If I Die, Will You Still Hate Me? - Chapter 18
“That’s exactly what I intended.”
The girl darted into the narrow alley, her steps accelerating until she was running. She could feel the person behind her running as well.
The wind, a mix of alcohol and sweat, relentlessly followed her.
The phone gripped tightly in her hand relayed her boyfriend’s anxious voice: “Jiajia, are you home yet? Do you want me to call a friend to pick you up…”
“Ah!”
The phone dropped to the ground, the call abruptly cutting off. Silence enveloped the area, broken only by the steady drum of rain hitting the pavement.
She sat on the ground, trembling, her hands clutching her agonizing ankle. She looked fearfully at the man with a sinister grin standing before her. The stench of that foul breath crept closer. She edged backward, her back pressing against the wall, unable to utter a sound.
“Jiajia,” the man slowly savored the name, as if tasting fine wine. His smile grew wilder. He squinted, scrutinizing his prey, and his filthy hand clamped around the girl’s chin. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. So pretty. Why don’t you come home with me?”
“J-Jiang… Captain Jiang, I have a boyfriend…” Jiajia stammered.
“Oh?” Jiang Chengzhi stopped smiling, his grip tightening. “You have a boyfriend? What a pity. Still, you can keep me company tonight.”
“Keep you company doing what?” a young, clear voice sounded from behind Jiang Chengzhi. The man chuckled softly. “How about you keep me company tonight first?”
Jiang Chengzhi frowned, released the girl, clenched his fist, and abruptly swung backward. He only felt a warm hand block his punch. Almost simultaneously, a sharp pain shot through his knee, his shoulder twisted, and he dropped to his knees.
The entire process took less than half a minute.
“Who the hell are you?” Jiang Chengzhi’s hands were tightly locked behind his back, unable to move, but he was still screaming. “Let go of me! Do you know who my brother is?”
“Who?” the person asked, the humor draining from his voice.
“My brother is the CEO of the Baiwen Group! You dare hit me? I’ll sue you until you’re bankrupt!” Jiang Chengzhi writhed. “I advise you to let go of me immediately!”
When the person heard the seven words “CEO of the Baiwen Group,” the strength in his grip increased, as if he intended to break Jiang Chengzhi’s hand. He leaned in close to Jiang Chengzhi’s ear and lowered his voice, asking: “If your brother is the CEO, then how come you’re just a security team captain?”
Before Jiang Chengzhi could reply, a shriek of pain tore from his throat.
It wasn’t until the red and blue flashing lights of the police car stopped at the alley entrance that Jiajia clearly saw that her savior was none other than the former Vice President of the Baiwen Group and the current CEO of Yunhe Smart Technology Co., Ltd.—Ye Xun.
“Vice President Ye?” Jiajia quickly called out.
Ye Xun’s face, handsome under the red and white light, gave Jiang Chengzhi over to the police, smiled faintly, bent down to pick up Jiajia’s dropped phone, brushed off the dust, and handed it to her: “Shattered screen, safe person.”
Jiajia winced, looking at the broken screen of her phone.
“Is your boyfriend away on a business trip?” Ye Xun asked. Upon receiving her affirmation, he said, “I’ll take you home. Next time, try to leave work earlier. Your President Jiang isn’t short of money; you don’t need to work yourself to death for him.”
Meanwhile, the President Jiang, who supposedly wasn’t short of money and didn’t need anyone to work themselves to death for him, was sitting at his office desk. The voice of Lin Huai, the group’s Chief PR Officer, analyzed the current public opinion environment surrounding the Baiwen Group on the computer. In front of him lay the full lifecycle documents for the Jiangchi Gardens project.
At five o’clock that afternoon, near closing time, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development sent a notice: someone had reported the Jiangchi Gardens project under the Baiwen Group for “tofu-dreg construction” (shoddy work), demanding a complete work stoppage and rectification. The report specifically cited insufficient concrete strength.
After being briefed on the report’s content, Jiang Xuzhou took time to visit the Jiangchi Gardens construction site. He immediately sealed the controversial building materials and initiated sampling by a third-party notarization office. After all this rushing around, it wasn’t until 9 PM that he could sit down and convene the Legal, Audit, and PR departments to establish a wartime command center to manage the public relations crisis.
Mochi City experienced a long-awaited massive downpour today, just as heavy as the rain that fell four years ago when Ye Xun left.
Jiang Xuzhou’s suit was drenched and clung uncomfortably to his body, but he didn’t have time to change. He could only turn on the air conditioner’s heat, hoping to dry the wet clothes sticking to him.
“How many media outlets have we signed annual cooperation agreements with?” Jiang Xuzhou pulled a few tissues to wipe the water dripping from his cuffs.
Lin Huai replied: “Currently 10. President Jiang, I suggest we release a preliminary statement now to control the situation before it escalates further.”
When establishing the PR department, the Baiwen Group specifically signed annual cooperation agreements with several core media outlets. Although the number wasn’t huge, they were all trustworthy media with a solid following.
“Good. Proceed as you suggested,” Jiang Xuzhou hadn’t drunk much water all day, and his voice was dry and hoarse. He picked up a cup of water that had been poured sometime earlier and took a small sip.
At 9:30 PM, the Baiwen Group released the “Preliminary Statement Regarding the Work Stoppage Report on the Jiangchi Gardens Project” on its official website. The 10 whitelisted media outlets immediately reposted it, quickly overwhelming the negative comments and successfully—for now—shifting the direction of public opinion.
Jiang Xuzhou looked at the real-time public sentiment updates sent by the PR department on his tablet, sighed, and leaned back in his chair, gently rubbing his stomach with one hand.
He knew the emergency response wasn’t completely over. He still needed to conduct an initial fact verification to ensure the stability of the public sentiment.
All of this demanded that Jiang Xuzhou, and the Baiwen Group, be ready before tomorrow morning.
Clearly, it was going to be a sleepless night for them.
Jiang Xuzhou braced himself on the desk to stand up. Perhaps due to the rain, or perhaps for some other reason, his head felt incredibly dizzy, as if weighted down by a huge stone. His chest ached with heart palpitations, and his stomach, empty all day, rumbled in protest. There wasn’t a single spot on his body that felt comfortable.
He realized his physical condition was getting worse, especially his stomach, which often acted up like a disobedient child.
Jiang Xuzhou thought, It looks like I really need a full checkup after this whole thing is over.
But first, the crisis had to end.
So, he walked to the coffee machine, opened the drawer, and brewed a cup of instant coffee.
Since Ye Xun resigned, he hadn’t hired another secretary, simply dividing the secretary’s former duties between Wu Yi and himself.
Besides, he always preferred to handle things himself, especially small tasks like making coffee; he was more than capable.
Although, he usually considered it a hassle and mostly drank the instant coffee found beneath the machine.
A cup of bitter coffee mixed with cold water went down, causing his stomach to spasm, but the huge stone on his head seemed to drop away. One pain replacing another surprisingly brought a momentary clarity.
Jiang Xuzhou called Tan Hui to tell her not to wait up for him, silently accepted her barrage of instructions, and then pulled open his desk drawer, dug out painkillers and fever reducers, and swallowed them whole.
Afterward, he turned off the main lights in the office, leaving only the floor lamp beside his desk on, and continued scrutinizing the fund flow and supplier list for the Jiangchi Gardens project.
The Baiwen Group was lit up all night.
After dropping Jiajia off, Ye Xun inexplicably found himself wandering to the Baiwen Group building. He gazed up at the office on the top floor, the image of Jiang Xuzhou hunched over his desk automatically surfacing in his mind.
He remembered that Jiang Xuzhou found the main lights too harsh at night and would only turn on a single floor lamp; he remembered that Jiang Xuzhou drank the instant black coffee from under the machine; he remembered that Jiang Xuzhou liked to be hands-on with everything, reviewing every document.
He remembered everything and anticipated everything Jiang Xuzhou would do, only failing to realize that the man was currently ill.
Ye Xun opened Jiang Xuzhou’s WeChat conversation. The chat interface was completely empty—
He had cleared the chat history the day he returned from Tan Hui’s house.
He clicked on Jiang Xuzhou’s profile picture. The blurry image loaded for a few seconds before popping up.
It was still that same photo they took back then.
Ye Xun remembered taking the photo on a clear summer afternoon. The Baiwen Group was steadily gaining ground, and the first project had yielded good returns. After much cajoling and insisting, Jiang Xuzhou agreed to take an afternoon off.
In truth, Jiang Xuzhou had no particular thoughts on where to go on his day off. In his view, as long as he was with Ye Xun, anywhere was fun, and anything they did was interesting.
Ye Xun, burdened with the task of helping Jiang Xuzhou relax and be happy, sat on the swing in the Linhai Mansion courtyard, sliding through his phone and searching all afternoon, but found no satisfactory location. Jiang Xuzhou didn’t rush him, simply sitting quietly under the tree with his eyes closed to rest.
“Do you really not have anywhere you want to go?” Ye Xun turned his head and asked.
Jiang Xuzhou wore a simple white shirt paired with black dress pants. Half of his body was bathed in the afternoon sun, but his face was tilted toward the shade, as if avoiding the sun.
When he heard Ye Xun’s question, he carefully searched his mind and genuinely couldn’t come up with a good idea: “No, aie.”
When he worked, he spoke every sentence without any interjections, constantly maintaining the image of a decisive company leader. But in front of people he was familiar with, he did a complete 180-degree turn, adding a tonal particle to almost every sentence and often drawing out the tail end of his words.
Like now. He drew out the final syllable, infusing the laziness with a hint of petulance.
In that moment, time seemed to stretch infinitely, everything was vividly clear, slowed down enough to see the dust motes suspended in the air. It was slow enough for Ye Xun to hear every breath and every heartbeat of Jiang Xuzhou.
Jiang Xuzhou noticed Ye Xun hadn’t spoken for a long time and started to open his eyes to look at him.
“Don’t move!” Ye Xun yelled. He quickly switched his phone to camera mode and snapped a picture of Jiang Xuzhou.
He wanted to capture that moment forever.
“What’s wrong?” Jiang Xuzhou obediently returned to his previous pose.
“Look!” Ye Xun held up his phone and showed it to Jiang Xuzhou, proud as a little peacock.
The first thing Jiang Xuzhou did upon opening his eyes was look at Ye Xun, followed by the photograph.
Undoubtedly, Ye Xun was a naturally gifted photographer; the Jiang Xuzhou in his lens was always warm and handsome.
Jiang Xuzhou smiled faintly and praised it: “It’s beautiful.”
“If it’s beautiful, you have to set it as your profile picture,” Ye Xun half-joked, half-ordered.
“Great minds think alike,” Jiang Xuzhou took Ye Xun’s phone, forwarded the photo, and efficiently set it as his private WeChat profile picture. “That’s exactly what I intended.”
The phone screen abruptly went dark, and Ye Xun was startled by his own appearance reflected in the glass.
He rubbed his frozen face and slipped into the car behind him.
“Take me to Shanhe Mansion,” Ye Xun instructed.
The driver paused, pulled out his phone, and brought up the navigation.