Seduced the Obsessive NPC and Ran - chapter 10

Yan Jinge shot a somewhat surprised look at the secretary who had suddenly stepped forward to defend her boss.

Then he looked at Bai Wei, standing a little behind her, silent, brows faintly furrowed, watching Yan Jinge with a worried gaze. His fist was slightly clenched-his posture and expression were absolutely on point.

Yan Jinge understood at once. Clearly, the secretary had been pushed out by Bai Wei to act as his cannon fodder. He took a step back, made a “please” gesture, and focused on the secretary with a serious expression, as if to say, “Please, begin your performance.”

The secretary choked.

The speech she’d carefully prepared in her head jammed for a moment, and her momentum instantly dropped a notch.

But she recovered quickly, steadied herself, and said, “Mr. Yan, we’re here today because of that matter where you asked President Bai to return the gifts you gave him.”

Yan Jinge nodded. “Oh, that. If you have any questions about it, you can contact my lawyer directly. I’m busy. I don’t have time for this kind of trivial nonsense.”

With that, he turned to leave.

“Wait!”

The secretary called out to stop him.

She quickly pulled a sheet from her briefcase, holding it up as she raised her voice. “President Yan, in my opinion, couples buying gifts for each other is perfectly normal. These gifts are meant to express their feelings and how much they value each other. Only low-class people would demand their gifts back after a breakup. Don’t you agree?”

She didn’t wait for his answer and barreled on. “But since you brought it up, President Bai isn’t someone who takes advantage of others. Of course he’s willing to comply. However, I think people shouldn’t be such hypocrites.”

“See this?” She shook the thick stack in her hand. “This entire pile is a list of all the gifts President Bai has bought you over the past two years. From tie clips that cost a few bucks to jewelry worth millions.”

“Why is it that when you two were together, the gifts you gave President Bai have to be returned, but the gifts President Bai gave you-you pretend they don’t exist and never mention them?”

As she spoke, the secretary’s eyes grew bright.

She felt she had completely seen through Yan Jinge, and her tone became increasingly triumphant.

For over a year, she had been suppressing and stepping on Yan Jinge inside Rongding Technology; it had almost become second nature.

But from the day he stopped coming to work, from the moment she made that phone call, everything changed.

The person she used to trample underfoot had suddenly become someone above her.

Someone she now had to look up to.

That plunge from superiority to inferiority-unwillingness, jealousy, all kinds of tangled emotions-was something outsiders could hardly understand.

Yet right now, the secretary felt that maybe Yan Jinge wasn’t such a big deal after all. So what if he was the heir to Yan Group, his future net worth likely in the billions? What of it?

This petty behavior of demanding gifts back after a relationship-she would never stoop that low.

In this regard, she considered herself better than him.

That realization made her blood run hot. She even felt a bit parched.

Yes, she was going to air this out right here in the lobby, so all these employees of Yan Jinge’s could see his “true colors” for themselves.

However, Yan Jinge only gave her a baffled look and asked, “I worked my ass off to earn over thirty million. Why should I just hand it to Bai Wei for nothing?”

Bai Wei looked a bit embarrassed. He reached out and tugged lightly at the secretary’s shoulder, pulling her back a half-step. In a low voice he said, “Don’t make it sound so ugly. There are so many people here, coming and going… Jinge, I’m not here to make trouble for you. You know the situation I’m in right now. I’ve hit a snag with my funds, so I had no choice but to ask you for help. I’m hoping you can convert the gifts I gave you into cash and return the money to me. After that, we’ll be even.”

His tone was earnest, as if he really wasn’t here to pick a fight.

“How is that ‘asking for help’?”

The secretary looked displeased, speaking up for Bai Wei. “President Bai, you’re just too soft-hearted. You don’t need to be polite with someone like him. Let’s lay it all out. I gave yours back, you give mine back-that’s fair. After that, we go our separate ways, and nobody owes anybody anything.”

Yan Jinge arched a brow.

Bai Wei and his secretary were going back and forth in perfect tandem. It was almost entertaining.

If their company ever went under, the two of them could always pair up and audition for a talk show.

He ignored the duo immersed in their little performance and lowered his head to fiddle with his phone.

After the secretary finished reassuring Bai Wei, she turned back to face Yan Jinge.

And froze for a second.

She’d thought that after hearing her speech, Yan Jinge would feel ashamed and humiliated, and to avoid drawing attention, he would invite them up to his office to talk in private. She never expected that he’d just be standing there… playing on his phone.

It felt like she’d thrown a heavy punch into a pile of cotton-powerless, stifled, and inexplicably irritated.

She was just about to question him when she heard Yan Jinge say, “Sorry to keep you waiting. Since you’re here for an explanation, then please, take a look.”

As he spoke, the large screen hanging in the lobby of Yan Group flickered, and the image changed-to a list. It was the very same document his legal team had compiled when they first demanded payment from Bai Wei.

The secretary was stunned.

So all that time he’d been tapping away on his phone, he wasn’t ignoring them-he’d been having that list put up on the giant screen?

…What kind of overbearing move was that?

Expression calm, Yan Jinge said, “Bai Wei, your secretary says people shouldn’t act shameless. So let me ask you-do you still have any shame left?”

The secretary: “…”

She jumped, stealing a nervous look at Bai Wei’s face.

Bai Wei looked relatively composed, as if he didn’t understand what Yan Jinge was talking about.

Seeing Bai Wei still putting on an act, Yan Jinge couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle. “You love acting so much-why don’t you go win yourself an Oscar? All this time, it never occurred to you that the mask you wear in front of others would be ripped off someday?”

Bai Wei’s body went rigid. A faint sense of dread rose in his chest.

He opened his mouth, about to say something, when he saw Yan Jinge lower his head again, fingers moving as if sending out a new command. The next second, the screen changed. The shopping list disappeared, replaced by a series of photos.
-In the photos, Bai Wei was going in and out of hotels with different people, arms slung around shoulders, hugging, kissing.

There were both men and women.

Among them was the secretary now standing beside Bai Wei.

Everyone next to Bai Wei in those photos had been blurred out, but the secretary had sharp eyes. At a glance, she could still recognize who they were: some were clients she’d dealt with before, some were friends of Bai Wei she’d met…

One of them was even her.

Her face went pale for a split second. She immediately said, “Yan Jinge, you’re violating other people’s privacy!”

Yan Jinge asked, confused, “I caught a cheating scumbag, and I even kindly blurred you all out. That still counts as violating privacy? So what you’re saying is, even if I find evidence, I have to bottle it up and say nothing?”

“That’s not… What right do you have to take secret photos?”

“If I didn’t take photos, how would I know he cheated? This isn’t secretly taking photos, and it’s not a privacy violation either. It’s just collecting evidence of an affair.” Yan Jinge shrugged. “Besides, I didn’t take these.”

He didn’t take them?

How could that be?

Neither the secretary nor Bai Wei believed it.

Yan Jinge continued, “Every single one of these photos was emailed to me anonymously. Each time, they’d be sent on the third day after you cheated-without fail. The timestamps are all there in my inbox. If you don’t believe me, you can copy a set. And honestly, with the relationship we had, even if I *had* taken them myself, I’d still have the moral high ground. There’s no need for me to lie to you. Instead of saying I’m invading privacy, why don’t you have your precious President Bai take a good guess at who wants me to step aside?”

“Isn’t that right, Bai Wei?”

Bai Wei’s face turned ugly.

He didn’t speak, but his jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth, eyes locked on the photos on the screen.

Yan Jinge’s voice drifted lightly into his ear: “Bai Wei, you’ve cheated on me plenty over the years. I agree with what your secretary said-when you’re dating, buying gifts for your partner is perfectly normal, and you shouldn’t ask for them back. But first, you have to see whether the one you’re dating is a person… or a dog.”

“Bai Wei, you brought people here today-do you have any shame at all?”

Yan Jinge’s expression never changed as he spoke. He looked like he’d truly let go of everything between himself and Bai Wei.

Bai Wei stared at him, stunned.

In that instant, it felt like a huge chunk had been carved out of his heart, and a clear sense of “loss” rose inside him.

In truth, Bai Wei had deliberately chosen office hours to come to Yan Jinge’s company and lie in wait for him.

What Yan Jinge had been doing lately was pushing Bai Wei’s limits. More importantly, more than two weeks had passed, and Yan Jinge still hadn’t come begging to get back together.

He’d wanted Yan Jinge to lose face.

He’d wanted Yan Jinge to understand that breaking up with him had been a mistake.

And of course, getting money was also a very important point.

What he hadn’t expected was that it would turn into *his* face being thrown to the ground and trampled on. When he looked behind him, even Bai Cheng wouldn’t meet his eyes, as if he didn’t know what to think.

All at once, shame and anger surged straight to Bai Wei’s head.

He ground his teeth.

Who exactly had Yan Jinge gotten these photos from?!

And Yan Jinge didn’t give him an ounce of dignity-he put the photos right up on the big screen!

The secretary too.

Her words were completely out of line. Why ramble so much? Why not just ask for the money directly!

Bai Wei was still thinking about how to bring up the money in this situation when he heard hurried footsteps. A girl in her twenties with braided pigtails jogged over to Yan Jinge. “Manager Yan, the list you asked me to organize has been printed.”

It was Yan Jinge’s assistant.

She was very perceptive. She handed the printed list to everyone present.

Even Bai Cheng, who was standing off to the side watching the spectacle, got a copy.

Yan Jinge tapped the A4 sheet lightly with a finger-snap. He raised his eyes, those pretty pupils fixed on Bai Wei, and asked, “See the notes in the back? That’s the part where I offset your gifts-returning courtesy for courtesy. Your three-hundred-thousand watch offsets the seven-hundred-thousand watch I bought you back then by scrimping and saving. Not a bad deal for you, is it?”

Bai Wei looked at the list, his expression dazed.

Over the years, Yan Jinge had given him far too many gifts, big and small. Bai Wei couldn’t remember them all. He only remembered a few of the more expensive ones-the kind he could use to show off.

Before, when the list was delivered to Rongding, he’d only skimmed it. It was packed with text, and he didn’t want to read it on the spot, so he never checked carefully. He’d assumed Yan Jinge was counting every gift.

Who would’ve thought-

Yan Jinge was offsetting gifts instead?

Yan Jinge suddenly let out an “Oh,” drawing everyone’s attention.

He said, “I understand now. To the famous Director of Rongding Technology, Mr. Bai Wei, this amount of money is nothing. You must be above asking for these little things back-after all, you’re not the kind of person who takes petty advantage. Don’t worry. I’ll have my assistant print a new list as soon as possible, compare the price differences, and send it over to you. When the time comes, President Bai can just transfer the money to my card.”

Bai Wei started, “No-”

But he’d barely begun when Yan Jinge cut him off. “It’s fine, it’s fine. President Bai, no need to be polite with me. This isn’t troublesome-besides, it’s not like I’ll be running the errands myself. It’s rare to see President Bai so noble and upright. I truly admire it.”

Bai Wei was blocked so thoroughly he couldn’t say a single word.

His face turned iron-blue as he ground his back teeth, making a faint creaking sound.

People were coming and going all around them, and quite a few had already watched Bai Wei’s entire humiliation. If he blew up again now, he’d really look like a madman.

In the end, he could only nod, forcing himself to maintain a gentlemanly demeanor.

He swallowed his pride-teeth and blood and all.

Author’s Note:

Bai Cheng: Actually, I appeared in this chapter.