, no one would be comfortable hearing such words, even more so since he was such a prideful person.

"Mr. Mu, I made a mistake. I admit it. Be magnanimous and forgive me this one time, please. You know that Qi Lei and I are innocent..."

She finally could not help but sincerely apologize, surrendering for once and lowering her head meekly. Her slender fingers peeled his long fingers open one by one before she paused and looked up at him again. When she saw him still ignoring her, she could not help but mutter, "You said that you wouldn't fuss about it the other day, and now you're like this. Using their words, Mr. Mu, you've become tsundere ."

She did not dare continue after that because he clutched her hand and stared at her with his unfathomable gaze. Guiltily, she peered down and did not look into his eyes.

"Can you explain what tsundere means?"

She dared not utter another word and just silently looked at his hands.

He lowered his head and stared at her for quite a while. Upon seeing that she did not make another sound, he lifted a hand and knocked her head gently. "I accept your apology, but where's your sincerity?"

When he finished, Xi Xiaye immediately looked up and quickly planted a kiss on his cheek.

That was her token of sincerity!

He was quite calm to see her like this. Eventually, the anger in his heart instantly faded away. He was obviously not willing to let her off so quickly, thus he pulled her into his arms, and his thin, cold lips planted itself on her pink ones. He recklessly tasted her and had a few minutes of bliss before letting go of the panting girl.

He chuckled softly and said, "You're quite self-aware these days."

"I'm very innocent, alright?" She gasped and looked helplessly at him. "But Qi Lei is still considered an upright gentleman. This is a different matter. If we can all rationally handle the problem, that would be for the best."

She was glad that everyone had not allowed all these problems to get to their heads.

"Why do you sing such high praises of him? If he's an upright gentleman, then what is your Mr. Mu to you?" He squinted at her and smiled faintly as he looked at her swollen lips.

She fixed her clothes by the shoulders that he had wrinkled as she answered without a second thought, "Shark, thug!"

He then laughed out softly.

After a while, she could not help but ask, "What do we do then? If we don't clarify this matter, it won't be good for either Qi Lei or I. That person's sinister motives..."

When he heard this, the light in his eyes shifted. Moments after that, he said, "Wait!"

Wait?

Xi Xiaye was obviously puzzled. She felt that the way this man handled things was like deciphering clues, and she could never figure out his plans.

Meanwhile, her doubts were going to be resolved on the night itself.

They had just returned to the Maple Residence when Mu Yuchen received Qi Lei's call. The second the call got through, he looked at her very delightedly before deciding on a venue for dinner with Qi Lei.

At 8 p.m. that night, Mu Yuchen and Xi Xiaye appeared in a high-profile manner at a very famous French restaurant. They booked the entire restaurant and officially invited the young master of Qi Kai for dinner to thank him for saving Xi Xiaye. On top of that, Master Mu, who had always been low-profile, even gave Qi Lei a unique present. It was also meant to be his birthday present — a feast of fireworks!

That night, in the distant night sky of City Z, a lavish display of dazzling fireworks that ran for almost two hours was released. All of the fireworks spelled out the words "Happy Birthday, Master Qi!" "Bless Qi Lei With Longevity!" and so on. Almost the entire city knew that those were presents from the couple, Mu Yuchen and Xi Xiaye, to Qi Lei to express their gratitude!

Qi Lei stood on the roof of the restaurant as he laughed bedazzlingly.

It was a bright and colorful feast for everyone's eyes. Underneath the romantic fireworks, all of the rumors were discredited, and many people guessed that Mu Yuchen and Xi Xiaye must have a unique relationship with Master Qi.

...

The night was cool and the crisp breeze blew calmly. The fireworks in the night sky had ended. After the beauty had passed, what remained was a long silence.

On the roof, Qi Lei looked at Xi Xiaye, who was watching the starry sky, by the railings. He softly expressed, "I'm so happy about tonight."

His handsome face lacked its usual demonic charm. Now that she looked at him, he seemed quite calm.

"I've thought of a lot of ways from his point of view. Apart from suppressing those reporters or holding a press conference to clarify this matter, I never would have thought there could be other ways to calm this storm. I never even would have thought of this way. Not only can it take down the rumors, but it even... seems like I'm really not as good as him," said Qi Lei calmly.

A wry smile flashed across his face as he sighed softly. "Actually, if it were not for Shasha's thing, it would be a very joyous thing to be his friend."

Gu Lingsha?

When Xi Xiaye heard that name, she suddenly turned her body and looked at him silently. Upon noticing sorrow between his brows, she fell silent for a while, then said calmly, "Some things have happened, and you can't change that. I'm not trying to help him be absolved of anything. All these years, because of that incident, he hasn't been doing very well either. I believe that he..."

"I hope you can let go of that past. I know that perhaps I don't have the right to say these things to you, but I think that you know very well that this time's incident... should've be done by someone with a motive."

As he listened, Qi Lei silently closed his eyes and sighed deeply. After a while, he opened his eyes again. "I'm well aware."

During the afternoon meeting, quite a few shareholders already expressed their dissatisfaction with him while Qi Qiming remained neutral. Wang Qin worked hard to defend him as he responded, feeling discouraged too. Right now, he could not tell if the person who stirred things up had been trying to go against Qi Lei or targetting Mu Yuchen, or were they planning to kill two birds with one stone?

Wang Qin insisted that it was Qi Qiming's work. Even though this was highly likely, Qi Lei still had many doubts.

If it really was Qi Qiming, that meant Qi Feng was still alive, but Qi Lei and Wang Qin had both gotten people to investigate, and they could not find any traces of Qi Feng. They even heard about Gu Lingsha's news from Mu Yuchen.

All these years, where had Qi Feng and Gu Lingsha gone?

Was all of this meant to indicate that Qi Lei's position was threatened?