“Enjoy it while you can?”
Liang Meng turned those words over quietly, tasting them, and said nothing more.
She suddenly looked at Wang Zaiwu for a long moment.
Perhaps, if Liang Meng stopped caring about everything, stopped worrying about everything, then what Wang Zaiwu had become would be her answer.
“I heard that the Longquan Group didn’t always have you in charge — it was your sister,” Wang Zaiwu said, curious. “So how did she manage to just let go like that, walk away, get married. Why can’t you do the same?”
Liang Meng didn’t feel she owed Wang Zaiwu any explanation — but she genuinely had never thought about this question before.
Liang Xing these days, though she occasionally exercised influence from behind the scenes, spent most of her time in quiet enjoyment of life — listening to falling petals, returning to family, living a gentle and peaceful existence.
Yet her sister had once been a formidable force in the business world.
Still bickering and going back and forth, they finished their statements.
After explaining to the police that it had all been a misunderstanding, the four of them — Liang Meng, Lin Qing, Jiang Han, and Wang Zaiwu — walked down the steps of the station into a night where the moon had climbed to the western eave, and cold darkness wrapped around everything.
The misunderstanding resolved, Lin Qing was a little ashamed of herself, her face flushed a deep pink as she walked ahead.
After all, she had been calling Jiang Han a “pervert” to his face all evening. She didn’t quite know how to face him now.
Wang Zaiwu brought up the rear, rolling his neck and looking back at the blue-and-white sign of the police station.
A blind date that ended with everyone in the station.
It all felt like a dream, impossible to believe.
Liang Meng and Jiang Han walked together. After a few steps down, she could hold it in no longer. She stopped and confronted Jiang Han directly: “Jiang Han, why did you send Daiwei to Sansen as brand vice president?”
Jiang Han was caught off guard.
After such a chaotic evening, he had assumed Liang Meng would have something emotionally significant to say to him.
But the moment she opened her mouth, it was about the company again.
At a time like this.
Jiang Han, somewhat displeased, refused to answer directly. “It’s late, and you’re tired. Come home with me first. We can discuss Daiwei’s situation another day.”
“I will not agree to Daiwei going to Sansen.” Liang Meng’s position was firm.
That afternoon, Daiwei had come to Liang Meng with his nose in the air to discuss his resignation, and she had sent him straight back. Liang Meng’s terms were clear: one, Daiwei could either retire honorably from Longquan — he wouldn’t need to come to the office for his remaining years, and his salary would keep coming; or two, the matter of his kickbacks was not something Liang Meng was going to let slide — she would not only take him to court but demand he compensate the company for its losses. If he wanted to go to Sansen, he needed to clean up his mess here first. That would take no fewer than three to five years to sort out.
That was why Lin Qing had run into Daiwei storming out with a black face that afternoon.
“Liang Meng…” Jiang Han suppressed his temper and tried his best to reason with her gently. “After what happened tonight, I still think it’s not safe for a woman to live alone outside. I sincerely ask you… to come back and live with us. Would you?”
“Come back for what? To watch you and my sister be devoted to each other?” Liang Meng shot back. “Do you two have trouble paying your electricity bills? Do you need a self-illuminating light bulb like me to light up the room?”
“Liang Meng…” Jiang Han felt thoroughly helpless.
He knew Liang Meng resented him, and he wanted to help her untangle the knot inside her.
“Stop.” Liang Meng made a gesture to cut him off.
Jiang Han had rushed here tonight — that alone already told her where his heart was. She had hoped to feel sweet and moved by it, but instead she felt only a more complete and crushing hopelessness.
Perhaps it was precisely because Jiang Han had answered her deepest hope — had come charging over to find her, to stop the blind date — that Liang Meng now understood: a person’s desires are always endless. Give them what they want and they only want more.
Catching sight of Jiang Han arriving in a fury at the Xi Tu Lan Ya restaurant, Liang Meng had felt a surge of emotion — Jiang Han did have feelings for her, that much was clear.
In that moment, she had almost given in to impulse, wanted to cast everything aside and be with Jiang Han for the rest of her life.
But after the emotion passed, jealousy rose up in its place. If Jiang Han truly loved her, why not simply be with her? Why go through this whole charade with her sister first?
Her conversation with Wang Zaiwu had brought her back to her senses. The knot between her and Jiang Han might never be untied — not in this life — but she had something far more important to focus on, and that was Longquan.
“Liang Meng, Liang Meng…”
Jiang Han chased after her down the stairs.
In the end, Liang Meng’s indifference used up the last of the patience Jiang Han had been managing all evening.
Jiang Han was not called “Lord Jiang” for nothing.
He seized her sleeve and turned her around with a possessive authority that brooked no argument, and in a low, suppressed roar that did not invite discussion, he said, “Liang Meng! Is there nothing you can say to me that isn’t about Longquan and its wretched business? Has that pathetic Daiwei really become more important to you than I am?”
“It’s not that Daiwei is important. It’s that Longquan is important.” Liang Meng corrected him.
Jiang Han’s composure broke. He roared at her, beside himself, “Xiao Meng! Do you know how worried your sister and I have been about you?! Tonight you are coming home with me to sleep, and that is final!”
“Mind if I come home with you to sleep instead?”
A mocking male voice cut in.
Wang Zaiwu had caught up behind them and arrived at just the wrong moment, hearing only Jiang Han’s last words — “come home with me to sleep.”
Jiang Han’s brow creased, his voice dropping low. “Are you asking to get hit again?”
Wang Zaiwu was completely unfazed and laughed coolly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Shall we step back inside?”
Jiang Han turned and dragged Liang Meng away at a quick pace.
Wang Zaiwu and Lin Qing came hurrying up from behind.
Jiang Han tried to bundle Liang Meng into the car. Lin Qing stepped in without hesitation, squeezed past Jiang Han’s arm, and planted herself bodily in front of the car door.
“You — if you want to keep your job, think carefully about what you’re doing. Tonight’s matter, I’ll overlook for now. If you interfere in our family’s affairs again, I’ll have HR let you go first thing tomorrow. When Jiang Han says something, he means it.”
Jiang Han’s face had gone iron-grey as he delivered the warning.
“Ha! My boss is right there!” Lin Qing pointed at Liang Meng, utterly unintimidated. “Who do you think you are, telling me I’m fired?!”
“Sansen Holdings owns thirty percent of Longquan. Does that answer who I am?!”
Jiang Han finally let every last shred of his pent-up fury explode.
He stripped off his black outer jacket and flung it onto the back seat with full force.
“…”
Lin Qing wilted instantly. One sentence, and she was caught between two impossible choices.
Standing there blocking the car door, her mind raced through calculations — large considerations and small ones clattering around like beads scattered across a table.
She was just an insignificant employee.
True, the saying went that the immediate supervisor matters more than the distant official — Jiang Han was a shareholder, Liang Meng was the president — so by any logic she should hold firm and keep protecting Liang Meng.
But the statement she had just given at the police station, and what she had observed all evening watching Liang Meng and Jiang Han, had made it clear to her that the two of them were something far more complicated than family.
Lin Qing recalled certain rumors she had heard inside Longquan about Jiang Han and Liang Meng, and found herself paralyzed between two paths.
On top of that, Liang Meng was watching her steadily from behind, making it plain this was also a test — waiting to see whose side she would take.
Lin Qing glanced at Jiang Han one more time. She thought: at this point, I’ve already offended him. Even if I back down now and show deference, he’s not likely to forgive me at heart.
Liang Meng, on the other hand — she had already played the role of loyal servant faithfully to this point tonight. There was at least some goodwill there.
Surely Liang Meng would protect her… right?
She’d stick with Liang Meng.
Take the risk.
“Even so, you can’t be this forceful.” Lin Qing held her ground with effort and said, “You have to let her choose for herself. Otherwise… otherwise…”
Lin Qing closed her eyes and drew out the ending of her sentence twice over before she finally found the resolve to continue. “Otherwise, even if you fire me — you still can’t just take President Liang away like this!!”
Liang Meng watched Lin Qing, and exhaled a quiet breath of relief, a flicker of satisfaction moving through her eyes.
“Exactly!” Wang Zaiwu immediately chimed in from behind her. “Uncle Jiang, dragging someone away like that counts as kidnapping!”
“I… hmph.” Jiang Han glared at Wang Zaiwu, truly tempted to turn Lin Qing’s words — “who do you think you are” — right back at him.
He had no choice. Liang Meng was still unwilling to go back with him to the Tanshan villa.
Jiang Han had to release his temper at last, and said his final words to Liang Meng: “I placed Daiwei at Sansen to solve an immediate problem for you. If you remove Daiwei, the consequences will be more than you can handle right now.”
“I never said anything about removing Daiwei.” Liang Meng revealed what she actually intended.
Jiang Han pressed his lips together. He truly understood Liang Meng — the girl he had raised — less and less with each passing day.
In the past, he had always been the one to catch her when she fell. Now she found his attempts at help unnecessary and overreaching. Jiang Han felt wounded inside.
But he did not press the matter further. He simply climbed, alone and in silence, into the black Maybach.
Before the car door closed, Jiang Han issued a warning to Lin Qing: “Take care of your boss. Otherwise, don’t expect a single cent of this month’s salary.”
Then he drove off alone without looking back.
“That’s it? He’s just leaving?…”
Wang Zaiwu pointed at the exhaust trail from Jiang Han’s car and sniffed, dissatisfied.
“Lin Qing, let’s get a taxi home.” Liang Meng instructed.
“What about me?” Wang Zaiwu, as expected, made himself a character in someone else’s story.
“Everyone goes home to their own mother.”
Now that the situation was resolved, Lin Qing had no further reason to be patient with Wang Zaiwu, the useful prop.
“No, I mean — what do I even say when I get home?”
Wang Zaiwu turned to Liang Meng with a look that appealed for help.
She should understand.
He couldn’t exactly go home and tell his parents the truth about tonight, could he?
“Go ahead and tell the truth.”
Liang Meng gave him her honest advice — which was also a tactful refusal — and then she and Lin Qing got in the car and left.
“The truth…?!”
Before Wang Zaiwu could even process that, Lin Qing and Liang Meng had vanished — just as “irresponsibly” as Jiang Han.
If he told the truth, the Wang Family and the Liang Family — with Jiang Han thrown in — would probably all end up enemies.
What a day, honestly. What a miserable, wretched day.
Wang Zaiwu cursed under his breath, dropped a location pin, and called his family’s driver to come pick him up.
What turned up, though, was not the driver — it was his mother, driving herself.
“Mom? Why are you here?” Wang Zaiwu looked at the car in surprise.
Wang Tai had a head of loose, voluminous curls and a face that radiated a life of pampered ease. “I was beside myself! You sent this location — I couldn’t just sit still! Get in first and we’ll talk.”
Only then did Wang Zaiwu smack himself on the forehead.
He had been careless — he’d sent the pin directly to the driver, and the location was unmistakably labeled as “XXX Police Station.”
Wang Tai was always invested in everything to do with Wang Zaiwu, and was a woman of considerable controlling instincts. The moment she saw that location, she had rushed straight over herself.
But seeing Wang Zaiwu standing there unharmed by the roadside, she relaxed.
Once her son was seated in the car, she asked with concern, “How did tonight’s blind date go? It went well, I hope.”
Wang Zaiwu propped his elbow on the car window frame and, replaying the disaster of an evening in his head, didn’t know how to answer.
“Let me tell you — your father has been going on and on about this blind date all evening, and giving me no end of pressure. The message was clear: this has to work. You have to get Liang Meng. I personally don’t particularly like that girl, but when it comes to your father, I obviously can’t defy him. So, son — how did tonight actually go?”
Wang Tai chattered the whole drive home, and the whole time, Wang Zaiwu said not a single word.
As he got out of the car, he caught a glimpse of his mother’s anxious face in the rearview mirror. Not having the heart to leave her with nothing, and just before stepping through the door, he gave a deliberately vague non-answer: “Relax, Mom, don’t worry about it. A blind date that works on the first try — that’s the exception, not the rule. This Liang Meng… I don’t dislike her. I’ll ask her out again in a couple of days.”
“Well, that’s a relief, that’s a relief.” The weight lifted from Wang Tai’s heart.
Wang Zaiwu went back to his room, crossed his feet and lay on the bed, and let himself think about Liang Meng’s face.
That face felt so familiar — not at all like someone he was meeting for the first time.
And that sentence she had said: “Companies that aren’t managed well can get people killed. Has anyone in your family ever died?”
It had been circling in his ears all evening long…