Darling, Please Forgive Me-Chapter 256 - 255 He sincerely wants to bless her

Inside the Xin Family mansion.

Xin Zaozao returned to the villa.

She hadn’t really imagined that she would be engaged, let alone getting married. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

And even more surprising to her was that she had actually met such a good man, so warm and loving.

She felt truly lucky.

Since she was born, or at least since she became conscious, she had never felt this way. Even when the always kind Mu Cidian came into her life, she didn’t consider herself fortunate, because she still lived in that family and true happiness always eluded her. Back then, Mu Cidian’s presence only provided her with a shred of comfort in her heart.

To her, Ji Baili seemed to be someone who could truly change her life, someone who could take her away from all the pain her family had inflicted upon her.

A smile lingered on her lips.

Suddenly, in an instant, it vanished.

Because, she saw Mu Cidian standing in the upper floor corridor.

Mu Cidian, after being beaten up that day, had stayed home for three days. He didn’t go to work, he didn’t go to the hospital, she hadn’t even seen him. He stayed holed up in his room all day, never setting foot outside. And now, suddenly, she was confronted with his presence again, a presence which repulsed her immensely.

Mu Cidian also noticed the change in her expression.

He saw her facial transformation, completely unhidden.

But, he was used to it by now.

He started walking towards her.

Xin Zaozao frowned, her whole body seemingly ready for confrontation. It seemed as if she was ready to call out for someone.

"Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to you. You don’t need to call your bodyguards," Mu Cidian said calmly, his voice low and steady.

He knew that when Xin Zaozao went on a date with Ji Baili, she wouldn’t bring a bodyguard along.

Those bodyguards were meant to protect her from him.

"You really think I would believe you." Xin Zaozao laughed coldly.

"I just want to talk to you for a bit."

Xin Zaozao frowned.

For a split second, she had a feeling as if Mu Cidian was about to reveal his last words to her.

And so, in that moment, she complied.

Because she felt that if Mu Cidian would die after uttering these few words, she could at least grant him a few minutes.

Only when he saw that Xin Zaozao seemed to be a bit calmer, did Mu Cidian slowly begin to speak. "Do you love Ji Baili?"

Xin Zaozao frowned.

She did not expect this to be the first thing that Mu Cidian asked her.

She thought that Mu Cidian, after gaining a bit of his strength back, wanted to interrogate her for her indifference that night. In fact, she was quite sure why Mu Cidian was targeted for revenge, and yet Mu Cidian didn’t call the police or take any defensive action. He silently endured it all.

She looked at Mu Cidian.

Mu Cidian also looked at her.

Their eyes met.

Xin Zaozao suddenly laughed. "Yes, I do love him."

Mu Cidian nodded.

If she didn’t, she wouldn’t seem so ecstatically happy.

And then he asked, "After you get engaged to Ji Baili, are you planning to move out of here?"

"What, you want me to move out so you can take over my home?" Xin Zaozao asked sarcastically.

"No, it’s not that. I’m just telling you, I will try to find a way to leave here with my mother. Even if you move to Ji Baili’s house, this place will still be yours. I won’t let my mother usurp your home," responded Mu Cidian.

Doesn’t she care a great deal about this place?

He’s going to find a way to give it back.

So that when she gets married, she doesn’t have to worry.

Xin Zaozao sneered.

How much of his words could she actually trust?

But Mu Cidian didn’t seem to mind her disbelief. He spoke again, "With Ji Baili as your backup, managing Xin Group won’t be too difficult for you, given your intelligence. If you stick to your current plan, you’ll soon have Xin Group in your hands."

"Why are you telling me this?" Xin Zaozao raised her eyebrow.

Mu Cidian didn’t answer her.

He said, "Xin Zaozao, I’m sorry."

Xin Zaozao looked straight at him.

"I’ve done quite a few things for which I should say sorry to you, caused you many hurts. I’m truly sorry!" Mu Cidian seemed sincere.

But she didn’t care for his apology.

She was well aware that this was just Mu Cidian’s trickery.

Everything he’s doing now, just like all the things he did to her, is to trick her.

She isn’t going to be as gullible as to believe his lies anymore.

She could just be indifferent to it all.

Mu Cidian knew all too well what Xin Zaozao was thinking.

No matter what he said now, she wouldn’t believe him.

But he still wanted to tell her.

He said, "No matter what, in the end, I wish you and Ji Baili a hundred years of happiness together."

Xin Zaozao’s laugh was even colder.

Wishing her a hundred years of happiness?

He’d probably prefer to curse her into a lifetime of loneliness!

She asked, "Mu Cidian, what do you really want?"

Mu Cidian laughed.

His face was full of scars, three days had passed and the bruising was becoming more prominent, making him look even more hideous.

And she had never imagined, after so many years, when she saw him smile again it would be such a terrifying sight.

Her heart completely rejected this man.

Rejected any gesture from him, including overtures.

Unless she really wanted to die, she would never trust Mu Cidian again.

Mu Cidian didn’t answer.

Xin Zaozao never expected him to. She said, "No matter what you want to do, I’m not scared! If that’s the case, we’ll go down together!"

She really hates Mu Cidian.

"Even if I die, even if I have to give up all the happiness I have now, I won’t let you or Wan Quan get your way!"

Xin Zaozao walked away from Mu Cidian.

She must not believe his ceaseless lies.

She thought that she could forget how he made her fall from heaven to hell, she thought she could suppress it, hide it, but she couldn’t.

Many years passed, each time she recalled the past and her experiences with him, she was consumed by hatred.

If he hadn’t deceived her all those years ago, if he and his mother had been straightforward, she wouldn’t have hated them so much!

The hatred she felt for Mu Cidian, would never fade in this lifetime, or even in a few lifetimes.

Not even in death would it fade!

Mu Cidian didn’t look back.

All he felt was Xin Zaozao’s cold demeanor as she passed by him.

He knew, in Xin Zaozao’s heart, his trustworthiness was zero.

Yet, everything he said tonight was sincere.

Yet, she sensed none of it!

Mu Cidian quietly returned to his room.

Wan Quan returned quite late too, she had been doing so these days. Trying to curry favor with the directors, conspiring with them against Xin Zaozao, entertaining them with drinks, even selling her body. Yet all the efforts she put in came back void when she had to deal with her son’s very apparent affection for Xin Zaozao.

It made her gnash her teeth in anger.

But just then, a malicious smile appeared on her face.

Xin Zaozao wanted to be happy, Xin Zaozao wanted to change things around. Unless she died!

...

News headlines.

The headline news that Xin Zaozao, Xiya’s youngest chairman of Consortium Group, is about to get engaged with the second son of Xiya’s largest Consortium Group, Ji Baili, was causing a sensation in the media.

This engagement, it’s hard to keep low-key.

If Xin Zaozao was still the daughter of Xin Group’s chairman, this would just be a wedding between two compatible families from an upper-class society, hardly media-worthy. But because she’s the youngest female chairman of a Fortune 500 financial consortium, her status alone makes for a hot topic.

As the engagement draws near, the news becomes more explosive.

Yin Qin has been clocking in at the office from Monday to Friday.

Sitting in the office is excruciatingly dull.

He flips through the news on his phone.

The more he reads about Xin Zaozao’s and Ji Baili’s engagement, the harder it is to swallow.

He’d been engaged to Ji Baixing since they were kids, but they never had an engagement party. Now that they’re breaking up, he has yet to see Ji Baixing smiling at him as Xin Zaozao is doing for Ji Baili in the news.

He might spend the rest of his life alone after all.

He leans lazily back in his office chair.

When his secretary comes in, she finds her deputy director looking like he has nothing to do.

She thought the deputy director had finally decided to take his work seriously. But he’s been half asleep from Monday and it’s already Friday, like he can’t figure out why he’s here suffering.

She says, "At 4 o’clock, the director is holding a meeting to review the first half of the month. He’s invited the deputy to attend."

Yin Qin hates meetings more than anything.

A few days at the office.

And Weng Cheng has already held three meetings!

Isn’t this just wasting time?!

He replies lazily, "Noted."

"Deputy, you must be punctual for the meeting. You’re always late to meetings called by the director," the secretary reminds him.

"Ok, ok, get out," Yin Qin is getting impatient.

The secretary dares not say more and leaves.

Yin Qin checks the time and shifts to a more comfortable position to keep reading the news.

After a while ...

"Deputy, it’s time for the meeting," the secretary knocks.

Yin Qin is speechless.

He puts down his phone, get up, and goes to the huge conference room.

Weng Cheng sits in the center of the conference room, and everyone else is sitting in their proper places.

Only after Yin Qin sits down does Weng Cheng start speaking. His expression is colder than ever, "Since the beginning of the month, I’ve been telling all of you to stay on edge and not let our market share drop below sixty percent. But according to the data provided by the sales team, our market share is only fifty-eight point three percent. What does this imply? It means we’re losing tens of millions of active users. At this rate, we might as well pack up and leave!"

The conference room is eerily quiet.

Yin Qin also feels that the Milky Way needs innovation as the traditional mode is no longer suitable for the current market.

But does Weng Cheng need to be this cruel?

Besides, he has nothing to be afraid of.

"The top story right now is the news about Xin Zaozao and Ji Baili’s engagement. But we weren’t the first to broadcast this news. News Wind Media beat us by a whole minute, and their viewership is almost on par with ours now. I don’t want to see these kinds of data!" Weng Cheng’s voice gets louder and louder.

Not a single person dares to breathe.

"I’m not interested in laying blame for this! I want first-hand information from the engagement party tomorrow no matter what you do!" Weng Cheng speaks with finality.

"Yes, but..." the director of the news department, Ji Mingde, hesitates to speak.

"What’s the problem?" asks Weng Cheng, his face darkening.

"Based on our information, Xin Family and the Ji Family want to keep their engagement party low-key. Considering they’ll be holding the wedding soon after the engagement, they’ve refused all media reporters. We can only make reports from outside, but infiltrating the party will be difficult. From what we know, only a small number of people were invited to the engagement party, so any outsiders will be easily spotted," Ji Mingde quickly explains.

"I don’t want to hear any excuses. I’m interested in results only."

Ji Mingde dares not speak further.

Anyway, he has another scolding coming tomorrow.

"I heard that the chairman has been invited to the engagement party tomorrow," the assistant director of the news department can’t resist saying.

"So you want the chairman to give you news? You’re dreaming!" says Weng Cheng coldly.

"No, what I mean is, the deputy should also be going..." The assistant director says and dares not look at Yin Qin.

Yin Qin raises his head slightly, realizing they’re talking about him, and speaks up, "If I sell news from my friend’s engagement party, you’re asking me to end up friendless, aren’t you? If you can handle this, then report it, if not, then forget it. Don’t count on me."

The assistant director can only nod in agreement.

At that moment, Weng Cheng seemed to glance over at Yin Qin.

Yin Qin looked upset, "I said no."

He was acting like a spoiled, privileged child.

Everyone thought that Yin Qin was just fooling around.

Weng Cheng didn’t say much more; he changed the subject, "What happened to our previous YILANG interview section? It’s supposed to air in three days, have we started promoting it?!"

"It’s been taken care of, but the reaction hasn’t been very good..."

"What on earth is going on here!" Weng Cheng abruptly interrupted Li Hong, the director of the media department, "Didn’t I tell you how important this column is to us? The outcome of this column directly determines the exclusive resources that YILANG’s upcoming press conferences will give us! What on earth are you all doing?!"

"The news department didn’t follow through!" Li Hong hastily replied, "Recently they’ve been focusing all the news on the engagement feast of the two major families and hardly did any promotion for our column. I tried to communicate with them but they didn’t give me a special feature."

"The hot search topics right now are about the engagement, you want me to remove them and put yours instead, isn’t that just wishful thinking?!"

"I didn’t ask you to take it down, I just asked you to give me another special feature..."

"Do you think special features are so easy to come by? What’s the point of your feature if it doesn’t make it to the hot search? It’s a waste of our department’s manpower..."

The two directors began arguing back and forth, reaching an impasse.

"Enough!" Weng Cheng looked upset, "Once the engagement feast ends tomorrow, I want a YILANG special feature up. Find a way to get this feature to the top one of the hot search list! I don’t want to hear any more excuses."

"There is still a chance for our topic to make the hot search." The media department quickly added, "A paparazzo gave us gossip about YILANG’s designer, Lee. We have exclusive rights to it and haven’t rushed to share it because we are waiting for the right moment."

"I was also thinking that we should wait until after the engagement feast to publish it. We don’t need to worry about other media reporting it since we bought the exclusive rights, so there’s no need to rush and compete with the current hot topic of the engagement feast." Ji Mingde quickly said.

"That works." Weng Cheng nodded, "I’ll reiterate once more: I want results. From now on, screen everything yourselves!"

"Yes."

"Meeting adjourned!" Weng Cheng rose, preparing to leave.

"Wait." Yin Qin suddenly spoke up.

Weng Cheng furrowed his brow, "Do you have something else to add?"

"What was that gossip you guys just mentioned about Lee?" Yin Qin’s brow drew together.

The two directors of the news and media departments glanced at each other.

"What was it?!" Yin Qin’s voice rang out loudly.

Ji Mingde turned to look at Weng Cheng.

Weng Cheng spoke up, "What are you trying to do?"

"So what, I can’t know what it is?!" Yin Qin countered Weng Cheng, "You want to monopolize power?!"

Weng Cheng looked upset, he said to Ji Mingde, "Tell him!"

Left with no choice, Ji Mingde nodded and bravely explained, "A paparazzo snapped photos of Lee on a date with a woman, they were even kissing and seen going back to Lee’s bachelor pad. We plan to tease this story before the program airs to help build anticipation. The buzz will then draw in more viewers."

"Who’s this woman?" Yin Qin asked.

He asked coldly.

Ji Mingde hesitated, unable to speak.

Weng Cheng straightforwardly addressed, "Your fiancée, Ji Baixin."

"Damn it!" Yin Qin burst out.

Weng Cheng spoke, "Everyone knows you and Ji Baixin aren’t getting along, this would be a good opportunity for you to call off your engagement with Ji Family, suitable reasons and whatnot. I’ve discussed this with the chairman, he said it’s fine."

Yin Qin’s expression twisted, he stormed out of the meeting room.

He felt furious.

He walked toward the elevator, furiously pressing the elevator button.

Damn you, Ji Baixin, are you seriously trying to ruin your reputation?!

He walked into the elevator angrily, arriving at the chairman’s floor just as furiously.

He didn’t even knock, he burst through the door unannounced.

Yin Bin was discussing matters with the general manager of the finance department. Seeing his son behave so disrespectfully, he looked displeased.

Reading the mood, the general manager of the finance department took his leave on the pretense of other matters to attend to.

Yin Bin sternly asked, "What’s going on?!"

"Do not report the news about Ji Baixin, or else I will leave home with Mom!"

"..."