spring bite mark

Chapter 147 Another Truth

It is obviously inappropriate to criticize a child to their face.

Yan Changye stopped there and quickly changed the subject: "Madam, there's a cocktail party on Thursday. Will you come with me?"

"What kind of party?" Jiang Manman asked curiously. There were many banquets of all sizes every year, but Yan Changye rarely asked her to accompany him unless it was absolutely necessary.

"The newly appointed presidents of the Yan Group have been selected, and there will be a performance review reception. As the mistress of the Yan Group, Madam, you can meet them." Yan Changye explained gently, "This time, in addition to all the senior executives of the Yan Group, we have also invited the heads and heirs of several super families. Madam, I plan to have Yan Yu and Xie Jian make their official appearance."

"A banquet is fine, but as for Xie Jian..." Jiang Manman thought of this guy's shady move of registering Xie Jian under Xie Yunxi's name, "Everyone knows he's Xie Yunxi's son, aren't you worried about being exposed?"

“There will definitely be suspicions, but there are plenty of absurd things in wealthy families. People will fill in the blanks and give their own explanations, and they won’t come to me openly to verify.” Yan Changye smiled. “Besides, I don’t plan to keep Xie Yunxi’s identity a secret forever. Consider this Xie Jian as a way to give them a heads-up.”

Jiang Manman nodded: "Okay, I'll do whatever you say."

Yan Changye's smile deepened, and he kissed her cheek: "Then it's settled. Madam Zhou, please leave work early. I'll have the styling team come to the hotel to do your hair and makeup."

"Daddy," Xie Jian tilted his head and listened for a while, "There's a banquet, right? Are you inviting my great-uncle? He'll be so happy for me to know I have a mother now. I want him to see my mother too."

Yan Changye: "..."

Witnessing your rival's family reunite is something that probably no man would be happy about.

The atmosphere became strangely still.

Xie Jianjian and Yan Changye both looked a little off. The little girl hesitated for a moment and said, "Mommy smells so good and is so soft. She's prettier than all the moms of my classmates in kindergarten. Can't I share her with my great-uncle?"

Yan Changye said in a low voice, "Your great-uncle is probably not interested in your sharing; he's only thinking about me sharing with him."

Jiang Manman gently pinched Yan Changye, her tone slightly annoyed: "Don't talk to the child about everything, or you'll lead him astray."

"Alright, that's enough." Yan Changye turned off the light and tucked the blankets into the two children. "Go to sleep."

The two children fell asleep quickly.

After waiting a while longer, seeing that the two children were sleeping soundly, Jiang Manman gently tugged at Yan Changye's sleeve: "Are we having skewers again tonight?"

"No, I'm already fed up with Xie Jian's anger." Yan Changye's voice sounded even more resentful in the darkness.

After saying that, he still pushed the two children away a little, then hugged Jiang Manman tightly in his arms, his large hands wandering casually over her body.

Jiang Manman felt a little awkward: "Xie Jian doesn't know about our past disputes."

Yan Changye's eyes were dark and brooding. He gave a sarcastic snort: "I get annoyed just thinking about how he offered himself to you back then. I heard he even made some absurd request—to sleep with you only a few days a month, without any formal title or desire for daily companionship. I'm afraid Madam's mind is in turmoil. Indeed, just thinking about it is arousing..."

"I didn't, don't talk nonsense!" Jiang Manman's tone was soft, yet contained a hint of embarrassment and anger. "I can't even handle you alone, how can I have the mind to think about anything else?"

That's the truth. They've been married for five or six years, but Yan Changye, that scoundrel, hasn't gotten tired of her or restrained himself. Instead, he's become even more troublesome. Apart from business trips and his period, he really seizes every opportunity to seek his own benefit. At his most torturous, he can pester her for two or three nights in a row.

These past two days have seen her embark on a new role-playing adventure. At first, she simply switched between Yan Changye and Xie Yunxi, but it escalated further. She developed all sorts of characters: the aloof and ascetic, the domineering and forceful, the sunny and adorable, the rebellious and wild, the refined yet depraved… keeping them all in her backup list so she could switch at any time, making Jiang Manman's nights incredibly hectic. At this point, forget about old grudges and past events; she didn't even have the energy to focus on her two children.

Yan Changye sensed the resentment in Jiang Manman's tone, and his expression softened slightly.

"I really didn't plan to invite him to the cocktail party on Thursday. But after that, it's the children's birthday party, which I plan to hold in Hong Kong. Madam, as Mrs. Xie, you'll be coming back to Hong Kong with me for a while. We'll inevitably run into old friends, so you'd better keep things under control..."

Jiang Manman gave a noncommittal "Mm": "Alright, let's go see if my Mr. Xie has been secretly attracting unwanted attention in Hong Kong."

Yan Changye chuckled softly, "Welcome Mrs. Xie to check up on me."

After chatting, the two didn't go to sleep right away. One played games, and the other watched videos, and they stayed up until midnight.

After midnight, Yan Changye logged out of the game and started browsing his WeChat Moments.

Jiang Manman leaned closer: "You only have a few people on WeChat, what's so interesting about your Moments?"

“Madam doesn’t understand…” Yan Changye clicked his tongue in amazement. “There’s so much information! Look at the WeChat Moments of those super-rich family heads. It’s all about signing ceremonies and project meetings. You can tell what big projects they’re working on lately. As for Chen Jinzhou, Young Master Zhu, and Young Master Li, their WeChat Moments are full of juicy gossip.”

"Your WeChat Moments is much more interesting. I have a lot of clients, and when I scroll through their Moments, it's either all kinds of ads or all kinds of 'exquisite life' photos. I've also encountered several fishing scams."

"A bait-and-switch scam?" Yan Changye asked in surprise. "What the hell is that?"

"You don't know?" Jiang Manman raised an eyebrow and explained softly, "It's that kind of thing, where they package themselves as rich people, post all sorts of pictures, like cruise ship pictures, high-end cocktail party pictures, luxury afternoon tea pictures, luxury goods pictures, and then attract people to add them as friends, telling you that they have ways to make money, and getting you to invest in all sorts of things. One of my former employees was scammed out of money like that."

"Is Madam not being deceived?"

“Me? Not at all.” Jiang Manman’s tone was firm. “I usually ignore them and just block them.”

Block me directly...

Yan Changye said, almost as if possessed, "You blocked me back then too."

"No, I don't think so." Jiang Manman had no recollection of it.

Yan Changye thought for a while: "Think carefully. After the Clan Return Banquet, there was a period of time when I sent you messages every day, but you didn't reply to a single word. A few days later, you just blocked me."

“I haven’t received any messages from you,” Jiang Manman recalled. “I was in a bad mood during that time and didn’t really like chatting with people. There was this strange man who kept asking me what I ate, what I did, and where I wanted to go for my honeymoon. He even sent me pictures of several cruise ships and real estate developments to choose from…”

Yan Changye: "..."

He teased, "Does it also send you all sorts of pictures of business banquets, meeting rooms, and beautiful scenery and delicious food from abroad, just like reporting your whereabouts to your husband?"

“Yeah, and that’s not all,” Jiang Manman continued. “I looked through his WeChat Moments, and it’s a typical bait-and-switch scam. All sorts of ultra-luxury jewelry, high-end business meetings, and signing ceremonies for projects that look incredibly prestigious. There are even some narcissistic selfies, not of his face, but of multi-million dollar watches, expensive cufflinks, and the cover of contracts worth hundreds of millions that his subordinates are holding down. The captions are funny too, like ‘I feel like something’s missing.’ It’s obviously a trap to lure people in…”

Yan Changye suddenly had a heart attack!

(End of this chapter)