CHAPTER 333: CHAPTER 323: LENG YAN COMES AROUND, DECIDES TO KEEP THE CHILD

"Sister Ji, do we still need to change places? Or should we change to a different city?"

After first finding a hotel to stay, Xiao Liu felt uneasy and conflicted: "If one day Wen Nuan runs into us and tells Young Master Leng we are in City E, he will definitely come and demand you get rid of the child."

Even though she hated this life of evasion, it was, all things considered, somewhat safer.

"Lin Xue is also here, Wen Nuan and she probably came on a business trip, and will soon leave, so there’s no need to move." Ji Wei pushed the laptop to Xiao Liu, "Check if there’s a suitable house for rent. Let’s secure it first. Close to downtown, larger in size, preferably fully furnished."

To this day, she would often find herself regretting. However, things had reached this point, and she had no way out. Moreover, she had a never-give-up personality, which allowed her to achieve remarkable success in the entertainment industry within only three years, starting from an unknown figure. Now, victory was within reach; how could she choose to retreat?

She had spent some time in City E before and was quite familiar with the environment; she didn’t want to find a strange city.

**

Leng Yan’s office was shrouded in gloom.

The secretary carefully served tea, which got spilled and soaked many documents. The entire company seemed to be enveloped in a tense atmosphere.

Leng Yan recalled the phone call earlier, waves of anger surged, churning in his chest, unable to find an outlet.

The people sent to City T reported the latest situation. The room provided by the media had been vacated in the middle of the night. According to the service staff, the two individuals were wearing large sunglasses, making it impossible to see their faces clearly.

It must be Ji Wei, he was certain. But where had they gone now? It left him at a loss. The hard-won clue was abruptly cut off, which was truly frustrating.

He analyzed silently; leaving at midnight and, as the staff mentioned, in a rush without collecting the deposit, raised doubts.

Ji Wei’s move to send these reports to the media was evidently not a smart one. Had she regretted it after sending them, or had someone warned her to leave quickly? This left him baffled. He believed it wasn’t a pre-arrangement with the media, but who then? Who could still be in touch with Ji Wei at this time?

The phone number he had for Ji Wei was already out of service, making it incredibly difficult to find her.

Disregarding the time difference between France and China, Leng Yan dialed Ye Wei’s number.

"Still drinking?" Leng Yan slightly frowned at the noise from the other end.

Ye Wei chuckled, "The new law in France allowing bars to stay open all night has been in place for a while now. A French friend of mine just returned from a business trip... Oh, right, he’s the one who said he saw Ji Wei at the swimming pool."

"That’s great then."

Leng Yan’s dark eyes flickered with joy, "I called to ask if he has a photo of Ji Wei."

Ye Wei mentioned that his friend was a fan of Chinese girls and particularly liked storing photos of beautiful women on his phone.

"Need evidence? Alright, I’ll ask him for you." Ye Wei readily agreed. Leng Yan listened as he conversed in French on the other side and soon came back: "It happens to be available, and it’s even a photo of her in a swimsuit. Hold on, I’m sending it to you right away."

Shortly, Ye Wei sent the photo over. Looking at Ji Wei’s photo, Leng Yan’s eyes narrowed.

In the photo, her flowery swimsuit tightly wrapped around her graceful figure. Though it wasn’t a bikini, it revealed her abdomen and navel well. It wasn’t very revealing, yet this kind of subtle sexiness captivated the French friend, who secretly snapped the picture.

Soon, a video came through too, again with the bikini, only this time she wore swimming goggles, moving like an agile fish in the water...

Leng Yan’s jaw was clenched tightly, his face turned completely grave, his chest was filled with an endless stifling sensation, seemingly on the verge of exploding.

He had dug through all the information about Ji Wei, finding nothing about her knowing how to swim. Yet, sometimes things coincidentally appear just when you need them.

His lips curled slightly, but it was still a taste of loneliness. Staring at the computer screen, with the desktop showing a "Marriage Certificate" made with him and Wen Nuan, his fingers brushed against Wen Nuan’s cheek: "Nuannuan, if I can’t find you, then is there a day you could appear unexpectedly?"

Muttering, his brows knitted with dense worry.

Hurting her heart, so deeply that even hoping for her return became a luxury...

He dialed the secretary’s extension, asking her to come clean up the office. Leng Yan picked up the entertainment section with printed content about him and Ji Wei, along with the photos sent by Ye Wei, and drove to the old house.

He needed to find Ji Wei’s phone, but Li Qiu always said she didn’t have it. In Li Qiu’s mind, she had a preconceived notion about Ji Wei. Because of her previous fondness and Ji Wei’s perceived "aggrievedness," she felt especially sympathetic towards Ji Wei. And because Wen Nuan didn’t heed her advice to leave MT for the Leng Family, she felt Wen Nuan was less understanding than Ji Wei. You know, previously, as soon as she said something, Ji Wei would always immediately comply.

Today, he was determined to tear off Ji Wei’s hypocritical mask in front of Li Qiu and let her see clearly how "kind" Ji Wei really was.

"How could it be like this?" Looking at the photos and the video of Ji Wei swimming, Li Qiu’s face was filled with shock, "She said she couldn’t swim. I still remember during summer, when I bought tickets for you two to the swimming pool, she was so scared her face turned white."

Leng Yan frowned tightly, looking at Li Qiu blandly: "I said Ji Wei has changed, but you didn’t believe me. Now, do you believe it, Mom?"

"Her child..." Li Qiu found it hard to accept the reality.

"Whether the child is mine or not, I’ll investigate thoroughly. But..."

Leng Yan looked into Li Qiu’s eyes, without a hint of concession: "I still stand by my words, if it is mine, I won’t let her give birth to it. I’m increasingly convinced this was a meticulously crafted scheme. Mom, do you think this kind of person would be good to the child?"

"Ah—" Li Qiu sighed deeply: "I really didn’t expect her to become like this. Over the years, you’ve changed a lot too, but your heart hasn’t turned bad. Ji Wei, why would she..."

"Call Ji Wei, just tell her I’ve thought it over and want her to come back."

"She usually calls me every two or three days. I don’t have her new number." Li Qiu was quite troubled: "I’ll just have to wait for her to call back."

She was telling the truth; Ji Wei never left a cell phone number with her. Every time she called Li Qiu, it was from a different number, Ji Wei said it was from a public phone booth.

"Next time she calls, just say I’ve thought it over and that the child can stay." Leng Yan’s brows furrowed deeply; Ji Wei truly was a meticulous person. He really suspected that she had learned all the wisdom from the roles she played on TV these past years and incorporated them into her own personal experiences.

Connecting the dots from previous events, it really seemed as if everything was pre-planned, each step taken with such care and cunning.

Given the current situation, he could only deceive her into returning first and then secretly get to the bottom of things.

"Mom, because of this issue, Wen Nuan has been gone so long without contacting me." Leng Yan glanced at Li Qiu, burying his head deeply, his throat filled with indescribable pain, "Mom, you’ve always hoped for my happiness. If there’s no Wen Nuan, I will never be happy in this lifetime."