The Whole Company Thinks I'm the Boss's Mistress, But Only the Boss's Wife Pays Me - Chapter 10
Chapter 10
The company rumors died down very quickly.
Not because everyone had suddenly become kind.
It was because Song Wantang fired the first person who refused to apologize and kept running their mouth in a private group chat.
Then she fired the second.
The third resigned on their own.
And just like that, everyone remembered they were actually very civilized people.
Xu Jia stayed.
She submitted chat records proving that Zhao Mingyuan had instructed her to forward the photos and spread the rumors.
Song Wantang didn’t fire her, but she transferred her out of the marketing department and demoted her by one level.
When Xu Jia came to apologize to me, she was carrying a cup of mango pomelo sago.
I glanced at it.
“No cilantro in it, right?”
She froze.
I froze too.
Then we both started laughing.
She laughed until she cried.
“Xu Mian, I really was pretty awful before.”
I took the milk tea from her.
“You’re not exactly adorable now either.”
She cried even harder.
I sighed and pulled out a tissue for her.
“But there’s still hope for you.”
She nodded, hard.
Lu Chengzhou’s case wasn’t progressing particularly fast.
Financial issues, embezzlement, falsifying evidence, and what had happened to Lin Yuan back then-every single charge would take time.
Song Wantang formally filed for divorce with the court.
Some people said in private that she was ruthless.
They said that after being husband and wife once, there was no need to send the man to prison.
When those words reached Song Wantang’s ears, she was in the conference room reviewing contracts.
She looked up and asked me, “Who said that?”
I said, “It doesn’t matter.”
She nodded.
“True. It doesn’t.”
Then she posted a notice in the company-wide group chat.
“The company does not judge employees’ private lives, but it does judge illegal and criminal behavior.”
“For those who can’t tell the difference, I suggest retaking compulsory education.”
I stared at that message, holding back laughter so hard my shoulders shook.
Song Wantang lifted her eyes.
“Is it funny?”
I immediately sat up straight.
“No, CEO Song. It’s very educational.”
She looked at me for two seconds, then smiled too.
That was the first time I saw her smile like an ordinary person.
Not a sneer, not a smile put on for appearances.
Just a brief, light little smile.
Only later did I learn that before I joined the company, she had already been suffering from insomnia for six straight months.
She had looked for Lin Yuan, tracked down former Qinghe employees, and searched for Baiqiao Culture’s real office address.
She had also investigated me.
But she had never dared contact me.
Because she was afraid Lin Yuan had left my name behind to keep me far away from all of this.
Until my anonymous email appeared.
She said, “You knocked on the door yourself.”
I said, “Then the salary you offered me was way too high.”
Song Wantang looked at me.
“It wasn’t.”
“What you were owed was far more than this.”
I didn’t answer.
Nor did I try to be polite again.
The hospital payment window wouldn’t charge me one yuan less just because I had dignity.
The dialysis bill for my mother next week was still sitting in my bag.
Another month passed, and Lin Yuan returned to the city with her child.
She didn’t come to the company.
We arranged to meet at a small noodle shop near the hospital.
She had lost a lot of weight.
But the first thing she said after sitting down was still, “Why have you lost weight again?”
I said, “You’re not exactly fat yourself.”
She glared at me.
“Do you even know how to have a conversation?”
I lowered my head and smiled.
The little boy sat beside her, hugging a small building-block whale.
When I saw the whale, I froze for a moment.
Lin Yuan noticed my gaze.
“He likes whales,” she said softly.
“I used to be afraid of that word.”
I asked, “What about now?”
Lin Yuan stroked the child’s head.
“Now I think whales are so big, they shouldn’t have to hold only one bad thing.”
The words hit me so hard my nose stung.
After we finished the noodles, Lin Yuan took a small box out of her bag.
Inside was another old silver earring.
She said, “The one your mom had was real.”
“The one I mailed you was fake.”
I froze.
She smiled faintly.
“Bought it at a secondhand market. Ten yuan.”
“And you even called me cheap.”
My tears fell all at once.
Lin Yuan pushed the box toward me.
“Now they make a pair.”
I clutched the box and cried so hard it was embarrassing.
She handed me a tissue.
“Stop crying. You’re ugly.”
Wiping my tears, I said, “Your mouth is still as vicious as ever.”
She looked at me, her own eyes red too.
“Xu Mian.”
“Mm?”
“In the future, don’t take such dangerous roads just because of a door someone else left behind.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
Then she said, “But this time, thank you.”
I shook my head.
“Thank you too.”
If not for that earring, I might never have known that during her hardest days, she had still been thinking of me.
If not for that note, Song Wantang might have kept searching through her guilt for a very long time.
If not for those words-“find Xu Mian”-I probably would have gone on being an ordinary corporate drone, quietly suffocating in other people’s dirty water, then swallowing every grievance down.
But not anymore.
The day I returned to the company, the young woman at the front desk saw me and called out with a smile, “Ms. Xu.”
My steps faltered.
“Don’t. Just call me Xu Mian.”
She said quietly, “CEO Song said that from now on, if anyone spreads sexual rumors in the company again, they should go straight to you to register it.”
Me: “?”
Song Wantang came out of the elevator and happened to overhear.
She glanced at me.
“Compliance specialist.”
I took a deep breath.
“CEO Song, can we renegotiate my salary?”
She stepped into the elevator and held the door open.
“Come in and negotiate.”
I followed her in.
Before the elevator doors closed, I saw my own face reflected in the glass wall.
Tired. Ordinary. My eyes still a little swollen.
But I no longer looked like I had on the first day, when any random photo could pin me to a wall.
My phone suddenly vibrated.
It was the company-wide group chat.
Song Wantang had posted a new policy.
“Any dissemination of content involving an employee’s private morals, sexual relationships, or body shaming will be treated as workplace bullying.”
No one below dared to say anything.
A few seconds later, Xu Jia sent a “Received.”
Then a second one.
A third.
The screen filled with “Received” messages scrolling upward.
As I watched, I suddenly laughed.
Song Wantang turned her head slightly. “What are you laughing at?”
I said, “Nothing.”
“I just suddenly feel like tripling my salary was pretty worth it.”
She said blandly, “You’d better keep feeling that way.”
The elevator reached the eighteenth floor.
The doors opened.
I followed her out.
The nameplate for the Blue Whale Conference Room had already been removed, and the new one had yet to be hung.
Song Wantang stopped at the door and asked me, “What do you want to rename it?”
I thought for a moment.
“Cilantro?”
She looked at me without expression.
I immediately corrected myself.
“Kidding.”
She turned and walked on.
“Let’s call it the Hearing Room.”
I hurried after her.
“Hearing who?”
Song Wantang said, “Hearing the things no one used to listen to.”
My steps slowed by half a beat.
The window at the end of the corridor was open, and the wind blew in, carrying a hint of spring.
I touched my ear.
The pair of old silver earrings swayed gently.
They weren’t heavy.
They hurt a little.
But I knew they had finally returned to where they belonged.
(The End)
