Copycat - Chapter 44
Chapter 44
◎Active Mind◎
The press conference caused an uproar in public opinion as soon as it was made public. For a week straight, the front-page headlines were about “Wen’s Group CEO Asks for Help in Finding Someone.”
A student who had studied at A University almost instantly recognized the photo from the press conference in the entertainment newspaper and, with some embellishment, brought up the story of the arranged marriage from three years ago.
When Zhou Ziyan received the latest issue of the A City newspaper, she almost tore it to shreds in front of the town postman.
In the evening, Li Qing came home from work.
It was Monday again. She saw that the person in the room wasn’t engrossed in reading the evening paper as usual and couldn’t help but ask, “Why aren’t you reading the newspaper today?”
Zhou Ziyan looked at the countless text messages and unread messages on her phone, her fingers clenching slightly. “There’s no need to read that kind of stuff.”
“Oh.” Seeing that she was in a bad mood, Li Qing didn’t say anything else. She walked to the kitchen, which was not far away, and tied on her apron. “Oh, right.”
“Do you know someone named Zhou Ziyan?”
Zhou Ziyan was stunned and suddenly stood up abruptly. “Did someone find you?!”
Li Qing was startled by her and the iron spoon in her hand fell into the vegetable basin. “Huh, what?”
Zhou Ziyan calmed down her excitement and patiently asked, “Why are you suddenly bringing this up? Did something happen?”
Li Qing looked at her strangely, wiped her wet hands with a dry cloth, took out her phone from her pocket, and opened a social media app. “Look.”
“Who is Zhou Ziyan?”
“Wen’s Group CEO offers a reward of three million yuan to find the missing eldest daughter of the Zhou family.”
“What did the bankrupt Zhou Group do wrong?”
Zhou Ziyan’s fingers, which were hidden in her sleeves, clenched into fists, but she showed a relaxed smile on her face. “What kind of person is this, wasting public resources like this, and even offering a reward to find someone.”
“Yeah, three million yuan, you know.” Li Qing’s eyes lit up. “If we had that much money, we could move out of this small town, buy a house in a big city, and put the rest in the bank. We wouldn’t have to work and could just live off the interest.”
Zhou Ziyan forced a smile. “Yeah.”
“You know, I was so scared when I saw this news,” Li Qing said, picking up the spoon from the vegetable basin. “Your name is only one character different from the person they’re looking for. If I hadn’t seen the photo, I would have almost thought it was you.”
In the kitchen, Teacher Li was humming a cheerful tune and cooking. The woman sitting at the wooden table had a pale face. She was holding her phone, her fingers constantly scrolling through the comments under the trending topic. Finally, when she saw a comment with a photo, her eyes turned cold, as if they were ice picks laced with poison.
[Aiwo Wo Jiang]: Family, it’s almost Tomb Sweeping Day. I’m staking out the Zhou family’s cemetery every day now. I don’t believe I won’t get that three million yuan!
The replies below were all “+1.” The person who posted this comment even took a detailed picture of the tombstone and accurately found the place where the Zhou family had buried Zhou Ziyan’s mother’s ashes.
Wen’s Group not only did not stop this behavior, but the official account even liked the post.
A sound of a table being smashed came from the small room. Li Qing, who was busy cooking in the kitchen, heard the noise and rushed over without even putting down her spatula. She only saw a mess on the floor.
The exquisite tea set was all in pieces, scattered in every corner of the room. Her fiancée’s cheeks were flushed, and her right hand was propped on the table, her body trembling as if she would faint at any second.
She quickly ran over and caught Zhou Ziyan. “Zhou Yan, Zhou Yan.”
“Zhou Yan, what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m fine.” Zhou Ziyan propped herself up on the table. She shook off Li Qing’s hand that was holding her and forced herself to stand up again. “Go back to what you were doing. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Li Qing stared at her blankly.
The woman’s eyes were lowered, her long, thick eyelashes were stained with tears, but her fingers were clenched into fists, resting on the table. Her knuckles were bleeding from the excessive force, but she seemed to not feel the pain. She stubbornly maintained that posture, unwilling to lean on or rely on her.
Li Qing unconsciously took a step back.
“You should go home first, Teacher Li. I still have some things to deal with.”
There were no tall buildings in Liwan Town. The small roads wound around the lake, and walking alone on the road at dusk, you could see the orange-red sunset.
Li Qing walked forward with her head down, completely ignoring the beautiful scenery. She was surprised by Zhou Yan’s behavior, and even a little… scared.
She didn’t dare to admit that the moment she was asked to leave, she was even relieved, even though this person was the wife she was going to get married to at the end of this month.
“Zhou Yan… Zhou Yan… Zhou Ziyan?” Li Qing muttered the two very similar names repeatedly, completely lost in thought.
“Li Qing?” A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts. When Li Qing looked up, an old woman stood in front of her. Her grandson was in her class.
Li Qing smiled faintly. “You’re Wang Yongshun’s parent, right?”
The old woman looked at her with a strange expression. Li Qing frowned slightly, touched her face, and thought she had gotten something dirty on it in the kitchen, but there was nothing.
Li Qing was confused but instinctively said politely, “Xiao Wang’s grades in all subjects are very good, but his math is a bit weak. He also doesn’t like to talk. As a parent, you should encourage your child to communicate more with the teacher. If there’s anything he doesn’t understand, he can always…”
Before she could finish her sentence, the old woman waved her sleeve and gave her a look of disgust. “You’re going to corrupt our child. Our Shunzi is going to marry a wife in the future.”
“I think you should be sensible and leave on your own. Our town doesn’t welcome teachers with abnormal sexual orientations!”
Li Qing’s words trailed off, and she couldn’t say anything to refute her in the end.
Happiness, after all, always comes at a price.
She left the town in a daze, subconsciously walking toward the school. There was a staff dormitory there with free hot water. When she didn’t want to go home, she would rest there.
The sky was getting dark. There were no streetlights in the town. By the time she got to the dormitory, the surroundings were completely dark. Only the faint moonlight allowed her to barely make out the outline of the building.
Li Qing used the key to open the door to the staff dormitory, took a hot shower, and tried to sleep, but when she closed her eyes, her mind was filled with everything that had happened today.
The gossip in the small town.
The prejudice of the students’ parents against her.
The similar names, and Zhou Yan’s abnormal behavior.
Li Qing sat up from the bed. She put on her glasses and clicked on the photo on the trending topic again.
The next day.
Li Qing went to class with a lot on her mind. Before she even walked into the classroom, the principal called her over. The principal was a middle-aged man in his fifties who usually smiled and rarely got into conflicts. He was a well-known good guy in the town.
“Xiao Li,” the principal said earnestly.
Li Qing’s heart started to beat faster. A faint, ominous premonition flashed through her mind. “Principal, what’s wrong?”
“I think you’ve heard about what’s been happening these past few days,” the principal said, pushing up the reading glasses on his nose. “The parents of the students in the town have been making a fuss, and some of them are even deliberately not letting their children come to school.”
“I’m not in a good position to deal with this because of your private life.”
Li Qing’s expression turned cold. “I don’t know of any rule in the school that says a teacher can’t be in a relationship or get married.”
“Yes, no one said you can’t be in a relationship,” the principal said, raising his hand in midair and sighing. “But you can’t…”
“Marry a woman.”
Li Qing took a deep breath. “Principal, I…”
The principal interrupted her explanation. “It doesn’t look good for things to be like this. How about this? You go home for now. I’ll give you three months of leave, and you can come back after things have calmed down.”
Li Qing knew that this was the best solution. She nodded silently and left the principal’s office. She walked forward with her head down, feeling a little dejected. As she passed the classroom where she had worked for almost ten years, she heard an unfamiliar female voice from inside.
“Students, I am the new teacher, Teacher Li. Today, I’ll be teaching you a math class.”
Li Qing clutched her handbag and quickly left the school.
For two weeks straight, Li Qing was unable to enter Zhou Yan’s house, but through the photos posted by netizens in the comments section, she was almost certain that “Zhou Yan” was a fake name.
This woman, who had suddenly bought a house in this remote town, was the eldest daughter of the bankrupt Zhou Group—Zhou Ziyan.
After the sixth time of knocking on the door to no avail, Li Qing finally used the spare key to open the door. The house was empty. Her fingers gently brushed over the dust-covered table, but they finally stopped at the locked drawer.
She remembered that Zhou Ziyan had locked a bank card in the top drawer. Li Qing scanned the three locked drawers, and her mind became active.
If Zhou Yan was really the eldest daughter of the bankrupt Zhou Group, at least… at the very least, she should have some assets.
A City, Wen’s Group.
The secretary rushed up to the 26th floor in the CEO’s private elevator. She didn’t knock on the door, but instead, she pushed it open and rushed in.
By the huge floor-to-ceiling window, the woman’s arms were on the desk, her back was straight, and her eyes were focused.
A multinational meeting was about to begin, and Wen Jiao was putting on a real-time translation headset.
When she saw the secretary suddenly rush in, she looked over with a confused expression.
The secretary silently mouthed a message.
Wen Jiao’s fingers, which were putting on the headset, paused slightly.
“I’m sorry, I have something I need to deal with urgently. This meeting will be postponed.”
Downstairs, the secretary quickly started the Maybach’s engine and drove toward the private jet’s parking area.
She held the steering wheel with one hand and handed a photo to the back seat with the other.
“CEO Wen, have you seen this person?”
Wen Jiao looked at the photo, her eyebrows furrowed.
The woman in the photo was wearing high-heeled shoes with a thick heel, her hair was in a ponytail, and she had a slightly square-shaped face. She searched every corner of her memory but had never seen this person.
“Who is she?”
Wen Jiao said, “Didn’t you say you had news about Zhou Ziyan?”
“The bank manager called us ten minutes ago and told us that this woman used a supplementary card under your name to withdraw three hundred thousand yuan in cash. The bank has now called the police and detained the person on suspicion of being a flight risk.”