"When did you arrive?" Wen Zheng asked.
“At the beginning,” Fan Lingrou recalled, “they only rented three rooms on this floor of the office building for office use, and that’s when I arrived.”
"Although Galaxy Group was ruined by scum, it had abundant capital, while Beiyao had almost nothing. The difference between the two environments was definitely disheartening. Moreover, newly established small companies are most likely to collapse halfway. I regretted coming here halfway through."
"Then why did you stay?"
"..." Fan Lingrou, under Wen Zheng's gaze, unconsciously blurted out her true feelings: "They are very good to cats."
Although the boss's beauty was a powerful motivator, what truly made Fan Lingrou stay was the group of cat demon employees who spent their days eating and playing.
She still can't forget the scene she saw when she pushed open the cubicle in the president's office, overwhelmed by the pressure of the loan.
They were a litter of kittens, no more than three months old, with weak, feeble meows.
They were packed in large rattan baskets, arranged in several rows, each basket carefully lined with a soft pad.
The air was filled with the aroma of milk.
Two very pretty female employees were taking care of them. One was adjusting the angle of the curtains to prevent the sun from shining directly on the baskets, while the other was feeding them with a small bottle. Her movements were not very skillful, but she was absolutely patient.
Fan Lingrou recognized those cats.
They were the kittens that disappeared from the underground laboratory.
At that time, she already had a shocking guess in her mind, but she dared not reveal a word of it, for fear of being silenced. She pretended to be curious and asked why there were so many kittens.
The two female employees were incredibly naive, saying that the boss had given them the task of taking care of the employees.
"Are you going to sell all these cats?" Fan Lingrou asked.
“No,” one of them said, “when they get bigger, they definitely won’t fit here anymore. Let’s take them back to our old home in the mountains.”
Another person said, "Yes, the rent in the city is too expensive, we can't afford to keep them. Let's take them back to the mountains and let them run around and play. The mountains are a lot of space."
These are products of the Galaxy Group's laboratories, and Fan Lingrou knows all too well how they are viewed. They are not cats, but merely objects of observation.
The kittens have numbers laser-marked on their ears, and their physical data is recorded daily. They won't receive treatment if they get sick because the probability and progression of the disease are calculated to determine whether certain mutated genes are valuable.
If Fan Lingrou hadn't seen how meticulously they were cared for, she wouldn't have thought the laboratory was cold-blooded.
Everything is afraid of comparison; looking at the cozy room, her eyes reddened.
"At first, I was quite disgusted with the employees the boss brought, and I wondered why there were so many relatives... They were all quite lazy and not very smart. Later, I learned from chatting that Beiyao's predecessor was a small pet supply store, located on a nearby commercial street."
As Fan Lingrou spoke, Jian Wenzheng showed an interested expression and went into more detail: "Huang Mao was the boss at the time, and his small shop did quite well. Until the Galaxy Group bought all the shops on that street and ordered them to relocate."
"When Huang Mao was chatting with me once, he said that the young people from his hometown who came to work in the city were not doing very well. Because of some reasons, they had not gone to school and did not want to go back to their hometown where there was nothing. They were attracted to the new things in the city and could only do odd jobs to earn some money for food and rent."
"The shop that Huang Mao owns is already considered to be making a lot of money."
“He had a basement where relatives would gather and chat. When Galaxy Group took over, his shop was gone, and they were really worried at the time… It was the boss who helped them.”
Even though Fan Lingrou is a strong woman, she is still a sensitive one. As she spoke, her eyes reddened, and Wen Zheng handed her a tissue.
Due to confidentiality regulations, she dared not reveal the cat demon's identity, only saying, "Putting everything else aside, just this one thing makes me think the boss is a good person. He's really humane."
"Although he usually does nothing, doesn't read the documents I give him, signs in the wrong place, skips meetings he's supposed to attend, gives investors a hard time when they come, openly plays games in the office, asks for company accounts to fight back against trolls, is picky about food, has broken the company's desk several times, changes his mind about work commitments at the last minute, goes on trips suddenly, and leaves whenever he wants, he never does anything productive when he comes to me."
Fan Lingrou finished speaking in one breath, and finally gave a sweet smile: "But he's a good boss."
Wen Zheng: "………………"
I don't know if he's a good person or not, but I can feel your resentment.
"By the way," Wen Zheng asked before standing up, "why do you call me Chairman Wen?"
"!" Fan Lingrou exclaimed in surprise, "Didn't you know? Your name was on the company registration. Initially, there were no documents for you, so I had to find someone to take care of it."
During registration?
"That is..."
“This happened last year before I arrived. You might know if you ask Huang Mao and the others,” Fan Lingrou said.
Weren't we still in the Cold War back then?
Why was my name added?
Wen Zheng walked out down the corridor and saw that there were many more human employees in the main office area. The little kittens that used to be there had all grown up and were swooping through the office.
He suddenly felt incredibly fortunate.
Even after being stranded in another world, Bei Sining never forgot his identity as the Demon King.
He has to call himself king when playing a game, and he has to feed and care for his few cat underlings.
He said that all humans are hypocritical, that he would learn from his mistakes and never believe them again... but in the end, he still wrote his name next to his.
Thank goodness it was me. It could only be me.
Wen Zheng saw Bei Sining frantically signing documents in the CEO's office. Finally, annoyed, she snapped her fingers and let go. The pen, seemingly under magical control, began to move on its own on the paper. Bei Sining picked up her phone and, like a teenager addicted to the internet, leaned back on the sofa and started scrolling through Weibo.
This is really a very unserious work attitude!
"Get up." Wen Zheng kicked the sofa, startling Bei Sining, who sat up and made room for him.
"What do you think? That general manager is alright." Bei Sining said smugly, "He's quite diligent and not stupid. He even buys me books."
"How to Win a Verbal Battle Elegantly? So what if you bought it? Will you know how?" Wen Zheng sat down at his desk, picked up the pen, and threw it to Bei Sining.
The cat spirit grabbed her arm resentfully: "She's seen all these documents, there won't be any problems. If someone tries to scam us... who would dare?"
Wen Zheng glanced at him, then picked up a pen and started signing, saying, "Go have fun, I'll sign for you."
"...Should I go then?"
"Hmm." Wen Zheng suddenly smiled: "Let me be the chairman for a day, and experience it."
Cat spirits are so easy to fool; they fall for anything you say and happily go out.
Wen Zheng felt like he hadn't been looking for long when the door was pushed open again.
Bei Sining said in a strange tone, "Come out here. Rick and Paige are here together. They say they need to talk to you."
***
"The sun is shining brightly today! The sky is high and the clouds are light! On this wonderful day, I found love!"
Wen Zheng wanted to turn around as soon as he stepped into the reception room, but Rick saw him and he had no choice but to greet him.
"Oh! Smell!" Rick exclaimed excitedly. "Is this your employee? What a pure and beautiful elf! Why doesn't he answer me? I've fallen in love with him at first sight!"
Wen Zheng followed his gaze and saw Ye Yubing holding a rag, looking extremely frightened.
Rick waved Ye Yubing away before regretfully returning to his seat. Paige, sitting next to him, shifted his massive frame to the other side with disdain and clicked her tongue, "Pretty boy."
These two complete strangers were immediately drawn to each other and started bickering back and forth. Wen Zheng got a headache listening to it and quickly told them to stop.
He then arranged for Rick's assistant, who was standing to the side, to sit between the two of them.
“I heard,” Rick said, “that I have something important to tell you today.”
He said seriously, "It's a very, very important matter."
Paige, standing nearby, scoffed and said smugly, "What I'm about to say is also very important. If you don't believe me, ask Wen; he's the one who sent me."
Bei Sining suddenly turned to look at him, her eyes gleaming, as if asking when they got together!? Wen Zheng patted the cat spirit on the back and said, "Peppa Pig, you go first. We hired him to investigate some things, nothing to hide."
Bei Sining then slowly calmed down.
“Okay.” Page naturally listened to her employer: “I found the person you asked me to investigate, Xu Ji. On April 18th, which was yesterday, he landed at NQ Airport in the Alliance country on Summer Union Airlines. He left the airport at 6:36 PM.”
Bei Sining twitched her fingers and looked at Wen Zheng's profile.
Wen Zheng remained calm and listened quietly.
“Before that, on April 10th, he had a record of entering and leaving the capital and staying for a day. He should have spent the rest of the time in Rongcheng,” Page said, looking at his little notebook.
“I went to his house, but he wasn’t there, and I couldn’t reach him by phone,” Wen Zheng said. “The underground research institute in Rongcheng has been sealed off. I tried to get in, but I couldn’t. So I don’t really believe what you said about him being in Rongcheng.”
After retiring from the military, Page couldn't contain his passion and became a mercenary... no, a private investigator. A detective's dignity cannot be challenged, and he said unhappily, "Wen, you asked me to judge, and this is my judgment. In short, he's 90% in Rongcheng! He's hiding at his friend's house; who can find him?"
This would certainly apply to most people, but after spending so many years together, Wen Zheng knew that Xu Ji actually had no friends.
He only made nodding acquaintances with everyone, and at the research institute he mostly kept to himself, maintaining a harmonious but not close relationship.
Even the girls his mentor introduced him to on blind dates were chosen for him online and at matchmaking corners in parks.
Bei Sining was unaware that he had done these things in private. After a moment of silence, she asked, "Why didn't you call the police?"
If someone can't be found like this, wouldn't that count as missing?
Although the custody relationship has ended, Wen Zheng is still registered under the same household registration as Xu Ji. If we call the police, they should be able to file a case, right?
“I want to wait a little longer,” Wen Zheng whispered to Bei Sining, then asked Page, “So when you saw him at the airport in the Allied country, did you continue following him?”
Paige said awkwardly, "We followed them, but they suddenly got into a black car and we lost them."
Wen Zheng gave him a cold glance, and Peiqi felt utterly ashamed.
He quickly added, "We'll keep looking, and we'll definitely let you know if we have any news!"
Wen Zheng had saved 800,000 yuan in savings over the years, and received a bonus of 1.1 million yuan when he was commended, for a total of 1.9 million yuan.
After Bei Sining expressed his suspicions, Wen Zheng kept only 100,000 yuan and gave the rest to Peiqi, hiring them to help him investigate Xu Ji's affairs.
Wen Zheng also didn't want to disrupt his current life.
The cat spirit also has to manage the company and go to school. It's not worth ruining this rare peace for a mere suspicion.
But Wen Zheng is now starting to wonder if he has wasted his 1.8 million yuan.
Rick listened for a while, then suddenly said, "If you're looking for someone, you can ask me!"
“…?” The three of them looked at him.
"I'm a member of the Alliance. I've been making games for so many years. Did I become the director for nothing? I have assets and connections... Hey, why are you looking at me with such suspicion?"
After Rick finished his disgusting rant, he suddenly looked around, leaned down, covered his mouth, and whispered furtively, "You all know who Mr. North is, right?"
"..." Wen Zheng sighed, "Everyone here knows except you. Can't you pretend for a second?"
Rick may be unreliable, but he's not stupid. He spent time and effort leading the team to create the instance provided by Bei Sining, so he must have already guessed the truth behind it.
Paige knew about Bei Sining's supernatural abilities when she was in the Arctic, and later she even saw him turn into a cat by chance, so she knew about it too.
Rick smiled and put his hand down: "Then what's the point of hiding it? After all, I have some big news to tell you."