Chapter 83

At the Secretary Department of the First Military Industry Group.

The secretary group had just completed the task assigned by the Secretary General, and Tang Anru happened to be promoted as the deputy group leader. Some colleagues surrounded her and said all kinds of words of praises and envy to her. For a time, the tea room was a little livelier than usual.

“I’m not as good as what you guys said, you’re making me embarrassed,” Tang Anru sat on the sofa with a gentle smile and said with a gentle tone. Her beautiful eyes revealed a hint of shyness from time to time, which made her look even more adorable to everyone.

Bei Sichen said loudly and casually without thinking too much, “What’s so embarrassed about it? You are what you are. Don’t be too modest. People will say that you are hypocritical.”

She didn’t mean to mock Tang Anru, but it sounded awkward for the latter.

Tang Anru did not mind at all, though. She still wore a gentle smile and said, “We agreed that I would treat you all to dinner at eight o’clock tonight. Everyone must come.”

“Of course we will come. We just don’t know if we’ll enjoy a good show of you and your Mr. Qi’s public display of affection,” someone teased.

“Aren’t you talking nonsense?” someone else smiled and picked up the topic. “Tang Anru is promoted to be the deputy team leader. She invites everyone to have dinner together to celebrate. Mr. Qi is her boyfriend, if he doesn’t show up, that won’t make sense.”

Tang Anru’s cheeks flushed red and she said shyly, “I haven’t told Mingran about this yet. I wonder if he has any other social engagement tonight.”

“Then call him now and ask,” Bei Sichen interrupted her.

Tang Anru hesitated. “I’m afraid he’s busy with his work, so I don’t want to disturb him…”

“How can you speak so much nonsense?” Bei Sichen curled her lips and grabbed Tang Anru’s phone. “If you’re embarrassed, I’ll call him for you. It’s really boring to hesitate.”

Just as she finished speaking, Tang Anru’s phone suddenly rang with a “ting” sound, and a WeChat message from Qin Shu popped up on the screen.

“Why did Qin Shu send you a message?” she said disgustedly and casually clicked on the message, thinking it were her own phone.

It was too late for Tang Anru to stop her. Just as Tang Anru stood up and said with a smile, “Let me check what the message says,” in the next second, she heard Bei Sichen shouting in surprise, “Tang Anru, why were you hugging another man?”

In an instant, the others also gathered forward to see the message sent by Qin Shu, which was the photo of Tang Anru and Yang Bin standing on the street and embracing each other intimately.

Tang Anru’s smile gradually disappeared. She quickly took her phone back from Bei Sichen’s hand and said as if nothing had happened, “Let me see what it is. Is Qin Shu joking with me again and sending me messages for pranks?”

Bei Sichen said in disgust, “What kind of prank is that? I think she sent it to you on purpose. But, Tang Anru, why were you hugging another man since you’re with Mr. Qi? Are you two-timing Qi Mingran?”

These words definitely expressed the suspicions in the hearts of the others, but everyone was just embarrassed to directly say them out loud for fear of hurting Tang Anru’s feelings.

Now that Bei Sichen had asked Tang Anru openly, everyone turned their gazes to Tang Anru and secretly waited for her explanation.

The lively tea room suddenly quieted down, with the atmosphere becoming a little strange and awkward.

A trace of panic flashed through Tang Anru’s eyes and she secretly gripped her phone tightly.

“Sichen, you misunderstood. How would I be two-timing Mingran?” She lowered her eyes obediently and concealed all the emotions in her eyes. Her gentle and beautiful face also showed some grievances. “You don’t know that when I was in college, I had two best friends. One was Qin Shu, and the other was the man in the photo. It was only simple friendship between him and me, and we never had any other feelings for each other.”

“But it’s not appropriate for you two to hug each other like that, is it?” someone said timidly.

It wasn’t that it was not appropriate, it was extremely inappropriate!

If it were just an ordinary hug, there would naturally be no problem. However, the picture was set at night. Tang Anru and Yang Bin were the only people who was standing in the street. Tang Anru was falling into Yang Bin’s arms weakly. Yang Bin was wearing a look of affection on his face and placing his hand on her long hair to gently stroke her hair.

The two of them looked very intimate in the photo. If not for everyone knowing that Tang Anru’s boyfriend was Qi Mingran, just judging from the photo, they would think that Tang Anru and Yang Bin were a couple of lovers who loved each other deeply.

Now, if Tang Anru couldn’t give a reasonable explanation, even though everyone wouldn’t say anything on the surface, there would definitely be gossip in secret, and Tang Anru’s image of innocence and cherishing her good name would be completely ruined!

“It’s not what you think.” Tang Anru gripped her phone tightly and felt even more aggrieved. Her two beautiful eyebrows slightly knitted together. “Actually, I had a misunderstanding with Qin Shu that night. I was very sad and then happened to meet Yang Bin, so he comforted me. Moreover, I wasn’t with Mingran at that time. Later on, after Mingran and I confirmed our relationship, he also knew that Yang Bin and I were good friends. He said that he didn’t mind I had friends of the opposite sex.”

With that, she raised her head with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know why Qin Shu suddenly sent me this photo, but I’m really not unfaithful to my boyfriend.”

“I know why!” Bei Sichen suddenly said, “Tang Anru, didn’t you call Qin Shu today to tell her that you were promoted? She must be jealous of you, so she deliberately sent this kind of photo to you. She thought that she could threaten you, but in fact, you didn’t do anything to cheat on Qi Mingran. Humph, she thought everyone was as shameless as her and would seduce men!”

After hearing this, everyone looked at Tang Anru’s wronged appearance and kind of believed her. Then they turned to comfort her and said, “Qin Shu is the type of shameless woman. You don’t need to care what she did.”

“Yeah, even if she’ll send the photo to others, so what? We all know what kind of person you are. We will definitely believe you.”

“Mr. Qi likes you and he will trust you as well.”

Tang Anru smiled gratefully and said softly, “Thank you. I just feel a little sad. I didn’t expect Qin Shu to hate me to such an extent. I wonder when the misunderstanding between her and me could be cleared up.”

“You’re so stupid!” Bei Sichen rolled her eyes. “Why do you insist on begging Qin Shu to be your friend? You showed excessive passion to her. No wonder she’s specifically targeting you.”

Bei Sichen’s words were always so unpleasant to hear, but what she said made a lot of sense.

Tang Anru said with a gloomy expression, “She and I have been good sisters since we were young. It’s not so easy to cut our friendship off. Alright, let’s go out to work. If the Secretary General finds out that we are all slacking on the job in the tea room, he will deduct our bonuses.”

Then, this little episode went away.

After returning to the office, Tang Anru continued to work hard as usual on the surface, but in reality, she was uneasy. She was always thinking about the photo Qin Shu sent to her. Occasionally, she would take out her phone and checked on WeChat to see what Qin Shu wanted to do.

However, Qin Shu did not send anything else. She was deliberately making Tang Anru wait, causing her to be burning with anxiety in her heart.

At this moment, Qin Shu and Su Xiaoya were watching a popular Idol TV Drama. The heroine was a popular young idol in the entertainment industry. Recently, this young idol was showing her image of a straightforward and tough girl in front of the audience and fans, and many people liked her for this personality.

Su Xiaoya was contemptuous of that young idol and said, “Previously, she agreed to shoot the cover for our magazine, but then she suddenly broke the contract, and it was more than once. In the end, our editor-in-chief was very angry and said that we would not use her photo as our cover in the future and would not cooperate with her studio.”

Qin Shu was a little surprised. She raised her eyebrows and said, “No wonder you always say that people in the entertainment industry all wear masks.”

“The situation in the entertainment industry is complicated. Who dares to say that they have a true temperament?” Su Xiaoya worked as an editor of an A-lister fashion magazine and often came into contact with stars. “In private, there are many deals concerning with power and sex. Those stars who seem to be in the limelight have actually suffered a lot. However…”

Su Xiaoya suddenly lowered her voice and said, “There are some stars who have military backgrounds, no one dares to cause trouble to them. Some producers even humbly beg these stars to play a role in their dramas and want to take the chance to have some relation with the military forces. You don’t know how funny it is.”

Qin Shu graduated from the National Defense University and grew up with Grandpa Ling. She naturally knew that military families had many taboos about entertainment circles, and some even forbade their children from entering the entertainment industry.

The wealthier and more influential the family was, the more they looked down on the entertainment stars. To put it offensively, the stars in the entertainment industry were just low-status entertainers for people to have fun in their eyes. How would they allow their children to become actors or actresses? That would be embarrassing.

Qin Shu did not take these gossips to heart and casually thought: anyway, I will not enter the entertainment industry. I’ll just watch the liveliness.

However, things were hard to predict. Some things that seemed too far away would happen exactly to you.

Qin Shu and Su Xiaoya continued to watch the TV drama. After watching two episodes, Tang Anru finally couldn’t help but call Qin Shu.

“What do you mean by sending me that picture? Did you hire someone to follow and shoot me?” Tang Anru’s voice sounded a little anxious and it was contrary to her usual gentle tone.

Qin Shu smiled. “Are you questioning me?”

Tang Anru was quiet for two seconds on the phone and then apologized softly, “I’m sorry, Qin Shu, I’m a little anxious. I didn’t mean to blame you.”

“Why should you blame me? I didn’t do anything wrong to you,” Qin Shu said naturally.

Tang Anru smiled with embarrassment. She seemed to be considering the choice of her words and then asked with a tentative tone, “How did you have that kind of picture? Did someone send it to you?”

Qin Shu laughed again.

She had already sensed Tang Anru’s uneasiness. This photo must have stabbed into her throat like a thorn. She couldn’t swallow it, nor could she pull it out. Thinking about this, Qin Shu felt it was really a happy thing.

“It doesn’t matter how I got the photo. The important thing is…” Qin Shu deliberately lengthened the rhythm of her tone and paused for a few seconds. She clearly felt Tang Anru’s breathing was a little short. “I have more than one photo in my hand, and there are also some photos that are more unpresentable than the one I’ve sent to you.”

“You…” Tang Anru became anxious again. “Qin Shu, what do you know?”

Qin Shu pushed aside Su Xiaoya who leaned close to her and said slowly, “I know all the dirty things you’ve done.”

“Impossible!” Tang Anru blurted out.

“Oh? So you admit it.”

“No, no… I mean, it’s impossible for me to do what you said. Yang Bin and I are just common friends. Don’t misunderstand.”

Qin Shu sneered. “I haven’t said what the dirty things are, how do you know that it’s impossible? Could it be that you know in your heart you’ve done those things?”

Tang Anru said grievously, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Enough.” Qin Shu didn’t like her such tone. “I’m not afraid of telling you that I sent you the photo to warn you not to bother me in the future! From now on, I’m not interested in anything about you. If you deliberately provoke me and slander me again, I don’t mind sending the rest of the photos to everyone.”

After saying that, Qin Shu did not give Tang Anru the chance to speak and directly hung up the phone.

On the side of the Secretary Department, Tang Anru stood alone outside in the corridor. Her expression was extremely gloomy, and her two usually gentle eyes flashed with a vicious and cold light.