Chapter 259: A Kind and Understanding Friend
Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97
Probably because of something that happened in the past, of the not-so-happy memories that they once shared, whenever Luo Mingxin heard Sister Shuang’s name, he would involuntarily suffer from all kinds of headaches.
Of course, Brother Shuang was not someone who was easily fooled, but because that ident.i.ty carried his own focused spotlight, and because Ye Shuang would subconsciously act like a tool when she was in her male ident.i.ty, Brother Shuang gave people the impression that ‘even though he’s quite a piece of work, we have to admit that he is indeed quite good at his work’. Such opinions were common.
Therefore, because of this, just as Brother Shuang opened his lips to say in a roundabout way that he was unable to make it to the function, Luo Mingxin did not think much of it. But once he heard that it was because he had something to do with his partner, Luo Mingxin instantly could not resist unpleasant speculation from forming in his mind.
Is it a fraud that they have been planning for a long time? Or is it a kidnapping that they have been planning for a long time? Or is it… Er, in any case, it will not be something good.
Director Zhou frowned. “Do you two have to work on that day? It is not often that the sponsor will come out with an invitation like this. Furthermore, even if you don’t plan to have any relations.h.i.+p in the future, you have to at least make a good first impression. Before you joined the crew, didn’t you say that the purpose is to form good connections with people?”
Brother Shuang sighed once. The difficulty that was present on his face made people who saw it feel like they were willing to go to the end of the world to solve this problem for him. “I’m afraid it’s really impossible. My partner has been planning this for a long time already, so that day, I have to aid her in some support job. I have to be there to help her bring up the rear…”
I knew it is something that has been planned for a long time already… Luo Mingxin made this silent conclusion in his heart.
In the end, perhaps due to the firm insistence on Brother Shuang’s part, or perhaps because Director Zhuo managed to come to a conclusion on his own from observing Rong Su’s att.i.tude toward the sponsor as well as the private relations.h.i.+p between Rong Su and Brother Shuang. In any case, in the end, he did not continue to badger Brother Shuang to go.
If he could not make it, so be it. The man was not someone from the entertainment business anyway. He had something that he needed to do, and he was not indebted to the sponsor for his job, so whether he appeared at the function or not would not be such a big deal. After all, one Luo Mingxin was enough to give Xia Cheng face.
…
The next day, the day of her holiday, Ye Shuang returned to the world and started the preparation for the introduction that Sister Yu was about to initiate for her. Even though the process was not as expected, at least it led to the same result. After raising Lin Yu’s suspicion and caution toward Xia Cheng, Ye Shuang could basically guarantee that part of her fees would come from Tian w.a.n.g Media. Then, the next important focus was definitely the other piece of fat meat—the cooperation with Huan Chen.
Ol’ K was summoned. He was told to leave his other job to the side, and he was to focus on creating a doc.u.ment with Xia Cheng’s ability and his job scope and cooperation with Tian Mo media.
Ye Shuang planned to use these things to help Xia Cheng create a big background. The plan was to make Huan Chen believe this character, Xia Cheng, was someone from an impressive background. And the final purpose was to make them believe that Xia Cheng, who represented Tian w.a.n.g Media, had found a giant support for them to lean toward. If she did not go at least that far, how would Ye Shuang make people come to the decision of going after Xia Cheng and toppling him?
Su Zheng also stopped helping Mo Xiao Xia create trouble for Lin Yu. Instead, her task was to focus on what she was going to do for the upcoming event. If she was already done with that task, and she found herself being bored, she could go practice the mastery of her skill, and then she would be prepared to do certain illegal things during the actual introduction. As a thief, why was she going out shopping and helping others critique their potential lover every day?
It was not that she was banned from gossiping, but she at least had to stop treating that as her actual job.
After grabbing these two back from illegally unearthing information about Lin Yu, Mo Xiao Xia, who had just realized how fun this was, became suddenly so free and bored. But at least Lin Yu was quite appreciative of Sister Shuang’s help. What a kind and understanding female friend!
That man who shared the same name ‘Ye Shuang’ was not an existence on the same level!
On the day of the event, before they met Sister Yu, Su Zheng kept sighing in disappointment. “Why do you get to wear such a pretty dress but I have to go in this office outfit?”
A sweet in her mouth made her cheeks puff up roundly and largely. She rolled the candy from her left cheek to her right cheek and from her right cheek to her left cheek… Oh, it disappeared… Then, there was another audible sigh. “Before, when I attended any party with Brother Zhang, he would get me to wear dresses, and he would pay for them!”
The puffed-up cheeks appeared again, and the candy continued to roll.
Ye Shuang looked at Su Zheng with patience. “You cannot wear a dress because I am already wearing a dress.”
“What kind of reason is that?” Su Zheng pouted sadly. “After all, Tian Mo will provide the clothes for us to wear.”
Ye Shuang looked at the female suitcase that Su Zheng placed on the seat next to her. “…Isn’t it obvious? Have you seen someone who carried a suitcase attend a party while wearing a c.o.c.ktail dress?”
As she spoke, Ye Shuang shook the purse the size of her palm that she was carrying, signaling that this was the kind of bag that she was expected to carry.
Then she pointed at the equipment sitting next to Su Zheng. “We also have doc.u.ments that we need to show Huan Chen. Since my purse is not large enough to carry them, then I’ll need my ‘a.s.sistant’ to help carry them for me.”
Su Zheng felt particularly saddened. There was a rare chance that she did not need to go through her own bank to play dress-up, but she would have to make do with this office get-up. Then again, Ye Shuang was right. If, among the two of them, someone had to become the a.s.sistant, she really could not say that she wanted to exchange character with Ye Shuang.
One was because Sister Yu had confirmed that the one who came from a powerful background was Ye Shuang and not her. The other reason was due to the issue of appearance and looks…
“You’ve arrived so early?” Sister Yu walked in from outside the café and greeted them. The dress she wore was still the usual tight-fitting dress. It accentuated her good body proportions. She slid into her seat from the side and crossed her legs. Her eyes, which were powdered with make-up, scanned Ye Shuang up and down, and then Sister Yu nodded with a smile on her lips. “You look so beautiful today.”
That was to be expected because the dress provided by Tian Mo Media was normally reserved for their artists to walk the red carpet.
“Sister Yu also looks gorgeous today.” Ye Shuang smiled. Politeness goes both ways. Then she glanced at the time. “Are we waiting for Sister Yu’s friend to arrive befor going to the party together, or will we wait for him at the birthday party?”
“We’ll go on our own first. He might be late.” Were they kidding? No matter how brave Sister Yu was, she was not going to show up at the party with the socialite and her sugar daddy. If the man showed up with three ladies, the chaos that it was going to cause was something small, but if someone misunderstood something and then created a rumor, this was definitely going to make her offend some people.
In the end, she might not end up making friends but enemies instead… As dumb as people might perceive her to be, she was not dumb enough to arrange people like they were C-list celebrities.
If they were going to leave, then it was time to go… No, no, no, let’s wait for another five minutes first!
Considering how they were not going to eat at these kind of parties, and considering her constant state of hunger due to her extremely powerful digestive system and metabolism, before they left the café, Ye Shuang ordered two sandwiches and a large pork cutlet set and finished it before the shocked and stunned gaze of the other two. The whole process was fast, elegant, and quick. The scariest part was that when she finished, her lip-gloss was not even stained.
This had to be a skill that had been cultivated when she was young from extreme training of table manners!
But which young lady from a cultured family would consume so many things so fast‽
Sister Yu was conflicted, but she soon forgot about this and waited for Ye Shuang to pay the bill before they left the café together. The ride was provided by Mo Xiao Xia. The good moving parts aside, driving it was definitely enough to support the face of a socialite. Even for Su Zheng, who had worked with a middle-tier agent for several years, sitting inside the car, she could not help but gasp in awe several times.
A middle-tier agent not only represented a powerful capability but also a wide connection and social web. If one was clever and inventive enough, a middle-tier agent could use the database and talent storage on their hands to do basically anything… to help family members find work, to help the children find school. If someone wants to open a new company, the agent would know the appropriate politician; if someone wants to get involved in the stock market, then the agent can gain access to private insider information… Even though all of that was built on a basis of exchange of benefits.
What was a friend? When one was too lazy to get up from bed, the other would help them buy the food; when one was skipping cla.s.s, the other would help them register their attendance… Since they helped each other, they would still end up as friends. Those who only provided one-sided service were either lovers or very dumb.
A mid-tier agent was a career that had friends like this all over the world because they had the capacity to help anyone solve their problem.
When Su Zheng was working under Agent Zheng, she had once had this post as a career goal that she was working toward, but after a period of time, she had realized that this was something that was almost impossible for someone like her. She was a professional and did not have the all-roundedness that was required of a middle-tier agent to handle everything.
Furthermore, a woman had a bigger difficulty of becoming a middle-tier agent. When they interacted with a male client, there would be many inconveniences, and they had a natural disadvantage that people had the tendency to look down on them. The body also could not support working under a high-stress job for a long time. The most difficult part was one might experience suspicious gazes from others when one gained a certain level of achievement.
Why would Han Chu believe in ‘Ye Shuang’? Su Zheng initially thought that this was an agent group where the male was the leader and the female was the support. However, several days of interaction made her change her mind. When the problems arose, it felt like the Ye Shuang who came out to solve the problem was completely random. There was no leaning toward a particular Ye Shuang.
Ye Shuang could feel the gaze on her even if she did not turn her head around. Since they were waiting for the red light, she asked casually to pa.s.s the time, “What are you thinking about?”
Su Zheng chuckled happily and answered, “Sister Shuang, I just remembered we haven’t prepared a present, have we?”
Even though they were attending the birthday party to get to know the person from Huan Chen, it was quite rude for them to show up empty-handed.
“Who said we haven’t prepared anything?” Ye Shuang was confused. “Didn’t you see the paper bag on the backseat?”
Su Zheng turned her head to look, and there was indeed a paper bag. “What is it?”
“When I was working with The Si Hai Organization, Zuo Yuanhang invited me to his cruise party. He gifted me a bottle of Boerl & Kroff Brut champagne,” Ye Shuang answered. “It’s around 15,000 RMB. That should be enough, right?”
Ye Shuang initially wanted to give this valuable bottle of alcohol to Father Ye, but Father Ye could not bring himself to drink it. Just the thought of gulping down several hundred dollars with just one mouth made Father Ye’s heart shake.
Since they were attending a birthday party, and Ye Shuang temporarily could not come up with any birthday present idea, she replaced the untouched bottle back into the box and placed it inside a paper bag. It was a nice present.
The most important point was that this was not something that one could buy just because one wanted to. Even though the price was not that high, it was something that would give the host great face. Even Ye Shuang wanted to give herself a thumb up for her ability to recycle and think on her feet!
Su Zheng’s eyes glowed instantly, and she raised her hand excitedly. “Me, me, me! I’ve drunk this before. It was at an oversea party that Brother Zhang brought us to. At the time, four of us went, and we shared a whole bottle.”
“Oh, then you guys sure were lucky.” Seeing the light turned green, Ye Shuang pulled on the hand brake and stepped on the pedal.
“It’s still okay.” Su Zheng pouted. “It is expensive, but I still think fruit juice is more delicious.”
…
Considering Shanghai’s traffic situation, when Ye Shuang managed to reach the party location in under one hour, she considered herself very lucky. However, perhaps they had arrived too early. Outside the villa of a certain young lady, there were only a few cars. It looked like most of the guests had not arrived yet.
With the invitation card that had been given to her by Sister Yu, Ye Shuang showed it to the maid, and soon, someone arrived to show her to the parking spot. Then Ye Shuang and Su Zheng got out from the car. Naturally, it was the latter who grabbed the champagne and the suitcase. Ye Shuang held the purse that could only contain coins.
Sister Yu had already arrived at the door. Then she waved at them and nodded before walking in on her own. Ye Shuang and Su Zheng walked a different way from her. After all, Sister Yu’s ident.i.ty could arouse many misunderstandings. If they walked too close, people might see them as some new artist who had just joined the entertainment business.
What if they attracted the attention of a rich young master who offered to ‘invest’ in them and invited Ye Shuang to go have a deeper conversation with them. Sister Yu was afraid that she would not be able to survive the consequences. Before entering the party, Ye Shuang felt that one of the cars that was parked at the door was rather familiar looking. After she walked around the party, she laughed. At the end of the day, the schedule that she wanted to avoid was actually at this place. No wonder the car earlier felt so familiar.
“Celebrity Luo.” Ye Shuang walked to Luo Mingxin, who had not noticed her, and she greeted him with a smile.
Luo Mingxin was spooked by the familiar voice. He turned around in such a hurry that he almost spilled the wine in the gla.s.s he was holding. “Ye… Ye Shuang?”
Ye Shuang sighed. “I heard that your sponsor wanted to bring you and Brother Shuang to a function. How small is the world that the function is this party?”
Luo Mingxin also felt his emotions were particularly conflicted. “I also did not expect this to be the work that you mentioned… Cough, Su Zheng is here as well?”
Su Zheng waved her paws happily. “Hi, today, I’m coming as Miss Ye’s a.s.sistant.”
From the looks of it, they were indeed up to no good.
Ye Shuang ignored the awkward expression on Luo Mingxin’s face. She looked left and right and asked, “Where’s Xia Cheng? Shouldn’t he have come with you?”
“Mr. Xia ran into a client and went to have a private conservation at the breakroom.” Luo Mingxin had a bad feeling. “Wait, don’t tell me your work tonight has something to do with Mr. Xia?”
“Of course not!” Ye Shuang claimed easily. This time, Xia Cheng was nothing more than a prop, so technically, her mission that night did not have anything to do with Xia Cheng. Luo Mingxin had a feeling that something was not right, but with his ability, he was unable to tell what Ye Shuang was planning. Thus, for the time being, he chose to believe her. At least, if he believed her, he could fool himself into believing something. He was afraid that this girl was about to open up a side project and started defrauding people.
Now that he thought about it, sometimes, taking one wrong step could ruin the rest of one’s life. Back then, at the library, why did he have to talk to the girl about the greatest fraud of the twentieth century?
If he had known sooner, he would have talked about philosophy, nature, art history, and what not. He would have appeared to be cultured, and most importantly, he would not have lived in fear in the future.
Before the party started, the guests were allowed to mingle freely. Sister Yu’s sugar daddy or Ye Shuang’s potential client had not arrived, and since Luo Mingxin was free and bored, the two sat down on the sofa at the corner of the room and started to chat.
Su Zheng was free as well. Initially, she joined the conversation, but after some time, she could not stop herself from wanting to do something. However, the main reason was because she was not interested in their conversation.
For ten minutes, they talked about micro-expressions and acting. Fifteen minutes later, they talked about frauds and crime. Twenty minutes later, they talked about criminal psychology. Thirty minutes later…
Su Zheng finally lost it. She waved goodbye to the due and went off to play. Ye Shuang and Luo Mingxin did not think much of it.
However, several minutes later, Su Zheng ran back with an excited glow in her eyes. The urgency in her whispered voice was obvious as she shared her discovery with them. “The study at this villa has been broken into. I saw signs of the alarm next to the safe being broken and hacked…”
Ye Shuang’s eyes glowed up as well. “For real?”
They had triggered a random event; the day sure was exciting.
However, to the side, Luo Mingxin was more concerned about something else.Wait a minute, why would you be able to tell something like that?