"In the business world, there are no perpetual friends or enemies. He probably thinks you've reached a level where you can talk on equal footing, and he wants to show that past matters should be left in the past, so he said those words. There's likely no other meaning to it. It seems that he won't bother you again, and that's a good thing."

Chu Ge smiled slightly and said nothing definitive. Although he couldn't be sure if Liu Dong had any other intentions, his intuition told him that things weren't as simple as Qin Ruojing described.

From the first moment he saw Liu Dong, his impression of this person wasn't good. Especially those eyes, they always seemed to hide arrogance. Plus, Qin Ruojing had told him before that Liu Dong was protective and narrow-minded. With the continuous conflicts between him and Chu Ge, how could Liu Dong let things go so easily?

But since Qin Ruojing said so, Chu Ge didn't want to say much more on this topic. Whatever comes, he would meet it head on. He hoped Liu Dong wouldn't provoke him. If Liu Dong wanted to start trouble, then they'd deal with it accordingly. It was no big deal.

After talking about Liu Dong, their conversation returned to Qin Ruoying. After about half an hour, Qin Ruojing glanced at the phone on the table belonging to Chu Ge.

"It's about time. Give my sister another call, be careful not to let her know we're together."

Qin Ruojing intended to use the call to test her sister's feelings. When she and Chu Ge were pretending to be a couple, they had to be clever with Qin Ruoying. Now that they weren't pretending anymore, they still needed to be clever with her sister.

"Don't worry."

Chu Ge nodded and dialed Qin Ruoying's number using speaker mode. Before the phone even rang once, Qin Ruoying answered.

However, to Qin Ruojing's surprise, even after Chu Ge chatted with Qin Ruoying for quite a while, she just talked and laughed as usual, without mentioning her intention to pursue Chu Ge at all.

This left Qin Ruojing a bit confused. What's going on?

Could this girl really be teasing me? What's she after? Based on her demeanor last night, she didn't seem to be joking at all?

Qin Ruojing thought for a long time but couldn't figure it out. As she was pondering, Qin Ruoying said on the phone, "Brother-in-law, it's almost noon. If you're not busy, why not come home? I'm starving. Would you mind cooking a meal for me? I have something I want to discuss with you."

Chu Ge turned to look at Qin Ruojing. She hesitated for a moment, nodded, and gave him a hint.

Having been with Qin Ruojing for so long, Chu Ge already had a deep understanding and knew what she meant without her saying anything. He couldn't help but smile into the phone, "I can cook for you, no problem. But if there's something you want to say, why not just tell me over the phone? Why be so secretive and insist on meeting?"

Qin Ruoying giggled, "Brother-in-law, talking on the phone is fine, but are you sure it's convenient for you to talk right now?"

Chu Ge laughed, "Yeah, I'm alone. It's no inconvenience."

As Chu Ge finished speaking, Qin Ruojing's expression became tense, her eyes fixed on the phone on the table as if she could see Qin Ruoying, her heart in her throat.

"Brother-in-law, actually..."

Just as Qin Ruoying had said a few words, there was a knock on the door. A mid-level manager from the company opened the door and stood at the entrance, greeting Qin Ruojing with "Chairman" and looking for confirmation if it's okay to enter.

When the knock sounded, Qin Ruoying's voice stopped abruptly.

Looking at the person at the door, Qin Ruojing was furious. This person could have come earlier or later, why at this exact moment?

Her sister was just about to come to a critical point, and now with that one "Chairman," the cover was blown.

Although frustrated, she couldn't blame the person knocking as she had asked them to come. It was only due to discussing things with Chu Ge that she completely forgot about it.

If there's anyone to blame, it's herself for being careless. If she had realized this sooner, such an unexpected situation wouldn't have occurred.

At this point, she had to speak to the mid-level manager at the door. She rubbed her forehead and said, "Come back at two in the afternoon."

"Okay, Chairman."

The mid-level manager responded respectfully but puzzled, and turned to leave.

With the door closed again, only Chu Ge and Qin Ruojing were left in the room.

"Brother-in-law, so you were lying to me? Didn't you say you were alone? But you and my sister were conspiring to trick me? You two are so sneaky?"

Qin Ruoying's voice resumed from the phone, filled with some resentment and teasing.

Qin Ruojing was about to speak when Qin Ruoying quickly giggled and said, "Hehe, brother-in-law, since you're with my sister, I really shouldn't say anything more. I'll be waiting at home for you, hurry up and come!"

With that, Qin Ruoying hung up the phone.

Chu Ge looked at the phone, then at Qin Ruojing, and shrugged helplessly.

Qin Ruojing was even more helpless than Chu Ge, and said gloomily, "Calling again definitely won't work, so why don't you go over there? If anything happens, we'll get in touch after you leave her place."

Chu Ge chuckled, comforted Qin Ruojing a bit, and then left her office.

Watching Chu Ge's silhouette disappear from the room, Qin Ruojing couldn't quite identify her feelings, only feeling waves of headaches.

She had initially approached Chu Ge just to fend off her family's urgings, but she never imagined that things would escalate to this point, with so many variables and situations popping up, and it seemed like everything was getting more out of her control.

As she thought about it, suddenly, Qin Ruojing's eyes focused, her expression froze, as she thought of a serious issue she had previously overlooked.

After her sister announced she wanted to pursue Chu Ge, her focus was on stopping her sister's ridiculous idea, subconsciously assuming Chu Ge would be on her side. But thinking carefully, this assumption was really too self-righteous and naive.

Now that the fake dating phase was over, and their employer-employee relationship with Chu Ge was done, why would Chu Ge necessarily stand with her? Whatever he wanted to do was entirely his freedom.

This means that if Chu Ge also has feelings for Qin Ruoying, then... it was entirely possible for the two of them to really be together!

After all, Qin Ruoying had such a cheerful personality, loved to joke and laugh, and had so many quirky ideas. In many ways, her living habits were quite similar to Chu Ge's. A long time ago, when she saw Chu Ge laughing and joking with her sister, she had a feeling that they looked more like a couple.

Thinking of this, Qin Ruojing felt even more of a headache, wanted to call Chu Ge, but stopped halfway through reaching for the phone.

After thinking it over, she decided to wait until Chu Ge met with her sister to see what exactly was going on before making a move, and meanwhile, she would calm down and untangle the mess.

By this time, Chu Ge had already reached Qin Ruojing's place, habitually taking out the key he had intended to return to Qin Ruojing but she didn't want back, and walked in through the door.

"Is it brother-in-law?"

As soon as Chu Ge entered, he heard Qin Ruoying's voice but didn't see her anywhere.

"It's me." Chu Ge casually answered, his eyes scanning around the place.

"Brother-in-law, you're here just in time, help me with something."

This time, Chu Ge determined the voice was coming from the bathroom, which made him a little stunned. What could Qin Ruoying need help with in the bathroom?

Could it be that she ran out of paper in there?

Just as Chu Ge was having these speechless thoughts, Qin Ruoying's voice called out again from the bathroom, "Brother-in-law, my period came. Could you please bring me a sanitary pad?"

Chu Ge broke into a sweat, looked towards the bathroom, and said, "Uh... how about I step outside first, and after you get it, you give me a call, and I'll come back in?"

"Brother-in-law, my legs are numb, I've been sitting here for ages. Could you just help me get it?"

Chu Ge was even more speechless. Last time, when Qin Ruoying was fighting him for the bathroom, her legs went numb, and now again?

Not to mention he's not really Qin Ruoying's brother-in-law, but even if he were, helping a sister-in-law with something like this feels really awkward.

Hesitating a bit, Chu Ge said, "Well... it doesn't seem quite appropriate for me to get it, right? Maybe you could wait a bit and we can talk about it later?"

"Oh come on, brother-in-law, just grab it for me quickly. I'm a grown woman and I'm not embarrassed. Why should you be, a grown man? The pads are in my bag, it's on the chair in my room, you'll see it as soon as you walk in."

"Alright then, wait a moment."

Since Qin Ruoying put it that way, Chu Ge didn't refuse anymore, and with a kind of amused helplessness, he walked into Qin Ruoying's room and found her bag on a chair.

Rummaging through a girl's bag is clearly quite impolite, but since Qin Ruoying herself asked him to, and he had the girl's permission, it couldn't really be blamed on him.

Unzipping it, Chu Ge saw a wallet, hand cream, and a small toolkit among other things, but didn't see the sanitary pad right away. With a bit more searching, he finally realized when he picked up a small box, which explained why he couldn't find it immediately.

It turns out Qin Ruoying doesn't use the type of sanitary pads that most Asian women do, but rather she uses the tampons that are more common among Western women.

Just as Chu Ge was feeling awkward, Qin Ruoying's voice came again from the bathroom, "Brother-in-law, have you got it yet?"

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